Fish Don’t Carry Guns: Dagon (2001)

Two American couples, vacationing on a yacht somewhere off the coast of Spain, run into trouble when a violent storm rages in and tosses the vessel onto a rock. The younger couple, Barbara (Macarena Gomez) and Paul (Ezra Godden), take a dingy to the mainland for help while the other couple (the skipper and his injured wife) stay aboard the sinking craft and hope for the best. Paul and Barbara reach the shore and find themselves wandering the serpentine streets of an ancient fishing village looking for someone to help. A group of very strange fishermen offer to take Paul back to the yacht to save the others, while Barbara stays behind with the village priest. But when Paul returns to the yacht, the water has flooded the interior of the craft and his two friends are nowhere to be found. Paul returns to the village, which is now cloaked in night and the fury of the storm, to retrieve Barbara and to find somewhere warm and comfortable to gather his thoughts. Unfortunately, Barbara has disappeared from the hotel she was supposedly staying in and no one in the village—including the priest—seems able to help. Soon, it’s obvious to Paul that the villagers are not exactly . . . human. Chased, beaten, clawed, and generally freaked out, Paul meets up with an old man (Francisco Rabal) who has been living among the creatures since his youth, and the two of them team-up against the horrible tide of amphibious monsters.

Director Stuart Gordon, the man responsible for some of the most enjoyable B-movies of the last couple of decades (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Fortress), here gets a chance to finally realize his dream of bringing H. P. Lovecraft’s classic short story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” to the big screen, with a little borrowed from the story “Dagon” as well. Rich in visual ideas and suspense, Dennis Paoli’s screenplay is also the first on-screen Lovecraft adaptation that has convincingly contained a truly passive protagonist in the Lovecraft mold. Un-heroic, scared, and generally irritating, Paul nevertheless becomes courageous by being forced into getting out of increasingly dire situations. He has no choice but to react and fight, even though his natural instinct is to curl into a little ball and cry. And though Lovecraft himself would’ve no doubt loathed Gordon’s gleeful depictions of aberrant sex, explicit gore, and other Grand Guignol delectations, Dagon is faithful to Lovecraft’s overall mood of cosmic nihilism. It isn’t perfect, but until a director more attuned to Lovecraft’s philosophical ideas and epic visuals (or until a major studio decides to fund such an obvious big budget endeavor) comes around, Dagon will do just fine.

Available on DVD from Lion's Gate Home Entertainment.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland

Lynda Rucker, my partner in crime, and our dear friend Dave Schwartz have both recently posted great pieces on their respective web sites/blogs. Check out Lynda's January 12th post about some of the excellent crime fiction she's been reading:

http://www.sff.net/people/lyndaerucker/books2005.html

And Dave writes about re-visiting director John Woo's gun fu orgy of bullets, Hard Boiled:

http://journalscape.com/snurri/2005-01-15-16:18

Build My Gallows High, Baby: Out of the Past (1947)

It’s like a battle of the mugs—Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, squared-off and tussling for domination of femme fatale Jane Greer. Sure, supposedly it’s about money, but we know what it’s really about. Doughboy syndicate thug Whit Sterling (Douglas) hires private dick Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) to track down the lovely and ethically-challenged Kathie Moffat (Greer). Bailey takes the job and travels down Mexico way to stalk his wild prey. But once he finds Moffat in Acapulco, he falls head over heels in love with her and quicker than you can say “Doh!” Bailey and Moffat flee to San Francisco to start a new life far away from the clutches of Sterling and his goons. Riveting stuff, to be sure, and that’s only the first half-hour. To say any more would be murder. The rest is pure cinematic pleasure; the kind of movie making Hollywood sure doesn’t care about today. I’m not even sure they could make it even if they tried. Director Taylor Hackford tried to re-make the film—as Against All Odds—back in 1984 with Jeff Bridges in the Mitchum role, James Woods substituting as Douglas, and the horribly miscast Rachel Ward standing in for Jane Greer (who also has a bit cameo in the film). The whole affair was dreary pseudo-noir with a sunny California twist.

Out of the Past is the quintessential film noir. A palpable sense of doom and self-destruction haunt every frame, pulling the viewer down into the inevitable blackness awaiting bad guy gone good, Bailey. At the beginning of the film, when Bailey’s past comes back to smack him in the kisser, we almost believe him when he tells his small town girlfriend Ann (Virginia Huston) that he’s just a normal guy, a good guy who’s content running a little gas station in Nowhereville, California. But by the end of Bailey’s confession—he tells Ann about his wicked, wicked past while the two drive up to Sterling’s Lake Tahoe abode—we know he’s lying. Bailey still hungers for Moffat, still hungers for the lifestyle of booze, tawdry sex, and violence that fueled him for so many misbegotten years. Snappy dialogue, crisp direction from Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Curse of the Demon, and Nightfall, among many others), co-star Rhonda Fleming (her brief appearance just oozes sex), and fabulous performances easily make this film the classic that it is.

Available on DVD from Warner Home Video.

Comfortably Numb: Thriller—A Cruel Picture a.k.a. They Call Her One Eye (1974)

After being wined and dined by a slick, savvy, Swedish playboy (i.e. pimp), teenage Madeleine (Christina Lindberg) is forced into a life of prostitution and heroin addiction. Tony the pimp (Heinz Hopf) controls Madeleine’s every move, and even disfigures her beautiful face by plucking out her eye when she refuses to comply with servicing a “john.” But when one-eyed Madeleine learns that Tony has sent hate-filled letters to her rural parents--which subsequently break their hearts and propel them to kill themselves--she focuses to emancipate herself from the tyranny of victimization through the holy communion of kung fu, learning how to drive a car “faster than any man,” and the baptism of the shotgun. Violence equals freedom for the eye-patch wearing assassin and let all who oppose her drown in streamers of slow-mo blood.

In many ways, Thriller is the ultimate revenge, exploitation picture, and it’s obvious why it strongly influenced Quentin Tarantino for his marvelous, though radically tamer Kill Bill films. Brutal, sleazy, and oddly poetic, Thriller manages to exhilarate the viewer as much as confound. Director Bo Arne Vibenius (who was Ingmar Bergman’s assistant director on Persona and Hour of the Wolf) films the proceedings in a rather curious, cold, deadpan Swedish style that ultimately castrates our demand for cinematic catharsis. By the end, we’re left feeling a bit soiled and numb. Nevertheless, it’s a deliciously satisfying guilty pleasure.

Available on DVD from Synapse-Films.

The First One is Always Free

Nightmare Town the journal of film, books, music & more is officially out and you can get your grubby little claws on it by emailing me directly, or if you live in the Portland area, you can pick one up at Cinema 21 (616 NW 21st Avenue), Trilogy Video (2325 NW Thurman), and at Twenty-Third Avenue Books (1015 NW 23rd Avenue). It will be available in some other spots around town as well, hopefully soon. And the first issue (#0 the Preview Issue) is FREE! So what are you waiting for? Drop me a line or pick one up at any of the above places.