TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Horror

Director: Tobe Hooper

Cast: Marilyn Burns / Gunnar Hansen / Paul Partain

Plot

Five young people take a road trip to Texas to visit family and wind up running from a family of deranged cannibals.

What I Liked

"Who will survive and what will be left of them?"  Absolutely one of my all-time favorite movie taglines.  It captures this unhinged exploitation classic perfectly.

One of the prototypical slasher films made before the subgenre really existed yet, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remains notorious forty years after its initial release, and for good reason.  In fact, it is still more unsettling and gruesome than most of the horror films I’ve seen in recent years.

Ironically, part of what makes the original such a visceral experience is its low budget.  With a budget of less than $300,000, producer and director Tobe Hooper turned his limitations into advantages.  The grainy quality of the footage, the lack of slick production and effects, and the instability of the camera suggests to the audience the impression of watching a documentary, a feeling heightened by the movie’s oft-imitated introduction.

More than anything, though, it’s just the savagery of it all that continues to make “Texas Chainsaw” a disturbing experience nearly a half century later.  The killers do their chilling deeds without comprehensible explanation.  Leatherface in particular is beyond reasoning.  Everything about this film breaks the rules of how a movie is supposed to unfold and what a movie is supposed to show you.  So as we watch a group of lost hippies get butchered, we the viewers become disoriented by our scattered expectations and scarred by our butchered senses.

In Leatherface, the hulking, chainsaw-wielding man-child who relentlessly pursues his defenseless victims, Hooper created the first iconic killer of the slasher genre.  What makes him, in some ways, more frightening than a Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, though, is that he is more believable.  He has neither the ghostly silence of Myers nor the superhuman abilities of Vorhees.  He comes across as a human being – albeit a homicidal maniac of a man – and not a larger-than-life figure.  That Leatherface is also a family man makes him all the more frightening, especially considering his family.  Throw in the fact that he’s (very loosely) based on an actual guy (Ed Gein), and Leatherface is downright terrifying.

It ranks, without a doubt, among the handful of the most disturbing fictional films I have ever seen.

What I Didn’t Like

Hey, Marilyn Burns.  We get it.   You’re scared.  But really, stop screaming for just a second.  Take a breath.  After about a solid hour of hearing you scream, I can’t blame Leatherface for wanting to string you up and gut you.  I mean, I get it.  If I were in your position, I’d be screaming just as high-pitched and louder (actually, I’d probably just pass right out).  But I’m trying to be entertained here and your voice makes me long for the gentle melodies of fingernails on a chalkboard.  Just shut up.

Please also be forewarned that, though this film influenced a whole generation or two of scary movies to follow, it does not have the precise pacing, scripting, and production values of its more mainstream followers.  An independent film in the truest sense, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” lacks almost all professional polish.  Some viewers might find sections of the film confusing, bizarre, or maybe even boring.  But, as mentioned above, it’s the unhinged, unpredictable nature of the film that contributes to the overall terror that is this movie.

Most Memorable Scene

Like a lot of the films in my list, there are several moments of this movie that will carve out their own little spots in your brain.  For “Texas Chainsaw” this rings all the more true because of how unusual, both technically and thematically, this movie is.  Still, I am fairly certain that there is little in the world of movies that will prepare a viewer for the family dinner.  Of course, we’ve got good old Marilyn Burns screaming her head off the whole time, but the truth is, you’ll either want to do exactly the same thing or you’ll be laughing your ass off at how damn insane this movie is.  Either way, you’ll probably only be able to take watching this movie once every few years.  I've seen the movie several times.  Hell, I own it.  But, if you’re someone who likes to watch that scene more than once a year, you scare me a little.

My Rating: 4 out of 5

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)

Country: U.K. / U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama

Director: David Lynch

Cast: John Hurt / Anthony Hopkins / Freddie Jones

Plot

Based on the life of Joseph (called John in the movie) Merrick, this is the story of a severely deformed man’s struggle to find respect and love in Victorian Society and of the hospital physician who helped him.

What I Liked

The obvious centerpiece of “The Elephant Man” is the relationship between Doctor Treves and his patient, John Merrick, played by Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt respectively.  Hopkins seems a natural as the sometimes arrogant but ultimately caring intellectual Treves.  Meanwhile, Hurt manages to give a heart-wrenching performance despite the fact that his face his almost completely covered with pounds of makeup that took up to eight hours a day to apply.  The script then allows each character to develop interestingly, each learning as much about himself as the other as their personal relationship develops.  Hopkins and Hurt are also supported by a veteran supporting cast that includes Anne Bancroft, Freddie Jones, and John Gielgud, none of whom disappoint.

Even in black and white, the Victorian London (and indeed the world in general) portrayed by director David Lynch and cinematographer Freddie Francis is as convincingly gritty, grimy, and repulsive as one would imagine the real place was in that time.  It seems like a brick-walled Hell, which is very much what the city has become for the protagonist at the film’s start.  The streets teem with wandering animals and skulking people; a cacophony of bawdy shouts and drunken laughter echoes off the narrow alley walls; a putrid smelling (somehow, we can smell it) mist coats the buildings in a glistening film; and all seems oppressed by an interminable night.  Thus the setting becomes effectively a character unto itself, subtly influencing our experience of the world through Merrick’s eyes.

Accentuating the above setting is a purposeful restraint used in the film’s musical score.  Where music is usually a powerful tool in setting the mood of a scene or film, it’s the lack of music here that contributes to the disturbing reality of everything on screen.  Though music is present at times, most notably when Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” is played to lead us into the film’s understated but moving conclusion.

What I Didn’t Like

Really, I don’t have much to write here.  The writers and filmmakers did take liberty with the facts in telling the story, but their poetic license was simply used to better illustrate the meaning the audience is to draw from Joseph/John Merrick’s story.

I’ll also say that there is one scene toward the film’s end that I felt did not work.  It takes place in a theater, where Merrick is brought to watch his first play.  At the film’s conclusion, it is Merrick who is given a standing ovation from the audience.  I take it this was meant to seem as a kind of triumph from Merrick and one is convinced that the character regards it as such.  However, I felt like the crowd’s applause was disingenuous, which ruined the moment for me.

Most Memorable Scene

Throughout this film, Merrick’s physical deformity and gentle soul is constantly played against the grotesque behavior of so-called “normal” people.  This, of course, is meant to illustrate the part of mankind that can be truly ugly and disgusting.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the drunken hospital guard who bullies Merrick and sells tickets at a local pub and sneaks in inebriated onlookers to laugh at and recoil from him.  He is more of a foil for the kind and sensitive Merrick than any other.

One of these confrontations results in a full-on invasion of Merrick’s living quarters, and in his being teased, abused, and accosted by a whole team of London lowlifes.  Timed to happen at a point in the film where Merrick is at long last beginning to feel cared for and gaining confidence, it is a heart-breaking return for Merrick to the painful realities of the outside world.  For the audience, it is a reminder from Lynch that he is not about to let this movie become a simple, sentimental tale, but one that squarely acknowledges the tragedies and ugliness of the world.

My Rating: 4 out of 5

JACOB'S LADDER (1990)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama / Horror / War

Director: Adrian Lyne

Cast: Tim Robbins / Elizabeth Pena / Danny Aiello

Plot

Vietnam veteran Jacob Singer sees demons everywhere.  His girlfriend thinks he’s losing his mind, but Jacob is sure that these creatures are out to get him.  As his life becomes a nightmarish realm of phantoms and paranoia, Jacob can’t tell if he’s mad or sane, awake or dreaming, living or dead.

What I Liked

One of my very greatest fears is losing my mind, not knowing what’s real and what isn’t, not being in control of my own consciousness.  One of my all-time favorite horror films, “Jacob’s Ladder” taps directly into that fear.  One of the ways the filmmakers accomplished this so effectively was to avoid the use of CGI, animation, blue screens, and the like.  Everything one sees in this movie, lead actor Tim Robbins is really seeing as well.  Thus, the filmmakers avoid losing their audience with over-the-top effects and instead ground the film in visuals so real that they’re all the more frightening for it.  Outside of a few tricks of the camera and makeup, everything was filmed natural.  To further immerse us in the nightmare, screenwriter Bruce Rubin grounds his Hell in real life settings: the Vietnam jungle, an operating room, city streets, or an abandoned subway.  Robbins helps the filmmakers by giving my favorite of all of his performances that I have seen, with his thoroughly relatable Jacob Singer drawing us right in to reluctantly explore that Hell through his eyes.

The multi-layered depth of “Jacob’s Ladder” helps make it just as compelling on the tenth viewing as is it was one the first, maybe even more so.  The horror elements of the film are just the surface of one of the most thematically complex films I’ve ever seen.  The movie can be read in so many ways.  Straight up horror film.  Conspiracy movie.  Or, as I see it, a moving and thought-provoking chronicle of the battle for a man’s very soul.  Indeed, one prominent character in the film can be read as Satan while another is an angel, if not God himself.  There are elements of literature, religion, mythology, and philosophy woven into the film’s plot and script that at first seem to contribute to the film’s barrage of confusion, but ultimately boil down to a cohesive theme: “The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of life, your memories, your attachments.  They burn them all away.”  That’s what happens to Jacob Singer in this, one of the most disturbing and astonishing films I have ever seen.

It’s also a credit to this film that everyone I know of who has seen this film remembers it vividly and loves it.

What I Didn’t Like

Personally, I did not go in much for the whole conspiracy angle of the film.  Whether it’s meant as a slight of hand by the filmmakers to momentarily distract us from the film’s inevitable direction or as a way to entertain audiences who wouldn't be entertained by the metaphysical elements of the film, I found it to be ultimately inconsequential to the film’s outcome and greatness.  Perhaps, also, the filmmakers meant to use it as an illustration of Jacob’s paranoia, another element of his descent into insanity.  However, if that were so, they didn’t need to validate his paranoia with the big twist reveal toward end.  I much prefer the more philosophical themes that otherwise predominate in this movie.

Most Memorable Scene

Wow.  What single moment can I pick in a film that is so effective that virtually every scene is traumatic?  To be honest the part that always has me wanting to look away (though I never can) is when Jacob is brought into what seems to be an innocuous hospital, only to be wheeled through a dark and caged hallway populated with characters that look like they were rejected from Tod Browning’s “Freaks” for being too… freaky.  He winds up helplessly strapped to an operating table, surrounded by eyeless surgeons with huge needles that insist that he is dead.  Unfortunately, my description doesn’t do it justice.  I can only say it is one of the most frightening moments ever captured on film.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

ORPHEUS (1950)

A.K.A.: Orphée

Country: France

Genre(s): Drama / Fantasy

Director: Jean Cocteau

Cast: Jean Marais / Maria Casares / Marie Déa

Plot

*spoiler alert*

In this update of the Ancient Greek legend, the well-known poet Orpheus meets Death personified in the form of a beautiful, mysterious Princess.  Obsessed with her and the messages he believes she is communicating to him through his car radio, he is oblivious when his wife Eurydice is killed.  Distraught, he ventures into the Underworld, unsure which woman, Eurydice or the Princess, he hopes to find.

What I Liked

Despite its age, the first thing anyone will notice about this movie is its visual effects.  Yes, they are mostly dated techniques that are easy to figure out for a viewer today; some of them were even dated back in 1950.  However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t entertaining or even convincing.  Director Jean Cocteau really made use of a whole menagerie of tricks to create some striking illusions and effects, giving his film the surreal quality the story calls for.  People walk through mirrors.  They fall sideways along walls.  They pass through passageways without walking.  They rise from the dead.  Many of these striking visuals happen at unexpected times, a strategy that keeps the eye intrigued from beginning to end.

A couple of entries ago, I wrote about “Pan’s Labyrinth,” a magnificent 2006 film to which “Orpheus” now feels like a revered ancestor both in style and in theme.  I wrote that “Pan’s Labyrinth” was a “tribute to the childhood imagination” and a “treatise on the power of belief.”  The same could be said of “Orpheus.”  Indeed, Cocteau himself nearly declares this to be true with the narrated introduction to the film, which translates to, “A legend is entitled to be beyond time and place.”  Like another of Cocteau's adaptations from legend, "Beauty and the Beast," this is a mesmerizing piece of fantasy, full of symbols and magic.

What I Didn’t Like

Thank god for the visual effects too, because without them “Orpheus” would be a dreadful bore.  The film moves at a deliberate pace.  Many scenes feel repetitious.  None of the characters are particularly likeable or even interesting, except perhaps the unknowable Princess Death.  The story is about as old as old stories can get and the filmmaker’s add little new to it, except to modernize the settings and a few details for the twentieth century.

Most Memorable Scene

There is a lot of blatant use of visual effects, but one of the more subtle scenes occurs once Orpheus and his guide Heurtebise arrive at their destination in the Underworld, the trial of Princess Death.  There are some nifty tricks of the camera here to make the otherworldliness of the setting convincing.  This is also one of the more interesting moments of the plot, where a love triangle turns in a love square and each character receives his or her sentence.  Their crime: bending the laws of life and death for love.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

HIGH SIERRA (1941)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Crime / Drama

Director: Raoul Walsh

Cast: Humphrey Bogart / Ida Lupino / Joan Leslie

Plot

Freed from prison, infamous Chicago bank robber “Mad Dog” Earle heads to California to lead a volatile crew of younger crooks on one last job.

What I Liked

The gangster film came into its own in the 1930s, as claustrophobic urban dramas usually constructed around the bloody rise and equally bloody fall of an energetic young psychopath amid a backdrop of alleyways, nightclubs, and gambling dens.  The cities in which these films take place seem trapped in perpetual night and populated only with depraved souls.  I admit, I love films like that.

That said, I also love a film that can break a mold and “High Sierra” did just that, dragging the gangster film out into the California sunlight and turning it into a road movie of sorts, if not a full on western.  In a way, it makes sense.  Westerns of a certain type have a lot in common with gangster films, in that they both can focus on ill-fated anti-heroes and have us rooting for the bad guy over the straight-laced lawmen in pursuit.  “High Sierra” brings out those similarities and effectively blurs the lines between the two classic American film genres, particularly with its iconic climax.

Also defying convention is the character of Roy Earle, played by Humphrey Bogart.  Yes, Earl is a compelling anti-hero much like the film gangsters who preceded him.  However, Earle differs from the crime bosses of “Public Enemy,” “Little Caesar,” or “Scarface,” in that he’s not a young hothead looking to take on the world.  Earle is a world-weary, cynical crook who wants nothing to do with the world at all, a ground-breaking character for the era.  For a guy like Roy Earle, there's no rise and fall; life is just a series of falls.  It’s a role that helped make Bogart a household name.  Ironically, for this film, the relative unknown received second billing to the then bigger name of Ida Lupino, who is convincing as Marie, one of the first genuine femme fatales of American film.  Today, Lupino is criminally forgotten by the general public.  Meanwhile, Bogart would become the world’s most famous movie star off of perfecting the Roy Earle persona in other films.

What I Didn’t Like

Well-acted, unconventional, and character driven, “High Sierra” will be a treat for those looking for more than shoot ‘em up action in their gangster movies.  However, that also means that, of all the classic gangster pictures I’ve seen thus far, this is undoubtedly the slowest.  I have to admit that I yawned many-a-yawn as I watched first hour or so of this movie.  Its plot relies more upon the suspense of whether or not the heist will come off as planned or fall apart due to the squabbling of Earle’s inexperienced cohorts than it does upon tommy gun fire and fist fights.

There’s also a rather contrived love triangle involving Earle, Marie, and unattainable good girl Velma (played by Joan Leslie).  Though both good actors, Bogart and Leslie have very little on screen chemistry and some of the romantic lines written for them are too sappy to stomach.  Thus, one never feels that doe eyed Velma is really a threat to steal Earle away from the worldly wiles of Marie.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

Thankfully, the movie picks up considerably in the third act.  We’re treated to a dramatic heist, an eye-catching chase scene, and finally a classic, you’ll-never-take-me-alive western-style showdown when Earle is cornered in the mountains by the police.  The inevitability of the end is never in doubt – indeed, it’s a foregone conclusion almost from the film's outset.  But that’s not the point, the point is we can’t take our eyes away from the screen as one of filmdom’s most compelling gangsters fights tragically on, alone against an army of coppers.


My Rating: 3.5 out of 5

PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006)

A.K.A.: El Laberinto Del Fauno

Country: Spain / Mexico / U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama / Fantasy / Horror / War

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Ivana Baquero / Sergi Lopez / Maribel Verdu

Plot

Traveling into the Spanish wilderness to stay with her step-father (A fascist Army officer who uses brutal methods to hunt down rebels), young Ophelia discovers a vast labyrinth, in which lives Pan, a mystical creature who tells her she is actually a magical princess.  Pan gives her three tasks to complete, which lead to fantastical, often horrifying, adventures that have equally frightening repercussions in the “real” world.

What I Liked

Director Guillermo del Toro has turned out some of the best (if not the very best) dark fantasy films of the past fifteen-or-so years and “Pan’s Labyrinth” is probably his masterpiece.  The quintessential del Toro film, it is at various times quirky, terrifying, awe-inspiring, opulent, and stark, sometimes all at once.  Thematically, the film is a tribute to the childhood imagination, which, if one cares to remember their childhood imaginings honestly, were colorful and inspiring, but also frightening and creepy.  But there is a philosophical complexity in the story, about how the imagination can affect reality and about the power of mythology.  It is both a sumptuous escapist fantasy and a Jungian treatise on the power of belief.

The whole film is an exercise in attention to detail.  The visuals are darkly sumptuous, saturated with layers upon layers of colors and textures.  The costume, makeup, and CGI are all awe-inspiring, making one want to rewind and pause scenes just to take a longer look at how intricately executed they are.  Even the intense focus on the sound of the film mesmerizes, using minutiae like footsteps and the wind to add to the film’s mysterious beauty.  I've truly seen nothing else quite like this movie.

Even looking past the film’s astounding fantastic elements, the more down-to-Earth war drama that operates almost as a frame story has some seriously suspenseful drama.  Actor Sergi Lopez is the greatest asset to these scenes as an absolutely despicable villain, Captain Vidal.

What I Didn’t Like

“Pan’s Labyrinth” truly does have a little something for everybody: fantasy, romance, war, comedy, action, and drama.  I’m not typically one for fantasy films, but there really is nothing to complain about.  This truly is a movie I’ll remember as long as I’m able to remember anything.  Which brings us to…

Most Memorable Scene

For all of its stunningly inventive renderings of fantastical creatures (the Pale Man in particular is a nightmarish treat) the most horrible of its monsters is the human one, Lopez’s Captain Vidal.  His brutality is shocking from the first moment it appears and only escalates from there, culminating in a couple of scenes of imprisonment and torture inside a barn that solidify his deserving status as one of the most effective movie villains of the twenty-first century thus far.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

EARTH (1930)

A.K.A.: Zemlya

Country: U.S.S.R.

Genre(s): Drama / Propaganda

Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko

Cast: Semen Svashenko / Stepan Shkurat / Yulia Solntseva

Plot

The arrival of a tractor in a close-knit farming community promises prosperity for the peasants, prompting retaliation from the land owners.

What I Liked

Considered one of the earliest classics in the Soviet style, “Earth” does have the same bold symbolism present in a lot of communist propaganda.  Even the composition of the figures in the frame evokes memories of Soviet flags, posters, and other media.  I suppose one shouldn’t praise propaganda.  However, there’s no denying the power of certain images and Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s “Earth” finds much of its strength in presenting the strength and dignity in what others might find common or boring.  Most noticeable are the farmers themselves, dressed in the dingy, plain clothes of their profession, but imbued by the filmmakers with nobility obviously lacking in the capitalist landowners.  The same nobility is present in the livestock as well; even cows are presented as possessing a certain pastoral pride.

Dovzhenko uses a broad palette of creative choices and technical approaches to convey emotions and messages inside a deceptively simple story.  Initially, the changes in style might make the film feel stylistically uneven, but the different cinematic and editing techniques were blended together in a way that was both intentional and influential.  From long close-ups of the burdened faces of the farmers, to swift-cutting montages displaying the manufacture of bread following the arrival of modern technology, he and cinematographer Danylo Demutsky established much about the language of future filmmaking in the U.S.S.R. and elsewhere.

What I Didn’t Like

Taking place in what is modern day Ukraine, the film’s plot and message were steeped in the politics of its day, as Joseph Stalin was throwing governmental and military support behind communal farming in the region, ousting the private landowners who had controlled the farms for generations, even after the 1917 Russian Revolution.  On the surface, Dovzhenko’s message seems to be in line with Stalin’s.  He shows the communists as hard-working and sincere while the capitalists are lazy and deceitful.  However, by the film’s conclusion, there is the very veiled hint of subversive criticism present in the actions of the farmers.  The film was funded by the Soviet government, who intended it to be propaganda for their cause.  Dovzhenko presented his completed film to them as such, but even the government felt uneasy about what they saw.  Today, the mixed messages feel even more vague and, thanks to nearly a century of time in between then and now, also trivial.

Then again, as a 1930 film about Russian intervention in Ukrainian politics, maybe the film is more poignant today than I give it credit for.

A silent film with few title cards to tell us what’s being said, and one that uses a great deal of shots of livestock and crops, a great deal of “Earth” seemed incomprehensible and interminably long.  Yes, the images can still evoke some compelling emotions, but the basic plot, outdated political background, and unconventional execution made the film a chore to watch for this modern viewer.  I recommend it only for those avidly interested in Soviet history or film history.

Most Memorable Scene

The arrival of a tractor, likely the first piece of modern machinery many of these people have laid eyes on, is given a prominent place in the film’s story and overall length.  The ecstatic faces of the farmers, their families, and even their livestock are shown repeatedly in ever quickening succession as the tractor slowly makes its way down a dirt road to greet them, effectively passing along the sense of suspense to the viewer.  It is one of the few sequences that managed to keep this modern viewer’s attention from start to finish and is immediately followed by one of the film’s most iconic moments, when a group of the men symbolically urinate into the tractor’s radiator before setting it to work in their fields.

My Rating: 2 out of 5