After the disappointment of Halloween II (2009), I needed a palette-cleanser, something that would refresh my interest in horror movies, at least for a few more days. On the suggestion of an old friend, I went with The Brood. Why this movie? Two reasons. First, it's directed by David Effin' Cronenberg and, even though I've seen little of his early work, his style just screams "weird horror." The second comes from the first moments of the movie trailer:
No, not the "Frightism Trailers" banner --- I had trouble finding an
original trailer with good sound quality, so the advertisement was well
worth it --- the warning:
Now comes a major motion picture event that
will take you far beyond anything ever filmed before. You are about to
journey beyond fear, beyond terror, beyond the boundaries of your mind,
in a film so terrifying, it will devastate you totally.
My immediate response to that was "Bullshit." Of course, my immediate response to the next scene, where kitchen goods are being knocked on the floor, was to reference The Jerk and say, "He hates these cereals! Stay away from the cereals!" My immediate reactions can be a tad flippant at times (or all the time). Still, the trailer intrigued me, if only because I had never seen a film that promised to "devastate [me] totally."
The Brood begins with Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed) on stage with another, much uglier, man. The lighting is sparse, the stage set seems to be bare, and the two men appear to be talking about...daddy issues?
"Why did you curse me with this hairline and this skin?"
It quickly becomes apparent that this is not some avant-garde theater piece, but is instead a public performance of Dr. Raglan's particular brand of psychotherapy, psychoplasmics. To boil it down for you in the simplest way possible, Dr. Raglan engages in some sort of role play with the patient (probably as a parent because...well, Freud) and excites them to the point where their body has a physical reaction to their pain, which (maybe, I guess) results in them letting off steam and feeling better. Frank (Art Hindle) has a wife who has been in psychoplasmics for several months now, and it's not having the results he had hoped for. His wife, Nola (Samantha Eggar), has been in "isolation" for several months now, which means that Frank hasn't been able to see or speak to her. He just has to take Dr. Raglan's word that her therapy is in a critical state at the moment.
"Trust me, I'm an evil doctor. I mean...regular doctor"
That wouldn't bother Frank too much, since Nola was zebra-in-a-tree crazy, but he has to let his five-year-old daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), spend weekends with crazy mommy. Even that was okay for a while, but Candice has started returning home with bruises, scratches, and bite marks, and she's very reluctant to talk about it. However, even physically abusive crazy mothers have visitation rights (apparently), so Frank has to dig deeper to prove that she is unfit to see their daughter. His plan is to discredit psychoplasmics by talking to former patients.
"Smell this. It'll hold up in court"
It's harder than it sounds, because Dr. Raglan runs his therapy like a cult leader, with his personality dominating all others, and his patients live in a complex with him. But then things start happening. What kind of things? Creepy, goblin-y, snowsuit-wearing things that like to murder.
If this kid made a cat noise, I would call it The Canadian Grudge
And these things seem to be happening to people that Nola is talking about during therapy. What's going on here, Dr. Raglan? And who found a snowsuit for this troll?
Thank god they didn't make Lord of the Rings in the 1970s
The acting in The Brood is okay, but a bit melodramatic. Art Hindle was solid in the lead role; all he had to do was seem reasonable and fairly likable, and he was able to do that with ease. He was a little blank at times, but no more so than most other main characters in horror movies.
Is he horrified by an atrocity, or does the carpet match the wallpaper?
Oliver Reed has a gloriously evil-sounding voice (even when he plays nice characters), so it was easy for him to sound menacing and disturbing. He was a bit too melodramatic for my tastes, but I think that was designed to fit the style of the film more than him hamming it up. Samantha Eggar was not too impressive for the first hour and fifteen minutes of this movie, but then she got real creepy, real fast.
Those are some excellent crazy eyes
Her weird, revolting performance over the next ten or fifteen minutes more than makes up for the boring psych patient she was playing earlier in the film. This was the first film appearance for Cindy Hinds, and she was definitely a child actor. The part requires her to act kind of shell-shocked, so she couldn't be all that bad, but Haley Joel Osment she ain't. Susan Hogan was fine as a concerned teacher, but it was a bit part, really. Robert A. Silverman was as weird and awkward as he usually is in his Cronenberg roles. There is a running theme of slightly off-kilter melodrama in just about all of the performances, but none of it seems out of place in this film. Is that a good or bad thing? Well...
David Cronenberg wrote and directed The Brood, and if you're familiar with Cronenberg's work, that shouldn't surprise you. Why is that? Because it gets pretty weird, that's why. From a direction standpoint, I liked what Cronenberg did. He effectively built up the tension throughout the film, and made sure it paid off. You can definitely argue that the pace is too slow, but I thought it worked with the tone of the movie. Speaking of the tone, right off the bat, from the first second of the credits, you are aware that you are watching a horror movie. The soundtrack is almost completely composed of discordant strings, as if the violinist is saying "Something bad will eventually happen!" Actually, the overwhelming soundtrack cues are part of what makes the pace seem slow; the music builds and...nothing. Still, I didn't mind that for some reason. Cronenberg also did a good job capturing the grossness in this movie.
Why is she licking that baby clean? Aside from making me puke in my mouth a little
Cronenberg generally incorporates special effects very well in his films, and this is no exception. A lot of the violence comes across as comical, with spaghetti-red blood and dwarven killers, but he nails the gross-out factor with ease.
Actual dialogue from this scene: "Cronenberg!" (said like "Ta-da!")
Also, The Brood is one of the few movies that will show a child-sized creature being straight-up shot dead. So there's that.
Cronenberg's writing for The Brood was a bit more problematic for me. For starters, the dialogue was pretty rough in patches. Three examples jumped out at me:
Assistant: "Should I stop him?" [as Nola's father gets in his car] Dr. Raglan: "No, he's drunk." [car drives away]. Because that sounds like something a doctor would say.
A policeman says "It wouldn't be the first time," after theorizing that the dwarf killer thing was the misshapen mutant child of someone that had been raised in secrecy and exploded with fury when it was able to escape into the real world. WHAT?!?
Candice's teacher puts off romancing Frank because "[his] life is too complicated," and he takes that without comment. You know what he could have said? "Sorry it took longer than I expected. Instead of meeting up with my father-in-law and driving him home, I found his corpse and had to stay for the police investigation. Which you would have known if you only picked up the damn phone."
Keep in mind that there were also a few dozen instances of typical Cronenberg awkwardness in the script, especially with neck-cancer guy. Even if you ignore the oddities in the script, the plot was lacking, too. This movie has a slow build, right? It has a central mystery, that is revealed to coincide with the building of the plot. However, the mystery is pretty obvious to the audience. Okay, maybe not every detail of the twist, but I was able to guess almost exactly what was happening at around the thirty minute mark.
I didn't guess that they all had hoodies
There were a few instances of unintentional hilarity, too. So you have these weird dwarf/child/demon-looking things, and they're killing people with whatever they can get their hands on, right? The toy mallets that children use to hammer stuff do not make for sinister murder weapons. Let's just leave it at that.
And this doesn't quite work as a kidnapping scene
Despite the problems I had with Cronenberg's writing, I still enjoyed The Brood. I would have preferred a less predictable story, but at least I was surprised by the visuals. It says something about the execution of the twist in this film that, even though I more or less predicted it, I was still satisfied. There are many, many moments that make me suspect that this could be Lefty Gold upon further viewings, but it still functions as a legitimate horror movie. But it is definitely weird, which is reason enough to recommend it in a genre filled with rehashed ideas. The silliness of the writing knocked it down a few notches for me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this movie gets better with repeated viewings. I don't know if it lives up to the hype of devastating you totally, but this is definitely a movie you can't un-see.
Saturday the 13th isn't quite as good as Friday the 13th, but this was the most appropriate day I could fit in a Friday the 13th movie review (P.S.: it's my final one! I've got a complete set now!). On the surface, the notion of Jason Voorhies in space sounds like a desperate gambit, destined for failure. And it is. The only reason this movie ever happened was because Freddy vs. Jason was stuck in development hell, and the production company didn't want to risk their property falling out of the public's awareness. It was set in the future --- and space --- so as to not interfere with the franchise continuity, just in case FvJ opted to make use of that history (SPOILER: it didn't). Still...this is the tenth Friday the 13th film, and it is one of the few, the proud, the incredibly stupid --- the horror sequel set in space. Maybe the sheer audacity of doing something this dumb will redeem Jason X.
Jason X is an important film, not only because it is the tenth entry in a film series --- how many films can boast that claim? (four, actually) --- but also because it teaches us important lessons. The film opens in the Crystal Lake Research Facility, because research facilities are typically built in the same area as remote Summer camps. There, we meet Rowan (Lexa Doig), a scientist heading a team that is researching Jason Voorhies (Kane Hodder). Everyone knows about how Jason was captured by the government; they "executed him for the first time" in 2008, remember? He just won't stay dead, though. In 2010, Rowan plans to freeze Jason for further study, but David Cronenberg wants to do something stupid that inevitably leads to Jason getting free and having himself a blood orgy.
"Blood Orgy" would make a pretty solid Cronenberg title
The details don't matter. The important thing is that Rowan and Jason wind up being cryogenically frozen. In the year 2455, a group of students is on...um...a class trip? An archaeology expedition? A weak excuse to move the plot forward? Whatever. They find the two Popsicles and bring them on board their spaceship. Rowan is thawed out first, and her immediate thoughts returned to keeping Jason dead-ish. Her worries are immediately dismissed because she's only the person they found with their unknown subject. Some unknown stimulus does the impossible and brings Jason back from the dead.
The "unknown stimulus" is cadaver table romance?
Being a ruthless zombie murderer that has feels no pain still makes for a fairly efficient killer, even in the distant future. However, it's only a matter of time until future technology outclasses this machete-wielding maniac. Of course, that's assuming that Jason can't keep up with the times.
Goalie masks: still fashionable, even in 450 years
The acting in Jason X is better off not being mentioned. Let's just say that it's campy at best and amateurish at worst and leave it at that.
It's possible this guy doesn't even list this movie on his resume
James Issacs directed Jason X. He didn't try to make the characters too likable, or make the spaceship look good. His focus was on violence and campy humor. How successful was he?
Well, one fantastic kill can't carry an entire horror movie (...Or can it? Let me know if you have a good example), but that is easily one of my all-time favorite death scenes in this franchise. The rest of the violence isn't as creative or graphic, but Jason was certainly prolific; I counted twenty-four kills, with several more implied off-screen. That's a pretty high body count, but that doesn't guarantee entertainment. To increase the likelihood of Jason X being fun to watch, the writer (Todd Farmer) and director teamed up to make this the campiest and silliest Friday the 13th yet. Was it actually funny? Well...here and there.
"We love premarital sex!"
There are a few gags that worked quite well. My personal favorite was the premarital sex girls/sleeping bag death scene. It was predictable, but still great. I also liked some of the more knowing dialogue; I don't usually like it when a movie has characters that comment on the action, but the potentially annoying observations were surprisingly solid in Jason X. James Isaacs and Todd Farmer deserve some credit for making this as watchable as it is. Even with all the parts that made me chuckle, there were a lot more moments that were just eye-rollingly lame. Take this scene, for example:
It's humorously violent, it has characters making commentary, and is filled with over-the-top ridiculousness. When done correctly, that should make for an awesome scene. This one...it's not bad. I might even go so far as to call it "pretty good." But it doesn't quite work. There's some absolutely silly moves from the lady, some mediocre one-liner comments, and Jason looking confused while he gets blown to hell. It's fun, but it feels a bit forced.
There is a problem with the way I approached Jason X. Since this is the tenth freakin' Friday, and it is set in space, I instinctively treated it with kid gloves; since I went in with such gloriously low expectations, minor accomplishments like occasionally competent dialogue seem far more valuable than they really are. It's like applauding a toddler for pooping in a toilet --- we expect that of most people, but the bar is set pretty low for these kids because we know they're crapped themselves so many times before.
Look! Jason's distracted by my amazing simile!
If you go into Jason X with absolutely no preconceptions, this will be a pretty bad movie. If you walk into it knowing that it's going to be truly idiotic and violent, though, it's shining moments will seem like pure gold. Is it any good? Surprisingly, it's only slightly more than half-bad.
If you're looking to laugh, though, there is enough Lefty Gold to power several drinking games.
Of course, some of the best moments in Jason X are not related directly to the story at all. Here's a handy list to help you pick out some of the choicer moments of conceptual humor:
- Jason still has his gross old clothes and mask. Think about that for a moment. Jason had been captured by the government for several years and they tried every way they could imagine to kill him. And yet, the scientists never replaced his shitty clothes or hockey mask. For that matter, the fact that Jason is able to easily get his hands on a giant-ass machete just goes to show that the Crystal Lake Research Facility is probably not the high-end, respectable place that the name implies.
- Students in space are always ready for sexy time. I have no problem with characters in horror movies acting sex-crazed, since that's one of the characteristics of slasher movies. I was surprised by how much skin was showing while these students were working on corpses.
Midriff- and shoulder-baring sweaters are actually part of the dissection uniform
- Hockey is on its last legs. According to Jason X, which we can all agree is a historical document, hockey will be outlawed in 2024. Sorry, Canada, you only have twelve more years to live for.
- Machetes are medical tools in the future. 'Nuff said.
The only reason I wanted to see A Dangerous Method is because it was made by David Cronenberg. I don't know or care much about psychology. I am liking Michael Fassbender's work so far, but Viggo Mortensen is pretty hit-and-miss for me and Keira Knightley generally stars in the film adaptations of books I never wanted to read. Cronenberg, though, is always (in my experience) interesting as a filmmaker, at the very least. I was a little hesitant to see A Dangerous Method, though. I just had difficulty seeing the promise of a Cronenberg movie that was fenced in by actual historical figures and facts. That practically guarantees a lack of head explosions, and what's the fun in that?
A Dangerous Method centers around Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), one of the first and foremost trailblazers in psychoanalysis. Young, married, and Fassbendery, Dr. Jung is at the cutting edge of his profession, back when Freud's ideas were still new and radical. Jung took a particular interest in his patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). When she came to him, Sabina was defiant, afraid, and spastic.
In other words, she was a perfect test subject for psychoanalysis. Jung is able to treat Sabina so that she no longer covers herself in feces and throws unreasonable tantrums. Through the course of treatment, Jung learns quite a bit about Sabina; he learns that she is extremely intelligent, understands psychoanalysis, and has a spanking fetish. While it may be hasty to call her "cured"...
Fingernail biting: the final obstacle to sanity
...Jung decided that Sabina was capable of living a normal life and encourages her to study to become a doctor, like him. Around this time, Jung is invited to a meeting of the foremost minds in psychoanalysis, where he meets his idol, Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Freud recognizes Carl's brilliance and takes Jung under his wing, as his heir apparent. Jung has his doubts about the absolute nature of Freud's theories --- is everything about sex? --- but keeps those thoughts to himself.
Like Freud's ridiculous "Beard Theory." Pah! Mustaches are the future!
As Jung's fame grows, so does Sabina's insight. As a successful patient as well as a successful psychoanalyst, her thoughts are often clever and unique. As she and Jung develop their professional relationship, however, it becomes apparent that Sabina is very attracted to Jung. Obviously, this is a case of transference. But what's a little transference between friends?
Spanky, spanky!
Their romantic relationship complicates things. On a personal level, Jung has a wife whom he feels morally responsible for (and who is extremely wealthy), even if he does not share a deep connection with her. He is magnetically attracted to Sabina, physically and intellectually, but he does not want to give her the love child she craves. On a professional level, Sabina could easily make their relationship public knowledge and discredit Jung with the rest of Freud's faithful. Jung's increasingly vocal criticisms of Freud's refusal to change his theories even a little also threatens his status as Freud's heir apparent. Oh, Carl Jung --- you so crazy!
Relax --- it's just an expression
The acting in A Dangerous Method is quite good. Viggo Mortensen, in particular, was both charming and compelling as Sigmund Freud. Michael Fassbender gave an interesting performance as a cold, calculating man that could not deny his passion. Keira Knightley, when she wasn't doing an impression of a mentally ill person, was good as a needy, manipulative temptress.
"I want you to word associate me so hard...!"
In the beginning of the film, though, Knightley's craziness was unintentionally funny. I'm sure she did her research, and that Sabina Spielrein really did have some crazy spastic movements. I'm just not 100% certain that the best way to convey that illness is jutting out your jaw, like it's trying to escape your face. I will say that this is the best Tasmanian Devil impression I have seen on the big screen. It was a complex role, and she nailed the dramatic parts --- she just seemed silly when she played "crazy." Vincent Cassel was good as the intelligent (but unrepentantly lusty) Dr. Otto Gross, who provides one of the explanations for the film's title. Cassel is at his best when he is doing dirty, dirty, things, and that's what Gross was all about.
Dr. Gross, with his 1 o'clock appointment
The only other cast member worth mentioning is Sarah Gadon, who played Mrs. Jung. Hers was a small part, but she conveyed the repressed emotions of her character well.
David Cronenberg's direction in A Dangerous Method was not as impressive as the acting. I genuinely liked how well he developed the characters and how the actors were directed. However, it is up to the director to take that and make it into something compelling, if not simply entertaining. Simply put, this is a dull movie. The most dramatic moments come when characters are reading letters. It is so boring, in fact, that the novelty of Fassbender and Knightley's bondage and spanking scenes barely breaks the monotony. For the record, I have no problem (in theory) with a slow-paced film.
Dramatic pause and...now sip your tea
I do not, however, have much tolerance for being bored. It is not the pacing that is at fault, though. The larger problem of A Dangerous Method is the story focus. The conflict between Jung and Freud was interesting, as was the forbidden romance of Carl and Sabina. Unfortunately, this script split the story's focus between those two plots. Either one could have made for a compelling film, but there isn't room for both to be represented equally. Instead of a compelling drama about either relationship, we get what amounts to a Carl Jung biopic. Biopics are not my favorite film genre, but if anyone can spice up the traditionally predictable biopic structure, it would be David Cronenberg. He likes to make films with cool characters and unusual imagery, and that is exactly what is needed for an interesting biopic. Instead, we get a haggard-looking Keira Knightley in an ill-fitting bodice.
Knightley is a size zero, so that makes her clothes...size -2?
While I believe that Michael Fassbender did a very good job as the subtle, reserved Carl Jung, he simply is not very compelling as a main character. We don't see his actions as interesting or dynamic --- heck, we don't see him taking action. There are just conversations, followed by letters, followed by reply letters, followed by conversations. Period piece dramas don't have to be dull, but A Dangerous Method is not a movie I would use to prove that point. Good acting can only take a movie so far without a plot that makes you care about the characters.
Huh. After reading the tagline to this film, I realized that you could substitute the title and tagline for the chorus of Soundgarden's "Superunknown." You know..."Alive in the videodrome/ first it controls your mind/ and then it destroys your...sooooouuuul!" Not that that has anything to do with anything. I was just amusing myself.
Max (James Woods) is the president of a sleazy cable television channel that specializes in soft-core porn and excessive violence. As glamorous as that life is, Max is always on the lookout for new shows to push the envelope and shock his desensitized viewers. He's not picky about his sources, either; one day he gets called in to his team's pirate satellite room, where they hijack whatever programming they choose. Here, Max first witnesses Videodrome. It's a show where masked men beat/torture someone for hours. It's brutal. It's uncomfortable to watch. It might even show real people really dying. In fact, it's perfect for Max's channel! For a while after Videodrome starts airing on Max's channel, things go pretty well for the man. He makes a television appearance, gets some notoriety, and meets a new girlfriend (Deborah Harry) who enjoys violent/kinky sex. Personally, I would be frightened by anyone who, in an erotic moment, asked "Wanna try some things?" and pulled out a knife. I, however, am not James Woods.
"I want to put out my cigarettes on your flesh. Does that make you horny?"
Around this time, things start to get weird. Max begins to have hallucinations --- weird, trippy violent ones --- and he can't tell the difference between his visions and reality. Oh, and he grows some sort of Betamax-sized vagina in his torso.
Ewww.
Basically, the more obsessed Max becomes with Videodrome, the more he learns about it. The more he learns, the more surreal things get, and it becomes apparent that Max is a pawn in a larger conspiracy. Just because he's a pawn doesn't make him helpless, though.
While not the strangest film I have ever seen, Videodrome is a weird experience. James Woods is pretty decent in the lead role, although I found his "roll with the weirdness" attitude a little unbelievable; if I noticed that I had grown a stomach-vagina, I would go to the hospital. James Woods, on the other hand, uses it as storage for his handgun. Of course, with all the bizarre things that his character experiences in this movie, a certain amount of desensitization is inevitable, but I would have liked one moment where he appeared genuinely frightened.
Like, maybe when his gun grows into his arm
The rest of the actors are fairly odd. Deborah Harry maintains lifeless eyes for most of her screen time, but I will admit that she didn't overact in a role that could have been pretty cheesy. Jack Creley only appeared in the film as video playback, which explains why his delivery was noticeably odd; it fit the script, though, so I guess it's all okay. The rest of the supporting cast was either mediocre or strange, depending on whether Max is hallucinating at the time. It's hard to judge their performances due to that, but I think the acting fit the tone of the film.
For instance, no one reacted to this
The fact that Videodrome was written and directed by David Cronenberg should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with his work. It's bizarre and gory and has a plot that is designed to mess with your head, which were all his calling cards in the 1980s.
I believe that Cronenberg got exactly the performances he wanted from his cast, and the special effects are pretty cool, even after nearly thirty years. Early Cronenberg was a master of disgusting (and yet awesome) gore, and the effects his team managed to create are some of the best of their time.
But here's the thing: the story didn't really appeal to me. None of the characters acted or reacted realistically, so none of them are truly sympathetic. These people are so far from the norm --- Max wants to air snuff films on cable television, and he's the hero --- that it's difficult to identify with them. Since the characters aren't particularly likable, the buildup of the plot isn't as compelling as it should be. Honestly, I found myself bored at times during the first half of the film. I really enjoyed the hallucinogenic second half, and I like the story in broad terms, but the slow pace early on really hurts Videodrome. This is definitely worth watching, but I wouldn't call it a classic.
I'm not sure what this says about me, but one of the most disturbing things I saw in this film was this male dancer's outfit. Seriously, I stopped and rewound because I was laughing over the dialogue.
Did you ever have that friend in high school or college that seemed to go out of their way to do crazy, stupid or gross things, seemingly just to prove that normal people are wusses? That's kind of how I feel about David Cronenberg sometimes. The man has made some legendary movies over the past few decades, but for every weirdly appealing film he makes, there seems to be a bizarrely repulsive one to balance out his output. I categorize Naked Lunch in the latter category. Theoretically based on the book of the same name by William S. Burroughs, Cronenberg instead chose to make the film a metatextual movie; this is a movie about Burroughs (or, at least an analogue of him) having some serious drug hallucinations and writing what would become Naked Lunch. The book was thought to be unfilmable for many years --- at one point, Mick Jagger was attached to star, which would have made it unwatchable if it was filmed --- because the book doesn't really have a plot. Unless drug-fueled ranting is a plot. Well, it worked for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, so maybe this will be just as fun.
Or maybe not. William Lee (Peter Weller) is a part-time exterminator who learns that his wife has been stealing his bug-killing powder and injecting it into herself. It's not just any movie that can begin with that premise, you know. William looks for a way to get her off the drug, but when he arrives home with an alleged cure (mixed in with more bug powder, of course), he finds her having sex with one of his friends; a few minutes later, he plays William Tell with his wife and ends up shooting her in the head. Oh, did I forget to mention the part where a pizza-sized bug with a mouth on its back tells William that he's a secret agent and must kill his wife? Yeah. That happens.
...and then it morphs into a typewriter. Huh.
The story doesn't get any less strange from that point on, but it's really not worth summarizing. Naked Lunch really isn't about where the story is going so much as it is about the weird and disturbing things you see along the way.
Speaking of which...!
It is difficult for me to gauge the acting in this film because everyone is purposefully acting unnatural. So, I guess I'll just judge them within the context of the movie's weirdness. I thought Peter Weller gave an interesting performance in the lead. He handles almost everything with an accepting deadpan that fit the material from the book (which is plenty weird without any visuals) and Cronenberg's script. While I have only hallucinated as a result of a fever, I have observed others tripping their balls off, and the choice to have Weller try and act like everything is normal no matter what he sees rings true. I would have liked a minimal reaction from Weller on some of the odder moments, but that's a personal preference. For a movie with a ton of drug trips, the supporting cast is surprisingly small. Judy Davis plays the dual roles of Joan Frost and Joan Lee, but her character is neither amusing nor appealing in any way. I don't think that's a reflection of her acting, though, as her part is generally abrasive. Ian Holm has a small part that is played mostly straight, and he's fine, I suppose.
Is that the woman suit Buffalo Bill always wanted?
Roy Scheider and Julian Sands are both somewhat creepy at first, and then the weird stuff starts to happen. None of these are particularly great performances, or even the kind that makes you ever want to see these actors again, but I think they fit the material just fine.
I'm less understanding with David Cronenberg's direction and story. On a purely artistic level, I have to give the man some kudos for filming a seemingly unfilmable novel. That said, I am amazed that this movie was A) funded B) finished and C) released in theaters. It is just so intentionally weird, so consistently disgusting, and so frequently repulsive that I have a hard time imagining someone watching this movie and recommending it to anyone else. The worst part about this movie is that, despite all the weird and gross things, it's still a pretty dull movie. The story --- which is intentionally unconventional --- has a glacial pace and when you combine a slow pace with deadpan acting, the bizarre visuals in this film lose their impact. Well, most of them do.
Pictured above: a typewriter vagina. Possibly.
Cronenberg is capable of a lot more than just gross-out filmmaking, so I find this film, which he invested a lot of time and effort into, very disappointing. I have always felt that one of Cronenberg's strengths was in his storytelling, so when he directs a movie with no real story (like this one), I think he's working at a disadvantage. This movie is not incompetent, though. It is just an interesting failure by a talented director.
Weller and Cronenberg
I grew up a pretty big Simpsons fan, so I was sometimes aware of pop culture before I knew exactly what was being referenced. There is an episode where Bart, Nelson, Milhouse, and Martin go on a road trip with fake IDs and decide to see an R-rated movie; after leaving a theater showing Naked Lunch, Nelson states "I can think of two things wrong with that title." That's a pretty good summary of most people's reactions to the movie, but there are some redeeming moments amidst all the weirdness. There are a handful of truly great lines that I find hilarious in any context, like "Mugwump jism can't be beat." Weller's monologue about the man who taught his asshole to talk is another one of those moments where the movie really captured the nightmarish ramblings of the source material. The special effects were all pretty good for 1991, and they are still significantly gross to watch by today's standards.
I wish I had a Mugwump skull keyboard :(
I was hoping that time and a sober viewing would make Naked Lunch more enjoyable than when I watched it in college, but no dice. Don't get me wrong, this is a weird movie. It's just not entertaining.
