PIRANHA II: FLYING KILLERS
“The best flying piranha movie ever made.”
Directed by James Cameron. Screenplay by H.A. Milton. Starring Tricia O’Neil, Steve Marachuk and Lance Henriksen. Year of release: 1981. Running time: 94 minutes.
Not being one to ret-con his own personal history or rectify past failings with attention-drawing CGI tweaks and patch-ups (as some mega-successful directors have been want to do) James Cameron has never attempted to bury his first directorial credit – proudly proclaiming it (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) to be ‘The best flying piranha movie ever made’. And considering his subsequent output more than speaks for itself – it’s no surprise he has nothing to be ashamed of.
The distinctively gritty and kinetic visual style of The Terminator (now a Cameron signature) has always seemed like a world away from the look and feel of Piranha II – the possible reason for which can be found in a revealing article in the June 1985 issue of SF Movieland Magazine, where Cameron told journalist Michael Mayo, “After I wrote the first draft [of The Terminator] I saw The Road Warrior, I thought that guy knows how to direct action! So I began to get a visual lexicon of types of shots that I could use with what I had already written.” Interestingly, in the July ‘85 issue of SF Movieland, Road Warrior director George Miller (promoting Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome at the time) revealed to journalist James Van Hise concisely what his own approach to directing action scenes entails, “Trying to choreograph little bits of film, approaching it much the same way as a composer does music. It’s almost a form of visual rock ‘n’ roll. You are looking for certain rhythms – rhythms of ideas, events and performance. That’s what you go for.” It’s a description which could just as easily apply to Cameron’s own approach to creating well-staged, beautifully-paced and geographically comprehensible action sequences. So it seems more than likely Cameron’s distinctive style of action can indeed be said to have been inspired to some extent by Miller’s own approach with the Mad Max films – which goes a long way to explain why Piranha II is essentially lacking these traits.
Piranha – original 1978 vintage poster
In 1978, incensed that the block-busting success of Universal’s Jaws three years earlier had inspired major studios to flood the market with B movies done with A level budgets (Orca The Killer Whale, Tentacles, Grizzly etc) – thus encroaching on his own long-held exploitation turf, Roger Corman (then head of New World Pictures) decided to get his own back by producing what was meant to be nothing more than a shameless Jaws knock-off – an intense little shocker called Piranha. Written by John Sayles and featuring gory makeup effects by Rob Bottin (The Howling, The Thing), the film was a surprise hit in its own right, thus launching the career of its maverick director Joe Dante (who later went on to achieve even greater success with Gremlins in 1984). Despite the fact Piranha did so well at the box office, Corman was in no rush to produce a sequel – having decided instead to ride the lucrative wave of outer space fare made popular by the likes of Star Wars and Alien.
It was during the production of Corman’s outer space Alien cash-in Galaxy Of Terror in 1981 that one of Corman’s hardest working and brightest young employees caught the eye of two Italian producers who had just signed a deal with Corman for the rights to produce a sequel to Piranha. James Cameron had been working for Corman since preproduction on Battle Beyond The Stars (Corman’s answer to Star Wars) began in 1979. He was initially hired as a model builder, was quickly promoted to Art Director and in no time made his way up the ranks as Corman’s go-to-guy at New World’s newly-established visual effects facility, where he immediately got to work devising a rudimentary, yet surprisingly effective front-screen projection system used in order to integrate visual effects backgrounds with live action in not only Battle, but also Escape From New York and Galaxy Of Terror (a process he would later go on to use to great effect in both The Terminator and Aliens). Promoted to Production Designer and 2nd Unit Director on Galaxy; this is where he was found by the two Italian producers.
As legend has it, Cameron was in the middle of directing an insert shot of maggots crawling around on a severed arm, but was having difficulty getting a performance out of the little critters (actually mealworms) – as they’d basically just sit there, unmoving. So, racking his brain (and in a perfect demonstration of his innate ability for practical problem-solving) he organized a battery wired up to a metal plate upon which the ‘maggots’ were placed and had an asssistant simply throw a switch when Cameron called ‘Action!’. Naturally, the worms would wriggle around for the duration of the shot and then stop wriggling as if on command when he called ‘Cut!’ and the switch was again thrown. Apparently it was at this moment after completing a successful take when Cameron looked up to see the two Italian producers standing there, gaping in utter amazement at what they had just seen. According to Cameron, he figured they must have realized if this guy can get maggots to perform on cue – then he should be fine with actors. And so, based on what they had witnessed and Corman’s own personal recommendation, the producers (one of whom was Ovidio Assonitis) approached Cameron with an offer he couldn’t refuse – his own gig directing a feature. Incredibly, Cameron signed on without ever having seen a script for Piranha II, which just goes to show just how hungry he was for his first shot at directing.
Vintage Australian poster featuring, in Lance Henriksen’s words, “That damned helicopter” – lower right
Although Cameron didn’t know it at the time, Warner Brothers only made a deal with Assonitis to distribute Piranha II in North America on the proviso that an American director be put in charge of shepherding a predominantly American cast; hence the hiring of Cameron; whom Assonitis had always planned to fire midway through the shoot anyway and take over the reigns himself (while still using Cameron’s name in the credits – a clear cut example of identity theft if ever there was). Ironically, speculation was rife amongst mainstream critics in the US at the time of the film’s release (clearly not regular readers of Fangoria Magazine, mind you) that the on-screen credit ‘James Cameron’ was indeed just a generic-sounding non de plume for an Italian director and not an actual living person; standard practice at the time; with Italian producers of exploitation fare doing anything they could to appeal to the lucrative if notoriously US-centric American market.
Upon his arrival in Jamaica, Cameron was horrified to discover that preproduction had already commenced without him and had been in full swing for several weeks (under the supervision of another director who had subsequently been fired). Storyboards had been created and the rubber fish; which were meant to be the special effects centerpiece of the movie; were laughably designed and poorly constructed.
Cameron’s immediate reaction was to turn tail and catch the next available flight back to LA. However, for reasons unknown, he was talked into staying and decided instead to take up the challenge and attempt to do the best he could given the less-than-ideal circumstances. The first thing he did was discard the existing storyboards and ditch the fish which had already been built and start from scratch; redesigning them and fabricating a whole new batch. This was, however, only to be the start of his woes.
The premise for Piranha II is very simple, unashamedly goofy and as high-concept as they come. Set three years after the events of the original; a sunken US Navy wreck, located not far from a popular Caribbean holiday resort – is found to harbor leaking cannisters containing thousands of fertilized, genetically-altered piranha eggs (the result of a clandestine US government research project charged with creating ‘the ultimate killer organism’). Spliced from the genes of different fish species – piranhas spliced with grunions who could live out of water, spliced with the common flying fish; the result is a viscious (if uncontrollable) bio-weapon which could survive and function easily in all environments. When half-eaten bodies begin piling up in the local morgue, it is up to island police chief Steve Kimborough (Lance Henriksen) along with his estranged wife and diving tour operator Anne (Tricia O’Neil) and her biochemist lover Tyler Sherman (Steve Marachuk) to eradicate the underwater flying menace before more unsuspecting locals are devoured.
Lance Henriksen is a much-loved gravelly-voiced character actor best-known for his role as the heroic android Bishop in Aliens and his starring turn as haunted FBI profiler Frank Black in four seasons of TV’s Millennium. Prior to his featured role in Piranha II, he was known for smaller appearances in such big budget studio fare as Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Damian: Omen II. Following he and Cameron’s initial stint together on Piranha II, Henriksen was Cameron’s first choice to play The Terminator – a role which ultimately went to Schwarzenegger (although Cameron still provided a supporting role for Henriksen in the film as Detective Vukovich). Henriksen had previously worked for Piranha II producer; the notoriously shonky Ovidio Assonitis with a role in the little-seen, until recently forgotten spaghetti sci-fi thriller The Visitor and openly admits he only agreed to play the role of Police Chief Steve Kimbrough in Piranha II for the paycheck.
Henriksen, however, was immediately impressed with the twenty-five year-old Cameron’s tenacity and commitment to making something worthwhile. As he revealed to journalist Adam Pirani in the July 1986 issue of Fangoria Magazine, “It was Jim’s first movie, and at that time, he was pretty much the same way he is now. He altered the script and made it worth something. He designed all of the special effects fish. He only got three hours sleep a night. He was obsessed with his work. I never saw anybody like him.” Henriksen’s genuine admiration for the first-time director would not only lead to further collaborations – but a strong personal friendship as well; one which continues to this day. His role in Piranha II would also turn out to be his most physically demanding, as he revealed to Pirani, “I broke my hand jumping out of a helicopter. I did about a forty foot jump into the ocean, to save my kids in the movie. They had no stuntmen, so I jumped out of this moving helicopter. My hand hit my knee and it broke. I finished the movie with a busted right hand.”
On a personal note; I had the great pleasure of meeting Lance at a pop culture expo here a couple of years ago and took along my vintage Piranha II: Flying Killers daybill poster for him to sign – which he graciously did free of charge (I guess he was impressed I had this particular piece of rare memorabillia – as he identified the artist immediately and was almost reverential in the care he took to sign it). He pointed out the helicopter in the lower right, “There’s that damned helicopter” and remarked that he’d almost killed himself performing that forty-foot leap into the ocean. I told him I had re-watched the film the night before and was impressed with his acting in one particular scene where he catches a lit bundle of dynamite thrown at him by poachers and hurridly lobs it into the sea; where it explodes – all in one shot. I asked him if it was a real bundle of dynamite and he admitted that indeed it was, saying “It was a very low-budget picture.” So low-budget in fact that the military-style shirt Lance wears throughout the movie was actually a shirt Cameron bought from a waiter in the resort where they were filming; while he and Lance were having dinner. Cameron paid for it with his own money; as the shirt the wardrobe department had already chosen was nothing like what a police officer would wear.
That scene with the dynamite
Henriksen was also a privy to all the backstage political machinations and meddling perpetrated by Assonitis, “They [the producers] were really getting in the way of everything. They would come to the set with two full pages of dialogue – monologues and stuff – fifteen minutes before we were going to shoot. It wasn’t Jim’s fault. It was really the producer putting a squeeze on him, negotiating: ‘I’ll give you five more flying fish if you make the actors say this …’ It became like that.” This reviewer suspects there are two instances of this in the completed film. The first being an odd little scene aboard a yacht (which may have been shot by Assonitis as part of the 2nd unit) where topless bikini babe Loretta (Penthouse Pet Connie Lynn Hadden) looks on as another topless babe Jai (Carole Davis) recites a bizarre passage she has written; as if it were an extract from a ship’s log; in which she refers to she and her shipmate as being ‘high-seas pirate queens’ looking to plunder land lubber’s booty (this turns out to be a clumsy attempt at foreshadowing; as she is later caught sneaking into the resort’s kitchen to steal food). The second is an equally-inept and bizarrely-penned speech given on the final night by nefarious resort manager Raoul (Ted Richert) – just prior to a school of flying piranha leaping out from the sea to attack the resort patrons. During this clunky piece of exposition; Raoul fills us in on the backstory behind the ‘Annual Fish Fry Beach Festival’ where, every year, on the night of the first full moon following the spring equinox; schools of horny grunions come ashore to spawn – where they are snatched up by hungry patrons (wielding flaming torches no less, chanting “We want fish! We want fish!”) – later to be consumed that night in a massive beach fry-up. This is perhaps the most ludicrous sequence in the entire film and is quite clearly a plot contrivance meant to get potential victims conveniently as close to the water’s edge as possible (coincidently a conundrum Joe Dante also had to face in helming the original Piranha).
As Cameron elaborated in an interview with Adam Pirani in the August 1986 issue of Fangoria Magazine, “When I was in Jamaica, the Italian producer decided that it would be a really good idea if he wrote and directed some 2nd unit scenes on the island’s other side with some topless women. He wanted to cut these scenes into the film that I was directing on the other side of the island – which didn’t have any topless women.” Cameron wasn’t majorly concerned as he figured (being under the misguided belief he had final cut) – that he would simply discard these unwarranted scenes on the cutting room floor. Adding to this irksome meddling in the creative process, Cameron also had to deal with a profoundly disinterested crew; whose loyalty lay first and foremost with the producer. The young director was looked upon with bemused indifference by the Italian crew, while Cameron, unknown to them, had given himself a crash course in Italian in the weeks leading up to the shoot. According to journalist Marc Shapiro in his highly-entertaining 2000 warts-and-all unauthorized biography on Cameron; the young director did manage to gain a modicum of grudging respect from the crew, when, on one particular day; exasperated and frustrated by the lack of help he was receiving; he yelled at them in perfect Italian, “Get the motherfucking camera over here now!” Frustratingly for Cameron, this indifference and lack of respect given him from a foreign crew would again dog the headstrong director four years later when he shot Aliens in the UK.
Bikini babes Carole Davis and Connie Lynn Hadden
Despite the fact things were beginning to run relatively smoothly on Piranha II, a mere twelve days into the shoot; Cameron was summoned to the production office and promptly dismissed. Cameron was caught completely by surprise – as he was convinced he was doing a good job, but Assonitis told him that everything was shit and nothing cut together. Understandably disheartened by the whole experience, Cameron returned to LA – where he discovered, much to his horror – that his name would appear on the film’s credits regardless and most likely ruin his career. Fuming, he decided he would fly to Rome and confront Assonitis face-to-face and demand to be involved in the editing of the picture in order to salvage not only the film itself, but more importantly – his reputation.
Legend has it that when confronted in his office by the enraged Cameron, Assonitis was so fearful – he armed himself with a letter opener – fully expecting to be jumped. Cameron again, “So I went to Rome and ingratiated myself back into the production. Well, I wavered on the edge of fighting or running for a while, and I stayed to fight because I had worked really hard on it. Also, I got some pretty good performances out of the actors, and I knew that, dramatically, the story was working. I went there and the producer wouldn’t show me certain reels. So I just broke into the cutting room [using a credit card to jimmy the lock] and ran them for myself. I went through all the footage, and I saw, yes, there really was a movie there – but unfortunately, they weren’t cutting it that way.” Cameron then spent several weeks holed-up in a low-rent hotel room; subsisting off scraps of food and left-overs left on trays in the hall; sneaking into the edit rooms after hours and re-cutting the film with no-one seemingly being the wiser. It was during this period, thanks to poor diet and stress, that Cameron came down with a severe bout of the flu and had his famous fever dream (in which a gleaming metal skeleton rises phoenix-like from the flames) which was the initial inspiration for The Terminator. He did eventually get caught re-editing the film though, and was threatened with legal action by a furious Assonitis. Cameron in turn threatened to go to Warners and spill the beans on what Assonitis was up to. “I then got into a big fight with the producer, and I came back here [to LA] and I made a deal with the distributor to recut it for them. And so the American release of Piranha II was slightly different from the European.”
Tricia O’Neil as Cameron’s proto-Ripley
While watching Piranha II this time around I was profoundly struck by certain things in particular which could indeed be classified as ‘Cameronesque’. As Cameron had a hand in re-writing the script, this should come as no great surprise. First up, there’s the estranged relationship between the two leads. Although we don’t know it at first, we soon discover dive instructor Annie (Tricia O’Neil) and police chief Steve (Lance Henriksen) are married – although separated. And it is only through the course of dramatic events they are ultimately brought back together (much like what happens with Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s estranged Bud and Lindsey in The Abyss). Although it is never specifically stated, we gather it is Steve’s devotion to his job which has strained he and Anne’s marriage. But since they share a teenaged son Chris (Ricky G. Paull), their separation appears to be a mutually amicable one.
The final ‘family portrait’ closing shot of Piranha II – where Steve, Annie and Chris are reunited in a group hug on the back of a dive boat (Anne having survived the climactic detonation of the piranha-infested wreck) – is mirrored in a remarkably similar shot in Aliens – where Hicks, Ripley and Newt embrace in a group hug after Ripley and Newt are rescued from facehuggers in med lab. Indeed, Tricia O’Neil’s character Anne is, in many ways, a ‘proto-Ripley’ – as Ripley was portrayed in Aliens. She is tenacious, fearless and determined to kill the beast. And the way Tricia O’Neil plays her here is so similar to Sigourney Weaver in Cameron’s third movie, it’s almost uncanny. And Steve Marachuk’s Tyler Sherman; who starts out as one of Anne’s diving students, becomes her paramour; only to be revealed as an inside man with knowledge of the US Army experiments; could also be considered a ‘proto-Burke’ from Aliens – albeit a lot less smarmy and treacherous. O’Neil’s performance during a scene on the dive boat (after Tyler rescues her from being attacked in the wreck) where he reveals his background as a biochemist who helped create ‘the ultimate killer organism’ – and O’Neil’s expression of her determination to kill it no matter what is (in terms of direction and script) – identifiably Cameron. These scenes between Marachuk and O’Neil and O’Neil and Henriksen are definitely the best-written and best-acted scenes in the movie.
Tricia O’Neil with Steve Marachuk
Just as an aside, and at the risk of getting super-nerdy here, I’m wondering if Cameron deliberately referenced Piranha II actor Steve Marachuk in a line of dialogue in Aliens. During the scene where the marines find fachugger specimens in liquid-filled tanks in med lab, there’s a line where Lance Henriksen reads notes from a clipboard, “Removed surgically before embryo implantation. Subject: Marachuk John l. Died during procedure. They killed him getting it off.” I’ve always wondered if this was indeed a reference to Steve Marachuk – as it is already common knowledge the character of Apone was named after one of Cameron’s co-workers at New World; revealing Cameron has a liking for incorporating the names of real people he has known into his screenplays.
While the flying piranha effects are clearly low-rent (with the little chirping sounds they make clearly cribbed from every Dracula movie ever made) – they’re not nearly as ludicrously unconvincing as has been suggested in the past. And the special effects makeup supervised by Lucio Fulci’s resident makeup man Giannetto de Rossi (Zombie, House By The Cemetary, The Beyond) is effectively gruesome to say the least. The typically Italian-sounding score by veteran composer Silvio Cipriani (best known for A Bay of Blood and Baron Blood) is the biggest problem with the film, as it simply doesn’t add anything to the creation of mood or suspense during what should be tense sequences, and if anything, it detracts from them. The choice of composer, of course, was ultimately out of Cameron’s hands, but it’s a real shame such an ineffectual score effectively undoes all of Cameron’s good work in creating mood and sustaining tension with the visuals.
Also, there are bizarre tonal shifts throughout the first half of the film which are quite disconcerting. The scenes involving the goofy antics of various peripheral characters at the resort (aka piranha fodder) – the man-hungry cougar with her eye on the hunky beach attendant; the stammering half-wit chef; the snap-happy newly-weds; the gold-digging wallflower chasing an equally nerdy dentist – are so tonally at odds with scenes involving the main cast; it leads me to suspect these scenes were either shot as part of the 2nd unit – or by Assonitis himself, following Cameron’s departure. While a clear attempt at comic relief – these awkward scenes merely come across as juvenile, ineptly-directed and lame. On the upside, Cameron’s direction of the three leads is confident and assured and some of the suspense sequences (particularly the demise of a nurse in the hospital morgue and a poacher in his shanty) are quite well handled. And the numerous underwater sequences involving the wreck are nicely-shot and suitably eerie.
It really says something about Cameron’s innate sense of adventure and his love for a challenge that he persevered with Piranha II in the first place. After all; it was an extremely low-budget picture; with a non-english speaking and frustratingly disrespectful crew; shot in a foreign country; without access to his usual effects collaborators and with a meddling shonk as a producer. Indeed, if Cameron had wanted to play it safe – he could easily have stayed back at New World and helmed Corman’s next picture: the Alien cash-grab Forbidden World – and enjoyed his first gig directing in the relatively safe and familiar environment of Corman’s Venice studios. But no – Cameron instead went out on a limb, learning lessons which would hold him in good stead for the rest of his career. Cameron himself is characteristically pragmatic in his own summing up of his overall thoughts on the experience, “Some people have very auspicious first films, some people have very inauspicious first films. But Piranha II was a wonderful challenge, I have to say: it took every bit of cunning and everything that was required. I also got the opportunity to do five weeks of underwater photography in the Cayman islands, so it can’t be all that bad, if you happen to like scuba diving.”
Sure, Piranha II: Flying Killers isn’t the greatest film ever made. But it’s no worse than a lot of low-budget horror films from the early eighties – and even better than some.
2.5 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
DEATH WARMED UP
New Zealand’s first splatter movie – a long lost horror gem!
Directed by David Blyth. Written by Michael Heath and David Blyth. Starring Michael Hurst, Margaret Umbers, William Upjohn, Norelle Scott, David Letch, Geoff Snell, Gary Day and Bruno Lawrence. Year of release: 1984. Running time: 80 minutes.
Teenager Michael Tucker (Michael Hurst) is subjected to mind control drugs administered by rogue neurosurgeon Dr. Archer Howell (Gary Day) and programmed to kill both his parents after his father, Professor Tucker (David Weatherley) threatens to expose Howell’s barbaric corpse re-animation experiments. Having spent seven long years incarcerated in a mental institution for his crime, Michael, now a young man; together with his girlfriend Sandy (Margaret Umbers) and two friends, Lucas (William Upjohn) and Jeannie (Norelle Scott) – makes his way to Howell’s remote island clinic for ‘Transcranial Applications’ – where he is determined to infiltrate Howell’s medical stronghold and kill the mad scientist in a brutal act of bloody revenge.
Up until the late 1970s/early 80s – with films like Roger Donaldson’s Sleeping Dogs and Smash Palace – New Zealand never really had a local film industry to speak of. Sure, overseas productions like Battletruck, Strange Behavior and Race For The Yankee Zephyr would later utilize New Zealand locations and crews, but it was really with the unprecedented box office success of Geoff Murphy’s comedic action/road movie Goodbye Pork Pie in 1980, that locally-produced features (aimed squarely at local auds) really came into their own. It was around this time the fledgling New Zealand Film Commission sought to foster a commercial base for locally-produced films; choosing to nurture two rising young talents in particular. The first was Vincent Ward, who had shown considerable promise with his short feature A State of Siege and who would later go on to be the first Kiwi filmmaker accepted into competition at Cannes in 1984 with his feature debut Vigil. The second filmmaker was David Blyth, who had helmed the surrealist experimental film Angel Mine in 1978 – the first New Zealand feature to receive funding from the newly-formed Film Commission. Blyth would follow this up with the award-winning TV movie A Woman of Good Character in 1980, as well as spending a year working on the indigenous TV soap-opera series Close to Home (helming a dozen episodes). He also spent time in England working (uncredited) with Jim Sharman on Sharman’s Rocky Horror Picture Show pseudo-sequel follow-up Shock Treatment in 1981. As Blyth revealed recently to this reviewer, “Jim basically invited me to hang out all day on set with him on Shock Treatment to learn how to make studio-style musical films.”
Death Warmed Up began life as a short outline written by screenwriter Michael Heath (who had previously penned another locally-produced horror film starring John Carradine called The Scarecrow) – but it was more about the idea of cryogenics than what ultimately ended up on screen. The New Zealand Film Commission were excited by the prospect of producing a horror film – as horror was perceived at the time to be a genre which appealed to the lucrative 15-25 age group; as well as being a genre with enormous international appeal. As it transpired, the international appeal of Death Warmed Up would indeed open doors for Blyth in the United States – as would happen later for subsequent New Zealand horror filmmakers such as Peter Jackson. Following a series of successful screenings at various film festivals around the world, including the prestigious London Film Festival and the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Death Warmed Up ultimately went on to win the Grand Prix at the 1984 French International Film Festival Of Fantasy, Horror And Science Fiction, which then led to Blyth landing himself an agent in LA. He would then go on to helm (uncredited) the troubled Lance Henriksen-starring The Horror Show (aka House 3) in 1989, followed by Red Blooded American Girl in 1990 and its sequel in 1996. While in Los Angeles, Blyth also directed four early episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Blyth has since returned to New Zealand, where he continues to make highly-personal genre fare such as the controversial Wound in 2010 and Ghost Bride in 2013.
Death Warmed Up was produced on a budget of just $780,000 and shot over a period of five weeks with a crew of forty-four. It was filmed in 16mm and blown up to 35mm and was the first film in New Zealand to be shot almost entirely using Steadicam. As Blyth revealed to journalist Alan Jones in the April ‘85 issue of Starburst Magazine, “I didn’t use any tracks at all. I had two camera crews and I would plan my master shot using the Steadicam contingent, and as we walked it through I would tell the second lot where I wanted to pick up the close-ups. We were averaging 23 to 24 set-ups a day, which is almost up to rock video standards.” This extensive use of Steadicam not only adds to the film’s overall production value, but it also contributes a palpable sense of fluidity and forward momentum to proceedings. And the shamelessly lurid color palette (recalling the works of Mario Bava) utilized in the cinematography by James Bartle (The Quiet Earth) does much to lend the film a fun comic book aesthetic which the filmmakers were clearly striving for.
Blyth also demonstrates a natural flare for mounting well-staged and kinetic action set pieces – as evidenced in the underground tunnel sequence where our four young heroes are chased by mutant henchmen riding motorcycles (played by Geoff Snell and David Letch). The bar siege which follows – where the kids are holed-up in a pub while fending off an onslaught of mutant zombies, is also nicely-handled and contains a great deal of suspense – while clearly owing more than just a little nod to similar scenes in John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 and The Fog. Actually, while on the subject of Carpenter – with Carpenter-style 80s retro synth scores being all the rage these days (with such films as Drive, The Guest and Cold In July) – the excellent synth-heavy score composed for Death Warmed Up by Mark Nicholas amazingly appears fresh and contemporary all these years later. Adding to the oddly contemporary feel of the movie is Michael Glock’s production design, art direction by Robert Pearson and costumes by Barbara Darragh. Although it is never specifically stated, the ‘new wave’ look inherent in the film’s art direction (particularly in terms of the look of the costumes) was clearly meant to convey a sense of it taking place in the not too distant future; thus side-stepping the usually dated look of most eighties films.
Perhaps the best-known name in a cast of relative unknowns is New Zealand’s much-loved character actor Bruno Lawrence (The Quiet Earth, Smash Palace) – although it is difficult to recognize him under all the prosthetic makeup (as one of Howell’s hunchback mutant zombies). Lead actor Michael Hurst (who, with his bleached white hair, owes more than a passing resemblance to Roy Batty in Blade Runner) would these days be best-remembered for his recurring role as Iolaus in the New Zealand-lensed TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Here he displays a look and intensity which is very similar to Rutger Hauer’s Batty. Indeed, Michael’s final confrontation with Howell is clearly inspired by Batty’s dispatching of Tyrell in Blade Runner. There is a nice natural chemistry between all four leads and, despite their limited experience, they all seem remarkably comfortable in their roles; which is most likey due to the two week rehearsal period prior to the shoot; a technique Blyth learned during his time working with Sharman on Shock Treatment. Of the young leads in the cast, Margaret Umbers and Norelle Scott give standout performances as girlfriends Sandy and Jeannie respectively; Scott in particular eliciting considerable compassion for what her character is forced to endure until her explosive and quite shocking demise. Indeed, without giving too much away, things don’t end well for most of the major characters in this film. As Blyth reveals in an interview extra on the DVD, “Most horror films end with evil being vanquished forever. In Death Warmed Up basically evil still survives at the end and gets to live another day – which is how I see reality. The psychology has left Michael, our hero, as damaged as the damaged bad guys if you like.”
I first became aware of Death Warmed Up from reading the aforementioned 1985 interview with Blyth in Starburst back in the day. It was then released on VHS here in Australia a year later on the CBS/Fox Video label; only it was heavily censored; having pretty much all the gruesome violence cut out of it (it was initially refused classification, but eventually passed after having a whole bunch of footage excised). Happily, a reconstructed version of the film finally surfaced on DVD in 2009. It features all 1 minute 12 seconds of missing footage (32 previously cut pieces in all) reincorporated back into a re-mastered theatrical print – although these reconstituted shots have clearly been sourced from an inferior VHS copy; as the original negative was destroyed by accident at the lab and all subsequent prints had been cut by censors and distributors. If ever there were a film which would benefit enormously from a full-blown digital restoration and re-mastering, utilizing the best means available, it would be this one. As Blyth recently revealed to this reviewer; there still exists a 35mm interneg somewhere in the US, so perhaps a full digital restoration may yet be a real possibility.
Japanese vintage poster
The numerous makeup effects (supervised by Kevin Chisnall) are admittedly low-rent and splattery; featuring gun shot wounds, impalings, stabbings and exploding heads. And the anatomically-correct brain surgery scenes (newly-restored here to their full gory glory) are more darkly humorous than gross; with close-ups of nurses being spattered in the face by gouts of blood only adding to the gory fun. And it’s interesting to note that although Peter Jackson’s 1987 gorefest Bad Taste is generally considered to be New Zealand’s first spaltter film – it is actually Blyth’s Death Warmed Up which proudly holds this distinction. There are also interesting parallels between Blyth’s film and another horror film released the same year; namely Russell Mulcahy’s Razorback – as they are both movies which feature hyper-kinetic pacing, highly-stylized photography and art direction and a youthful sense of irreverent fun and vigor; both films gaining a certain cult status over the years. I am also reminded of Richard Stanley’s 1990 cult splatter film Hardware for these very same reasons.
If I were to have a criticism of the film it would be that Doctor Howell’s motivation for creating his horde of zombie minions is a little murky and unclear, but there is such a twinkle in the filmmaker’s eye, it does little to diminish the overall fun to be gained from watching Death Warmed Up. It is a solid, fast-paced low-budget sci-fi thriller and a must-see for fans of classic 80s splatter.
To purchase a DVD copy of the complete and uncut Death Warmed Up please visit:
And I’d like to personally extend a sincere debt of gratitude to David Blyth himself for kindly supplying me with the terrific stills for this review.
3.5 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
FURY
Does for tanks what Das Boot did for U-boats.
Reviewed on Wednesday 5th November 2014
Written & directed by David Ayer. Starring: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouff, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal. Running time: 134 mins.
Set over the course of a single day during WW2, Fury depicts the exploits of a war-weary American tank crew during the final weeks of the Allied push into Hitler’s Germany. As seen through the eyes of a young rookie recruit who has been forced to join the fight, we witness the true heroism, camaraderie and brutality of war.
Relentlessly intense and harrowing at times, David Ayer’s film does not shy away from depicting the ugly ferocity of war. And Ayer’s background as a screenwriter holds him in good stead as a director (as far as pacing is concerned) – as the story unfolds in a natural progession; with each event leading seamlessly to the next. The evocation of the period and setting is perfectly rendered and the verisimilitude very much recalls the sense of gritty realism seen in Wolfgang Petersen’s German WW2 U-boat drama Das Boot (indeed, these films would make terrific bookends, as they starkly demonstrate there were far more similarities than differences between the experiences of both the German and Allied soldiers during the war). The beautifully-staged action sequences are incredibly visceral and involving without resorting to the annoyingly faux documentary shaky-cam style which has become de rigueur since the Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan (I’m looking at you Black Hawk Down) – with a deadly encounter with a virtually unstoppable and vastly superior German Tiger tank being almost balletic in its depiction; the historically accurate (and breathtakingly beautiful) depiction of machine gun tracer fire crisscrossing the battlefield only adding to the excitement. And the final closing shot of the film has to be the most memorable and haunting final shot of any film this year.
Performances are pitch perfect throughout, although I found some of the accents a little difficult to decipher to begin with. Shia LaBeouff (with his much-talked about preoccupation with method acting) gives an incredibly convincing performance here and demonstrates he has clearly left his annoying Transformers LaBeouff-isms far behind him. While Brad Pitt’s stern tank commander is aptly named (Wardaddy) – as he commands his crew in an all-knowing, no-nonsense fatherly manner which is wholly believable; similar to his character in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. And Logan Lerman (last seen in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah) is also very good as the young recruit whom Wardaddy takes under his wing. His nuanced performance does well in conveying his character’s growth and coming of age over the course of the movie.
Soviet-born lenser Roman Vasyanov’s desaturated cinematography is truly beautiful. And the impressively detailed sound design by Oscar-winning sound designer/editor Paul N.J. Ottosson (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) – as with Kathryn Bigelow’s films – is a major contributor to the overall immersive quality of the film. On the other hand, the overtly operatic score by Steven Price (Gravity) can be irritatingly intrusive at times, but nonetheless adds gravitas to the proceedings.
If the intention of a war film (or any film for that matter) is to so completely immerse the audience in a visceral experience; that we feel we have been through what the characters have been through to some extent; then this film does this extremely well.
4 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Viewed at the Event Cinemas Megaplex Marion, Adelaide, November 5th 2014.
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
INTERSTELLAR
A turgid overblown pretentious mess.
Reviewed on Thursday 6th November 2014
Directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, John Lithgow and Michael Caine. Running time: 169 mins.
It isn’t very often we are treated to serious hard science-based space exploration movies on the big screen. Prior to the little-seen Europa Report in 2012 (which went straight to video), there was Danny Boyle’s Sunshine in 2007 and prior to this there was 2010: The Year We Make Contact in 1984. I wouldn’t necessarily include last year’s Gravity, (or Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 for that matter) – as these are more straight forward survival pictures – than speculative depictions of space exploration. (Nor would I include 2012’s Prometheus – as it could hardly be called hard science and, anyway, the less said about that abomination the better). So when a new film of this particular type is released, there is cause for excitement. Unfortunately, five minutes into Interstellar – my excitement was quickly quashed by the sheer ineptitude and awfulness of this film – and that was only the first five minutes.
Jonathan Nolan reportedly spent four years crafting the initial draft of the screenplay; before his brother took over and rewrote the remaining two thirds – jettisoning much of what Jonathan had researched and written. And it is the script itself which contributes a large part to the structural issues I have with this film. While the scientific concept of time dilation is an intriguing premise; the idea that time speeds up the closer one gets to a black hole (thus one hour in space equals seven years on Earth) – the depiction of it here; cross-cutting back and forth between concurrent events in space and events on Earth is so awkward and clumsy (and on the nose) that it becomes less a film about the excitement and wonder of human endeavor and exploration and more just another run-of-the-mill, conventionally-plotted and ineptly-handled race-against-the-clock scenario we’ve all seen a thousand times before (not to mention a virtual replay, structurally, of the overwrought second half of Nolan’s own Inception).
Aside from Nolan’s direction being uninvolving and lacking in nuance or subtlety, he clearly shows here that he is way out of his depth when it comes to this particular genre. His direction is haphazrd and unfocused from the outset – with a muddled first act which doesn’t bode at all well for the remainder of the film – and in fact, it gets worse. I was hoping the film would settle down after this shaky start and get back on track once we get into space – but no. This film has got to be the worst example of bad pacing of any film seen this year. And the scenes involving space travel are unnecessarily jarring – when they should be majestic. But worst of all – there is simply no sense of grace or wonder.
There are also moments which the director has clearly cribbed from other films. There is a scene in the second half where the wife of McConaughey’s grown-up son admonishes their young child at the dinner table, which is virtually identical to a similar moment in Peter Hyams’ 2010 – where Haywood Floyd’s wife does the same with she and Floyd’s young son (the actors’ mannerisms are exactly the same). And the awkward shoe-horning of faux interview clips of old-timers recalling devastating dust storms in the first act (clips whose relevance only becomes clear much too late at the end of the film) – are a direct steal from similar interview clips of real-life men discussing issues of loneliness; which are harmoniously incorporated and more thematically meaningful and used to better effect in William Eubank’s excellent indie sci-fi film Love. This technique works perfectly well in Eubank’s film – but with Interstellar – it just appears jarring and unnecessary; adding to the general choppiness of the opening twenty minutes. Other films Nolan shamelessly cribs from include: The Black Hole, Sunshine, Gravity, Red Planet and yes even Event Horizon (even going so far as to re-enact the folded paper and pen analogy from that film; when demonstrating how travelling through a wormhole might actually work). And while the third act of Nolan’s film clearly aspires to ape James Cameron’s The Abyss in some respects – the ultimate resolution merely comes off as half-assed and ludicrous. But to elaborate any further on these countless similarities would be getting into spoilers – so I’ll just leave it at that.
The seasoned cast (including several Nolan regulars) do their best with the clunky dialogue and endless platitude-spouting, but aside from the always dependable Michael Caine; none of them really come off as particularly sympathetic or relatable in any way.
The production design is unconvincing and mundane. And it features what is perhaps the most ludicrous robot design ever committed to film. The depiction of the robot (a walking metal slab with computer monitors for a face) is also problematic in that, because it is given a natural-sounding human voice (indistinguishable from the human actors), it becomes virtually impossible to tell when it is speaking in any given scene; creating unnecessary confusion. This confusion could easily have been alleviated by giving the robot an electronically-treated voice (even a subtle difference would have sufficed) and it’s a mystery as to why they didn’t do this. And not to get too nit-picky, but why put people in stasis in tanks of liquid – while fully clothed?
The visual effects by Double Negative are servicable – but nothing we haven’t already seen. And Nolan’s annoying over-editing means we never get a good look at them anyway. Adding to the visual mediocrity of this film; with the absence of Nolan’s resident cinematographer Wally Pfister (who had gone on to helm his own directorial debut Transcendence) – it becomes apparent almost immediately that Pfister’s lensing was a major part of what made Nolan’s previous films so visually arresting.
The usually dependable Hans Zimmer has here produced the worst score in recent memory. His overbearing use of pipe organ recalls the horrible score Ennio Morricone produced for the equally dire Mission To Mars back in 2000. Granted, Hans Zimmer’s score IS way too loud in the mix – but the real issue here is it’s just horrible, intrusive and overblown. It’s almost as if Nolan lacked confidence that there was enough drama inherent in the muddled direction of his set-pieces and so tried to ‘fix it in post’ by overcompensating with the score – only making matters worse.
While this isn’t the worst film of the year, it is definitely the most disappointing. It’s this year’s Prometheus – only it makes that debacle look like Citizen Kane.
1 star out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Viewed in V-Max at the Event Cinemas Marion, Adelaide, November 6th 2014.
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
THE RESURRECTED
The stench of dread is palpable.
Directed by Dan O’Bannon. Screenplay by Brent Friedman, inspired by ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’ by H.P. Lovecraft. Starring John Terry, Jane Sibbett and Chris Sarandon. Year of release:1992. Running time: 108 minutes.
Seeing as it’s Halloween and all – I thought I’d cover a terrific little horror movie many may not have seen … Dan O’Bannon’s second feature as director – The Resurrected.
Wealthy Rhode Island socialite Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) the wife of withdrawn scientist Charles Ward (Chris Sarandon) hires private investigator John March (John Terry) to help uncover the truth behind her husband’s secretive activities at an abandoned country farm house. In the foul-smelling catacombs beneath the property, Claire and March discover Ward has gained arcane knowledge and has recommenced a centuries-old experiment to conquer death and resurrect his long deceased ancestor – an evil alchemist named Joseph Curwen; a man who claims to have summoned demons from the stars.
Despite having a long and auspicious screenwriting career – with such impressive genre fare as Alien, Total Recall, Lifeforce, Blue Thunder and Invaders From Mars to his credit, all Dan O’Bannon really wanted to do was direct. It’s just a shame he only ever had the opportunity to helm two features: the cult hit The Return of the Living Dead in 1985 and the lesser-known The Resurrected in 1990. The five year hiatus between the release of Return and the lensing of his sophomore effort, incidently, was to allow O’Bannon time away to focus on his personal life; get married and start a family. Lensed in the fall of 1990, The Resurrected was (inexplicably) held back from release for over a year – before going straight to video in 1992, without ever having had a theatrical showing.
Lovecraft’s 1927 tale ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’ (first published in 1941) had been adapted for the screen once before – in 1963 as The Haunted Palace. But this Roger Corman-produced movie was less an adaptation of Lovecraft’s book and more a shameless attempt by Corman to sell the film as an Edgar Allan Poe tale in order to take advantage of the continued success of his Poe cycle of movies for AIP which were extremely popular at the time. Despite the modern setting, The Resurrected is perhaps the most faithful Lovecraft adaptation yet put on screen, using many of the book’s major plot points and events – albeit slightly altered to accommodate the detective character. As the book’s title suggests, the original story is structured more as a faux case report – than an actual dramatic narrative – which meant certain liberties had to be taken in order to turn it into an engaging story for the screen. Credited screenwriter Brent Friedman was inspired to write Shatterbrain (the film’s original working title) as a spec screenplay after viewing Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator and From Beyond. After voraciously reading Lovecraft’s entire output, Friedman decided upon ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’ as the story he would adapt – as the page count (120 pages) closely approximated the page count of a standard screenplay. At around the same time, coincidently, Dan O’Bannon had also been developing his own adaptation; unrelated to Friedman’s take on the same material. O’Bannon, however, had been struggling to complete his draft as he was facing difficulties with the third act – something which Friedman had been able to overcome successfully in his version. When the film’s producers approached O’Bannon to direct Shatterbrain, both writers agreed that the best approach would be to combine the best elements of both drafts into a brand new hybrid version of the shooting script. Friedman’s original take on the material was to make the central character a psychiatrist who would find himself drawn into Ward’s nefarious plot (hence the script’s original title Shatterbrain – a Middle English word for crazy). O’Bannon’s own take on the material was to incorporate pulp detective noir elements and a plot thread inspired by Polanski’s Chinatown – namely introducing a private investigator character who becomes involved with the wife of Charles Ward; uncovering a series of clues in order to get to the bottom of his clandestine and quite possibly diabolical activities.
Structurally, the movie opens at the end – with a mystery. A decapitated body is discovered in a pool of blood beside scorch marks on the floor of a padded cell. There is no sign of its occupant Charles Dexter Ward. Meanwhile private investigator John March, disheveled and bloodied, in his office after hours; recounts into a dictaphone his account of the previous three weeks which lead to the horrific events of that evening. The bulk of the film is then told in flashback – with March investigating the activities of Charles Ward at the behest of his wife and includes additional flashbacks to two weeks earlier – as Claire recounts her own memory of events which led to her hiring of March. There are also flashbacks (later on) to the events of 1771 – as Claire and March read extracts from a newly-discovered diary belonging to Ward’s apparent ancestor Ezra Ward (during which Ezra gives an account of the discovery of Joseph Curwen’s clandestine and awful experiments – when it is revealed that: it is actually Curwen who was Charles’ true ancestor). If this all sounds exceedingly complex and convoluted – it thankfully isn’t – as the writing is so well structured and paced that we are never at a loss as to where we are in the story at any given time; testament to O’Bannon’s skill as a writer. And it is only in the film’s final moments that the opening scene is fully explained.
For horror fans expecting another less-than-serious approach to the material – a la Re-Animator or From Beyond or even O’Bannon’s own Return of the Living Dead, be rest assured – although there are the occasional amusing character moments here and there, overall it is tonally very different from O’Bannon’s feature debut and takes itself very seriously indeed. It is a film which is less reliant on excessive gore and jump scares to generate its horror and is more about creating a sense of impending doom via mood and atmosphere. There are several instances during the course of the film where sense of smell is used to good effect in creating an unsettling sense of foreboding. Lovecraft’s prose is filled with colorful descriptions of vile stenches and smells (which makes the unseen horrors in his stories all the more palpable) and the writers here cleverly make use of this in The Resurrected. From the opening voice-over narration; where March makes mention of the unpleasant smell the Providence River makes in late summer; to Clarie’s initial complaints to Charles about the awful smells emanating from the coach house – these sense of smell referrences are a highly effective way of conveying, very simply, the possibility of untold horrors being just around the corner (and to my knowledge, this is the first time this has been done in a Lovecraft adaptation). The extended twenty minute sequence where March, Claire and March’s assistant Lonnie (Robert Romanus) descend into the catacombs beneath Ward’s property is the stand-out suspense sequence of the entire film. The moment where they swing open the cast iron hatchway in Ward’s basement and recoil at the stench emanating from within is truly unsettling and perfectly sets the tone for the incredibly tense and creepy sequence which follows.
I’m constantly amazed at just how influential surrealist painter Francis Bacon has been on the look of classic modern horror movies – from Alien to Jacob’s Ladder and now it seems – O’Bannon’s second feature – Bacon has been cited as a primary inspiration for certain creature design aspects in this film too. And the special makeup and animatronic effects supervised by Todd Masters (True Blood, American Mary) are disturbingly creepy and lifelike – particularly the half-formed abomination fished out of the river by the town fathers in the 1771 flashback. Somewhat less effective (but no less icky) are the depictions of Ward’s failed experiments held captive in his undergound laboratory. Resembling walking slabs of misshapen raw meat, these pitiful creatures are certainly disturbing representations of what Lovecraft in his prose referred to as “The liveliest awfulness.”
Technically The Resurrected has a stylish sheen which far outshines its modest $6 million budget. While Irv Goodnoff’s lensing is certainly top-notch – I suspect the atmospheric look of the cinematagraphy has more to do with O’Bannon’s own keen visual sensibility than anything Goodnoff may have brought to the table (one need only to view Return and Resurrected back-to-back to realize there is a definite continuity of visual aesthetic at work here). The scene where police search the maze-like interior of Ward’s farmhouse in pitch darkness – lit only by the searching beams of flashlights predates similar scenes in David Fincher’s Se7en by several years. And the unashamedly Gothic score by Richard Band (Re-Animator, From Beyond) is yet another of the talented composer’s classical old-school scores which does much to heighten the drama.
It really is a shame that Dan O’Bannon was never again given the opportunity to helm another feature – as both Return Of The Living Dead and The Resurrected clearly demonstrate he was an extremely talented and visually stylish filmmaker with a great deal more to offer the world of genre cinema.
4 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
GONE GIRL
A psycho-sexual thriller of which Hitchcock would be proud.
Reviewed on Friday 17th October 2014
Directed by David Fincher. Screenplay by Gillian Flynn, based on her novel. Starring: Ben Afleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon and Kim Dickens. Running time: 149 mins.
Please be advised, the following review is SPOILER FREE …
The ice queen wife of a self-absorbed college professor goes missing on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary. As the husband struggles to maintain his composure amidst the ensuing media circus, he begins to realize he is the unwitting pawn in a diabolical plot to destroy his life.
This is one of those films where knowing as little as possible going in will make it all the more rewarding an experience. Thankfully (for once) the trailer gives virtually nothing away. So if you’ve already seen the trailer – be rest assurred – it barely scratches the surface as far as revealing the massive twists and turns this story takes. From all accounts a remarkably faithful adaptation of the best-selling source novel; it begins as a police procedural, becomes something else half-way through and takes yet another turn in the final act. I won’t go into exactly what any of this involves, only to say – nothing is what it seems. In fact, if Hitchcock were alive today, Gone Girl may well have been a movie he would have made. Aside from the Vertigo-like intrigue, there is a shocking scene of intense brutality which occurs towards the end of the film which conjures up memories of an iconic sequence in Hitchcock’s Psycho – both in terms of its visceral impact and the way it is put together – creating images which will most likely haunt the psyche for a very long time.
Much has been made of Ben Afleck’s turn as put-upon husband Nick Dunne – a solid, if understated performance. And while none of the characters are necessarily sympathetic or relatable, the entire cast is uniformly strong. Tyler Perry as hot-shot defense attorney Tanner Bolt has all the best lines. While Neil Patrick Harris is disturbingly sleazy as Amy’s former boyfriend Desi – a creepy performance not too dissimilar to his role as Carl in Starship Troopers. Interestingly, Harris is one of two actors in the cast who has appeared in films directed by Paul Verhoeven – the other being Kim Dickens, who plays Detective Rhonda Boney, who also appeared in Hollow Man. I make mention of this as Gone Girl definitely has similar tonal qualities to a Paul Verhoeven movie – in the sense that it appears to be commenting on American society from the outside – rather than from within.
Tonally it is less doom-laden than Se7en, with Fincher stating that Gone Girl is essentially a pulp Noir mystery which evolves into satire, although it is unclear which elements Fincher is referring to as being satirical – as the media circus aspects are not all that far from reality; especially when dealing with the manufacturing of public perception of ordinary people thrust reluctantly into the spotlight. Although on second thoughts, perhaps, in some respects, this media commentary could indeed be compared with the satire found in Paddy Chayefsky’s Network (although it is not nearly as exaggerated as Network appeared to be back in 1976). There has also been an assertion bandied about that the film is misogynistic. However, I would argue this label can never truly stick – as the screenplay was written by a female from her own source material. Perhaps if it were written by a man – this accusation might hold actual weight. If truth be told, the film is no more misogynistic as it is anti-male (which it is not). In fact, I will go as far as to say that Rosamund Pike’s mesmerizing portrayal of missing wife Amy Dunne will most likely go down in history as being one of the truly great female film roles ever – an unforgettable performance undoubtedly worthy of a nod come Oscar time.
As one would expect from a Fincher film, technical aspects are virtually flawless. The cinematography by Jeff Cronenworth (whose cinematographer father Jordan had worked uncredited with Fincher on Alien 3) is naturalisitic and understated. And the signature drones and fuzzy electronics normally associated with NIN are present here with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross again providing soundtrack duties.
Despite the two-and-a-half hour running time, the film is so well paced and so compelling – length is never an issue. Fincher’s direction is far less showy than his previous early films such as Panic Room and Fight Club – allowing the story itself to take center stage. And aside from one or two minor lapses in authenticity towards the end, Gone Girl is a tight-as-a-drum psycho-sexual thriller which may resonate most deeply with viewers who are married (or have been) but not necessarily in a positive way. So be warned – this is definitely no date movie.
4 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Viewed at the Norwood Cinemas, Adelaide, October 17th 2014.
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
Back in 1985 I had the pleasure of knowing Billy Dean – a stuntman from the UK who had relocated to Australia. Billy was the stunt driver behind the wheel of the Mercedes on the ice in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. He was also one of the SAS guys who rappel into the underground hideout at the end of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. Billy also doubled for Gene Hackman in SUPERMAN 1 & 2, most notably during the flying scenes were Lex Luthor hitches a ride on Superman’s back. This beautifully embroidered crew patch (which measures 10 x 10.5 cm) was one which the SPFX crew wore during production of SUPERMAN and was given to me by Billy. It still remains my favorite piece of authentic movie memorabilia in my collection.
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
THE QUIET EARTH
Last Man Standing.
Directed by Geoff Murphy. Screenplay by Bill Baer & Bruno Lawrence & Sam Pillsbury, based on the novel by Craig Harrison. Starring Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge and Pete Smith. Year of release: 1985. Running time: 91 minutes.
There is a sub-genre of filmed sci-fi which I like to call ‘empty city movies’. Stories which feature a character or characters who, for whatever reason, find themselves wandering the streets of an abandoned city – completely alone. Other examples of this may include The World, The Flesh And The Devil, The Omega Man and Night Of The Comet. But perhaps the best-loved example of this type of movie would be Geoff Murphy’s intelligent sci-fi thriller from1985, The Quiet Earth – an expression of boyhood fantasies of what it might be like to survive say a neutron bomb blast (the neutron bomb being a nuclear weapon designed to kill all living things – but leave buildings intact) – and what possibilities might be on offer to someone who has free reign to do whatever they want in a city completely devoid of other people; being free to live wherever you choose, embarking on outrageous shopping sprees while not having to pay and driving fast cars recklessly through vacant city streets without fear of hitting pedestrians or being booked by cops.
In The Quiet Earth, Bruno Lawrence plays Zac Hobson, a New Zealand scientist who awakens one morning to find he is seemingly all alone in the world. A joint US experiment he was involved in (known as Project Flashlight) has caused everyone on Earth to vanish in an instant. As he struggles to come to terms with his isolation and maintain his sanity, Zac realizes he may not be alone after all and the Flashlight effect is soon to be repeated.
Director Geoff Murphy (who began his film career as a special effects designer) has been described as something of a pioneer of the New Zealand film industry – with his hugely entertaining 1980 road movie Goodbye Pork Pie being that country’s first locally-produced feature to become an instant domestic hit with local auds. He would later go on to become the go-to-guy for sequels in Hollywood, directing such low-rent action fare as Young Guns II, Fortress II and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory – although Freejack would probably be his most fondly-remembered US feature. It comes as no surprise then, looking back at his early work, that Murphy would continue helming Hollywood actioners – as he demonstrates great flare for orchestrating well-staged and coherent action sequences (especially vehicular mayhem, as seen in both Pork Pie and The Quiet Earth).
Co-writer and co-producer Sam Pillsbury had optioned the source novel shortly after it was published, and was originally slated to direct, but found difficulty in dealing with the dream-like aspects of the book and adapting it for the screen. So he stepped aside as director and hired Geoff Murphy to helm the piece instead. Budgeted at just USD $1 million, The Quiet Earth looks far more expensive than it actually is; thanks largely to Josephine Ford’s production design and Rick Kofoed’s art direction. The scene where Zac stumbles upon the wreckage of an airliner which has seemingly dropped out of the skies with (eerily) no-one on board brings to mind a similar scene with Tom Cruise in Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War Of The Worlds – albeit on a fraction of the budget of that particular film. But it is Geoff Murphy’s assured staging of an empty world which creates a palpable sense of abandonment and desolation which permeates every frame. The sequences filmed in the city of Auckland are particularly impressive when one considers just how problematic it must have been to achieve this convincing sense of eerie desolation – especially on such a large scale. As co-producer Don Reynolds revealed back in 1986, “It was very difficult. We had to film the city with no people, no traffic, no birds and no yachts in the harbor. The real problem was to keep from recording all the sounds in the town, which would give away the existence of life. We had to film on Sunday morning, very early.” Indeed the sound design by Mike Westgate, Hammond Peek, Gethin Creagh and Martin Oswin must also be applauded for contributing to the overall effect. In terms of visuals, Murphy’s prior experience in the realm of special effects is clearly an advantage when it comes to the film’s old-school yet flawless visual trickery. There is one memorable sequence in particular towards the end of the film which involves a rotating room used to create the illusion of characters climbing walls and ceiling (heralding the re-occurrence of the Flashlight effect), which is extremely well done.
The late Bruno Lawrence (who also had a hand in writing the screenplay) was a much-loved New Zealand actor who was best known here in Australia for his recurring TV role in the popular current affairs satire Frontline. And as much as I enjoyed Lawrence in that particular role, his performance here, I must admit, isn’t entirely convincing – which is perhaps my biggest issue with the movie. His co-star, the lovely and appealing Alison Routledge on the other hand gives a terrific performance as Joanne (the last woman on Earth) – making it all the more surprising to learn she has only ever appeared in a handful of films. Rounding out the cast is Pete Smith as Api, a Maori actor here making his big-screen debut (a seasoned performer now with over twenty credits, he would also appear in Jane Campion’s The Piano and Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors). Playing a potential love interest vying for Joanne’s affections, while harbouring guilt over dark goings-on in his past, Smith conveys just the right amount of underlying menace, while keeping his character nicely sympathetic.
While the overall tone of the film is fairly somber for the most part, there are moments of levity to lighten the mood – particularly in the first half with Zac all by himself. The scene where he challenges himself to a game of billiards and acts out both opponents is nicely handled – as is the scene where he bursts into a cathedral (while dressed in a silk slip) and threatens to blow away a statue of Jesus if God doesn’t show himself “If you don’t come out – I’ll shoot the kid!”. The pacing does tend to lag a tad in the second act with the arrival of Joanna, but soon picks up again when Api makes an appearance. Although, for me, the most compelling section of the film is the first thirty or so minutes – where Zac gradually realizes he’s all alone and spirals into madness – ultimately proclaiming himself to be master of the world.
I cannot continue without saying something about the deliberately obscure ending. So if you have yet to see The Quiet Earth and don’t wish to have the ending spoiled – skip ahead to the next paragraph … this is one of those instances where the ending of a film takes on iconic status and reveals itself to be the primary image used in the marketing of the film. As to what it means … okay, so, we are told that Zac, Joanne and Api appear to be the only people left on Earth because all three died at precisely the same moment the Flashlight effect originally occurred: Zac had taken an overdose of pills, Joanne had been electrocuted by a faulty hairdryer and Api was drowned in a river by his jilted best mate. There was also mention made of the dead body of a baby in the hospital where Joanne came to, and we later see corpses of car accident victims – all of whom, it appears, died a second time after the effect had passed. At the end of the film, Zac sacrifices himself (by detonating a truck laden with dynamite) in a bid to destroy the ground station and halt the effect from happening again, but is again killed at the precise same moment the effect re-occurs; thus transporting him to another alternate universe where a ringed planet takes the place of a rising sun (which mirrors the opening of the film) and strange cloud formations hang in the distance. Because Joanne and Api were left alive to endure the re-occurrence of the effect, they were unable to travel with Zac to this new alternate universe and thus perished. And so Zac is, for all intents and purposes, completely and utterly alone – a truly bleak ending if ever there was.
The crisp, clean photography by James Bartle (eschewing the lurid pop video sensibility of David Blyth’s Death Warmed Up the year before) is truly gorgeous and the evocative music score by John Charles (Goodbye Pork Pie, Utu) beautifully maintains a tone of eerie grandeur from the opening moments – to the film’s final fade out. (As an aside, it is interesting to note that Once Were Warriors and Die Another Day helmer Lee Tamahori receives a first AD credit on The Quiet Earth, having previously worked with Murphy in this capacity on Utu.)
Considering its age, it is surprising just how little The Quiet Earth has actually dated. Although there is an odd ‘aloofness’ to the film, which was also present in Murphy’s earlier Goodbye Pork Pie, which creates an odd distancing effect. Despite this, The Quiet Earth still remains a stand-out of its genre in the classic Twilight Zone tradition.
3.5 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
Director John Badham reveals his approach to blocking scenes without storyboards.
Instead of a review this week, I thought I’d share with you a fantastic insight into directing which I inadvertently rediscovered just recently. While leafing through my vintage back issues of Fantastic Films Magazine, I found a fascinating interview with director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) which was published in January 1980, following the release of Badham’s 1979 remake of Dracula starring Frank Langella and Laurence Olivier. In response to a question from interviewer Steve Mitchell regarding the usefulness of storyboarding dialogue scenes, Badham had this to say about his approach to blocking scenes with actors …
“[Storyboarding is] a waste of time. That’s what that is. It’s totally unnecessary because if you have any respect for your actors at all they wind up blocking their scenes. I mean within the very careful confines that the director sets for them. But you do it in a fashion that you say to an actor, well, the scene starts here and you come in the door here and you wind up sitting on the bed and whatever happens in between is up to you. Now the actors start to rehearse and they begin to work it out and the first thing you’ll notice is that they go all over the place. They go in this room and into the bathroom and back into the closet and the fireplace. They go at each other with pokers, I mean the things the actors do … “Oh my God the director’s letting us do what we want.” And they’re all over the place. “Okay, great, do it again.” And about the third time you’ll notice they’re going to about one-tenth the number of places because now they’ve started to work through the problems themselves, not consciously knowing what they are doing. They’re beginning to restrict their movements and do less because there’s no need to do all this stuff. Suddenly they have created the scene along with you and now a suggestion or two put in and they really understand the scene much better. They are more willing to go along and if you walk in and say, during the scene I want you to come in the door, I want you to sit there and during the third line I want you to come over here and stand up, an actor will do it. If you’ve storyboarded that he’ll do it and might even be happy doing it. It won’t be very good. It will be very mechanical. I can guarantee you that I can stage a scene where he’ll come in and sit on that line and move on that line and do exactly that but I’ll never tell him to do it. He’ll find it out for himself that it’ll work out fine. And if he doesn’t do that he may even find something better than what I had thought of.”
Badham’s approach makes a great deal of sense as it allows actors the freedom to find their flow in order to successfully project organically natural performances.
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
DANTE 01
One flew over the xenomorph’s nest.
Directed by Marc Caro. Screenplay by Marc Caro & Pierre Bordage. Starring Lambert Wilson, Linh Dan Pham, Simona Maicanescu, Gérald Laroche and Dominique Pinon. Year of release: 2008. Running time: 82 minutes.
A mysterious faith-healing inmate, endowed with the ability to perform miracles, creates an upset upon his arrival at an isolated prison colony for the criminally insane in orbit around an alien planet. Dubbed Saint-Georges (due to a ‘St George and the Dragon’ tattoo he sports), this new arrival is thawed from stasis like a side of beef and revived, and we quickly realize there is something not quite right about him. As played by Lambert Wilson (whom some may remember from his role as Merovingian in the Matrix sequels) – this character hardly ever speaks and appears to possess the uncanny ability to see inside the human body (while being constantly haunted by images of octopus-like creatures swarming in his mind). When it becomes apparent he has the power to heal the spiritually sick and revive the dead – a series of events is set in motion which threatens the very survival of everyone on board.
Visionary helmer Marc Caro was one half of the directing team responsible for the fanciful 90s French fantasies Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children. His directing partner Jean-Pierre Jeunet has since gone on to forge a successful solo career of his own helming such films as Alien Resurrection, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement and Mic Macs. According to co-writer Pierre Bordage, Dante 01 began as an idea originally conceived (uncredited) by director Alejandro Jodorowsky, which Caro then reworked in collaboration with Bordage. Citing among filmmakers he most admires as being David Lynch (Lost Highway, Eraserhead), Matthew Barney (River Of Fundament) and Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Dark Water) – Caro is most definitely a visual stylist on par with these directors. I would also hazard a guess that Terry Gilliam might also be an inspiration, judging from some of the otherworldly Gilliamesque steampunk aesthetics found in both Delicatessen and City Of Lost Children. Some of Caro’s steampunk sensibility did bleed into the preliminary costume design concepts for Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection – although this was the extent of Caro’s involvement in that particular debacle. In fact, the annoying lack of cohesive vision in the design of Resurrection and the general ugliness of the look of the film really does highlight Caro’s contribution to the beauty of his collaborations with Jeunet – and indeed Dante 01. After viewing Caro’s latest offering, it is blindingly clear to me now that Jeunet was floundering without his collaborator’s tasteful aesthetics and good visual sense when he made the diabolically ugly Alien Resurrection.
From the outset, Dante 01 presents itself as a kind of abstract fable (as do Caro’s earlier collaborations with Jeunet) – with a voice-over introduction intoning “Once upon a time …” This aspect of the film is important to keep in mind when the narrative suddenly veers off into left-field territory in the final act. Some viewers have taken this odd, almost metaphysical ending as being the result of last-minute doctoring due to budget overruns – but I sense no evidence of this. The ending – as odd as it is – is entirely consistent with what has come before, especially when one considers the (somewhat blatant) mythical aspects woven into the story. Allusions to ‘Dante’s Inferno’ are plainly obvious (the alien planet itself – a fiery inferno – being named after the poet, while several of the characters take on the monikers of mythical figures who appear in various underworld legends; Persephone, Charon and the like). There are also ‘chapter headings’ which appear every now and then; denoting The Nine Circles of Hell – although strangely; they only go up to three and not the full nine as in ‘Dante’s Inferno’ – ultimately making these titles kind of redundant. Most importantly, according to Bordage – each of the seven inmates aboard the station is associated with one of The Seven Deadly Sins. For example, the obese giant Moloch represents gluttony (as he is always eating). While Caro regular Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen, City Of Lost Children) plays César – a man bound by pride. When César is mortally wounded he must set aside his sense of superiority in order to accept an offer of healing from Saint-Georges. If this is the case – that the inmates do indeed represent The Seven Deadly Sins – then it makes perfect sense (although it is never directly mentioned as such in the film) that Saint-Georges could conceivably be viewed as a literal representation of a ‘Sin-Eater’ (the term sin-eater – according to Wikipedia – refers to ‘a person who, through ritual means, would take on by means of food and drink the sins of a household, often because of a recent death, thus absolving the soul and allowing that person to rest in peace’).
According to co-writer Bordage; the octopus-like creatures which Saint-Georges plucks from the glowing insides of his fellow inmates and devours – apparently in an act of healing – are creatures (which may or may not exist beyond Saint-Georges’ imagination) which feed upon people’s energy flow. As the writer reveals, “These creatures symbolize what eats at us … our private obsessions, our belief systems – the way we function. Simply put, it’s the inner sickness which causes imbalance.” Faith-healer – Sin-eater – Messiah. Whether Saint-Georges is any of these, all of these or something else entirely; is all open to interpretation – and Caro himself isn’t about to tell us one way or the other. As to whether these octopus creatures actually exist in reality or are merely a manifestation of Saint-Georges’ troubled psyche – Caro justifies the ambiguity woven into the piece as being part of his preference to not explain everything away, “That’s why I love David Lynch. He leaves things in the dark; which is why things aren’t clarified in the film. I like that a space is left for everyone to imagine what they want.”
A major aspect of Jodorowsky’s concept for Dante 01 which initially attracted Caro to pick it up and run with it (as his first solo directing gig) was the fact that it is a story which takes place in a single location with a handful of characters and which could conceivably be realized on a limited budget. Also, as the setting of the story is a hermetically-sealed environment, there is a lot more scope here to create a fully-realized world with a noticable sense of claustrophobia being inherent in the design of the sets (especially with such low ceilings) and the film makes good use of this. This sense of restriction also heightens the brutality of some of the more violent scenes (a frenzied stabbing of one of the inmates for example). The only design aspect which adversely affects the film for me, however, is the look of the cast. It is only when a film’s entire cast sport shaved heads that one realizes just how crucial hair actually is in differentiating one character from another. This was also a major issue with Fincher’s Alien 3 – the fact that it is, at times (especially in scenes of high action) difficult to tell one inmate from another. It was less a problem in George Lucas’ THX 1138 (which Caro cites as a major inspiration) – most likely due to more care being taken in casting intentionally dissimilar-looking faces and body types. On a more positive note; lenser Jean Poisson’s luminous photography, with its comic book vibrancy is simply gorgeous to behold (with its violet, green and magenta hues) and gives the film reason to be seen based purely on its lensing alone. And the almost atonal thrum of the electronic score by Raphaël Elig and Eric Wenger is also effective in conveying a sense of Lynchian dread and unease – being at times very reminiscent of Orbital’s techno contributions to the Event Horizon score.
Dante 01 is a mostly engaging sci-fi prison drama with fantastical elements and a strong visual sense and a lot going on under the surface. And while not nearly as elaborate as Delicatessen or City Of Lost Children, it is still an accomplished effort which makes the fact that Caro has not yet directed another feature of his own all the more puzzling.
3.5 stars out of 5
Star ratings: 1 – poor / 2 – below average / 3 – good / 4 – excellent / 5 – unmissable
Greg Moss is a film school graduate with a background in directing music videos and is currently seeking representation as a screenwriter. He likes creative people, feeding the cat and watching genre movies. Greg can also be heard on the Blu-ray commentary track for the 1980 sci-fi thriller Saturn 3, out now from Scream Factory.
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