White Dog (1982)

Director: Samuel Fuller
Writer(s): Fuller and Curtis Hanson, from a story by Romain Gary
Starring: Kristy McNichol, Christa Lang, Vernon Weddle, and Jameson Parker

White Dog is Samuel Fuller’s attack against racism, something that is made plain as day, from its title, all the way down to its plot. It’s not a subtle, playful jab, but rather a full-on assault that sat on shelves for years, after studio executives--a type not exactly known for their intellect--somehow confused the message of the picture, believing it to condone racism (to be fair, so did several high profile pro-African American organizations, such as the NAACP, who ignorantly came to this conclusion without apparently ever having seen it.)

For a country that touts all day about our “freedoms”, such as those for speech and press, the fact that a movie such as this was ever suppressed from view for so long should be considered a travesty of the highest order (completed in 1982, it never received a proper release in the United States until Criterion stepped to the plate and released it in 2008). It is entirely unforgivable to think that pro-racism trash like “The Turner Diaries” is widely available from major retailers online, while a movie like White Dog, were it not for Criterion’s commendable efforts, would continue to be unavailable.

Kristy McNichol plays Julie, an actress who, as the film opens, runs over a white German Shepherd with her car. Distressed, she takes the animal to a vet, where she is relieved to discover the animal will survive. But when she mentions her plans to take the dog to a shelter, the vets convince her that he is too old to be adopted, and that he will more than likely be euthanized; not wanting to hear this, she decides instead to post flyers around, looking for the original owner.

A little while later, she brings her dog on set with her while shooting a commercial. Her co-star is a black woman. Unprovoked, the dog simply attacks her. At first, it seems like a terrible accident, but a similar situation reveals that her dog is a “white dog”, or, a dog trained to attack black people. Ignoring suggestions that she should have the animal killed, she takes him instead to a local animal trainer, who of course happens to be black, and he agrees to try to break the animal, much to the chagrin of his colleague, Carruthers. Carruthers, an old, grumpy white man, believes that what animals are taught, cannot be unlearned; Keys, the black trainer, is desperate to prove him wrong.

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to understand that White Dog isn’t just merely about a dog that is taught to hate; its argument is that any one of us, under the wrong conditions, could have grown up to share the mindset of that dog. The German Shepherd in the movie was not born to hate blacks, just as no baby is naturally predisposed to racial intolerance immediately after crawling out of the womb; it is a trait that must be learned, an impression that is generally made on children when they are young and unable to think for themselves. But even if you simply take the movie at face value—that is, you look at it only as a movie about a dog that tries to unlearn its instincts—it still manages to be potent.

White Dog was clearly made on a low budget, and its financial constraints occasionally come to the forefront: the acting is pretty choppy, and it often looks and feels unpolished. But its fearlessness is certainly admirable, especially considering, if it had been made earlier, chances are it would have been a watered-down crowd pleaser with only a fraction of the emotional impact.

Rumors have it that the movie remained in limbo for years, originally planned for production in the mid ‘70s, with Roman Polanski attached as director. After he fled the country for allegedly drugging and raping a minor, the project was put on hold. Through the next few years, it went from one director to another, with the studio (Paramount) at one point wanting to eliminate the racism aspects altogether, instead aiming for a Jaws reboot on dry land.

It’s certainly a great thing that it eventually landed in the hands of Samuel Fuller, who was unfazed by the racism aspects; he was confident in the material, as he had dealt with those themes in previous films. However, the outcome would be bittersweet: following the way executives handled the movie after its completion, Fuller would move to France, and never direct another American film again, eventually passing away in 1997.

Rather than face a self-imposed exile, this should have been a rebirth of Fuller’s later career, rather than a final nail in the coffin for his Hollywood career. This is unfortunate, because White Dog is a powerful tale, one that unfortunately only continues to become more and more relevant as the years wear on.

RECAP: Perhaps a little ahead of its time, White Dog was shelved by Paramount after the studio received heat from several organizations that labeled this movie as “racist”, an accusation that couldn’t be farther from the truth: This is clearly an anti-racist picture, focusing on the attempts to “cure” a white German Shepherd that has been taught to attack blacks. Its low budget occasionally makes slight cuts into its effectiveness—the acting is choppy and uneven—but the overall story remains strong, even when it strays into “preachy” territory. Criterion Collection should be commended for being the first to release this on any format in the United States, because this is an important film that continues to become more and more relevant with each passing year, and depressing proof that some things never change.

SCORE: 8/10

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Blair Witch (2016)

Director: Adam Wingard
Writer: Simon Barrett
Starring: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, and Brandon Scott

I think I've made it pretty clear what I think of Adam Wingard in previous reviews: he's a hack. He's an unoriginal filmmaker who gets heaps of praise primarily because one of his best friends is Brad Miska, the man who founded, and runs, horror news site Bloody Disgusting. This ensures every one of his films is overhyped to thousands of rabid horror fans, who eagerly gobble up what they've been force-fed, and go to the theaters with the mindset that they are watching a true genius in action. In fact, Miska produced A Horrible Way to Die, Wingard's first horrible film, and then moved on to the V/H/S trilogy, of which Wingard directed a segment in the first one.

The case continues with Blair Witch, on which Miska did not have a (credited) hand, but who was sure to have two quotes in the first trailer (including “one of the scariest films ever made” despite it clearly not being anything close to that), and who went on and on in endless hyperbolic praise about how much of a “game changer” it is in a 4.5/5 skull review on his own website (read the comments to see how well that went over).

The original Blair Witch Project actually was, for its time at least, one of the scariest films ever made. The brilliant marketing strategy had people believing that it was, in fact, real, and the film's refusal to show its monster (or witch, as it were) is the reason for the film's success. But time, over which thousands (perhaps literally, or perhaps just an over-exaggeration based on perception) of similar films have ripped off its conceit, has not been kind to the original: I tried watching it again a couple of years ago and couldn't even make it halfway through. What was once an effective piece of horror has since been watered down by the many films that ripped it off; while I still admire it and would consider it an essential piece of horror, it lacks almost all of the power that it once had.

Well, the only thing Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett's remake/re-imagining/sequel/whatever it is seems to have taken from the original, is that screaming characters running through woods is the only thing that made it work, because that's all we get for just about the whole thing. Oh, and CGI monsters. In other words, take everything that is weak about not just found footage films, but horror films in general, and you know exactly what to expect from this one.

But you know what? I don't even place most of the blame on Wingard (or even his frequent writing partner Barrett) for this poorly scripted mess; this is no doubt the ill-advised idea of an idiot studio executive who decided to cash in on a franchise was that was past its shelf date fifteen years ago. In studio fare like this, it's hard to tell just how many ideas the studio pushed upon Wingard and Barrett, so I can't even chastise them for all the poor decisions and characterizations that are inflicted upon the poor, hapless audience. Truth be told, the odds were stacked against anyone dumb (or desperate) enough to take this project; I can't imagine any genre filmmaker that could have taken this idea and turned it into a formidable film.

The original clearly had the upper hand by being one of the first films to do what it did, but beyond that, also had a believable cast that looked like everyday people. The mostly-improvised dialogue (and scare scenes) also pushed the authenticity a little farther, to the point that it wasn't hard to see why so many people fell for the idea that it was real footage. This Blair Witch reboot/remake/re-imagining fails from the first frame, in which we're told basically the same thing as we were told in the original: that this movie is made up of real found footage. Yeah, like this isn't a gimmick that was beaten completely to death ten years ago. Then we get our first glimpse of the attractive cast of “Dawson's Creek”-style characters, who are clearly reciting bad lines, poorly. Great idea, Lionsgate execs!

I suppose I should touch upon the plot, as threadbare and repetitive as it is: James Donahue believes he sees his sister in a YouTube video of the old cabin from the first Blair Witch, and enlists the aide of three friends to go help find her. The online footage was supposedly found out in the woods by a couple of locals, Lane and Talia, who are obsessed with the myths; they refuse to reveal where they found the tape unless James and his crew takes them along. Reluctantly, they agree.

Then, if you've seen the first film, you've pretty much seen the rest: The crew hear creepy things in the woods, go to leave, find they're running around in circles, lose “map” (which in this case is a GPS signal, as technological updates are the only real difference), then spend the rest of the time running and screaming each others' names while evading evil spirits that we can't see. Only, we do catch glimpses of the “creatures” stalking their prey, and they look like featureless grey CGI aliens. Wow, scary.

The only time the film actually comes alive is at the end, when the remaining survivors stumble upon an old cabin in the woods. Here, the film is given a much-needed digression from the tired wood setting, and where the tight corridors and small rooms become constricting, leading to a heart-stopping scene in a tunnel that's literally the first inkling I've ever seen that Wingard has the capabilities to render an emotion besides hatred or indifference out of his audience. There's also another effective scene near the end when the remaining survivors can't look at a creature in the same room as them...but that's completely undone a few seconds later when we get a glimpse of a poorly done CGI monster that, once again, runs counter to the effectiveness of the Blair Witch franchise.

It's rare that a movie made in 2016 already feels outdated four months after release, but that's what happens when you're a major studio trying to follow an irrelevant blueprint just to make a few bucks off someone else's idea. Who says there's no karma in Hollywood?

RATING: 3/10

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Eerie, Indiana S1, E1: Foreverware

Whoops! Looks like I missed "TV Tuesday". Don't even have a good excuse, especially since I pretty much had the post ready in advance. Oh well, it's just a day late...and better late than never, right guys?!

Starring:
Omri Katz as Marshall Teller
Justin Shenkarow as Simon Holmes
Mary-Margaret Humes as Marilyn Teller
Louan Gideon as Betty Wilson
Nathan Schultz as Bertram Wilson
Nicholas Schultz as Ernest Wilson
Francis Guinan as Edgar Teller
Julie Condra as Syndi Teller

Written by: Jose Rivera and Karl Schaefer
Directed by: Joe Dante

My, what a way for a show geared toward younger children to kick off. “Foreverware” was the only episode I ever remember watching from its initial run, and the memories were strong enough for me to not only want to revisit this particular installment, but the entire series as a whole. It’s bizarre, and rather gutsy for a kid’s show, and those are probably two good reasons that it never took off.

In “Foreverware”, we are introduced to Marshall Teller (played by Omri Katz), whose parents decided to get away from the violence of New Jersey (“just across the river from New York City”) by moving to the town of Eerie, Indiana, “a town so wholesome, so squeaky clean, you could only find it on TV.” But things in Eerie aren’t so normal after all, and within mere seconds of the family moving in, they are greeted by a freakishly upbeat woman by the name of Betty Wilson, who seems rather desperate to sell her product to Marshall’s mom, via a product party.

That product is “Foreverware”, an alternate to Tupperware that’s so strong, it can keep anything fresh forever. As a test, she gives the family a bologna sandwich from 1974, which looks like it had just been made earlier that day (as good as it looks and smells, though, no one dares to try it). Marshall gets a creepy vibe from her mother’s new friend, and using a clue from Betty's creepy twin sons, teams up with his friend, Simon Holmes, to get to the bottom of the mystery.

And what a mystery it is! One of the sons hands him a note that says “Yearbook 1964”, so Simon and Marshall go to a library and pull up a local school's yearbook from that year. What do they find? It seems that Betty's sons went to that school almost thirty years ago...and look exactly the same as they do now! Intrigued, the detective duo sneak over to Betty's house where they see her...sealing her sons inside two huge Foreverware containers! I guess when she said it can keep anything fresh, she meant it!

Together with the sons, who have grown tired of repeating the same year of school over and over again, Marshall concocts a plan to remove them from their vacuum-sealed slumber so that they can age and die the way nature intended. This definitely isn't your typical kiddie show.

One thing I'm liking about “Eerie, Indiana” is that, unlike many shows geared toward younger audiences, it doesn't consist of over-the-top color palettes and ridiculous overacting. Well, Betty and her posse are, but they exist as parodies of women who throw “product parties”, which were big back then, and seem to only be growing in popularity as the years go on. Other than that, though, the characters are played rather straight and normal, which is probably another reason that the show failed to be a hit with its target demographic.

This episode didn't really suck me in all that much, but it's rare for a show to do that having seen just one ep, so I'm not holding that against it. The idea itself is weirdly wonderful, and I can't even imagine an adult show attempt something so off-the-wall, but there's just something...too straightforward about its execution that left me wanting a lot more. It isn't flashy or stylish, it isn't particularly well-written...it's just a single inspired idea wrapped up around a lot of uninspiration. Marshall Teller has nothing that makes him stand out as a great main character, and his nerdy friend Simon is entirely forgettable. Marshall's family is also the stereotypical television family, with his hot blonde sister who barely has any lines, and the nerdy, out-of-touch parents. It's not exactly a recipe for excitement no matter how much you're looking forward to watching this series.

Granted, these are observations after just one episode, so maybe it will find its footing and these things will end up growing on me. Or then again, maybe it never will and it was rightfully canceled after just eighteen episodes (the nineteenth episode wasn't added to the series until syndication).  But whatever its ultimate fate is, you've gotta give it some credit for scorning the mainstream and trying something new. That, in and of itself, is always special. 

And always ensures swift cancellation.

RATING: 6/10

FULL EPISODE

TV Tuesdays: Eerie, Indiana (1991-1992)

In our sporadic feature, known as TV Tuesdays, we take a long look at short-lived television shows. Some may have been forgotten for good reason, while others just might have been prematurely killed by impatient networks. Every week, we will review an episode of said show, in chronological order, from beginning to end. At the end of the series, we'll summarize our thoughts on the show as a whole, giving it a final score. Without further adieu, let's get started with the intro for our next televised failure.

If you walked up to any given person and asked them what they thought of the non-hit early nineties television show “Eerie, Indiana”, you would probably get a lot of blank stares and confused looks. After all, you'd be referring to the show that finished 94th out of 98 shows in terms of viewership that season...to say that it didn't even register on most people's radar still sounds like we're putting it mildly. It's one of those shows that was virtually destined to disappear from the moment it aired.

I would have been like everyone else had my mom and I somehow caught wind of it in the early going. I honestly can't say for sure how many episodes I saw—after all, it's been over two decades since it aired, and I was only 7 years old at the time—but we never forgot the debut episode, in which a woman keeps her twin sons “fresh”, and young, by sealing them in life-size plastic food containers every night. Was every episode this unabashedly weird and over-the-top?  That is the kind of question that brought me back to this creepy little city exactly 25 years after the last first-run episode aired.

Unsurprisingly, the show never took off, and was axed after just one nineteen-episode season (though, rather curiously, an equally short-lived spinoff entitled “Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension” was produced just six years later). However, time has been somewhat kind to the series...although it's still not well-known, it has received quite a few loving nostalgic revisits via bloggers and was even mentioned in a list of the 50 Scariest TV Shows of All Time by Complex.com (a baffling mention since many episodes are simply lighthearted and bizarre, but hey, press is press!). A 2003 DVD release no doubt brought it to the attention of others, but has since gone out of print, with prices hitting $50 or more for the entire series.

Was this show the youngsters answer to “Twin Peaks” as it is frequently touted? Or has time rightfully buried a show that deserved the rather abrupt fate that it got? We'll find out, together, over the course of the next nineteen weeks, as I take a look at an episode every Tuesday until no more remain. Join me, won't you?

The Convent (2000)

Director: Mike Mendez
Writer(s): Chaton Anderson, from his own story.
Starring: Joanna Canton, Richard Trapp, Dax Miller, and Adrienne Barbeau

I first saw Mike Mendez's The Convent back in the early 2000s: For whatever reason, this one caught my eye amidst the sea of new releases that month, and I ended up really taking to the mix of obvious humor and over-the-top violence. But when I went to rewatch it again, over a decade later, I was taken aback at just how impossible it is to track down for quick viewing—you know when a movie can't even be pirated, it has pretty much fallen through the cracks. Add to that some very average to bad reviews, and I was expecting a major disappointment the second time around.

But as it turns out, I was right the first time. As much as I hate to say it for a myriad of reasons, this can best be summed up as “Evil Dead for the millennial generation”, with its boundless energy and inventive bloodshed frequently overshadowing its obvious low budget. Granted, many of the film's more “unique” ideas are lifted pretty much directly from other movies (the flashlight through the head strongly reminiscent of the lightbulb through the head in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, the frantic POV shots resembling those from Evil Dead, the demon's look apparently modeled after Argento's Demons, the plot “inspired by” Night of the Demons), and I'm not suggesting it deserves to be revered in such a way that the Evil Dead series is, but it's done with such panache that it's still an enthralling ride.

Forty years in the past, a young woman marches right into a convent, lights everyone inside on fire, and then blasts them away with a shotgun to ensure none of them make it out alive. According to urban legend, this murder was carried out for no reason by a young girl named Christine; because of this, the abandoned location has become a stomping ground for junkies and other ne'er-do-wells who break into it to throw parties, or just to desecrate the memory of the dead in general.

Of course, we meet up with a group of people planning on doing the exact same thing, made up of complete self-aware stereotypes: There's the quarterback and the cheerleader (who wears her cheerleading outfit in a rather tired, but still kinda funny, joke), the misogynistic ladies man, the goth girl, the straight-A student, the frat boys, and the pledge (who is also the “straight-A student's” brother). All of them break into the building with the hopes of having a good time, but are forced to call it a night early when two cops (lead by a hilarious Coolio) break up the fun and send them all home.

Well, all of them except one: the goth girl, who is on probation and doesn't want a run-in with the cops to lead to an arrest. She hides out, leading the others to come back looking for her. What they find, is pure horror: A couple of wannabe Satanists (one of whom works at Dairy Queen) kill her as a sacrifice to Satan, thus infecting her with an evil spirit. As she kills the surviving members, they also turn into demons, forcing the dwindling number of humans to somehow stay alive. Until “straight-A student” has a plan...a plan that involves bringing Christine back to finish what she started 40 years prior...

It's all been done before, and better to boot, but there's no denying Mendez's skill or creativity. The monsters and blood, for example, are shot under blacklight, giving them a neon glow, while adding to the “rave”-like atmosphere. The demon transformations are sped-up, lending them a hyperkinetic feel that adds energy to the proceedings. This is a B-movie shot on a C-movie budget (or lower...can't find exact budget details anywhere, but it was clearly made on the cheap), yet it's to the credit of Mendez (and his crew) that it never feels cheap, a trap that's very easy to fall into as far as low budget horror is concerned.

I'm honestly baffled as to the poor reviews this film has received. Sure, it's no classic, and it does have a lot of flaws (threadbare plot, wildly uneven writing), but it's a lot of fun. And at a mere 79 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome. If you like movies in the same vein as Evil Dead, ones where you can just shut off your brain and take everything at face value, then this underrated, hard-to-find gem should be in your wheelhouse.

NOTE: Special thanks to streaming horror service Shudder for adding this title to their ever-growing library, making a film that was once tough to track down, much easier to find.

RATING: 6.5/10

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The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Director: André Øvredal
Writer(s): Ian B. Goldberg and Richard Naing
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox, Ophelia Lovibond and Olwen Kelly

I think I have mentioned before, probably many times, the frustrations I have when films try to explain things that would otherwise be more impactful if they were left alone. It happens far too often in horror movies, as if the filmmakers feel the need to tie up every loose end; in doing so they also often inadvertently talk away everything that was effective to begin with. There are certainly types of movies that need things wrapped up—after all, what would a murder mystery be if the crime or investigation was ignored—but when we're dealing with mysterious things, as we usually are with horror films, then the less said, the better.

It basically goes hand in hand with the common knowledge that the less we, as the audience, are shown, the better. Blair Witch kickstarted that trend by centering the movie around an evil force that we never get a glimpse of, but that we know is all around. Paranormal Activity seconded it years later; it is not a coincidence that both movies are frequently considered some of the scariest mainstream horror movies ever made, and that both exploded out of the gates and did big business at the box office (the less said about the sequels, an unfortunate side effect of a greedy corporate culture, the better).

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a movie that seems to understand everything that makes a horror movie great—until it can no longer resist the urge to start rambling on, offering up a rather unconvincing theory as to why bad stuff is happening to otherwise good people. It is right around this point that, for the first time in its scant running time, it loosens its grip on the audience; as it turns out, it's the biggest misstep in what is otherwise a masterclass of horror and tension.

The atmosphere of dread doesn't take long to materialize. In a “normal” house in the suburbs of Virginia, lies an unspeakable crime scene: the bodies of several adults are strewn about the house, several of them with large wounds and all of them with severe exterior trauma (in other words, blood is everywhere). But in the basement lies the half-buried body of a nude woman, with no blood surrounding her and no visible injuries. What killed her, and why was she the only one that was left without so much as a single bruise?

The answers to those questions fall into the hands of Tommy Tilden, local coroner, and his son Austin, who's a trained medical technician and his father's right hand man. Austin blows off plans with his girlfriend, Emma, to help his father with the mysterious woman (who has no forms of identification on her and thus is labeled a "Jane Doe"). It is supposed to be a simple autopsy like all the othersm,but things start to go amiss from the moment they go to open her up...lights flicker on and off, the radio station keeps changing stations on its own, and there are weird noises that occur far off in the distance. It's almost as if someone, or something, is trying to prevent them from opening her up to find the secrets hidden within...

If all of this sounds bland, that's because on paper, it is. The film's effectiveness is owed primarily to director André Øvredal, whose last film was 2010's severely underrated low budget epic Trollhunter. It might be a little too early to call him a “master” of the craft, but he must certainly be at the forefront of the current cast of rising stars. The scare tactics Øvredal relies on are the same we're subjected to in any number of tired Hollywood films: long dimly-lit hallways, noises off in the distance, etc. But his skill lies in the way he effectively twists our expectations around; he catches us off guard not by giving us anything new, but simply by not calling attention to his scares. There are no obnoxious string swells in the soundtrack, or fake jumps that negate the mounting intensity; by using a bit of restraint, he gets us to let down our guard, allowing him to pounce with ruthless efficiency. I even called a bit of foreshadowing just from watching the trailer, but the way it was actually executed still sends shivers down my spine.

Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch are fantastic as the father-son duo, but the real star of the show is Olwen Kelly, who plays “Jane Doe”. For being little more than a dead body, she receives an awful lot of screentime, which obviously requires her to be perfectly still, something she pulls off with alarming consistency (apparently this is owed to a strict regiment of yoga, which helped her control her breathing). There have to be at least 100 shots of her face (no exaggeration), with many of them framed the exact same way, but it never loses its effect; in fact, her blank stare gets even more and more creepy as the events surrounding our stars start turning more and more sinister.

And that's how it all comes back to the explanation, which is especially annoying considering the ridiculous events that are allowed to go unexplained. Do we really need some kind of backstory as to why Jane Doe is who she is, and why she got to be that way? Even if we do, this one is so poorly constructed that it really just doesn't make a single lick of sense. Thankfully, it doesn't take up too much time, but it is the only thing that breaks an otherwise solid streak of tension, thus magnifying it even more.  Emma, who plays Austin's girlfriend, is also little more than a character of afterthought, included for little to no reason.  Even the "payoff" involving her character isn't worth it--she seems thrown in just because it has to be an unwritten rule of cinema that there be at least one living attractive female character in there somewhere.

Despite its minor flaws, this is still required viewing for anyone that likes their horror scary. Unfortunately, the fact that it doesn't completely suck means that it won't be playing at any multiplexes, which are reserved for D-grade (and below) fare that are produced by major studios only to haul in large amounts of cash, at the expense of its audiences' intelligence, and the creators' artistic integrity. If you're a horror fan, be sure to track this one down, though. It's easily one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time.

RATING: 8.5/10

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