The Host

The Host (South Korea, 2006) * * * *
D: Joon-Ho Bong

Some critics, in struggling to describe the chameleonic (or maybe chimera-like) The Host, simply call it a comedy, or a horror-comedy. But like John Landis' An American Werewolf in London, The Host is a monster movie that just happens to be pretty funny. It's a satire, but it has teeth, so to speak, and real dramatic weight. The remake rights have been purchased by Universal, and you can bet that the American version will get it all wrong. It has a particular, sublime tone, as precise as the narrowly-won bull's-eyes you see archer Nam-Joo scoring in competition at the film's beginning. One twitch and your arrow would fly far from the mark.

She's the sister of Gang-Du, a middle-aged, somewhat dimwitted slacker not averse to giving his adolescent daughter, Hyun-seo, a cold beer while they watch Nam-Joo compete on television. Gang-Du is the shame of the Park family, which also includes his brother Nam-il, a former campus revolutionary, and his protective father, Hie-bong. One day--which is only prepared for in some sketchy but effective opening scenes involving chemical dumping and a mysterious fish caught (and then accidentally released again) in the Han River--a giant, mutant, two-legged amphibian erupts from the water and storms through a park, crushing or swallowing anyone in its path. Gang-Du attempts to flee with his daughter, but in the chaos and confusion grabs the hand of the wrong girl; when he looks behind him, he sees Hyun-seo lifted from the ground by a massive, tentacle-like tail, then taken into the river along with the beast. It's not precisely his fault, but his brother and sister are quick to blame Gang-Du, who has always been perceived as the underachieving runt of the Park clan. Korean military begin to quarantine anyone exposed to the creature, believing a related virus is on the loose, and this includes Gang-Du, who was splashed with the monster's blood (while bravely trying to kill it, but never mind--Gang-Du never mentions it, and no one would believe him anyway). It's while in this quarantine that he receives a call from his daughter, who can only let out that she's in "a big sewer" before her cell phone battery dies. Operating from so little information, the Parks stage an escape, then an infiltration into the supposedly contaminated zone in an attempt to rescue Hyun-seo. The problem is they're a bickering, dysfunctional family (I'm sure the guy who pitched it to Universal said, "It's like 'Alien' meets 'Little Miss Sunshine!'"). Although they heavily arm themselves while penetrating into the vast, grimy sewers in search of the missing girl, and tentatively set aside their differences in favor of a clannish loyalty, in The Host nothing goes off just as it should, and every expectation is subverted. There's a big pay-off in the finale, but along the way even the most heroic characters will be broken or tossed aside in the wake of two terrifying monsters: the river-dwelling "host," which seems to be collecting its half-digested victims like souvenirs, and the government itself, which insists there's a virus to justify taking extreme measures against the public--even though little evidence surfaces that the virus actually exists.

About that tone: some critics are calling it a comedy because, well, there are pratfalls, sight gags, and some truly black humor (note the context of a punctured beer can's reappearance late in the film). Although the suspense setpieces are up to the best of Steven Spielberg, the offbeat satire calls to mind Terry Gilliam's Brazil, or even his work with Monty Python. But don't overlook the emotional core of the film, which comes from a family unit shifting from the macrocosmic--the Parks--to the microcosmic: the one Hyun-seo forms with another young captive of the monster, and the one Gang-Du forms in the soft-spoken epilogue, more stable and secure in the wake of a major loss. The Host is most obviously about environmental pollution--hell, the climax is so engulfed in clouds of chemicals that you'll feel like choking--and of course it's also about the tyrannical overreaction of governments exploiting disaster. But most of all, and most unexpectedly, The Host is a monster movie about families, and the complicated way they can tear each other apart, and then repair themselves into something of a different shape: as formidable as any beast.

A Panic Prayer: Viva La Muerte

Viva La Muerte (France, 1971) * * *
D: Fernando Arrabal

Viva La Muerte belongs on the shelf between Bunuel's Viridiana and Pasolini's Salo, but it is by far the angriest film I have ever seen. Shot during Franco's regime, there is no way it could have been filmed in Spain (it was shot in Tunisia instead). Consider the scene in which a group of well-dressed students turn a corner to find themselves standing before a firing squad. The guns ignite. The boys fall...except one, who stands, a bullet in his stomach, shouting "I'm saved! I'm not dead!" "It's the poet," says the captain. "The faggot. Finish him off up the ass." He places his gun behind the poet and fires. The victim is identified as none other than Frederico Garcia Lorca (killed in 1936), a man who could not even be discussed in Spain at the time this film was made.

This moment, like all of the film, is witnessed through the subjective gaze of young Fando (Mahdi Chaouch), who has recently learned that his mother (Nuria Espert) reported his father to Franco's partisans on suspicion of his leftist ideas. He has died in prison--a suicide, his mother claims belatedly. Fando doesn't believe it for a moment. Viva La Muerte, the first film directed by playwright Fernando Arrabal, becomes a kaleidoscopic vision of the boy's inner rage at his mother (as well as confused lust), uncle, schoolteacher, and Franco himself. He is surrounded by murders, denials, and repression, and his torment is reflected in feverish, harshly tinted daydreams full of imagery that is funny, shocking, and horrifying, by turns (or at once). Standing before a lighthouse on a high hill, he pisses in the direction of the village and dreams that he's flooding the whole town. He imagines his priest getting his testicles cut off by soldiers and being forced to devour them (and thanking God for the opportunity). He sees his schoolteacher as a pig in a habit, or his mother wallowing with him in the mud. But most often he sees his mother murdering his father in various ways, and the thought consumes him so entirely that it seems to feed directly into an illness, which gets him sequestered upon a boat with other sick boys. And the fantasies and nightmares continue.

Fando was first glimpsed in celluloid as a young adult in Alejandro Jodorowsky's Arrabal adaptation, Fando y Lis (1968). Jodorowsky filmed the allegorical play without a script, working from memory; he was a good friend of Arrabal's, and with cartoonist Rolond Topor, whose illustrations are featured in Viva La Muerte, they had formed the Panic Movement in 1962. The group performed interactive street theater and valued shock and extreme imagery as a means of making their intellectual ideas viscerally experienced by the audience. Viva La Muerte is perhaps the best example of Panic, with its constant onslaught of unfettered anger and taboo-violating imagery (animals are killed on camera, and feces, blood, and incest figure prominently). It's a difficult film to watch--physically. But it's also upsetting on a political and an emotional level: Arrabal intends all of these reactions at once. This is a bomb lobbed directly at Franco's nose. There is a through-line with poor Fando which may carry you far, and it's worthwhile to take the trip to its very end. If you don't, I'll tell you what you missed: the final image is of Fando, wrapped in bandages from his surgery, carried out of Spain by the girl he loves (Lis?) on a cart--entering the wilderness of Fando y Lis. It seems to imply that it's a prequel, but in fact offers a looking-glass image of the earlier film, in which Lis is the cripple, and borne by Fando (who, despite his professed love, tortures and betrays her at every opportunity). It may help to understand that Fando is, of course, Fernando Arrabal, and if Fando y Lis takes place on a more psychological landscape, Viva La Muerte may be more strictly autobiographical. He was born in 1932, and witnessed the Spanish Civil War as a child. Don't look for illumination on the DVD's interview, however; he answers every question in the most abstract manner possible while positioning a chair in front of his face. Where was this shot? "In Tunisia, but I wanted to film in Atlantis. Or my mother's womb." And what is it all about? "It's a prayer." Well, that at least makes sense, but it's the most savage prayer you could imagine.

Day 4: The 2007 Wisconsin Film Festival

Madeinusa (Peru, 2006) * * *
D: Claudia Llosa

Almost (though not quite) a work of magical realism, Madeinusa is a film that's bound to win over more admiration than outright love, if only because it intentionally distances the viewers from its characters. Set in a fictional village in the mountains of Peru, and told equally through the eyes of the mayor's virginal daughter, Madeinusa, and the drifter Salvador who wanders into town, it divides its time--and its heart--between the insider and the outsider. Madeinusa is taking part in a village ritual called the "Holy Time," when, according to their beliefs, God is "dead" and they may sin freely (one local handily--and sleeplessly--keeps track of the Holy Time, minute by minute, by running a manually-operated clock in the village square). As part of this ritual, a virgin (in this case, Madeinusa) is to be handed over to the mayor for deflowering. No one questions that it's her own father--not even her sister, Chale, who only fights for her father's attention. Salvador is perplexed by the customs of the town, but is too curiously indifferent to act as a surrogate for the audience; he does want to help Madeinusa escape, but out of pity more than anything else. Meanwhile, after packing an effigy of Jesus away, the village indulges in wanton, sometimes reckless behavior, and the mayor focuses his resentment and jealousy upon Salvador. Director Claudia Llosa dwells on the casual cruelty of those who behave for purely selfish reasons. Everyone acts out of a desire to possess--even innocent Madeinusa, who prizes her earrings above all else. What you end up with is a fable laced with a bit of rat poison. It's potent, disturbing, and fascinating.

Red Road (U.K., 2006) * * * 1/2
D: Andrea Arnold

By turns unsettling, tense, and moving, Andrea Arnold's thriller Red Road sets up a Rear Window scenario: a security guard (Kate Dickie) each day sits at a terminal surrounded by monitors, operating the security cameras, zooming in on pixilated faces and scanning for anything that could be reported to the police; by chance, one day, she sees a familiar face, and with a little bit of research discovers that he is indeed a convict who's been recently paroled. She begins to take an intense interest in the ex-con, going so far as to follow him around on foot, and even invite herself into one of his parties. The impetus behind her obsessive behavior isn't clear until late in the film. We do know she's looking for dirt that might get him thrown back into prison, but as she becomes drawn into her life, his sexual attraction to her is strangely reciprocated. When the connections become clear, and the behavior understood, everything you've seen up to this point takes on a completely different meaning. Arnold lights her film with glowing red hues, and maintains the color motif from the ex-con's red hair to the foxes that offer up howls in the night that sound like imperiled screams. (The motif reaches its critical mass during the film's graphic sex scene, when all the colors seem to merge and the screen seems to radiate in red.) Although the convict seems to be the fox on the prowl, it's actually the woman who stalks him, rarely breaking her penetrating stare, and following her hunt to extreme lengths. I can only see so many of the films at the festival, but I'd imagine this is one of the best, building Hitchcockian suspense without ever breaking its gritty realism or modest moments of humanity.

Day 3, Part 2: The 2007 Wisconsin Film Festival

All the Days Before Tomorrow (U.S., 2006) * * 1/2
D: François Dompierre

Scholarly, introverted Wes (Joey Kern) has a friendship with polar opposite Alison (Alexandra Holden) which borders on the intimate, but never crosses the line. On a trip to Utah, which is told in extended flashbacks in this film's jigsaw-puzzle structure, they approach that line just about as closely as they can, testing the boundary with their tacit mutual attraction. Interspersed with these scenes are those set in the present (as Alison seeks to resume their friendship with a reluctant Wes), what may or may not be their future (as a happy couple), and in dreams where Wes discusses metaphysics with a mysterious man played by Richard Roundtree (Shaft!). Despite Roundtree's presence, ninety percent of the film is just Wes talking to Alison--usually about nothing important--and there are moments of real wit, warmth, and honesty. But there's also dialogue that seems forced, overly "quirky," and phony, and it should be obvious to all (well, except my wife, who loved this movie) that the dream sequences serve no function and really have to go. It makes sense that first-time director Dompierre began this as a short film for his thesis, then expanded it to feature length: there's a lot of padding here. On the other hand, the cinematography is beautiful--particularly those scenes shot in the valleys around Moab, Utah--as are the leads, who are easy enough to watch for two hours. He's a director worth watching, but this story has been told many times before; I recommend Mutual Appreciation for a superior take on the premise.

Finishing the Game (U.S., 2007) * 1/2
D: Justin Lin

Here's a great premise for a mockumentary in the Christopher Guest vein: a group of wannabe actors and martial artists gather to audition as the body double for the recently-deceased Bruce Lee in his unfinished film, Game of Death. It's an opportunity to parody the bizarre Bruceploitation period of the 1970's, when actors such as Bruce Le and Bruce Li attempted to steal Lee's throne through the sheer power of confusion. And if you'd have asked me before seeing the film, I would've told you that Justin Lin was a pretty good choice. Lin is best known for the indie hit Better Luck Tomorrow, which he used to transition into a studio career (directing the Fast and the Furious sequel as well as Annapolis); Finishing the Game would seem like a natural way to recapture his indie roots with a premise that could cross over to a larger audience. But it becomes quickly apparent that Lin is not the man for the job: he just doesn't have a sensibility for comic material. In fact, it's very unfunny, in a sort of remarkable way. Despite a few clever ideas (like a casting director who dominates the weak-willed director), most of the humor is self-satisfied, sophomoric, and pretty stupid. Unless you really loved Burn, Hollywood, Burn! An Alan Smithee Film, stay far, far away.

Day 3, Part 1: The 2007 Wisconsin Film Festival

So far today (more to come later)...

Son of Man (South Africa, 2006) * * * *
D: Mark Dornford-May

Set in "Judea, Afrika," this exhilarating film squeezes the life of Jesus into one 90-minute film set in a contemporary African landscape. The screenplay pretty much sticks to the source material, to the point of often using King James poetry, but what transports the film into a higher sphere is the clever way it tells its overly-familiar story: Herod is a dictator with automatic-toting soldiers; brief snippets from a news broadcast offer updates on the political chaos the country is passing through; when Jesus (Andile Kosi) raises Lazarus, it's shot on camcorder like a hastily-captured moment to air later on a Dateline NBC special on miracles. But little of this film is ironic. The emphasis is on the story and power-to-the-people political transformation, and the most clever switch of all--involving the crucifixion--offers a modern twist that really means something. Dornford-May, a British opera director whose South African adaptation of Carmen, U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, is also screening at WIFF this weekend, here de-emphasizes the music (although there is some) in favor of blistering, stylish cinematic storytelling. (His Carmen star, Pauline Malefane, appears in a smaller role here as Mary, but she co-wrote the screenplay and much of the music.) In short: it's great, and hopefully it will find a wider audience.

A WIFF Intermission: Duck Soup Cinema

The Navigator (U.S., 1924) * * * *
D: Buster Keaton & Donald Crisp

Hey, is it my fault they scheduled Duck Soup Cinema right smack in the middle of the Wisconsin Film Festival this year? It seems particularly odd given that the Capitol Theatre is now an official WIFF venue. At any rate, film festivals seem a bit more complete, to me, if a silent film is included, so it might be appropriate that I had the chance to add a little seasoning of Buster Keaton to my WIFF-scrambling this year. The opening hour of vaudeville was more eclectic than ever (an 11-year-old piano virtuoso and a UW swing dance troupe), and host Joe Thompson was joined onstage by Bucky the Badger for at least one high-concept gag (performing the fast-paced verbal jokes of "Who's on First" with a mute badger). The Keaton vehicle is one of his very best. Buster plays a bored playboy who finds himself lost at sea with a cute girl on a giant steamship called "The Navigator." At one point he swordfights a swordfish by using another swordfish. You can imagine this working in animation, but Keaton did it live in 1924, and it's wonderful. But back to the festival...

Day 2: The 2007 Wisconsin Film Festival

Young Frankenstein (U.S., 1974) * * * *
D: Mel Brooks

Friday night's 7pm screening of the Mel Brooks comedy classic Young Frankenstein was the first WIFF event held in the Capitol Theatre (formerly the more dignified-sounding Oscar Meyer Theatre), as WIFF director Meg Hammel noted in her introduction. She also noted that there were plenty of children in the audience, and was encouraged that there were parents willing to show their kids the wide scope of what cinema has to offer. Then began the movie with the sex jokes, the Marty Feldman mugging, and Gene Hackman as a blind hermit setting Peter Boyle's thumb on fire. What can you say? It's Young Frankenstein, and it works best with an audience (although the show was not sold out--there were many empty seats in the front). A couple of things I picked up on in this viewing: Teri Garr is one of the most underrated comic actresses of all time, and Gene Wilder screams throughout this entire film. There was only one technical glitch--after an early reel change, the projector played the film at the wrong speed, which bought us a little bit of time since we had a 9:15 screening to catch way down the street at the Cinematheque. As it was, we had to skip out on the last ten minutes of the film. As we ran down the street, we passed a few other WIFF-goers also talking excitedly about the films they'd seen so far.

Here is Always Somewhere Else (U.S./Netherlands, 2007) * * *
D: Rene Dalder

This fascinating documentary fleshes out the few sketchy details known about the Dutch artist Bas Jan Alder, a sublime painter, photographer, filmmaker, and performance artist who had a tendency to risk his own neck for his art; witness his final work, which he called "In Search of the Miraculous": he attempted an Atlantic crossing in a small sailboat--it would have been the smallest craft to have made the crossing--and never returned (the boat washed up off the coast of Ireland, but without Alder). Aaron Ohlmann, a former UW student who produced the film and shot much of its footage, brought to the screening a handful of Alder's short films, which mostly consist of Alder demonstrating the effects of gravity and plummeting from great heights. The documentary itself is deeply sympathetic to Alder's quest to pinpoint the most reckless creative moment in the creation of art, while maintaining enough distance to view his final feat with a touch of regret and sadness.

El Topo (Mexico, 1970) * * * 1/2
D: Alejandro Jodorowsky

A few years back I heard that notorious cult filmmaker, comic book scribe, and spiritual guru Alejandro Jodorowsky was travelling from France to Toronto for the rare screenings of his films The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre. He was there, actually, to make a very big announcement: after thirty-odd years of bitterly feuding with El Topo distributor (and withholder) Allen Klein, the two had finally reconciled, and now El Topo and The Holy Mountain would finally be officially released to home video in the United States--something which had never happened. Given that over the decades these shocking, surrealist films were impossible to view legally in the U.S., and subsequently had become legendary among cult film fans, this was an extraordinary thing. It turns out that when Jodorowsky and Klein finally confronted each other face to face, and saw that their full beards had gone completely gray, all resentment was cast aside and they embraced each other as old friends. Even so, a mysterious curse still seemed to hang over Jodorowsky's films: the rare Holy Mountain print had been stolen in transit, and as a substitute we had to watch the crummy Japanese DVD, censorship fogging intact. It's a few years later, and we're only a month away from the release of a U.S. DVD box set, which will contain pretty much everything a Jodorowsky freak like myself could want. El Topo and The Holy Mountain have been taken on a short repertory circuit, including a welcome stop at WIFF, where they will screen as a (daunting) double feature on Sunday night. But, like everyone else at Friday night's sold-out screening, I had to see it as it was intended to be seen--as a midnight movie. The story concerns a mysterious, black-clad gunfighter (Jodorowsky) who travels on horseback through the desert with his young son (Brontis Jodorowsky, later to star in Santa Sangre); he seeks to kill four Zen-like "gun masters" who dwell in the desert, and he's aided by two duplicitous women. This is the first half of the film. The second half, which takes place after the gunfighter's death, finds him reincarnated in the caverns below a mountain, where he helps a tribe of the diseased and the deformed climb into the sunlight--literally becoming a mole, but also a Christ-like savior. Wilfully naive, overtly symbolic, and full of extreme, shocking imagery, you will either love or hate this film, but you'll never forget it.

Day 1: The 2007 Wisconsin Film Festival

The Spirit of the Beehive (Spain, 1973) * * * *
D: Victor Erice

I'm seeing more movies at the Wisconsin Film Festival this year than in any previous year, but it was only today that I realized I'm seeing a curious amount of films from the 1970's. Most people go to film festivals to see new films, but I always end up gravitating toward the revivals. Some of my fondest WIFF memories over the last couple of years involve revivals--A Hard Day's Night with a Roger Ebert-hosted discussion afterward, Au Hasard Balthazar, and even Giant Spider Invasion. The Spirit of the Beehive I've seen before, but only on a battered old VHS tape from Four Star Video; the film had been unavailable for many years until Criterion's recent DVD release. To see it on the big screen--or, at any rate, the Cinematheque's screen--elevated my already high opinion of the film. This film is also one of those that undoubtedly gets richer upon each viewing. Set in a poor Castillian village in 1940, immediately following the Spanish Civil War, the story largely concerns two very young girls--Ana (Ana Torrent) and her slightly older sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria)--who live with their parents on the outskirts of town and on the edge of a deep, dark woods, and an expansive, empty field. It's a perfectly allegorical setting for a film that treats the subject of death with both painfully accurate realism, as the girls explore a youthful curiosity toward mortality, and striking beauty. As with the films of Bresson, Erice demonstrates how cinema can be more poetry than prose. At the start of the film, we see the village gather excitedly when a print of James Whale's Frankenstein arrives in town; young and old watch in rapt attention, including Ana, who asks Isabel why the monster killed a girl, and why the monster itself was subsequently killed. Isabel concocts an improvised tall tale, convincing her that neither of them died (movies are fake, she says, echoing the "don't treat it too seriously" reassurances of Frankenstein's opening narrator), and that Frankenstein's monster is really an immortal spirit who lives in an abandoned building by the railroad tracks. This sets Ana on a journey to find the creature, as she looks fearlessly into death and wanders to the very limits of her surroundings. There isn't a frame of this film which isn't preoccupied with its central subject, and despite the film's deliberate pace, not a moment is wasted as it lures you into its world and brings you gradually to its brilliant final scene. It would make a fascinating double feature with Terry Gilliam's Tideland (2006), which evokes similar themes and images and also concerns a young girl, although the two films couldn't be more different in tone.

Radio On (U.K., 1979) * *
D: Christopher Petit

I didn't know what to expect of this fairly obscure British film, written and directed by a film critic for Time Out and photographed by Martin Schaefer, the late cinematographer of Wim Wenders' Kings of the Road. You would expect a Wenders style given the subject matter--a DJ sets off on a trip to Brighton after his brother is found there, dead in a bathtub--but in fact he doesn't spend too much time on the road, and despite some tonal similarities to early Wenders (in particular The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick), it seemed to me that director Christopher Petit was after Antonioni instead. This is trying to be L'Eclisse or The Passenger for the bitter, disenfranchised British youths of the late 70's. For all that, it's not bad, but hardly a lost classic. Lead actor David Beames would seem to have more charisma than this film will allow, as Petit fiercely holds him back, and asks him to spend quite a bit of the running time pacing with his hands in his trenchcoat, kicking at rocks. The effect is not that he's aimless or tormented, but that he's waiting for something to happen. Nothing much ever does. He picks up a strangely violent hitchhiker along the way--then amusingly tries to ditch him; he talks rock and roll with a very young Sting; he tries unsuccessfully to get into a Brighton club; he meets two German girls. It's all understated to the point of being affected. More interesting is the way the landscape seems to be almost post-apocalyptic, like something out of Children of Men. I almost wonder if the film would have been more interesting as a punk science fiction film. As it is, it could use a few more ideas. It feels like a student film, as Petit imitates his idols but fails to find their insights. The soundtrack, which is given prominent billing in the film, features David Bowie, Kraftwerk, and many more.

Grindhouse

Grindhouse (U.S., 2007) * * * *
D: Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino

Increasingly home theater enthusiasts are becoming disenchanted with the multiplex, even the art house, and are waiting patiently for films to arrive on home video so they can create an idealized theatrical experience in their tricked-out private-cinema basements. But Grindhouse, a raucous, off-the-rails collaboration between Austin auteurs Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, is meant to be seen in theaters: particularly a packed, late-night Friday showing like the one I attended last night. The premise is that it's a double feature of crass exploitation films, the kind that would play in an L.A. "grindhouse" theater in the 1970's: the first, "Planet Terror," a post-apocalyptic zombie action film by Rodriguez, the second a serial killer/muscle car flick, "Death Proof," by Tarantino; and it commits to the idea, with a total running time of over three hours, providing a full evening's entertainment--perfect for bored teenagers who want to get away from their parents for the night, or practice extended make-out sessions in the back. At the midway point, when "Planet Terror" had ended and a compilation of movie trailer parodies began to unreel (by directors Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and Edgar Wright), people in the theater actually began to get up and make runs to the snack bar, sprinting back to grab their seats before "Death Proof" began. This caught my attention because the fake trailers are themselves a major attraction of Grindhouse--hilarious distillations of entire genres with unexpected celebrity cameos and over-the-top moments of slaughter or sex. These trailers are, of course, part of the Grindhouse film and integral to the grindhouse experience; yet even more integral, it seemed to me, was to watch these trailers while people in the audience played their role and went to fetch popcorn and Twizzlers.

But the audience was game for the whole thing. The entire Ultrascreen theater was vibrating at the cheers, applause, or laughter that rose about every two minutes during "Planet Terror." (Contrast this to the last time I was in the Ultrascreen, watching Ghost Rider to a mostly bored or distracted audience, many of them pre-teens chatting loudly on their cell phones or walking up and down the aisles to greet friends.) It often felt like attending the Alamo Drafthouse (to which I've never been), the Austin theater that hosts film festivals and even screenings arranged by Tarantino, showing off personal prints of films like these. I had never seen so many movie geeks in one theater before, which you could judge not by appearance but by how they appreciated Rodriguez's tweaking of every action film cliche. "Planet Terror," which seems heavily influenced by the films of John Carpenter and George A. Romero, follows the outbreak of a virus which is turning most of the world into gooey, almost pre-splattered zombies. Cherry, a go-go dancer (Rose McGowan), teams up with ex-boyfriend Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), as well as a cop (Michael Biehn, of James Cameron's Terminator and Aliens), a doctor (Marley Shelton), and the "Crazy Babysitting Twins" (who are, well, crazy babysitting twins), among others, to battle the outbreak from a besieged hospital to a secret military base commanded by Bruce Willis. Along the way, go-go dancer McGowan loses a leg, which is belatedly replaced by a machine gun. I say belatedly, because the wonderfully icon poster art features the machine gun leg prominently, implying it's more than a late twist--but then, it's no more misleading than the film's title. McGowan notes with genuine distress that her ambition to be a stand-up comic has now been ruined, but with her new, impromptu prosthetic, as well as her dancer's flexibility (which she calls "useless talents"), she can now mow down whole armies of the undead. Superb. Rodriguez's film has a completely different tone than Tarantino's, which is why every critic will call this film "uneven." His is openly parodic, with plenty of laughs both cheap and sublime, but his penchant for stylish, exhilarating action scenes--developed most sharply in Sin City--allows for plenty of exciting moments, even if they intentionally ride the absurd. It should be noted, for example, that much of the CG work would look pretty cheesy if the film weren't grainy and occasionally broken: Rodriguez uses the premise of a battered grindhouse print more fully than Tarantino does, often cleverly allowing the condition of the print to reflect the action it contains, most obviously when Bruce Willis begins to transform into a boiling mutant mass, and the film becomes distorted and warped.

If "Planet Terror" is Grindhouse fun at its most lowbrow, Tarantino's "Death Proof" hopes to redeem the endeavor for the less indulgent critics. It is, without compromise, a Tarantino film, beginning with his long, long, long scenes of dialogue and character development, which caused a couple of walkouts this time around. But Tarantino is experimenting with the serial killer genre, and when you finally see what he's up to (when the film's over, really), your admiration will deepen. This is the serial killer genre completely reinvented, and delivered into another dimension. Apart from a few wink-wink nods to "Planet Terror" (the directors give the deliberate impression that both films come from the same studio, and thus draw from the same talent pool), this is a self-contained Tarantino classic, once again re-establishing a faded 70's idol--in this case, Kurt Russell, who has one scene for which he deserves an Oscar nomination--but also delivering slow-burn tension leading to moments of either visceral shock or cathartic release (think: the adrenaline shot in Pulp Fiction, or just about every setpiece in the Kill Bills). Russell plays Stuntman Mike, a stuntman of the 70's who is apparently out of work in contemporary, CG-driven Hollywood, though he still drives a souped-up stunt car with a protective cage which he says keeps him "death proof." The ostensible psychotic maniac, he certainly doesn't come off that way when he introduces himself to four girls in that Austin saloon; rather, he almost seems capable of talking his way past their defenses. He's charming, but he's still frightening, because you can't quite get a fix on what lurks beneath his smile. There are lots of reversals in "Death Proof," and many cliches upturned, but to reveal them would be to sabotage their impact. Nevertheless, they'll be much discussed for many years to come.

I do wonder how "Death Proof" will play on a second viewing--much of its impact comes from subverted expectations, and if you know where the film is headed, I'd imagine some of that impact is diluted. But then again, Tarantino's films are built as tough as that death-proof muscle car, and I wouldn't underestimate this one's longevity. I would like to point out, to contrast Rodriguez's and Tarantino's approach to "grindhouse," the gratuitous ass-shot in "Planet Terror" and the one in "Death Proof." The former comes when hottie Tammy (Stacy Ferguson, whom IMDB tells me played the voice of "Sally" in "It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown") bends over to inspect her broken-down car in a deserted highway glutted with green smoke. It's blatant--and followed by a lingering cleavage shot. I can tell you everyone in the theater got the joke. In "Death Proof," it's when Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) heads over to the jukebox to spin another song which only Tarantino would think to put in a film. He holds the camera on her ass while it begins to sway to the rhythm of the music. And somehow, he's fulfilled both the obligations of exploitation cinema and Tarantino cinema. It's gratuitous, but it has soul.

Uneven? Both parts are great, and set different goals, so what does it matter? It's a double feature. For the standard ticket price, it's a bargain. Sadly, on DVD it just won't be the same. I would suggest the best substitute: many friends and many beers.

Capsule Reviews

How many reviews can I write in my 15 minute break? .......Go.

300 (U.S., 2007) * 1/2
D: Zack Snyder

To quote Roger Ebert, whose latest Overlooked Film Festival I will not, alas, be able to attend this month: "I hated, hated, hated, hated this movie." The second in what might be an extended series of ultra-faithful Frank Miller graphic novel adaptations, this follows Sin City, which I enjoyed very much. But Sin City told a quartet of stories in a running time that approximates 300's, with plenty of entertainment sandwiched within. 300 is basically two hours of a video game cut-scene that just never seems to end. The acting is pretty mediocre, the action scenes seem to consist of nothing but slow motion shots while rock music pounds on the soundtrack, all the Spartans are dressed in these ridiculous little leather panties, and the palette is given a digital overhaul so that everything looks like it's been soaked in urine. It's been compared to Robert E. Howard (the pulp writer who created Conan) and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but please...go revisit John Milius' superb Conan the Barbarian--which is inspired by Kurosawa samurai epics instead of the God of War video game--and you won't feel half as insulted.

The Animation Show Volume 3 (U.S., 2007) * * *
D: Various

Don Hertzfeldt (of the Oscar-nominated animated short "Rejected") and Mike Judge (of Office Space, King of the Hill, and Beavis and Butthead) joined forces a few years back to set up a cycling repertoire of animation shorts to tour the country each year, representing the best of international animation. (A recent DVD box set features the first two volumes, albeit with a slightly altered lineup.) I saw volume three almost a week ago in Milwaukee, but all that's stuck with me is Hertzfeldt's contribution, a breathtaking short film called "Everything Will Be OK." I'm still not all that sure whether Hertzfeldt can actually draw or not--the film features his characteristic stick figures--but he sure can animate. He also uses astonishing in-camera visual techniques which are almost impossible to describe, although the dominant one here is a peepshow camera which reveals randomly selected moments from the life of a man whose detachment from life begins to segue into a nervous breakdown. It begins with the hysterical absurdist humor for which Hertzfeldt is best known, but reaches an ending that is moving and haunting--and I mean those adjectives.

Okay, I could only fit two reviews into 15 minutes. Check back late next week for reportage from the Wisconsin Film Festival.

Zodiac

Zodiac (U.S, 2007) * * * *
D: David Fincher

I've never been a big David Fincher fan, perhaps because I've only seen two of his films--Se7en (aka "Seven" for those of us who get a headache when we see that neologism) and Alien 3 (both cuts). Se7en I liked very much, at the time; it was a gorgeously pitch neo-noir played out like Dante's trip through Hell, and with a boldly pessimistic ending. To this day I haven't seen Fight Club. I know. I'll get around to it.

But with Zodiac you can count me as a fan. I know Fight Club is famous for its style, but one of the best things about Zodiac is how restrained it is; there are "stylish" moments--including a subjective shot in which Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) sees the Zodiac killer's writings and codes transposed over ever contour of the newspaper office in which he works--but they are few. For the most part, this is a police procedural with all the human texturing of a Serpico. I had to cross out the adjective "simple," for that might mislead you into thinking the plot and subject matter are easy to digest. In fact, it's a complex mystery, like a dozen Law & Order episodes squeezed into one 158-minute film, but bold enough to offer no real resolution. It's David Fincher setting aside his flashy techniques and urgently pressing evidence bags and coded letters into your hands: read this, really, and see if you see the patterns I see. It's exciting; I can picture him looking as demented and obsessive as Gyllenhaal does in the final scenes of the film.

More than once in the film a character says, "I want to talk about Zodiac," and the suspect or witness gets a look as if to say: "Oh, good luck with that." The Zodiac case--in which a serial killer terrorized San Francisco in the late 60's and early 70's, and taunted the police and SF newspapers by sending detailed letters of the killings and coded messages--is like a labyrinth in which every passage seems to cut closer to the center before hitting a dead end; it drives the brave travellers to the brink, and, the film suggests, unravels their lives. Gyllenhaal, playing San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Graysmith, is one; he loses his job and concentrates full-time on researching the Zodiac case, ultimately writing two Zodiac books, upon which the film is based. Detectives Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), Sergeant Mulanax (Elias Koteas), and Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.) are others. While we see the murders brutally enacted, appropriately these moments are few and only occur in their chronology, so that as the film presses forward through time, we feel the trail running dry and the case growing colder. Fincher plays it straight: he doesn't feel the need to intercut flashbacks into the narrative to liven things up a little. Time moves forward. The killer slips away--with only the occasional letter or anonymous call to twist the knife. It's doubly frustrating to think that if these crimes were committed today, the killer would have been caught within a week or two. Every victim would have had a cell phone, for one thing; and DNA evidence would have allowed some leads to solidify more quickly (as it turns out, the research done for this film uncovered forgotten Zodiac letters and new DNA evidence which is being tested as I write this).

So here you have a story with no ending, stretched out to almost three hours in length, with hardly any action or violence to sustain interest. Nothing--much--happens. But that's not how it plays. Fincher is so enthusiastic about the material that it translates to the pacing and through James Vanderbilt's Oscar-worthy screenplay. The viewer becomes as obsessed with the crimes as the players; you can at least be assured that there is some reward to paying attention to the details, as many of the clues pay off--however circumstantial the ultimate evidence might be. This is one of the best mysteries I've seen since L.A. Confidential; like that film, you're treated to a real Hollywood rarity (these days): an ensemble cast. The central character is the Zodiac case, not Robert Graysmith; so when it's necessary we follow the cops, or the victims, or the newspaper crew, depending on where the highest moment of interest can be found. The most appropriate shot might be a striking bird's eye view of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the freeway disappearing into white mist below. The point of view is purely objective, yet everything is surrounding by an obscuring fog...

Inland Empire

Inland Empire (U.S., 2006) * * *
D: David Lynch

Says the poster, "David Lynch's Inland Empire," which tells you all you need to know. Laura Dern, though she stretches herself like silly putty throughout this movie, only gets second billing, and Jeremy Irons and Justin Theroux are barely mentioned. Lynch is the star. And that's the ideal marketing for this film; if you dare pass through those theater doors, you had better know what a Lynch film is, or you're in trouble. (The tagline for the film is, succinctly: "A woman in trouble.")

To summarize the events would be to deceive you into thinking there is a plot. There isn't. This is the most nonlinear, free-floating narrative Lynch has yet devised; most frequently I hear people say, "This is somewhere between Mulholland Drive and Eraserhead." No, this is way past Eraserhead, into the outer reaches of the cosmos. Or, more aptly, in the deepest recesses of innerspace. It seems to me that the title "Inland Empire" actually refers to the endless depths of the unconscious, where the only exploration is to pilot your dreams like a submarine with a dim, fading spotlight. And this is what Inland Empire is like, for it indulgently evokes the landscape of dreams and nightmares, much more intensely than in Lynch's last film, Mulholland Drive.

That film has become something of a modern classic, although it was ultimately born from a discarded TV pilot Lynch helmed (Lynch completely reshot the footage for the film and rejiggered the premise to suit its new constraints). If Mulholland Drive was his breakthrough--when he became confident enough to let go of the reigns of narrative for the first time since his early experimental films--then Inland Empire is the ultimate extension of his craft, which is not to say it's a better film. The critics have turned his way, finally, and he's been recognized as the new Bunuel, working out his own obsessive private symbolism on the big screen without bothering to offer an explanation for every burst of surrealism; and thanks to Twin Peaks, Lynch is also an atypically popular art house experimentalist--a household-name celebrity like Salvador Dali. Regardless, Inland Empire is receiving a very limited theatrical release compared to his previous efforts; Lynch is distributing it himself, and occasionally popping up at screenings to personally introduce it. The truth is that it's his most defiantly inaccessible picture, and the more you know about Lynch--in fact, the more you've immersed yourself in the Cult of Lynch--the better you'll be able to appreciate the film and its familiar iconography. If this is the first Lynch film you ever see, you're more likely to disregard it as self-indulgent nonsense. The truth is that it's not his best film, and it is overly indulgent; but on the other hand, it's one-of-a-kind and invaluable, in its way.

But anyone reading a review will want to know at least some of the events which occur within its sprawling three-hour running time. We know this much: Laura Dern plays an actress. She is visited by a Polish woman who lives next door, asking about a new script for which Dern's auditioning; the film is based upon an old Polish folk tale. The subject will be, insists the creepy neighbor, marriage and murder. The actress receives the role. She meets her co-star (Theroux), who's famous for bedding his leading ladies. She begins to fall for him, though her husband is violently protective. The director (Irons), in a read-through in an empty studio lot, warns the two leads that the film was almost made once before, but the stars were murdered before the footage was completed. This much of the story is clear. The rest is not so clear. As the actress begins to explore the identity of her character, events from the past blur with the present, and the line between the story that's being told and the lives of the players becomes grotesquely indistinct. Is Dern's character Susan Blue or Nikki Grace? (Lynch frequently deals with dual identities.) What is in the locked mock-up of a house on the dark studio set? (Lynch is fond of locked, dark spaces.) Who will be the murderer, and why? (Lynch always delivers a mystery's set-up, even if he doesn't deliver easy answers.) What is the significance of 9:45 and "after midnight" (just about the only two times that are named in the film)? Who is that weird guy and what the hell does he have in his mouth? Why are the prostitutes "doing the locomotion?" What's the deal with the talking rabbits on the TV?

There are more mysteries launched per second in this film than any other I've ever seen. The technique is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it keeps you moving forward, attempting to penetrate the dream-fog which has settled over everything in Lynchland. But on the other hand, the plot is almost too complex. You can pick apart a meaning--that actors sacrifice much to their roles, that they become "whores," that artifice and reality are meaningless distinctions--but what really is to be gained by all this vague detail about Dern's husband's former life as a carny, or how he's "good with animals," or the gang of criminals he may be mixed up in? All of it is too ill-defined. Critics are falling all over themselves declaring that the movie must be watched over and over again before it will reveal its design, but the truth is that the film's just been released, they haven't watched it over and over again, and there's a damn good chance these answers will never come. Which isn't such a bad thing, but know that Lynch improvised the film--shooting scenes to accompany a long monologue he wrote for Dern, which forms the film's centerpiece now--and there are, perhaps, a dozen too many details that really feel like aimless pieces of misdirection. No plot within Inland Empire is going to ultimately matter. What matters is the image--repeated countless times--of Dern going round a dark corner and discovering, in the depths of its murk, another moment in time, and another character, another role to play. It's a fascinating, turning wheel. But I worry that there are too many moments here that head nowhere--not evocative, but simply loose ends.

Compare this to the film I saw last night, Jacques Rivette's superb and underrated The Story of Marie and Julien (2003). The film is almost as long, also hinges on dreams and the supernatural, and has a storyline involving blackmail that is never explained to satisfaction. We should call any unexplained element a "buzzing box," after the one in Bunuel's Belle de Jour (1967). The box buzzes. It represents the particular unspecified perversion of the client of a prostitute (Catherine Deneuve). We don't know what's in it. But it's better we don't. In Rivette's film, we never discover the meaning behind the items with which a Madame X is being blackmailed. But we don't need to know. That's fine. David Lynch has perfected the "buzzing box," and found a brilliant use of the idea in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive--both films featuring a sudden shift in reality, when suddenly all of the actors are playing different roles. That's going on in Inland Empire, too, but it's just one of the gazillion buzzing boxes in this film. I adore Mulholland Drive. I think it's one of the best films of the past ten years. But one of the things that makes that film a classic is that no matter how bizarre it gets, the elements always seem to belong. It all seems of a piece. Inland Empire, on the other hand, consists of too many disparate pieces, and although he might label them and group them together using surface signifiers (i.e., recurring numbers, cryptic phrases or symbols), intuitively I sensed they did not necessarily belong together. Or, at least, they required more information to prove that they did. The growing suspicion one has is that the film is running on private associations known only to Lynch, or perhaps to his subconscious--as that's where he seems to write from--but those associations are not made remotely accessible to the viewer.

I'm not saying that the emperor has no clothes. I like the film. I would merely suggest that all those critics stumbling over themselves to declare this another masterpiece simply because they don't understand it need to reevaluate their criteria. Surrealism still has a rhyme and a reason. Too much of Inland Empire feels cobbled together from different ideas and whims of Lynch's, without being sufficiently adhered together. The glue we're provided is numbingly repetitive imagery: Laura Dern looks to her right--either across a room or across the street or through a window--only to see herself looking back. We witness multiple scenes from different points of view. Dern crosses time and space. Screwdrivers and knives are wielded in the same hand, wounding in the same place. A consortium of mysterious Polish men are found to be sitting in the same spots as the bunnies on TV. We see an event revealed to be a performance on a television screen or in a movie theater or a studio set--always we pull back to see either Dern or a mysterious, weeping woman, watching. It's too much of the same idea, over and over and over again--and those elements which do not line up are, almost by contrast, rendered completely incoherent because they simply don't fit into the pattern of this repetitive music.

Still, there are wonders contained in Inland Empire, not the least of which is the effect it leaves upon your consciousness. Lynch is one of the greatest living filmmakers, and should belong in any filmic pantheon for one important gift he's given cinema: the uncanny rendering of the substance (or insubstance) of nightmare onto the canvas of the screen. Try to point to any other filmmaker who can so successfully capture what a dream feels like--maybe Guy Maddin, maybe Luis Bunuel, but neither goes as recklessly far as Lynch. Lynch gets that a dream doesn't always make sense--but it haunts you because it seems like it almost might. I should mention that I watched this film in Madison's aging Orpheum Theatre, with its tall red curtains that stretch to a distant ceiling. I sat in the second row, so that I felt like I was alone, abandoned in the images on the screen. At a critical point in the film, Dern enters an empty theater where she finds a film of herself unspooling, and the theater looked so much like the Orpheum that both my wife and I had the instantaneous urge to look over our shoulders to see if Dern was actually walking down the aisle next to us with that knife clutched in her hand. She wasn't. But after three hours of this kind of thing, you begin to lose your senses.

Critics at the moment might be just a little too eager to overlook Inland Empire's obvious weaknesses, which were not present in Mulholland Drive: among the aforementioned, the intentionally ugly camcorder cinematography made unbearable with the addition of fish-eye lenses; the overwrought, absurd dialogue given to Dern's white-trash alter ego; the apropos of nothing, five-second William H. Macy cameo...and that ridiculous ending-credits musical number, which offers a good explanation for why you'd never want Lynch to direct your music video. But on the whole, I do forgive the film its weaknesses and recognize its strengths, not the least of which is its uniqueness. Certainly I want to see Inland Empire again, if only to piece together some of its mysteries. I just suspect that Mulholland Drive, which has a tighter focus even if it remains ultimately mysterious, will always be more rewarding.

Hammer's Dracula Franchise

The clever opening title to "Dracula."

England's Hammer studio made its name with horror, principally beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein--an updating of the Mary Shelley novel with more explicit gore that seemed utterly shocking for 1957--and its inevitable follow-up, Dracula (released in the U.S. as "Horror of Dracula" to prevent confusion with the Bela Lugosi film), which contained more action, more blood, and hints of sex. With these two films began the modern horror picture: explicit and scandalous. Both departed dramatically from their Universal Pictures counterparts, and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (the protagonist and the monster, respectfully, in each film) took their place beside Lugosi and Boris Karloff as timeless horror icons. Hammer had a merciless eye toward low budgets and commercial prospects, and (sometimes distressingly) milked their franchises for all they were worth. No, the monsters did not meet Abbott and Costello, but the films did become more exploitative, more crass, and, ironically, out of date despite all the studios' efforts to keep them modern. Hammer's reputation became sullied in the 1970's with often insipid attempts to update their icons; they even briefly turned to adapting TV sitcoms into big-screen films before the money ran out and the studio closed its doors. But Hammer retains a loyal cult following--particularly for those early films from its golden period, which ran approximately into the mid-60's. Those films, many of them directed by Terence Fisher, were classy, exciting, and elegant, and though the chills were usually rooted in the fantastic, and therefore necessarily artificial, they were almost always worth the price of admission.

As Hammer was always willing to fund a sequel to any moneymaker, there are a few franchises scattered throughout their filmography, some of them brief and curious (such as their dinosaur films), some rather notorious (the Karnstein trilogy, loosely inspired by "Carmilla," which began with "The Vampire Lovers"), and others relentlessly enduring. To that last category belong the Frankenstein and Dracula pictures. Both of Hammer's stars, Cushing & Lee, launched each series, but after that--with few exceptions--each took was assigned his own franchise, with Cushing taking the recurring role of Baron Frankenstein, making a new monster in each film, and Lee playing Dracula multiple times, dying and resurrecting, in succession, again and again. Lee's Dracula films have been the most popular product of the Hammer studios (although Cushing's Frankenstein films might be marginally better, on the whole, with more substantial plotlines), and here's an analysis of how they hold up today, both as entertainment and as representations of Bram Stoker's original, exhaustively pillaged novel.

Vampirism's sex appeal: Lee seduces his victim in "Dracula."

Dracula (U.K., 1958) * * * 1/2
D: Terence Fisher

Prior to this film, the character of Dracula was embodied in the "I vant to suck your blood" parodies of Lugosi; it was impossible to separate the character from Lugosi's rich Hungarian accent. When he did "suck blood," it was with an uplifted cape, discreetly hiding the fang-penetration from the audience. Tod Browning's film was a talky adaptation--actually adapted from the theatrical production, and it showed. Sequel after sequel dumbed-down the presentation of the villain until he became merely a flapping bat on a string dissolving into a caped man with fangs. Terence Fisher's film, by contrast, is best seen as a deliberate attempt to reimagine the character and see the material from a fresh, more earthly point of view, instead of as a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel--which it definitely isn't. If sex was merely hinted at in the original film, here the subtext is brought to he fore and underlined. Dracula's victims eagerly open their windows for their night visitor, and then the necks of their nightgowns. Before Dracula strikes, he brushes gently against their neck as a lover might, and becomes so aroused that his eyes become engorged with blood (glass contact lenses)--then we see him bite, and blood courses down his chin; the woman sighs in ecstacy. (Tame now, but rated X in England when it was released!) When Lucy, awaiting Dracula, removes the cross from her neck and sticks it in a drawer, it's with the same import as if she had turned a photo of her mother so that it didn't face the bed. This film undoubtedly influenced nearly every vampire film that followed; there is even a reference to vampirism-as-drug-addiction. Peter Cushing, as Van Helsing, is far more dynamic than the elderly Dutch doctor of the original novel. He chases vigorously after his opponent, and when he defeats him in the famous climax, it's with the skill of a gymnast. Lee has less to do, but makes such an impact in the opening scenes in Castle Dracula that his presence is felt even when he's absent for long stretches.

But the film's "classic" status is compromised by an unnecessarily confused script. The twist of the opening scenes--learning that Jonathan Harker is a vampire hunter, not an unwitting victim--is revealed clumsily, and doesn't seem to serve any particular purpose for the narrative. Many of the other alterations to the novel seem to be random and pointless. Dr. Seward is now a hapless, doddering old man whose appearance is pretty much a cameo. Lucy is now Jonathan's fiancee and Arthur Holmwood's sister, although she was Arthur's fiancee in the book. In the novel, Jonathan was engaged to Mina, but now Mina is married to Arthur. Why? No reason. More understandably, Renfield is missing, and Dracula's castle is now just a carriage-ride away from the city where our characters live. Dracula is also robbed of certain powers granted him by Stoker. Van Helsing asserts that it's a myth that Dracula can transform into animals (presumably to tell the audience with a wink that there will be no bats on strings in this movie), so this is a Dracula that has to run on his own two feet to get from one location to another. Almost apologetically, scenes and characters from the original novel omitted from this film make cameo appearances in later entries in the series.

Actually, Lee's portrayal is very close to Stoker's creation, though he retains a dignified British accent. In Stoker's novel, Dracula really is a diabolical beast with blood on his lips and a scowl on his face, running from those who hunt him and taunting them from a distance. Therefore, after the opening scenes in Castle Dracula, Lee has very little dialogue, and almost performs his seduction scenes as though he were Rudolph Valentino in a silent film. The score by James Bernard is also worth mentioning. Bernard composed almost all of the "classic" Hammer scores, and his work was typically lush and memorable. His Dracula theme is memorable, but rather inanely composed, so that the three-note theme seems to shout "DRAC-u-la!" (This is intentional on Bernard's part.) In later films, the Dracula theme will recede into an almost subliminal presence on the score, while more romantic and gothic themes paint the foreground. Still, this film restored class and dignity to Dracula and, by extension, the horror genre, which was otherwise stagnant through the 1950's.

Cushing as a romantic, swashbuckling Van Helsing in "Brides of Dracula."

Brides of Dracula (U.K., 1960) * * * 1/2
D: Terence Fisher

This is the On Her Majesty's Secret Service entry in the Dracula franchise: a perceived flop/miscalculation, filmed without the centerpiece actor (in OHMSS, George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery as James Bond; here, neither Lee nor Dracula is present), that nonetheless has attained cult status and offers a tantalizing possibility for what the series could have been. Lee, fearing typecasting (justifiably, as it turns out), vainly sought more romantic roles and turned down the chance to play Dracula in this sequel. Thankfully, Cushing returned as Van Helsing, the only returning character, and here becoming a vampire hunter of heroic proportions. The film opens with the spooky nighttime carriage ride to a vampire's castle which the first film inexplicably omitted, only this time the potential victim is a beautiful young teacher, Marianne (a French ingenue, Yvonne Monlaur). She's offered shelter for the night by the castle's Baroness, and told the rest of the property is deserted, but nevertheless steals a glimpse of the Baroness' son, Baron Meinster (David Peel), who is locked away in one part of the castle--actually manacled at the ankle. Understandably, she "rescues" him, only to be told what we suspect: that the Baron is actually a vampire, and his mother was doing the right thing by keeping him prisoner. Unmolested by the Baron so far, she takes up her teaching post, and encounters Van Helsing, who's been busy hunting down the remaining vampires in the countryside, a few of which lurk near the school. It's not long before the freed Baron turns up again, proposing to Marianne, gathering a harem of vampire women, and pursued by the dogged Van Helsing.

Oh, what this series could have been! Peter Cushing nails the cold-blooded intensity of Van Helsing's character while translating a humanizing vulnerability, as in one of the last scenes, inside a windmill, when he's bitten by the Baron and must improvise an agonizing treatment before he "turns." The swashbuckling climax is actually the best of the series, and is genuinely thrilling, though it involves a suspension of disbelief (why, for example, do only the windmill's blades cast a shadow?). And there are enough colorful characters and miscellaneous vampire activity to keep the middle stretch interesting. Despite Lee's absence, this is one of the best Hammer horror films. (It's available on DVD in the U.S. only as part of the "Hammer Horror Series: Franchise Collection" set from Universal, which contains 8 mostly-great Hammer horror and suspense films across two 2-sided discs--highly recommended.)

It should be noted that as the series progressed, rules established in previous films were broken or reversed in later ones. In Dracula, Cushing insists that vampires cannot change into bats--but apparently Baron Meinster can. It's unfortunate to see the return of the bat-on-a-string, which always looks ludicrous (no more so than in the late-period Dracula entry, Scars of Dracula), and here suggests that Jimmy Sangster, who wrote the original film, may have had the right idea in excluding that particular element. But there's no turning back now.

"Dracula, Prince of Darkness" has his first and graphically violent resurrection.

Dracula, Prince of Darkness (U.K., 1966) * * 1/2
D: Terence Fisher

It's astounding to believe that rather than pursue a Van Helsing franchise, Hammer waited six more years before releasing this third installment, which restores Lee, but not Cushing. Not only does Lee return to the series, but so does screenwriter Sangster and composer Bernard, neither of whom partook in Brides of Dracula. The film opens sensationally: after a recap of the original film's climax--now eight years old--we see what first appears to be a funeral procession, but is quickly revealed to be a mob of villagers about to drive a stake through the heart of the woman they're transporting. The lynching is broken up by Father Sandor (Andrew Keir), a monk who carries a rifle, and who will now disappear for a large stretch of the film as we're introduced to our dull protagonists, two married couples vacationing in the countryside who make the always-unwise decision of spending a night in Castle Dracula. The castle is attended by one human servant, Klove (Dracula always needs humans to watch over him during the daylight hours). Klove is a genuinely frightening figure: in the middle of the night, he abducts one member of the party, kills him, ties him by the legs and hangs him upside down above a sarcophagus, and then cuts open his throat so that the blood spills upon Dracula's ashes. Now we are treated to the first of numerous resurrection scenes, almost all identical to each other: a series of cuts showing the ashes turning into a human shape, then a skeleton, then a gray, mummified corpse, and finally Christopher Lee--usually smartly dressed, although here it's a more intelligent shot of a naked, grasping arm, the hand bearing the ring which the opening credits revealed to be all that was left of Dracula. This is a full forty-five minutes into the movie--half its running time has passed with little to no incident! In the remaining time, Dracula will glower menacingly from the shadows, ordering Klove around with fierce gestures, but he will not speak a word: Lee excised all of his own dialogue, finding it insipid. Still, it seems unnatural that Dracula would suddenly be a mute, and not bother to actually speak to either his underling or his vampire servants.

Although it's taken so long to finally get Dracula back into the story, we are pretty quickly taken back to the village where our survivors meet up with Father Sandor and another monk, the very Renfield-like Ludwig. Well, let's face it: Ludwig is Renfield, right down to the fly-gobbling and the rantings about his master's return. Typical of Sangster, Ludwig serves no real coherent function in the film, except to clutter up the narrative just when it should be getting lean and exciting. But everything about the film is anticlimactic and strangely diluted. It's only in the final scene, when Dracula is confronted upon his ice-covered moat, that we get a hint of the vitality of the first two films--this is when director Fisher is suddenly stirred from an atypical lethargy.

The film is noticeably more violent than the earlier two, most especially in the throat-cutting scene, and offers a strong hint of where the series will eventually lead, as it adjusts to the loosening standards of British censors. Yet the film is also as flavorless as a holy wafer.

The fairy tale imagery of "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave."

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (U.K., 1968) * * 1/2
D: Freddie Francis

Paul (Barry Andrews) is in love with Maria (Veronica Carlson), but her father, the Monsignor, scorns his professed atheism. Zena, the bartender who loves him, works out her jealousy by attempting to deliver Maria to a newly-resurrected Dracula. Paul must overcome his atheism to confront the servant of the Devil, and he's assisted by a similarly conflicted priest (Ewan Hooper), who has fallen under Dracula's command.

The fourth entry switches directors to the more workmanlike Freddie Francis, although here Francis attempts some awkward experimentation by using different color filters, extreme angles, and odd lenses, all apparently to invoke the otherworldly presence of Dracula. None of them really work. Much more successful are the fabulous sets and matte paintings which create a dreamlike world of rooftop avenues used by Maria, Paul, Zena, Dracula, and the priest, as they seek out their nighttime desires. These sets provide a much more evocative treatment of sin versus Catholocism than the literal-minded script, which has got to be the most religiose treatment of the vampire theme in horror cinema.

Dracula has recovered his speech in this film, but Lee can be more embarrassed by his humiliating demise, as he squirms upon a cross (which has penetrated his chest) for what seems like an eternity, and reminds the modern viewer of Martin Landau, playing Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, getting drunk so he can flop around with an octopus puppet in a pond in the middle of the night. Neither does Dracula ever seem that frightening in the film--nor is he given much to do. But there's a good deal of charm in the early scenes, and another overqualified romantic score by Bernard, who is hitting his stride. Note that veteran character actor Michael Ripper makes one of his many prominent appearances in the Dracula series, each time taking on a different role. Another recurring character is the abundant female cleavage, ideally suited for displaying crucifix necklaces.

The daughters, staking their hypocrite fathers, in "Taste the Blood of Dracula."

Taste the Blood of Dracula (U.K., 1969) * * *
D: Peter Sasdy

Picking up directly after the ending of the last film, this has a pretty amusing opening, as Roy Kinnear--recognizable from such films as Help! and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and making a rare appearance in a Hammer film--is introduced unsuccessfully hawking his shoddy merchandise on a coach travelling through the countryside; he's subsequently booted off, staggers, lost and alone, through the woods, and unexpectedly encounters Dracula, in his dying moments, writhing on the cross (recycled footage from DHRFTG). Kinnear, recognizing a brilliant investment opportunity when he sees one, steals the cape of Dracula and places the blood of the count in a vial. Meanwhile, we meet young Alice Hargood (Linda Hayden), her boyfriend, Paul (Anthony Higgins), and Alice's father (Geoffrey Keen, recognizable from the James Bond series), who disapproves of their courtship. The father is supposedly an upstanding member of the community and an icon of moral fortitude, but on Sunday nights he sneaks off to a whorehouse with his two friends (one of whom is Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace in the Wallace & Gromit films). This company of upstanding hypocrites is intrigued by the possibilities offered by a young Satanist, Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates, being bred as a new Hammer star). Courtley wants to use their money to purchase Dracula's remains, for an ill-defined arcane ritual of some sort. When they are finally offered the chance to, well, taste the blood of Dracula, Mr. Hargood and his friends panic and beat Lord Courtley to death. It's Lord Courtley's blood which resurrects Dracula, who sets about avenging the death of his servant by turning the murderers' children against them.

All of this might sound convoluted, but there's a good reason: it was expected that Lee would not be returning for this film, and so a script was prepared for a Dracula flick without a Dracula. As it is, Dracula is pretty incidental to the plot, and could easily be written out again. Unexpectedly, all of the plot's contortions lead to a fairly interesting mix of satire and horror. The virginal young girl and her more vivacious friend seem to be stand-ins, once again, for Mina and Lucy (DHRFTG used the same dynamic, in "homage"), but the twist is a pivotal one: both taken under Dracula's spell, they kill their parents in vicious ways--one is even staked through the heart. Given this sensational plot, the inevitably chaste resolution, in which Dracula is killed by stumbling into a chapel (!), feels phony by comparison. Still, this is one of the most entertaining Dracula films since the first two, with a solid script, some tastefully handled exploitation elements, and a magnificent score by James Bernard. It was all downhill from here.

Dracula via the Marquis de Sade: "Scars of Dracula."

Scars of Dracula (U.K., 1970) * *
D: Roy Ward Baker

By now, the Dracula films had become an annual event. Director-for-hire Baker can usually be counted on for a watchable, if not exceptional, effort, and that's what this is--but it's unusually exploitative. At least the Dracula films have fairly accurate titles (Brides of Dracula notwithstanding), and this is one film that is obsessed with scars and disfigurations. Much has been made of a scene in which Dracula's servant, Klove (Patrick Troughton, replacing Philip Latham from DPOD), lifts up his shirt and offers his mutilated back for Dracula, who proceeds to scald it with a red-hot sword. The Dracula films have now moved from simple sex to sadomasochism. More nauseating are the close-ups when churchgoers are attacked by Dracula's bats (the bats look fake, but the shots of gore linger in a sickening way). The scar-fixation is curiously misguided, as though Baker wanted to make a hardcore Hammer film for his young audience to compete with the blood-and-sex-filled competition in the genre, but had no idea what made violence or sex appealing. There is a bit more nudity here than in the last film, as Hammer had just begun to dip its toes in those waters, but more memorable is the oddly leering tone which underscores everything. Perhaps Baker just had a disdain for his audience.

Still, there's at least one interesting touch: with more time spent in Castle Dracula than in any of the previous outings, we get to see more of it, including Dracula's secret chamber, whose only gateway is built into the sheer wall of the castle. This allows for some nice suspense as our heroes attempt to descend the wall to reach his abode, and a pretty decent special effects shot of Dracula climbing the castle wall like a ghost--a moment lifted directly from the original novel.

This was the last of the period Dracula films, and the aftertaste is that of missed opportunity.

The subtle mise en scène of "Dracula A.D. 1972."

Dracula A.D. 1972 (U.K., 1972) *
D: Alan Gibson

The Hammer studios in the early 70's split desperately in two directions: buying the cheap rights to TV sitcoms to adapt them into low-budget big-screen comedies, and running their horror franchise dry on a number of lowbrow flicks, most of them sexy vampire movies. Of the latter category was the "Karnstein Trilogy," inspired by the classic horror novel Carmilla: beginning with the borderline softcore chiller The Vampire Lovers, it continued with hasty follow-ups both bad (Lust for a Vampire) and good (Twins of Evil). Vampire Circus and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter were clever variations on the theme, opening new possibilities for 70's Hammer horror; unfortunately, the Dracula films were continuing on their undying path, slouching and losing a bit more flesh with each outing. To call Dracula A.D. 1972 ill-conceived would be a gross understatement. The premise is right there in the title, and watching all 96 minutes of the actual feature will offer you nothing else. It opens in 1872, as Van Helsing (a returning--and visibly much older--Peter Cushing) battles Dracula (Lee) on a speeding coach. When the coach crashes, both Van Helsing and Dracula are killed (the latter being impaled on one of the wheel's spokes, of course), but the Count's ashes and ring are preserved by an acolyte who buries them outside Van Helsing's graveyard. One hundred years later, the acolyte's descendant, one "Johnny Alucard" (ugh), invites his hip young friends to a Satanic ritual in the church beside that same graveyard, reviving Dracula. Luckily, one of those youths is the great-granddaughter of Van Helsing, and her father (Cushing again) is an anthropologist with an interest in the occult--ready to spring into action and battle Dracula, accompanied by some funky music that seems more appropriate for a Scooby-Doo episode. How insipid is it that even though the century has changed, the plot unravels like another stale Dracula installment, utilizing almost nothing of the modern setting? Dracula never leaves his church, and is intent on corrupting the young Van Helsing girl, sending Alucard out to find her. Consider: Dracula has basically slept for 100 years, and when he's finally awake, he refuses to leave the living room. Can't he change into a bat or...something? Instead, he does next to nothing, and the film's running time is padded with scenes of a police inspector (Michael Coles) consulting with Van Helsing, even though that inspector won't even figure into the climax. I struggled to think of a single redeeming element in this film, but came up dry. I mean, this is a film where Van Helsing has to get out a piece of paper and draw a diagram in order to figure out that "Alucard" is "Dracula" spelled backward.

Death by thorn bush: "The Satanic Rites of Dracula."

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (U.K., 1974) * 1/2
D: Alan Gibson

After sitting through Dracula A.D. 1972, it's a little difficult to understand why a sequel was required, but here it is: The Satanic Rites of Dracula reunites Lee, Cushing, Michael Coles (the Inspector), and director Alan Gibson, once again having a romp in modern-day (i.e. 1974) London. Newcomer Joanna Lumley, now best known for Absolutely Fabulous, plays Cushing's granddaughter. I recalled this entry as being the absolute worst of the series, but watching the last two back-to-back has changed my mind: it's more entertaining than the last film, and actually addresses most of my criticisms about that movie. For one thing, it does take advantage of the modern setting--Dracula is now the CEO of a corporation, hiding under the pseudonym D. D. Denham, and secretly plotting to unleash a deadly plague upon the world. The Inspector, so useless in the last film, now gets to run around Dracula's mansion slaying vampire women. And this is anything but dull: the film opens with a Satanic ritual involving a nude woman who writhes in orgasm when a group of old men touch the bleeding wound in her stomach; then there's an undercover cop who gets into a fight with a motorcycle-riding hoodlum working for Dracula; and it gets wilder from there. This actually has the feel of a Fu Manchu movie, and not because of the dragon lady who guards the mansion, pulling levers at her secret console and guarding a dungeon of chained vixens. (Well, actually, yes--exactly for that reason.) But Christopher Lee still doesn't have a lot to do, and, as with the last film, hardly appears at all. The film is also howlingly funny, right down to Dracula's final, pathetic end: slain by a thorn bush in his own garden. Then Van Helsing picks up Dracula's ring, scrutinizing it in the moonlight, as though pondering taking us down this familiar route one more time. Let's hope he melted it down. Actually, there was one more film, though it hardly counts: Hammer collaborated with Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers to produce a hybrid horror and martial-arts film. Entitled The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, its alternate title was The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula. Peter Cushing appeared, but not as Van Helsing, and the villain wasn't really Dracula.

Watching all the installments of the series, in order, within the span of a month and a half has been a bit like running on a hamster wheel. The plot never progresses, it only repeats itself. You'd be hard-pressed to remember that in the Stoker novel, Dracula actually seemed to have a plan--one to spread vampirism, like a disease, throughout the civilized world. In the Hammer sequels, a great deal of time is spent in each film justifying his resurrection--and then, when he finally enters the picture, he spends a short time plotting payback upon one or two characters, before getting killed again. He never lives for anything but a petty revenge. He seems to have the forces of nature at his control, but rather than concentrating on spreading his evil throughout the world, he becomes fixated--usually on a plucky young man and his virginal girlfriend--and it's this tunnel vision which proves his undoing. You would expect a Dracula series to be a bit more like what Roman Polanski's Dance of the Vampires (The Fearless Vampire Killers) hinted at with its plot--which in itself was a parody of Hammer films (Kiss of the Vampire in particular): that our villain would have a grand scheme, and would play the humans like pawns through each installment. But no luck. The Hammer screenwriters instead decided to remake the same plot over and over again, with a few exceptions. Oddly, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, with its poor-man's Fu Manchu antics, is the only sequel which serves up what its young audience probably wanted: a larger-than-life Dracula. Too many of these Hammer films feel imaginatively stunted, undoubtedly a flaw of a studio that placed classy Gothic melodrama--always on a tight budget--above complex or original plots. You'd have to look outside the Dracula series for satisfaction. I recommend The Devil Rides Out, based on the Dennis Wheatley novel, which offers Lee as a hero, and a more worthy and intelligent villain than Dracula in Charles Gray's Mocata.

But at long last Christopher Lee moved on from Dracula--forsaking this British series for the only one more famous: 007's (he played the villain Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun). Cushing had one final triumph ahead of him, playing a key role in Star Wars, but Lee's career submerged further into obscure B-movies until only recently, when it was revived by his appearances in two of the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings films. (Once again, he's an icon to kids.) All of the Hammer Dracula films are now available on DVD, as is Jess Franco's Count Dracula, which also stars Lee and is one of the most faithful adaptations of Stoker's book--it was an assignment Lee took because he felt the Hammer films just hadn't gotten the source material quite right. No kidding! I have a nostalgia for these films, but they are deeply frustrating. With so many of the right elements in place from the beginning (Lee, Cushing, Terence Fisher), how could an ideal Dracula picture never quite materialize? The novel continues to be elusive. Not Hammer's Dracula, not Lugosi's, not Francis Ford Coppola's, and not even Guy Maddin's, manage to capture the strange quality, humor, and tragedy of Stoker's book. But if Stoker had written a comic book with healthy doses of sex and gore, it might have been something like these peculiar entertainments.