REVIEW: THE RED HOUSE

"Every living person has their own Ox Head Woods.”

The Red House is about cancerous guilt. While it presumes to be about a mysterious abandoned house and of the potential evil that resides within, what The Red House is really about is guilt—unburied, unforgotten, and insurmountable.

Meg (the adorable Allene Roberts) lives on an isolated farm with the Morgans, Pete (Edward G. Robinson) and his sister, Ellen (Judith Anderson). The Morgans long ago adopted Meg after her parents had decided to pack up and move north. The circumstances as to why Meg never accompanied her parents, or how the Morgans came to adopt her, is never made clear, but Meg seems legitimately happy, so beyond her recognition of the adoption having taken place, she doesn’t feel the need to ask any questions. It is what it is.

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One day a boy from her school named Nath (Lonnie McAllister) approaches her about possibly getting a job on the Morgan farm. Meg introduces him to Pete, who lost the use of one leg after taking a nasty fall in Ox Head Woods, and the agreement is forged: Nath is to come every day after school, do whatever needs to be done in the fields, and then walk the hour back home. One night, after it’s gotten a bit late, Nath off-handedly mentions that he’ll cut through Ox Head Woods to save time on his way home. Pete immediately begins to warn the boy of the woods, and of its reputation, and of the screams reputedly heard coming from what’s known as the red house. Nath waves off these claims and takes the short cut anyway…and hears the screams for himself. Terrified, he rushes back to the Morgan farm and tells them what he has heard.

And from there the mystery begins to grow. Just what is with the red house of Ox Head Woods? Why does Pete Morgan seem so terrified of it? And who is that man lurking in the woods with a rifle, trying to scare off anyone who gets too close to the red house? (Played by Rory Calhoun, who has the greatest hair I’ve ever seen.)

When most people hear the words “film noir,” they think of Sam Spade sitting behind a desk, or Orson Welles fleeing from his captors through city sewers. They think of directors like Fritz Lang or Howard Hawks. They think of fedoras and dark alleys and light filtering in through window blinds. And while I love classic noir, I love non-traditional noir even more—when it’s lifted and placed in a not-so-usual setting. And I love when the heart of  noir lies in darkness verging on horror.

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The Red House was not a movie with which I was previously familiar, or even aware. But Edward G. Robinson remains one of the truly great character actors, most well known for his countless roles as crooked monsters during Warner Bros’ heyday of gangster pictures (perhaps the most famous being Little Caesar). Robinson’s depiction of any number of ruthless thugs gave birth to the classic “you dirty rat” line used in so many mafia parodies (even though he never once used that line). And sitting down to watch him portray not a gangster or thug, but a broken-down, paranoid, and terrified man, I have to say it was an interesting experience. It always is when the requisite tough guy gets to shed some tears and show off his broken side.

The “twist” ending, which is a term I lament using as it makes the resolution sound gimmicky and cornball, is pretty much perfect. It unmasks the villain, so to speak, and the mystery of the red house is finally unearthed. So, what on earth dwells within Ox Head Woods that scares Pete so much? Is it a wailing ghost? A mutated monster? Any one of those would have been disappointing to some degree, but for those who enjoy real, human drama, they will find the ending as satisfying as it is heartbreaking.

The Red House is a film that movie fans love to analyze, as they do with all noir, and some of the theories can get pretty...out there. (The Morgan brother and sister are having an incestuous affair! The red house represents the vagina!) Even Martin Scorsese has discussed the film in a past AFI program, but while I haven't seen this for myself, I can't imagine the "v" word ever comes into his assessment.

The direction by Delmer Daves, who is also responsible for the Humphrey Bogart-starring Dark Passage as well as the original 3:10 to Yuma (yes, the Bale/Crowe version was a remake), is quite beautiful. Despite being shot in black and white, he captures the beauty of the Morgan farm and the nearby town, full of swaying tree branches and lush foliage. Small-town, picturesque Americana is effortlessly captured, and if it were not for the dark secret metastasizing in the hearts of a few, it would seem like the ideal place to live. And alternately, Ox Head Woods is made to look ominous with only patches of darkness and the sounds of wind through those same lush trees...

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The recent DVD/Blu-Ray combo release by Film Chest (who previously brought you ZAAT! for some reason) is the definitive version of the film to own. Plagued for years by second-rate releases by companies specializing in public domain titles, the picture has never looked better. The fuzz is gone and replaced with incredibly smooth images—at some points even a little too smooth, giving the younger members of the cast almost doll-like appearances. A restoration comparison can be found among the special features, which showcases just how much work was done on this minor classic.

A commentary track by film author William Hare endeavors to be interesting and passionate, but too often falls into the trap of merely repeating what’s occurring on screen…and I’m not sure if this was just a fault of my person screener copy, but at times there seemed to be anywhere between a 5-10 second delay when Mr. Hare’s comments didn’t exactly match up with the on-screen action. However, Mr. Hare specializes in film noir from Hollywood’s golden age, so the commentary track contains some interesting information, if you can deal with some occasional “now the character is walking through the woods”-type comments.

A trailer for the film caps off the features.

Fans of film noir and Edward G. Robinson would be adding a gem to their collection with this pretty stellar release. Forget all those previous cheap and colorized versions. Film Chest has the last word here.

Buy it here.

* Images courtesy of DVDBeaver.

REVIEW: DEATH & CREMATION

 

With the current issue of bullying going on within our schools, Death & Cremation is a relevant watch. While it’s not the first movie to be made about bullied teens taking revenge on their adversaries, it’s the first to be made following the rash of unfortunate suicides that have occurred over the last sixteen months. It’s certainly the first to feature a bullied teen taking his murderous cues from a local nutball who he happens to know has taken a few lives of his own. It’s this aspect that sets the film off from others of its ilk. A cinematic soul mate of sorts to Apt Pupil, Death & Cremation explores the very unusual relationship between a high school kid and a local mortician named Stanley.

Jarod (Frailty’s all-grown-up Jeremy Sumpter) is an oddball, Gothed-out high school student who just wants to be left alone. Life by day is rife with bullies and bitchy girls, and by night his prison-like trailer-home doesn’t allow for the type of privacy he would prefer. With his father gone (if dead or deadbeat, this is never explained), and his mother bringing home all manner of dorks to date, it’s safe to say that life sucks for Jarod. He’s an introverted student, prepared to plant himself down on the field and read during gym class while his fellow students participate. Naturally it’s this kind of behavior that causes several of the jocks to bully Jarod, throwing food and rocks at him throughout the day.

Stanley (Brad Dourif) doesn’t fare much better. Though a serial killer who at random bludgeons his victims to death, it’s clear he doesn’t receive much respect either. In fact, when a married couple comes into his funeral home to see about the possibility of embalming a recently diseased member of the family (to which Stanley declines, explaining he only cremates), their teen daughter calls him a fag for seemingly no reason. Coincidentally, this same girl was part of a gaggle of other jocks known for bulling Jarod. It doesn’t take long before Stanley visits the bitchy girl with a sledgehammer, and Jarod notices she has gone missing.

One day, when Jarod sets off to find himself an after-school job, he randomly wanders into Stanley’s funeral home to see about possible employment. Stanley very hesitantly agrees, and one day Jarod finds himself in the basement where unending shelves of unclaimed ashes sit abandoned and sees an urn off by itself with the initials L.W.—initials of the bullying girl recently reported missing.  Jarod puts two and two together, but he becomes neither horrified nor excited. But he does become Stanley’s friend.  Their friendship soon transcends that of one into mutual understanding…especially when Jarod begins to accumulate bodies of his own.

There is a lot to like in Death & Cremation. The handling of the material alone shows that director/co-writer Justin Steele took the concept seriously, although at some points it’s difficult to discern if certain set pieces were aiming for dark humor as opposed to merely mishandled. But these moments are few and far between. For most of the ride, it’s ghastly and gory, but unfortunately it never quite reaches that level of “touching” the film was going for. The main selling point of the film is between Stanley and Jarod. It’s among the most unorthodox friendship trope you’ll see in films like this, but it wasn’t given as much attention as it should have been. There’s never that “ah-ha!” moment where Stanley realizes that Jarod knows of his murderous lifestyle—the potential for an incredibly dramatic moment laid in waiting, but it just never came to fruition. The realization of Stanley’s serial killer life, and of Jarod’s complete acceptance of it, should have been one not just more present, but present in general. And so, because of this, the power of their relationship did not reach the heights it could have.

I love movies about uneasy alliances. Apt Pupil, as previously mentioned, comes to mind. Collateral as well, if we can jump genres for a moment. And I love movies where your “good” character and your “bad” character come together, and the good become corrupted and the bad find redemption. In Death & Cremation, Jarod becomes inspired by Stanley and he makes that choice to kill; alternatively, Stanley sympathizes with the boy and gives him a job as well as companionship, remembering how life was for him at that age.  It’s just a shame this wasn’t explored as much as it should have been.

But that’s not to say the movie is entirely a lost cause, because it’s not at all. Brad Dourif yet again proves that he’s up on that screen for a reason. And while he devolves to appearing less nonsense from time to time, roles like this and that of Doc Cochran in Deadwood showcase the man’s immense range and talent. While the material he is given doesn’t quite match his level talent, it sure is fun to see him kill people with baseball bats and sledgehammers. And he provides a number of emotionally satisfying scenes.

Additionally, a curiosity in the film is the allusion to Stanley’s sexuality, which is never quite explored. In the beginning sequence of the film when Stanley turns down the married couple’s request for a normal embalming service instead of a cremation, the father explains that his brother-in-law has recently died of AIDs. It is after this revelation, and after the family sees the lesions covering Stanley’s face, when the daughter calls him a fag. I suppose, with the family having experienced AIDs within their own family, they can see the warning signs. And despite the daughter’s offensive indication of AIDs being a gay disease, it somehow feels like this was included not to make us hate the daughter (which could have been accomplished with any number of put downs), but to actually provide some additional development for Stanley’s character. And later in the film, Stanley has nightmares about his childhood in which his father abused him on several occasions. Again, while nothing is ever provided in black and white, the abuse suffered by his father, the girl’s labeling, and his lesions point to him being a gay man slowly dying of AIDs….but there’s just one problem: beyond fleshing him out as a character, this never comes into play during the film. Stanley never wonders or confesses that the reason he’s decided to kill those he feels deserves it are because he knows he is dying, and he figures why not do some spring cleaning before he finally succumbs? And he never explains if he has targeted certain victims because of the disease slowly killing him. The "fact" that he's a gay man with AIDs is just kind of…there.

 

I’m glad to see Jeremy Sumpter still in the game. As you may have read in my Unsung Horror column entry for Frailty, I was impressed with him then for his ability to understand very complex themes that littered that film, but still provide a very realistic—if not the most realistic—reactive performance. In Death & Cremation, his role of Jarod doesn’t allow him to show a wide range of emotions—really every character in the film is pretty one-note—but I still believe him. The character he plays easily fits him, which may have been a service of his rather stable but non-showcase career. A more recognizable face may have derailed the role, but that would be a cheap explanation for why his role is effective. The bullied, miserable, and lonely Jarod isn’t exactly an unfamiliar teenager role, but he brings enough to the table that you believe him. His transformation from a brown-haired, “normal” kid into the black-haired, black-fingernailed Jarod helps him to disappear a little into the morose victim of everyday high school bullshit.

In spite of the shortcomings, I enjoyed Death & Cremation. As I previously mentioned, I always enjoy unorthodox and at-odds relationships, and I appreciated the occasional lapse into dark humor. Besides, Brad Dourif’s performance is reason enough to check it out, so all the rest is just a bonus, ain’t it?

Buy it.

ZAAT (1971)

 

One day, a man named Kurt said "fuck humans" and turned himself into a giant, moss-covered fish monster. After doing so, he proceeded to swim around the Florida Everglades, murder, chase cute blonde girls in teeny bikinis, and be an all-around pain-in-the-fish. A special arm of law enforcement called INPIT (Inter-Nation Phenomena Investigation Team) is dispatched to the area to investigate the multiple slayings-by-fish that have occurred. This team consists of Agent Walker Stevens (the dude) and Agent Martha Walsh (the chick). The chick likes the dude, but the dude's obsession AND his near-brushes with death caused by said obsession cause the two non-lovers certain levels of stress. See, the chick loves the dude, and the dude just may love the chick, but the fish man of Florida often gets in the way of the two beginning a romantic courtship. (Somewhere, Chris Carter, creator of the ever-enduring "X-Files," is sweating this new DVD/Bluray release of ZAAT.) When Fish Monster isn't killing, or the agents aren't necking, there's a random dude – a prototype for the original hippie – singing entire acoustic tunes directly at the camera. It all, in the end, doesn't amount to much, and I'm sure in some alternate universe, my copy of ZAAT is still playing.

We'll just get quickly to the point: ZAAT is a pretty terrible movie. There's a reason that it's not only been mocked by our favorite human/robot team combination on an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," but also enjoys a current user rating of 1.7 out of 10 on IMDB. The movie is just atrocious, and anyone who has visited this blog in more than just passing knows that I love a good train wreck—the more incompetent, the better. All a bad movie needs for me to like it is this: take your premise seriously, even if your audience doesn't, and do not be boring. That's it. ZAAT, while taking its premise seriously (and vetting a serious cause), was mercilessly boring. That I even made it through the thing without falling unconscious is some kind of half-miracle, being that I once famously fell asleep in theaters during the plane crash scene in Castway—a scene filled with nonstop carnage and jarring noise in a movie that I truly loved.

But the tedium of ZAAT is not the reason I chose to forgo putting this review under my Shitty Flicks banner. No, I am choosing to highlight this movie on its own because of one important element: this completely undeserved, and frankly, pretty damn good little home video release.

ZAAT's history of home video releases is spotty at best. There are claims that ZAAT was released once prior to DVD in various titles, and not just in the aforementioned MST3K's Volume 17 in which the film was duly ripped apart. However, a quick search for "ZAAT" does not turn up any prior video releases of the film, not even on VHS. Whether this is accurate or not is not the point; no, my point is that this new release of ZAAT is just remarkable. Even without watching a brief side-by-side comparison of the film both pre-and post-remastering (one of the special features), you can easily see that a picture of this budget, reputation, and from this era, should not look as good at is does.

In a world where some movies with more prestige, talent, and critical acclaim (in comparison, anyway) have not yet enjoyed even a DVD release (William Friedkin's Rampage, for one), I have to ask: Who on earth puts this much effort info fucking ZAAT?

The fine folks at Film Chest, Cultra, and HD Cinema Classics, that's who. Not only was the picture remastered, but an audio commentary consisting of director Don Barton, co-writer Ron Kivett, actor Paul Galloway, as well as a film historian, is also provided. In addition, there is an audio interview with the film's monster (Wade Popwell), a theatrical trailer, and even a friggin' postcard!

All for ZAAT!

ZAAT gets points for making a film, albeit one as misguided and unintentionally hilarious as it may be, that tried to highlight the dangers of pollution that was occurring during the late 1960s/early 1970s in America. Recollections of ZAAT tend to lump it into the paranoia-fueled monster movies of the 1950s, which were all mostly reactions to "the bomb" and the dangers of radiation that could ensue should that bomb ever be dropped. Even today, innocent films like The Lorax are witch-hunted as liberal propaganda whose sole purpose is to brainwash the minds of children. Like the black-and-whites of the 50s, ZAAT, too, was a reaction to the current landscape of that time. And while anti-pollution movements and going-green initiatives are finally coming to prominence, know that efforts were made as far back as forty years ago to show you the threat was real. As goofy and dull as it may be, it was trying to do a hell of a lot more than most of the movies coming out today. Because of that, I'll give ZAAT all the credit in the world.

Go green.

REVIEW: BOY WONDER

Movies like Kick-Ass and Defendor should be embarrassed that other movies like Boy Wonder exist. Though the movie hews closer to classic vigilante movies like Death Wish and even The Crow, shades of superhero DNA are inherent throughout the movie; it’s about a boy taking matters into his own hands when justice fails to locate the criminals responsible for the death of his mother. And the movie tells its story in a way that never sensationalizes what the boy does when he prowls the streets at night, hidden from sight in his black hooded sweatshirt. While Kick-Ass lends more towards kids beating the shit out of criminals, all the while getting the shit beat out of themselves, there’s never real danger in that movie. Because it’s supposed to be “fun” and “goofy.” In Boy Wonder, you feel for your protagonist and understand why he is out on the streets doing what he is doing, though you wish he wasn’t. You wish he could overcome the emotional torment that forces him to do the things he does. And that is the success of the movie.

In the film’s prologue, we witness through the boy’s eyes the death of his mother—seemingly the inadvertent casualty of a high-jacking gone wrong. We also go on to learn that the boy’s father is an abusive drunk, and responsible for the multiple bruises found on the boy’s body. Despite this, our protagonist, Sean Donovan, is a survivor (played with great brooding strength by Caleb Steinmeyer). He is a top student, though an introverted one, and has just one school friend to speak of. But like all high school students, he yearns to be accepted, as well as for the attention from the girl for whom he pines. His relationship with his father (years sober and calmed) is damaged because of their past. He spends his days at the local police station scrolling through mugshots of known criminals, trying in vain to locate the perp responsible for his mother’s death…or is he? Because when night falls, he slides on his black hooded sweatshirt and takes to the streets to locate people who feels has escaped justice (in "Dexter"-inspired fashion).

Meanwhile, a detective new to the precinct, Teresa Ames, notices Sean in a way that no one else has seemed to and almost immediately begins to suspect Sean of wrongdoing. Though the two begin to form an unlikely friendship, the idea of Sean living a double life is never totally out of Ames’ mind. Little do either of them know just how intertwined their past and future will become.

Boy Wonder is a brave movie, and a pretty remarkable film debut for Steinmeyer. It’s up to him to carry the movie—to make the audience feel his pain and to understand the gruesome things he feels he must do. And he pulls it off with ease. James Russo is also remarkable as Sean’s father, and while his part could have been more lazily written as the constant antagonistic drunk father, he is instead written as a man who has gone above and beyond to reform himself, and wants nothing more than for his son to love him the way the boy loved his mother. In fact, the acting is pretty stellar across the board, the only weak spot being Zulay Henao as Detective Ames. While not a bad actress, she is woefully miscast in the part of the hardened defective struggling to juggle a career and a broken family. Her pretty face betrays the past the screenwriter has given her, and her first scene in the movie (a fairly formulaic, and by now, cliché meeting of her new partner who accidentally comes off sounding racist despite meaning well) does not lend her any favors in trying to come across as an original take on a typical movie archetype.

I've read some reviews of the movie that call it "conceptually confused" between a superhero movie and a vigilante movie, and to a point, I can agree. However, I wouldn't describe it as "confused" as much as a careful hybrid of the two. And after all, what is a superhero if not a vigilante? Batman is a superhero, but is he also not a vigilante?

Boy Wonder takes its time in setting up each of its characters, leading to the climax that you may or may not see coming. Let’s face it, movies of today feel they need a twist, and when there’s one character whose identity remains mysterious throughout the movie, yet is ultimately responsible for the movie’s entire plot, you always go for the person you “least” suspect. In this case, it’s not a fault of the script, nor of the story the writer wanted to tell—but perhaps the movie would have been better off telling us upfront the sins of this character, so that Sean’s journey towards justice would have felt more suspenseful and heartbreaking.

GRADE: A-