The Films of Frank Henenlotter, Part 1: Basket Case (1982)

Blu-ray release.

Trying to pick my favorite Frank Henenlotter film is like trying to choose which one of my children I want to save from the flaming wreckage of a 16 car pile-up on the interstate. OK, maybe that's extreme, but writing about Henenlotter calls for it. He almost single-handedly revived exploitation cinema, bringing it out of the big pants of the 70's and into the big hair of the 80's. And while I certainly can't pick a favorite, I do know where to begin. Follow me, oh reader, back to the magical year of our lord nineteen hundred and eighty-two...

Oh, Basket Case. It's the classic story of romance we've heard again and again: Boy goes to the city; Boy meets Girl; Boy kisses Girl at the Statue of Liberty; Boy and Girl are tormented by Boy's hideously deformed and psychotic conjoined twin turned autonomous mass of flesh with teeth and claws.... Meh, maybe not so much. If you've not seen Basket Case, then here's the plot in a nutshell (or shall I say... basket? *titter*): A young man with amazing hair named Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) travels to New York City with his deformed twin brother Belial, whom Duane keeps locked in a large wicker basket. The psychically linked formerly conjoined twins begin to seek revenge on the trio of doctors who separated them over a decade prior. There are some twists and turns along the way, including an unlikely love interest and a very lengthy (and gruesome) flashback, but that pretty much sums up the lot of it. But hey, no one goes to the grindhouse for complex story and nuanced characters. We go for the blood and guts! And the gratuitous nudity! THAT's what makes a movie, damn it. And while Basket Case never wastes an opportunity to deliver on both these fronts, I'd argue that's not what keeps viewers coming back again and again. Rather, it's something about the very world that is cultivated in the film. There is something about the atmosphere, a word  we rarely get to use when discussing the exploitation genre, that feels totally seamless throughout. It's the music, the off-putting and awkward characters and performances, and, most importantly, the film's visual portrayal of New York City in the early 1980's.

Oh shit, THAT'S what's in the basket.

Because let's face it. New York City was, and for the most part is, filthy. Sorry New Yorkers, but it's true. It's grimy and dank, and certain pockets of the city capitalize on this more than others. And when we see our bright-eyed young Duane—having made his way from the quaint upstate township of Glen Falls—check into the seedy Hotel Broslin, we are truly made to feel the textured grime of the place, much in the way that Duane himself must be taking it in. This effect is partly due to the director's insistence on on-location shooting. Henenlotter knew that no designed set could possibly match the nuanced dilapidation of the old 42nd Street and various locations around Greenwich Village and Tribeca.

Kevin Van Hentenryck has excellent hair.

True, Basket Case was filmed on a shoestring budget. And as such couldn't have afforded studio space if they'd wanted it. But don't let the necessity of the filming process lead you to believe that the overall grunginess of the picture wasn't intentionally thematic. I've already mentioned the contrast between the scenes shot in Glen Falls and those shot in the city, but if you start to look more closely you'll see more disparate elements than the incidental details involved in shooting in two starkly different locations (I.E. trees in town vs. skyscrapers in the city). For example, the homes in which the Glen Falls shots take place are considerably open in the amount of space they provide and are often very sparsely furnished. This is in direct contrast with the spaces we see in the city, which are small and often overwhelmed with things. Knicknacks, food wrappers, etc. Sure, the city is claustrophobic. But it seems that Henenlotter went out of his way to really show us just how claustrophobic it can seem. Another trend is the portrayal of locations most viewers would regard as "clean" or "sterile" environments as having decrepit nature no different from the rest of the city locations. Both doctors' offices are presented this way: cramped, graffitied, covered in soot and mold. I mean, if I were to roll up to Dr. Needleman's office in real life, I would think he was probably not even a licensed doctor, but rather some fucking derelict who's set up shop in an abandoned building, put on a white coat, and is trying to give out "discount prostate exams."

 I may never even have realized just how dirt-caked this film was if it weren't for the most excellent Blu-ray release from Henenlotter's own Something Weird Video in cooperation with Image Entertainment. Apparently, Henenlotter discovered a long thought destroyed original negative and was able to transfer this version from the original 16mm. And it truly pays off. When the colors are popping and the mass amounts of detail are overwhelming you, it's hard to understand how you were able to watch that bootleg VHS your weird cousin gave you back in the early 90's. And when the effects look cheap, they look very cheap. And that's all a part of the appeal, because Basket Case was obviously a very personal project, Frank Henenlotter's love-letter to the exploitation movies he grew up watching and admiring. I'll also say the sound track was much clearer on this version than any other I've seen. Dialogue is crisp, and the spooky Herschell Gordon Lewis-esque organ theme is leveled just right. And, at like 13 bucks on Amazon, you really can't go wrong.

1982 poster art.

Basket Case is one of those movies that has earned its space in the zeitgeist of American cinema. Despite its being of the horror/gore/exploitation mode, it has kind of cemented itself in the minds of people who are film-conscious but not necessarily into "that kind of thing." I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who is interested in films over the last 30 years or so who hasn't at least heard of Basket Case. Though whether or not he or she took the initiative to seek it out is an entirely different story. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's a great indicator as to where independent film was during its time. Besides this, it's legitimately fucking scary. I've seen it again and again, and I always feel on edge when the lights go out and the strange noises begin. Check it out, and I guarantee you'll find yourself praying for an opportunity to ask someone, "What's in the basket?"

"It ATE him!" A review of From Beyond (1986)

Excellent new artwork for the Blu-ray release.

I'm a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft. Since the time I was in middle school, I read everything the man ever wrote, and loved every page of it. But I have a confession to make: The only reason I ever became interested in Lovecraft in the first place was because of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator. I'm not sure what the status quo is on this topic, but I can imagine for many it was the other way around.

Back when video stores were still a thing (they're not anymore, right?), I used to have my poor mother drive me all around town to dozens of obscure and rundown rental places so I could look for horror flicks I wanted to see. I'd read about Re-Animator in a book called Terror on Tape: A Complete Guide to Over 2,000 Horror Movies on Video by a guy named James O'Neill. I carried this book around with me like some kind of profane Bible, grazing the shelves of King Video and Pic-a-Flic searching for the films I'd circled in its pages. Based on O'Neill's description, Re-Animator was my Holy Grail. Eventually, after months of searching, I found it, rented it, and made a bootleg copy using two VCRs in my bedroom. And it did not disappoint. In fact, I was so taken with the film that when I finally got around to reading the source material, though I found it engaging in a different sort of way, I couldn't help but feel that it didn't match up to Gordon's gory masterpiece. My first thought: Where's all the eyeball popping and severed heads? My second: where's all the SEX? (This is going somewhere, I promise...)

It's precisely these elements that make Stuart Gordon and Brian Yunza's vision of the Lovecraft canon function at a higher level than almost any other "movieazation" of classic horror fiction. They took the best of what was brewed up in Lovecraft's Cthulu-tangled brain and ran it through the 80's rinse cycle of bright colors, squishy special-effects, and gratuitous sex. What we end up with is less of an adaptation of the stories at hand and more of a re-interpretation. This distinction is very important to make.

And From Beyond is no exception to this formula. In fact, we might say that even more than the masterful Re-Animator, From Beyond embraces the added elements with unabashed enthusiasm. The whole picture is a kaleidoscope of vibrant neon, moist make-up and special-effects, and a leather-clad Barbara Crampton who just wants to "see more." All offset by Charles Band's insanely tension laden score.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of From Beyond, it tells the tale of Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffery Combs), a young physicist assisting Dr. Edward Petorious (Ted Sorel) in the creation and fine-tuning of the "Resonator," a device which, when activated, stimulates the pineal gland and allows us a sort of sight beyond sight. And, since this is a horror flick, the experiment of course goes horribly wrong, ending with a headless Petorious and scared-shitless Tillinghast. The rest of the film details Dr. Katherine McMichaels' (Barbara Crampton) attempt to recreate the experiment with Tillinghast in order to prove him innocent of murdering Petorious. And if you want to know more (as we used to say at the end of book reports), you'll have to see it yourself.

Like a precursor to John Carpenter's The Thing.

 
As I've already alluded to, I think this is not only a fantastic film, but a fantastic adaptation of the Lovecraft story of the same title. While maybe not as clean-cut and funny as Re-Animator, it's still a leap and a bound above many of its contemporaries. Jefferey Combs returns in his second run as a Lovecraftian protagonist, and while he lacks the snark and snide of Herbert West, we can't help but love the guy. Crampton, whom I absolutely love, picks up a slightly more substantial role than her run in Re-Animator, and blows us away with her transition from a bun-haired broach wearing psychologist to the bondage wearing sensation seeker she becomes. The roles played by Ted Sorel and Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) are nothing to pass over, either. Sorel is easily one of the most frightening villains of the 80's. I mean, the guy just oozes sleaze and menacing tone. And Foree manages to lighten the mood while never taking the film in the direction of spoof. Not to mention we see him rocking around in a very revealing pair of bikini briefs, but that's a different post all together...

I do want to take a moment talk about the actual transfer to Blu-ray that Scream Factory has given us here. I hopped on the Blu-ray train late in the game, waiting, much like I did with DVDs, for the players to become incredibly inexpensive. And while I love to watch big budget movies filmed in high definition, the vast majority of my library is films from the 70s and 80s. I find that, with a really good transfer, Blu-ray can make available a whole dimension of detail that was originally unavailable to anyone who missed it on the big screen the first time around. From Beyond does just that. The crystal clear transfer that Scream Factory, I'm sure, painstakingly put together really pays off when it comes to textural detail. The characters' clothing is especially impressive. I'm thinking specifically of the incredibly itchy looking wool sweater that Tillnghast has on at the beginning. We can see every hair on this thing, and we really get a sense of the level of detail the film makers originally intended. McMichaels' gently textured houndstooth coat during the first asylum scene also feels this way. But where it really comes through is in the make-up and effects. One would feel that added clarity might possibly downplay the realism of the practical effects. Well, with From Beyond, this is not the case. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The added clarity makes John Carl Buechler's effects work seem sickeningly real. Things shimmer and undulate. They ooze and writhe. All bathed in a neon glow that screams, "Look here, you don't want to miss this!" Pay attention to the red spot on Crawford Tillinghast's forehead slowly becoming more and more visible as he undergoes his "transformation." It's detail like this that was completely missing from the VHS transfer I saw back in the 90's.

To be honest, I don't have much to say about this release in the way negative criticism. I'd like to have had the option to play the original soundtrack rather than the Dolby HD or 5.1 versions. But really, in light of all the other things this Blu-ray has going for it, that seems minor.

Ahh just like Mom used to make.

I really hope that Scream Factory keeps up their impressive run of Blu-ray re-releases. We're so lucky to see some of these long forgotten pictures brought back to life with such unparalleled visual vigor. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a release of Brian Yunza's deliciously depraved Society to appear sometime in the future. I got to see that once in its original 35mm, and YOWZA. That's some sick shit.

Until next time, remember: "It's just a body, but my mind is indivisible!"

Oh shit, another movie blog.

Yeah, yeah. I know. How many assholes' opinions do you need to read about Pacific Rim before you're allowed to come to the conclusion that it sucks all on your own?

Well, the answer is just one more. This one's.

And for the record, I don't plan to review Pacific Rim. Instead, I'm starting this blog in order to keep track of the films I love and the films I love to hate. For years I've spent countless minutes (precious minutes, people) trying to tell annoyed party guests why they should be interested in Italian horror films. Or how the handful of sci-fi/horror flicks from the 80's that embraced and actually made commentary on the aesthetics and culture surrounding punk rock does more in the way of exploration than a hundred other "straight" features on the same topic. Why RoboCop was and is the best comic-book-movie-not-based-on-a-comic-book-at-all. Or how I can think of more than a couple of parallels between Friday the 13th and Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly. Typically these kinds of encounters end with me spilling a plastic cup full of red wine on my shirt as people slowly try to back away, all the while nodding in faux compassion. And, God bless 'em for listening for as long as they can manage. Other times, and these times are vastly in the minority, I find someone who not only wants to listen to my rant (my ultimate narcissistic goal), but who goes on to explore some of these things herself. And all (well, most) jokes aside, that's what I want to accomplish in this blog.

We live in a time when access to media is so easy it becomes overwhelming. Because we can look at so much, because we can hyperlink and cross-reference and spend a lifetime falling into the Wikipedia void, we many times end up looking at nothing at all. Or else, we do what's easiest and watch what is most current and most popular. When my Netflix instant page tells me "What's Popular in Nashville, TN" I can't help but wonder if it's really that different from any other city in the country.

So this is to be an effort to help my readers move beyond what schlock Netflix has to offer and into the schlock that the last 100 years of cinema has to offer. It's not going to be high-brow. In fact, as you can likely tell, my tastes are most times tuned to the artfully degraded. I think, and I'm not joking here, that the likes of Lucio Fulci and John Waters are just as important as Truffaut and Fellini. I hold A Nightmare on Elm Street in much the same esteem as Abre los ajos (two movies about dreams, get it?). So while it's not going to be an ongoing rehash of the Criterion Collection, it is going to be serious. The things I love I take very seriously, even if a lot of the public wants to write it off as kid's stuff.

So please stay tuned as I begin to review both new and catalogue films that meet my oh-so-discerning criteria for consideration.

First up will be a review of the semi-recent Scream Factory Blu-ray release of Stuart Gordon's From Beyond. Fans of Gordon, 80's horror, neon lighting, and H.P. Lovecraft should be interested to see how the verdict pans out.

Until then...