I am a jaded viewer of modern horror films.
I got my driver's license near the dawn of the big movies-on-video-tape boom (1985), so you better believe I spent more than a few nights traveling to the video store in my small hometown and loading up my arms with movies that spewed guts and bad vibes all over my bedroom floor. Long before I could get behind a wheel of a car and drive myself to the Bugtussell Animal Feed and Video Cassette Tape Rental Store for a long perusal of their vast horror film section, my father was sweet enough (I think he was totally unaware of what sort of hell he was going to have to sit through) to take a chum and I to see the first Friday the 13th film at the local drive-in! I remember being much more impressed with the delightfully odd film that played before it. The Redeemer: Son of Satan!
I recommend this film highly!
The trailer only focused the prospective popcorn muncher's (or quaalude taker's - this was the late 70s, after all) eyeballs on the typical elements of the slasher genre. BUT! Believe me, this was not your typical slice-up-the-young-people sort of thing. There is not one, but two clowns. There is a boy with a second thumb who rises from a river. Is the boy the minister? Is the minister the killer? What is the past and what is the present? And what is with the second thumb that appears and vanishes? What seems to be a run-of-the-mill revenge film turns out to be something much more colorful, weird and filled to the brim with images out of a horrible opium dream. It was not only deeply hilarious to me at the time, but also so odd, disturbing and original enough to my young orbs that it stuck and still sticks all gruesome-like in my craw to this very day.
I still pull it off the shelf every now and again to wow a pal who needs a bit 1970's cinematic, funkiness in their lives. It's now out on DVD for the whole world to gawk in disbelief.
All in all, I viewed a gut wagon full of horror films in the 80's. I am all slashed-out. I find no thrill in seeing young folks being mutilated in creative ways. Are CGI entrails really that much better than the goo Tom Savini fashions with his own hands? Is there a grander form of sexism being spewed by the modern horror flick? Will a film finally make me toss my cookies, shit in my pants and write my congress person? Is there something new out there lurking in the dark?
When I pop a new horror film into my DVD player I hope for something that will give that "The Redeemer: Son of Satan!" sort of thrill. For me, the last film that reached it's hand of the water and grabbed me by the throat was a little number by this young dude.
OK, the film is no magic mushroom murder party with a flame-throwing, grinning Howdy Doody-lookin’ doll like The Redeemer, but this grim shocker succeeds because it gets all moussed up and kicks it old school, as in 1980’s old-timey terror.
I’m not going to say anything about the plot, but I bet you might have seen bits of it before - way back when your jeans were stone-washed and your hair was feathered. Here are some words and phrases to wet your whistle: a nice babysitter trapped in a secluded house, the awful suspense of one, lonesome land-line, outbursts of horrid bloody violence, Satan, Mary Woronov, the malevolent puss of Tom Noonan...Does a little of this make you think back to a time when your older, brainy neighbor could program his Commodore 64 computer to play brittle electronic tunes and David Brenner was a guest host of the Tonight Show? THE best Thomas Dolby tune ("One of Our Submarines") is heard coming from one of the doomed women’s car radios. Now that is cool.
Then again, you might be the same age as the director. He was three years old when us Kids (now middle-aged, bald and filled with bitterness) in America first heard about the woman who blinded Mr. Dolby with science. The point (it’s about time, old man) is that this young director understands that in order to achieve some righteous moments of fright you must set your horror film in the 80’s.
I hope you don’t misunderstand me. I do not long for a return to the 1980’s.
The underground was awesome, but the pop junk that was on the surface was just as soft and flimsy as the pop poop that folks lap up nowadays. BUT. There were no cell-phones and no internet. You could not twit your thoughts on Tweeter. You could not let every damn one of your friends know in a matter of seconds what record spins upon your stereo. If you were out yonder where the cows wander and the phone in the home you are hanging dies and...the Thing that drools in the attic decides it wants to feast upon your soda-pop-sweetened entrails...well, then you are fucked good.
We were certainly spoon-fed pop culture back then via the boob tube, but it was much easier to unplug from the constant flow of information. Fear comes from being absolutely disconnected, cut-off and out of reach.
Isolated.
In a strange house.
With only one phone.
It is a simple recipe for endless terror. It’s certainly more fun than the my-cell-phone-battery-is-dead plot device. The rotary phone is an awesome prop for suspense. The taut tension in the spinning of the dial. Especially if the number had lots of zeroes.
Think about it.
When the phone, TV and radio were dead back in the 80’s, it was much easier for the Unknown things to crawl out of the silence.
There is a different sort of horror that comes from being too plugged in to the world. This is certainly The Age of Anxiety. See the film Bug for a bit of this idea.
Be sure to check out the interviews with the four other young directors (Adam Green , Paul Solet, Jim Mickle and Adam Wingard) over there at Twitch...the future of horror looks dark and that’s good.
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