AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID SCHMOELLER – PART 1: LITTLE MONSTERS

Writer/director David Schmoeller might not be a household name—maybe not even for your most prolific of horror fans—but he’s given us two undeniable minor horror classics: 1979’s Tourist Trap and 1989’s Puppet Master (which would go on to spawn nine(!) sequels). Except for his steady creation of short films, he has been rather quiet. After thirteen years, Schmoeller has returned with a very different kind of horror story...one sadly based on a true story. David was gracious enough to participate in an interview—we also spoke about Tourist Trap in a separate interview—in which he dishes on his newest independent feature, life imitating art, Fox News, and much more.

 

TEOS: Little Monsters (review here) is based on a true story – more specifically the 1993 James Bulger murder of England. What was it about this event that drew you to turning it into a film? Given the event happened twenty years ago, was this idea slowly simmering in your mind over time, or did you only somewhat recently read about it?

SCHMOELLER: I clearly remember seeing the news of the Bulger murder in L.A. when it happened. The news media had B/W video images of the kidnapping by the two ten-year-old suspects from the many shopping mall cameras. It was a big, international news story. And the nature of the killing was very disturbing. While I followed the story, it did not immediately become an idea for a movie. A few years later, while I was a William Randolph Hearst fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, I started doing research on the story. I think when the murderers were released from prison when they turned 18, the story made the news again. I think this was when I started to become more interested in the story as a possible film idea.

TEOS: The lives of the real murderers seem to closely parallel those of your film versions during the murder, the trial, and their subsequent release. At what point did you let your artistic creativity take over and present a "what-if" scenario?

SCHMOELLER: Little Monsters is completely fictional, although inspired by the actual event. What made it an interesting story for me was that when the two boys, teenagers when released…they passed laws in England that made it illegal for anyone to reveal the new identities or locations of the child killers. They could be living right next door and no one would know. This was another reason the story was so compelling – both in real life and in my growing story line. What happened to the boys after they were released, how did they feel about their crime, would they be able to cope with what they had done (did they even feel bad about what they had done?), and would they be able to live out their lives with new identities? All these issues where completely unknown, so, I had to fictionalize those things. In 2002, I took a group of UNLV film students to the Fringe Festival in Scotland, and since I was going to be there a month, I decided to write the screenplay, which then was called Don’t Look Back. I did a few rewrites, which took me the next year or so, then I tried to have my agent set it up as a film for me to direct, but it was considered too dark for Hollywood. In 2008, I produced (and personally financed) a feature film called Thor At The Bus Stop, which was written and directed by Mike and Jerry Thompson. It’s a very good quirky comedy available at Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, etc. When I realized I actually had the means to make a feature film, I decided to make Little Monsters – and direct it. While I had written and directed a dozen or so short films since I left Hollywood, I had not directed a feature film in 13 years. So, it was exciting. 

TEOS: What was it about the Hollywood system that you felt you needed or wanted to leave it behind?

SCHMOELLER: I have no problem with the Hollywood system. I liked working in Hollywood (mostly – every once in a while you get stuck with an asshole, but that happens in all walks of life). My decision to leave Hollywood for academia was strictly a financial decision. I am better paid, have more job security, and am more respected in academia than I was working in Hollywood.

TEOS: Speaking as vaguely as possible to avoid spoiling a turning point in the film, there's one particular scene where one of the murderers has a heated confrontation with his mother, who shows nothing but disdain for him. She's presented as a rather hard woman leading up to this and the film suggests she is a potential explanation for her son's dangerous behavior. Do you believe that the behavior of a child directly reflects his or her upbringing? Or do you believe we as individuals all have the strength to overcome such an upbringing and still become meaningful contributors to society?

SCHMOELLER: At one point in the screen-writing process, I had a character say: “It’s always the mother's fault.” I believe parents can and do play a major role in how their kids turn out. But there is no common rule. You can have awful parents and turn out OK, or you can have great parents and not turn out so good. My own mother was an extraordinary beauty as a child and a stunning beauty as an adult. Because her beauty was how she was defined, she was a spoiled child and a spoiled adult. She really didn’t mature as she grew into adulthood, even though she was very smart – as smart as she was beautiful. I think her beauty was a huge burden to her as an adult. So, even though she tried, she was really not a good parent. This was before the women’s movement of the '60s, so, my stepfather expected her to be a stay-at-home housewife. Eventually she became a Valium-wife and spent much of my childhood in bed. And when she wasn’t sleeping, she was bored, and sometimes angry. Not anything like the mother in Little Monsters, but still, not a very good mother. We called her “our crummy mother.” I think my older brother suffered much more damage than I did because he was always angry at our crummy mother and our absent stepfather, so he acted out. It was all way too much drama for me as a child, so I just kept to myself. When my older brother went off to college, I knew I would not survive my mother alone, so I left home at 15. And I quickly learned how to be very independent, which helped me greatly in life – especially when I went to Hollywood in the 1970s.

TEOS: In doing my own research into the James Bulger case, I found that, of all things, Child's Play 3 was cited as a negative influence in the lives of the two killers, as those involved in the case proved that the kids had not only watched the film in the months leading up to the murder, but also supposedly detected an instance in which they "imitated" a specific scene. Being that you, as a filmmaker, have dabbled in the "killer doll" sub-genre, and worked largely in the horror genre in general, do you ever feel any responsibility as filmmaker for the content you put out there for public? Do you feel it has the power to influence?

SCHMOELLER: This is a frequent charge, especially when there is a particularly horrendous killing by younger killers – kids or teenagers: “They must have been influenced by a horror film.” People want a way to explain a horrible event, and sometimes the answer is to blame it on a film, and sometimes it’s to blame a parent. I understand this. It is difficult to explain senseless killing. I DO think movies can have a very powerful effect on viewers, especially children. And I do not think children should be allowed to watch inappropriate films. One of the better examples comes from my own work. Tourist Trap was given an inappropriate rating – it was given a PG instead of an R. We were shocked when we received this rating from the Ratings Board. I had not let my own son see the movie – he was 8 or 9 – because I thought it was just too intense and too disturbing. And that tame rating hurt our theatrical release. Who wants to see a tame horror film? Because of that rating, however, it could play on afternoon television. And it’s the reason most responsible for Tourist Trap having a second life, and to have grown into cult status. All those traumatized children who saw it on afternoon TV. I can’t tell you how many people have said to me: “I saw Tourist Trap on TV when I was seven and it scared me to death.” What safer thing for a parent to say to a young child on a Saturday afternoon? “Billy, Mom and Dad are busy – why don’t you go watch TV with your sister…?” [sarcastic smile]

In terms of the responsibility of the filmmaker? Movies are an art form. The responsibility of the filmmaker is to make a good, compelling film. There are very few restrictions (there are certain legal restrictions: you can’t shoot a snuff film; you can’t shoot child pornography, etc.). Wes Craven has spoken fairly articulately about “violence in cinema.” The filmmakers of the ‘70s were informed in part by the war in Vietnam that we watched on the nightly news. Craven maintains that nothing he has ever put on film is as violent as the images we saw on TV every night during that war.

TEOS: The two young actors who played James Landers and Carl Withers were especially good and playing very challenging roles. Where did you find them? What was the casting process like?

SCHMOELLER: Both Ryan LaBeouf and Charles Cantrell were/are students of mine. I had directed Charles in a short film called Ha, Ha, Horror, so I had [previously] worked with him. Ryan is an all-around talent – writer/director and actor – only I had only seen him in comedies. But, he has a nice quality and an intelligence as a person; I just thought he had this special talent that would show up on the screen. They both work completely differently as actors. Charles likes to talk about the scene or his character, has lots of questions, and approaches his work with a “method” process. Ryan just shows up in character and uses his intelligence to play the part. It was such a joy to work with both of them. I also think their performances were greatly helped by Ben Zuk, my editor.

TEOS: Both the editing and the intimate nature of the narrative lent a specific realism to the film, including your use of sit-down interviews. The realistic approach I think is the film's biggest selling point. As you were writing, did you ever have to scale it back? Did you ever veer too far into over-the-top territory, perhaps without realizing it?

SCHMOELLER: The early versions of the story had many more of the sit-down interviews – so much so that they dominated the story. The central narrative in Little Monsters, the story of the two boys, was eclipsed by the detailed facts of the story. I think what you are asking me about is the (realistic) tone of the film. We worked hard on the tone, but there may be some side segments that don’t work for some viewers as well as others (like the TV Tabloid personality). I don’t think G. Gordon is over-the-top, even though I think he is clearly ridiculous (just like I think Glenn Beck is ridiculous), and we did worry he might be mess with our tone. At the same time, I know from my horror film experience that you need to allow the audience to breathe, even laugh out loud from time to time.

As I tell my students, when you make a film, it’s just as likely that you will fail as it is you will succeed.

TEOS: What was the production process like? How long was the shoot?

SCHMOELLER: May May Luong, my producing partner and I, both have day jobs. I am a university professor and May May works in production, so we shot Little Monsters mostly on the weekends over a 3-4 month period. Everyone who worked on the film were either students, who had classes during the week, or they had day jobs. It’s not the best way to shoot a film, but it does work. We shot the film over 24 days, although not all days were full days.

TEOS: Your portrayal of the media isn't exactly flattering, but the conservative talk show host, who actually laughs along with a caller threatening to discover the boys' secret identities and commit violence upon them, is especially obnoxious. How seriously do you personally take the role of media in our society, and do you think it has the potential to be harmful?

SCHMOELLER: I think certain segments of the media, like certain segments of our political system, are really shameful. And when you have some of the more scandalous crimes, such as the recent Jody Arias trial, the Menendez Brothers murder, the JonBenét Ramsey murder, or OJ – pick your famous killing – the media doesn’t always look so good. Is it the public that craves these stories, or the media who benefits from the high ratings? It’s both. I think some of the characters on Fox News (cable) are especially destructive to our society. I think they are flame-throwers for the big salaries they can make by yelling “fire.” And it seems the more outrageous, the more money they make. Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh – these are media personalities and entrepreneurs, not newsmen. It is called “hate radio” because they are hateful people and they teach listeners to be angry and that it is OK to be hateful and outraged. I have students – not many, but more than I would like to have – who feel entitled to express their anger and outrage, and they do so at inappropriate times and places. They have been damaged by these media personalities, not educated.

TEOS: Your use of sit-down interviews does an effective job of making the story feel as real as possible. Did you write these interviews from scratch, or were they based on actual interviews given at the time of the James Bulger murder?

SCHMOELLER: I did a lot of research for Little Monsters over the years. Certainly, the breadth of players – the large number of people coming from all walks of life – came out of that research. The Clarence Gilyard speech (the criminologist at trial) where he talks about how many people are affected by a single act of violence…not the words themselves, but the essence of that comment, came out of that research.

TEOS: Audience reaction (or maybe I should clarify non-audience reaction) has condemned the film; they've said things like "How dare they turn this story into a film!" and "What would the families think?" Considering we had a film about 9/11 made five years following the actual event, or a film about killing Osama Bin Laden only one year following, what is it about this particular story that have made people cry foul? Is it because the violence is regulated to children this time, as opposed to adults like it normally is?

SCHMOELLER: I think you are talking about internet comments to postings about Little Monsters; audience reactions at the screenings [I’ve attended] have been overwhelmingly positive. I think a person who lives in England and lived through the media experience of the Bulger murder, may have a different reaction to the film than someone who doesn’t have that firsthand experience.

And the issue of children killing children can be particularly disturbing to a lot of people. A lot of dog-lovers hated Amores Perros because of the brutal dog fighting scenes, despite the fact that it was an excellent movie.

My mother, who was informed by the zeitgeist of World War II, thought Saving Private Ryan was an awful movie. What she was really reacting to was the opening Normandy beach-landing scene, which was so graphic and so realistic. To her, World War II (actually, I am referring to immediately after the war) was really a romantic event; she was young and beautiful when she met and married my stepfather, who was a returning WWII bomber pilot and looked handsome in his uniform. He never talked to her about the war – AT ALL, ever – and so seeing Saving Private Ryan all those years later shattered her romantic notion of what was probably the best time of her life.

Movies are not for everyone. In fact, they are probably for only a very small audience, especially these days when there are so many other things fighting for people’s attention. I am making something for a very small segment of the world. And I am sure there will be some vocal haters. As Carl Gunther in Crawlspace would say: “So be it.” All I can do is make the best movie I can and hope at least a few people appreciate it.

TEOS: If you could say anything to the real murderers of James Bulger, what would you tell them?

SCHMOELLER: “Did I get any of it right in my movie?”

Little Monsters is now streaming via Amazon Prime.

A CLEVER IDEA

Martin Sheets was a wealthy businessman who lived in Terra Haute, Indiana in the early 1900's. One of his greatest fears was that of a premature burial. He often dreamed of being awake, but unable to move, at the moment the doctor pronounced him dead and then regaining consciousness while trapped in a coffin below the ground. Sheets decided to fight his fears by investing some of his resources in the prevention of his being buried alive.

First of all, he had a casket custom-designed with latches fitted on the inside. In this way, should he be placed inside prematurely, he would be able to open the coffin and escape. He also began construction on a mausoleum so that when he died, or was thought to have died, he would not be imprisoned under six feet of dirt. The mausoleum was well built and attractive but Sheets realized that even if he did manage to escape from his casket, he would still be trapped inside of a stone prison.

He came up with another clever idea. He installed a telephone inside of the tomb with a direct line to the main office of the cemetery. In this way, he could summon help by simply lifting the receiver. The line was fitted with an automatic indicator light so that even if no words were spoken, the light would come on in the office and help would soon be on the way.

Death came for Martin Sheets in 1910 and he was entombed in the mausoleum. I would imagine that for several days afterward, cemetery staff workers kept a close eye on the telephone indicator light in the office. After more time passed though, it was probably forgotten. Years went by and the telephone system in the area changed. Eventually, the direct line to the cemetery office was removed but thanks to very specific instructions in Sheets will, and the money to pay for it, the telephone in the mausoleum remained connected and active.

A number of years later, Sheets widow also passed away. She was discovered one day lying on her bed with the telephone clutched in her hand. In fact, she held the receiver so tightly that it had to be pried from her fingers. It was soon learned that she had experienced a severe stroke and family members assumed that she had been trying to call an ambulance when she finally died. A service was held and after a quiet memorial service, she was taken to the family mausoleum, where she would be interred next to her husband.

When cemetery workers entered the mausoleum, they received the shock of their lives. Nothing there was disturbed, they saw, except for one, very chilling item. Martin Sheets telephone, locked away for all of these years, was hanging from the wall...its receiver inexplicably off the hook.

LAST ONE

In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: Could she deliver a letter to the address on its envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed.

She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed, she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She was suspicious, so she went to the police.

When the police paid a visit to the address on the envelope, they made a gruesome discovery: Three butchers had been harvesting human flesh and selling it to the starving people.

In the envelope the man had given to the woman, there was a note, saying simply: 

"This is the last one I am sending you today."

Not real. Or is it??? (It's not.)

LA PASCULITA

In Chihuahua, Mexico, local rumor has it that this mannequin, known as “Pascualita,” is actually an embalmed body. According to legend, a lady named Pascuala Esparza owned a wedding boutique in the city, making dresses for soon-to-be brides. Her own daughter, Pascualita, was engaged to be married, so Pascuala set about to make her a special dress. Everything was planned when, on the day of the wedding, tragedy struck. Supposedly, Pascualita was bitten by a poisonous insect and later died. Distressed by the death of her daughter, Pascuala set out to immortalize her. She embalmed the body, dressed it in her wedding gown, and propped it up in the window of her boutique, for all to see.

Today, Pascualita remains standing in the window of “La Popular” in downtown Chihuahua. Although commonly regarded to as a myth, the details in the mannequin (especially in the hands) keep onlookers wondering.

 

SHITTY FLICKS: TINTORERA

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

Tintorera is a Spanish "horror" film about two men who look and act like they are fucking each other when no one is looking. Watch them bed beach bunnies, walk around naked, hunt sharks, and lay too close to each other. When dead bodies - victims of shark attacks - begin washing up on the shore, these two men opt to hunt the killer shark themselves. But the movie is less about sharks and more about two hairy men who fuck a lot and are completely deplorable characters. Also, it's one of the most boring movies I’ve ever sat through.

Tintorera, which means tiger shark in Spanish, is a bad, bad film. Not only is the movie utterly devoid of anything remotely interesting, but it also goes so far as to feature completely pointless footage of actual sharks being killed for the sole purpose of making this atrocity. Granted, that may not be a big deal to you, but that’s because you’re a cocker.

The DVD menu offers up either an English or Spanish audio track. I choose English and the movie begins.

The movie opens strongly enough, with stock footage of a shark slowly creeping along the bottom of a dark ocean, complemented by an ominous discordant theme by the always amazing Basil Poledouris, but then the established mood is almost immediately ruined with an awkward cut to a brightly sun-lit Mexican resort, with plain '70s women in their plain '70s bikinis. Lazy, generic Spanish-sounding music plays as people walk around and eat chimichangas (probably).

(Even though I chose the English audio track, the waiter and Mr. Banana Hammock blather on in Spanish for several minutes as I wait for my Rosetta Stone to load. Further, I also chose English subtitles...which appear in Spanish. Thanks for nothing, Desert Mountain Media.)

We meet Steven, who lies forlornly in a hospital bed. Turns out this poor man has suffered a nervous breakdown, so obviously being forced to spend time in a hospital is just what he needs.

We meet Miguel, who apparently has affairs with anyone who looks at him. He uses his circus training to do really unnecessarily showy flips up a balcony in order to get to his affair room.

Sure, vaginas were a hobby, but acrobatics were his life.

Then we meet two American college girls. They hitch a ride from two Spanish men, toting a large truck full of oranges. Then, the following happens:

1.) The truck pulls over.

2.) The girls spill out of the truck and climb on top of the oranges.

3.) The men begin to rape the girls.

4.) The girls attempt to fight off their rapers, but then relent and say, “It will only be worse if we fight.”

5.) One girl says to her friend, before they are raped, “Well Kelly, you wanted to see the world.”

6.) Kelly says to her rapists: “It’s OK. I am going to take off my pants.”

For a movie that already feels like an eternity, we certainly move along at breakneck speed, because we’re already meeting Francisco, a red-headed native whose boat is filled to the brim with a pile of massacred tiger sharks.

Francisco ends up chartering one of his boats to Steven, who plans to use the boat to relax and nurse his stupid brain back to health. Francisco, who is called Redhead by one of his associates, stacks boxes of food on the counter as he chats with Steven, who he calls Blondie, even though the man’s hair is clearly brown.

Two men calling each other Redhead and Blondie. Let that sink in.

Francisco tows up a line - shark traps that he set - and gasps in joy at the dead tiger shark attached to one of the hooks. "I am going to beat it in the head, just in case it’s not dead,” says Francisco. And boy does he. (We get to watch.)

Steven studied and observed Carlos for years,
but he could never figure out a way to grow such a
delightful push-broom mustache.

A nearby shark dive-bombs the dead shark on the line and takes a huge bite, annoying Francisco and pleasing me.

“I’d rather sit in the sun and watch the sharks in the bikinis,” says Steven. The men smile, and then we literally cut to Steven on the deck of his boat with a pair of binoculars looking at the naughty bits of the nearby girls.

Steven picks up a random girl, Patricia, offering her a tray of different drinks, and then uses his unsmiling charm to lure Patricia to his boat for some lobster and some hot hairy cock.

Then they have this meaningful conversation:

Steven: I am very happy because I think I am falling in love with you.

Patricia: Are you sure it is love, or just physical attraction?

Steven: I don’t know.

Thanks for even bringing it up, then, Steven. With crackling dialogue like that, who needs killer sharks?

I do. Please God, gimme gimme.

It seems Patricia didn’t like Steven’s “I don’t know,” because he catches her on the beach with Miguel, the affair man. The two men almost immediately begin fighting, and Steven clocks Miguel a good one across his Spanish face.

“Did you have to use your fists you stupid jerk?” Patricia cries.

I take a moment to ponder how else these two men could have furiously fought on the beach over a woman. Perhaps spirited debate.

Steven gets back on his rubber and farts away as Miguel taunts him from the beach, even though he was the one who got his ass punched to the ground.

Steven goes back to his boat and takes his frustration out on Francisco, who responds with, “Shit. This would even piss off a hermit crab.”

Thirty-four minutes in, and no shark attacks.

"Well, I just had a fuck with Miguel, but if you want,
you can come with me to mass."

Patricia decides to shack up with Miguel, and after a bout of sex, she leaves him lying on the bed, his pale, untanned ass sticking up in the air, and she decides to take a naked swim.

Then we cut to a shark.

Then we cut back to naked Patricia.

Then back to the shark.

Fucking finally.

The shark chews on a wigged-ball of bloody meat; though it’s terribly unimaginative and lazy, I’ll take it.

Steven pulls up to a dock/bar and climbs on. Miguel sits at a table, entertaining some fine-looking “gringas,” but when he sees Steve, he decides to be really funny.

“Get back, it is a wild animal!” he bellows, holding a chair up at Steven like a lion tamer would his beast.

“I hate it when people use me for their jokes,” Steven unemotionally retorts, as I laugh.

The two men inexplicably become friends. Steven sits down with the two college girls who turn out to be the ones who got raped. Seems they’re still enjoying their vacation despite the rape, and they welcome Miguel to bluntly discuss how their asses and boobs are incredible.

The four of them end up on Steven’s boat later, naked as the day they were last fucked, and they just kind of hang out. There’s no sex to be found. Steven swings in the hammock as the girls dance with Miguel.

And it’s not awkward or uncomfortable. Not at all.

Then, a shark swims.

Then it’s back to the naked boat.

Jesus Christ, I hate this movie.

The next morning, the college girls switch sex partners and everyone grinds mere feet from each other. And I don’t care what college you attended, from the School of Hard Knockers to Lost Highway University, that shit is creepy.

Debbie always ended her saying grace with: "And thanks again
for the two cocks to wake me up in the morning."

Later, at a party, everyone jams to some disco, as Francisco grinds with a gringa and ignores his master. Steven gets pissed off at the unauthorized use of his boat and throws everyone off.

It has been 24 minutes since the first and only shark attack, and at 54 minutes into the film, we still have more than an hour left to go.

Let’s pause for an amusing out-of-context excerpt of dialogue.

“What’s this rod for?”

“That’s the surprise I said I had for you.”

Continuing on, the men agree to “rock ‘n roll” and dive in an area known as “the caves,” where the plan seems to be to hunt some fish with a harpoon gun. Right around the time the fifth fish is harpooned, I fast forward until a shark shows up...a shark that is almost instantly shot. The real shark convulses, spewing blood from its wounds and gills, until it eventually succumbs to Miguel, the Speedo-wearing free diver.

Thanks, filmmakers. It sure was worth it, for this is irreplaceable art through which I am currently suffering.

Later, Steven and Miguel sit at a table, staring at a lonesome girl having a drink by herself.

“I bet you I take that girl to bed before you do,” Miguel challenges.

“That’s a bet I wouldn’t want to lose,” says Steven.

Boy, between shooting sharks in the face and making bets to fuck strangers, I can’t help but hope everything works out in the end for these two men.

After seeing the girl off to her hotel room, the men discuss the night’s events.

“The girl could not decide with whom to go to bed. This girl is a professional,” Miguel deduces, being careful not to end a sentence with a preposition.

“Do you think she is a whore?” Steven seriously inquires.

“This girl doesn’t open her legs for money,” Miguel answers. “She might even think we’re gay."

The two men then laugh, after a split second of subconsciously considering the possibility.

The next morning, Steve, Miguel, and their bet go fishing, where she gets to watch a shark be killed close up. They are almost attacked by a tiger shark, but unfortunately, they get away.

Last known photograph.

Then you know what I do? I skip to each chapter of this fucking atrocious movie until I get to the end, because I want to be finished sitting in front of this spewing mess.

The first few seconds of each chapter are as follows:

Chapter 16: Girl holds up a bottle of booze and then casts a hesitant glance behind her.

Chapter 17: Francisco lifts a large squid from a boiling pot and says, “This squid will be delicious.”

Chapter 18: Girl walks across the boat and says to Steven and Miguel, “I would like to have a child. It would be the first child to be conceived by two fathers.”

Chapter 19: Girl kissing her own hand as she looks upset.

Chapter 20: Uncomfortable '70s dancing.

Chapter 21: Steven and a large group of anonymous people walk across the beach. A girl shouts, “I have an idea: Why doesn’t everyone take off their clothes and we’ll go swimming?” All 30 people who are there agree this is a good idea. I am about to skip to the next chapter when a shark makes a rare appearance. He steals the girl from Steven like Winona Ryder steals from anywhere at all and disappears into the darkness.

I am pleased.

Chapter 22: Steven relives his shark encounter to Francisco. “It was horrible, Redhead.”

Chapter 23: A sea plane lands and Steven shows a Marlon Brando-in-The Godfather-looking fellow, Mr. Madison, where the accident took place.

Having reached the last chapter, I figure I can endure a few more minutes of trash.

Francisco and Steven prepare an arsenal of weapons in which to hunt the shark.

Say, where’s Miguel? Was he eaten? Written out of the script? Did he have a falling out with Steven?

I’ll never know, because I’m never sitting through this movie again.

Steven attracts the shark by shooting a skate, and he waits in apprehension for the shark to make its arrival.

Now, as we wait, let me just say this: If the director of this sleaze really wanted to make a point with this movie, he would have Steven, a man who has coldly bedded women and shot sharks in the face for no reason, be eaten by the shark that he was hunting. One shark devouring another, one might even argue.

Well, the music is mounting. Something is about to happen.

And…

Steven shoots the shark, which sinks to the bottom of the ocean, splooging blood from the wound. The assholes win, and we know this for sure, because the movie ends with a shot of Steven, Miguel, and the bet girl smiling and looking into the ocean.

So, to sum up, Tintorera is primarily about two men who fuck women all the time and hang out and discuss fucking women. Sometimes they dance, or have swim races. Sometimes they eat food. Every once in a while, a shark does something.

Tintorera does not attempt, at any time, to be thrilling, poignant, or entertaining. Its struggle for coherence is the only aspect of the film worth mentioning.

That’s pretty bad when that’s the only good thing I can say about your film: It didn’t not make sense.

This movie can eat my balls.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

LEVITY

Who, indeed.