Zombos' Closet

Smirk, Sneer and Scream An Interview With Mark Clark

It's not that actors no longer give good performances in horror films (they still do), and it's not as if direction, editing, and special effects weren't important in the classic horror film era. But in most modern horrors, concept is more important than cast. Horror has become a director's genre more than an actor's genre. During the classic era, the genre's biggest stars were Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. In the years since, its brightest luminaries have been Mario Bava, George Romero, Wes Craven and M. Night Shyamalan. (Mark Clark in Smirk Sneer and Scream)

 

Director Justin Channell's company acronym, IWC Films, seen on his Heretic Film's distributed Die and Let Live zombies and pizza flick, sum's up the current state of horror cinema rather well: IWC stands for Idiots With Cameras. While I admire his light touch of humor, I fear the ring of truth in those three letters is precisely why horror cinema is mostly relegated to backhanded reviews or begrudging nods of minor acceptance. Making the situation worse, it's not just the idiots holding cameras, but also the ones pretending to act in front of them. Then you have the ones writing incomplete scripts without a hint of drama, pathos or depth, and others directing with those scripts, with nil basic training, because the digital age makes it appear so gosh darn easy to do--and Aunt Edna and Uncle Joey are available Tuesday for free.

Before the digital age gave any idiot with a camera the potential to become another Hitchcock or Romero, but not the sense to learn first, shoot later, horror movies more often than not had drama, pathos, and good acting that was sometimes even great. Even though many of these films were made for a quick buck, too, actors still acted, and writers wrote complete--if not always stellar-- scripts. Directors learned their technique and approached their films seriously. Even if the script was underwhelming and the direction uninspired, you could still count on yesterday's classic horror actor to give it his (or her) stylistic all. It may not have been naturalistic acting, but it was acting that convincingly and realistically entertained. Mark Clark, in his Smirk, Sneer and Scream: Great Acting in Horror Cinema, reminds us of this golden age.

If your looking for detailed plot synopses, look elsewhere: Clark focuses only on the memorable performances that show each actor's ability to bring the house down. And while his predilection for classic horror actors fills part one, the other two parts of his book examine mainstream actors--those thespians briefly caressing the horror genre to leave their permanent scars--and the often neglected leading ladies of fright. From Boris Karloff to Anthony Perkins, and Bette Davis to Jodie Foster, Clark lists the roles that bewitched us into becoming horror fans in the first place.

After reading his fascinating book, I invited Mark Clark to step into the closet and talk about Smirk, Sneer and Scream...

Stop Shaking That Camera! Cloverfield (2008)

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

In 1954's classic horror movie, Gojira, the atomic age of mass destruction spawns the monstrous reptile Godzilla, a prehistoric creature rising from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to wreak havoc on Tokyo. As city buildings crumble to dust and thousands of people die, a humbled military fights back in a futile attempt to stop the destruction. A renegade scientist is finally convinced to use his weapon of mass destruction to destroy Godzilla, but he takes his own life to make sure the weapon will never be used again.

In 2008 comes Cloverfield, a new horror movie more suited to our age of unreason, in which a monstrous creature of unknown origin comes from the depths of the Hudson River to destroy New York City. With no conclaves of nodding scientists struggling to understand why and no military strategy sessions to explore best options for defense, it's not clear where it comes from or why it's destroying everything in sight; but its sudden appearance leaves no time for heroics, strategy, or making sense out of it. As Manhattan crumbles into dust and people die, a desperate and overwhelmed military fights it and the many smaller multi-legged beasties tagging along for the ride.

This isn't the first time New York City's been laid waste by a giant monster that comes out of the harbor. In 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms another prehistoric reptile awakened by nuclear radiation stomps and chomps down on Coney Island until a radioactive isotope, shot from the high-point of the Cyclone roller-coaster into the creature's bazooka-induced neck wound, stops it cold; but not before a virulent germ, spread by the blood oozing from that neck wound, takes it's devastating toll on the population. The Manhattanites in Cloverfield don't fair much any better.

What's different here is we finally get to see the carnage from the civilian perspective--at street level without miniatures taking the brunt of the monster’s attack--when a going-away party turns into a nightmare for five twentysomething friends. There’s no renegade scientist to save the day, no atomic age rationale to explain and provide a solution for it, and the bunch of people trying to stay alive under killer circumstances are focused solely on doing just that. Keeping us shoulder-to-shoulder with them is director Matt Reeves shaky camcorder view of the carnage and chaos. Make sure you sit toward the back of the theater; otherwise, you may find yourself barfing from all the pell-mell scenery.

What we’re watching is the non-stop recording of Rob’s (Michael Stahl-David) party by his friend Hud (T. J. Miller) morphing into the contrivance for this mockumentary and found footage opus. We follow Rob and friends up to the rooftop to see what's going on after the building shakes and the power goes out, then hastily run down the stairs and onto the street with them as things heat up. When the Statue of Liberty's head comes, very impressively, crashing along the street, confusion and fear kick in, leading to an escape run to get out of Manhattan. The rough handling and sudden gaps in scenes as Hud mishandles his camcorder creates realistic, nerve-wracking tension, and a damn-it-Hud-stand-still response from us; but the quality of his experience, and ours, is exactly what you would expect from someone using a camcorder during a crisis situation, responding to events unfolding in rapid succession and trying not to trip over his own feet at the same time. This is where a suspension of disbelief must be relied on: Hud keeps filming EVERYTHING through his camera, even though any normal person would chuck the bloody thing and run like hell for safety. Many mockumentaries using this found-footage technique must eventually rely on a suspension of disbelief to work; some use a more natural integration of it, like Troll Hunter, where a bunch of college students are all ready filming a documentary within the mockumentary framework, so they would, naturally, want to record everything. Their found-footage is therefore more plausible.

Cloverfield integrates its shaky cam successfully and skillfully, providing enough visual teasers to keep its scenes provocative and informative. Given the twentysomething generation's need to be constantly connected socially to share every storm and urge, it's not a long stretch to believe Hud would keep filming through thick and thin. YouTube and CNN love you-are-there footage like that. I wish I knew the brand name of that camcorder, though, since its battery life is amazing. It never wears down

Also amazing are the contained scenes of turmoil. While the man-in-suit Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion Beast monster were state of the art for the 1950s, today's reality-savvy audiences require more realism. Seen through the eye of the camcorder, the mix of scene staging, tantalizing creature glimpses, and frenetic acting stay believable within its view. Highlights include Rob turning on the camcorder's night vision in the subway tunnel to see what's spooking the rats--should have done that sooner--and Hud's close-encounter of the monster kind, giving us a long, hard look at the skyscraper-sized creature's face; classic terror elements jazzed up for the digital age. Scripter Drew Goddard knows his horror: the Brooklyn Bridge encounter, reminiscent of a similar monster-whump! In It Came From Beneath the Sea is a terrifying jolt.

While Cloverfield is classic horror at heart, it's also a love story. After Rob has a blow-out with his girlfriend at the party, when she calls his cell phone, hurt and pleading for help, he's off and running to save her--even if it's right into the path of the creature and it's little assistants. His friends decide to stay close. Reaching the building where Beth (Odette Yustman) lives, Hud's "don't tell me that's where she lives!" line sums it up best when they see it's held up only by the building next to it.

For all its social generation look and feel, Cloverfield relies on good old-fashioned horror themes like monsters and city-wide catastrophe to deliver the shock. 

The League of Reluctant Reviewers: The Mysterious Case of The Blood Shed (2007)

Watching paint dry would be a more productive expenditure of your seventy-three minutes. Possibly not as much fun for some of you, but definitely more productive.

ZC Rating 1 of 7: Poor

 Although the chandelier was unlit, light from the brightly burning logs in the large fireplace shimmered through its crystals, sending beams of white into the high, dark corners of the ceiling, across the walls, and across the richly carpeted floor. Facing the fireplace stood a high-backed Chippendale wing chair with exquisite cabriole legs. The chair was upholstered in the same deep color as the carpet. A short man briskly entered the room and walked toward the chair.

"Ah, Mr. Bolton, you are early." A small, stark white hand briefly appeared on the right side of the chair, flicked the ashes off a long cigar, then disappeared. "It must be a serious matter then?"

Bolton looked down at the ashes piled in the bronze ashtray resting on the oval-topped trestle table beside the chair. He pulled a DVD case from his worn messenger's pouch. He addressed the back of the wing chair. "Yes, it's a serious matter. Seventy-three minutes of bloody hillbilly debauchery that defies sanity, convention, and good people's decency. Bluntly put, it's schlock with a capital S."

"Excellent, I love a challenge!" said the voice, accompanied by a single clap of hands. From the left side of the wing chair a stark white hand reached out expectantly. Bolton was relieved to hand over the DVD. "You will find sherry and a polished Stiegel glass by the couch. We will be a short time, I'm sure."

Bolton removed his overcoat and retreated to the couch in the other room. He sat down, poured the sherry, and waited, as he normally did, for the review that no one else would do; no one, that is, except for the League of Reluctant Reviewers.

 

What are we to do with Alan Rowe Kelly, then? The man is incorrigible. What infantilistic need drives him to dress like an aging, demonic Little Lulu, carry wicked-sharp garden shears, and wreak gory havoc worse than the dogs of war? Why does he find subject matter like inbred New Jersey hillbillies with a penchant for cannibalism and sadistic nut-cracking with pliers--not Walnuts, mind you--gleefully choreographed to the tune of the innocent Little Lulu song (my sincere apologies to Marjorie Henderson Buell), fit for decent horror fans?

As the grotesque Beefteena Bullion, who dreams of becoming America's Next Top Model, he charges ahead with a nightmarish blend of over the top gore, grievous over-acting, and unsavory, outlandish scenes that play parody with too much off-the-wall seriousness. From the shallow end of the genre pool he drags it up with elephant stomps, falling short of delivering unnerving terror or witty black humor.

Yet his compositions are executed with a keen eye for ominous camera angles, foreboding, lingering shots of dread, and the conventions of glistening viscera, sadism with a laugh, and uncouth characters overstuffing independent horror. In sum, The Blood Shed is arthouse schlock that will appeal to some, be avoided by most, and provide ample forums for discussion by both. Given a healthy budget and a mainstream script, no doubt Kelly would be a force to reckon with. But until that time comes, if ever, we must, reluctantly, direct our critical attention to The Blood Shed.

On the plus side, Sno Cakes (Susan Adriensen) is fun to watch as she and Beefteena chit-chat, sell sour Lemonade, and join in the murder spree with reckless abandon. With her corny drawl, over-done makeup, trashy clothes, and silly hairdo, she's repulsive yet oddly sexy and funny; a bright spot in this disappointment.

And it's not that the acting is bad, it's more a case of story-telling for the sake of being as outrageous and naughty as possible. Rhyme and reason do not put in an appearance here; not when Beefteena playfully pulls her little stuffed rodent Flapjack on a string as she skips through the woods; or when a local brat is "accidentally" pulled apart in a tug of war; or when dad pulls the shotgun trigger to shoot down airborne squirrels with comic close-ups of the rigor-mortised rodents lying on the ground while he and the boys whoop it up.

When the local sheriff's most important asset is attacked with a pair of pliers, the absurdity becomes more disgusting than put-on-funny. Kelly works this gory theater of blood angle with heaviness throughout, putting The Blood Shed out of the range of parody, satire, comedy, or even serious horror because he doesn’t stick enough with any one of them to make a difference.

Beefteena' climactic birthday party scene--why is there always a deviant party or wacko dinner scene in these inbred, cannibalistic, hillbilly movies?--with decaying bodies of past victims wearing party hats seated around a festive table, and terrified future victims waking up to the festivity. It’s a mélange of grossness, bright colors, Little Lulu song playing, and humorless torture. The buzz of the electric carving knife while its used on the long-suffering sheriff, and Beefteena's ire at the modeling agency personnel who laughed at her photo session induce nausea throughout this ham-fisted spectacle of tasteless scripting.

Yet throughout this repugnant romp you will find quietly competent cinematography by Bart Mastronardi, who frames each scene with loving precision, making colorful use of inexpensive string lights in unusual settings to cast a deceptively warming palette across scenes of depravity. The resulting dissonance creates a disorienting atmosphere that invites you in, but subtly warns you to stay away.

I heartily recommend you stay away unless you just want to enjoy the scenery.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

The best horror film of 2007 is a musical about an unkempt barber who gives nasty-close shaves and an unkempt woman who bakes meaty pies with lots of heart (and other body parts), plying their trades in an unkempt 19th century London  gorging happily on its Industrial Age.

And, yes, there is blood. Hammer horror bright, fire-engine red, hissing through the air like steam from a boiling teapot, or pooling on the floorboards like piss from a mangy dog. Mingling with the hiss and the puddles are songs; vindictive and forlorn, and sung deeply from the throat of damnation, crying out for vengeance through the unkempt, morose alleyways and lawless byways of Fleet Street, home to the courts, the barristers, and Judge Turpin.

Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) is unkempt in body and soul. He covets Benjamin Barker's wife. The lecherous cur has Barker imprisoned on false charges, rapes his wife, steals his infant daughter, and becomes the object of vengeance that consumes Barker, now calling himself Sweeney Todd, who returns fifteen years later to his decrepit flat above Mrs. Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) failing pie shop. Mrs. Lovett covets Sweeney--always has--even as Sweeney covets his glistening silver set of  straight razors. All these Grand Guignol ingredients whip together in Tim Burton's mighty tasty version of this Gothic and gory folie à deux, which leaves out any whimsy to be found in the stage version.