Dario Argento Sleepless DVD Review

Conclusion

A prime example of Giallo cinema with one of the slickest, sickest murder scenes ever recorded. The whole film doesn't quite live up to the impossible standards of Susperia or Deep Red, but it is a return to form for director Dario Argento.

Plot

A prostitute with a really hot rack collects her payment from the drawer. She decides it doesn't meet minimum wage requirements, so she does a little redistribution of wealth from amongst her employer's belongings. She discovers some kinky toys like nine inch knives and decides that minimum wage is just a number, only she accidentally takes an incriminating scrapbook with her when she leaves. The employer ends up following her and kills her on a train.

The police recognise a pattern in the murder method that corresponds with cases many years before. This prompts them to consult the police officer who worked on those cases. He is now retired, but the case still fascinates him, so he decides to lend a hand.

Not the plot

Minimum wage is the minimum amount of compensation that an employer is allowed to pay to an employee. The purpose of minimum wage is:

• to protect employees from being exploited


• to allow employees to afford basic necessities


• to lift those in poverty out of poverty


• to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor

Sounds good? Well, imagine going into a supermarket to buy hairspray, like Pantera often did. You know that the cheapest hairspray costs roughly $5 per can, while the most expensive hairspray costs roughly $50 per can. Now you arrive at the supermarket, only to find that hairspray costs a minimum of $15 per can. Even the hairspray you know cost only $5 yesterday has been marked up. You find this outrageous so you ask the manager for an explanation. The manager tells you that the government now requires him to charge a minimum hairspray charge.

This is called price fixing. Whether the government does it with hairspray or minimum wage, or whether the maffia does it with the price of stolen sneakers makes no difference. These are cartel tactics. Yet the manager explains to you that those poor people who were working at the $5 per can hairspray factory will be able to afford the basic necessities now. Should you feel better about paying $15 for a $5 can of hairspray?

The problem is that people who were used to paying for cheap hairspray would now reconsider paying $15 for a $5 can of hairspray. Let's be honest - if you were going to pay $15 for a can of hairspray anyway, the cans that cost $20 before are not that expensive by comparison. The results are that those who really can't afford to pay more than $5 for a can of hairspray are going to go without hairspray, while those who can afford to pinch off more on hairspray are still going to try to get their money's worth. This means that they're going to fork out an extra $5 and get a $20 can of hairspray for $20 instead of a $5 can of hairspray for $15. Where does this leave those working at the $5 hairspray factory?

Instead of competing with the $7 or $10 can of hairspray competitors, they now have to compete with the $15 per can variety of hairspray - competitors that were way out of their league and whom they did not have to worry about before. The $5 hairspray factory becomes the victim of an inefficient market. It won't be long before the $5 hairspray factory has to downsize or restructure to compensate for less profits. If they close, it will be impossible for someone to open another $5 hairspray factory, because the minimum amount you may charge for hairspray is $15.

What's more is there's a huge difference between a minimum wage and a minimum living wage. In countries like America, the minimum wage is already far above what is considered the minimum living wage. This is part of why many of their industries are forced to outsource during the current economic crisis. Industries simply can't afford to pay a minimum wage that is above a minimum living wage when they are in trouble. A $15 can of hairspray is still worth more than a $5 can of hairspray that has been marked at $15, so companies will naturally try to retain their medium to high-level management rather than their minimum wage earners. Minimum wage earners can be replaced more easily. Outsourcing brings the advantage of foreign exchange rates, whether you're looking for minimum wage earners or medium to high-level employees.

The real effects of minimum wage are thus far removed from their aspirations. Minimum wage actually causes unemployment and distorts the labour market. Besides, working at McDonalds flipping burgers or serving coffee at Starbucks is not a career. Not even if you have a liberal arts degree. You're going to have to be satisfied with the bare minimum if you want to make a career out of menial labour, or start a business of your own and hope that minimum wage or labour unions don't nail you before you even try.

Review

The soundtrack is composed by Goblin, which has become a staple for Argento films. It plays a large part in making the murder scenes so powerful. The story is great, and although the pace of the film gets painfully slow at times, this is one of my top ten horror films of the nineties and beyond.

Director

Dario Argento.

Cast

Chiara Caselli, Stefano Dionisi, Gabriele Lavia, Barbara Lerici, Max von Sydow.

Rating

Rabid DVD Review

Conclusion

It's wonderful what David Cronenberg could achieve with antacid tablets, adult film actresses and enough blush to make a corpse, well, blush.

Plot

A girl (Marilyn Chambers) and her boyfriend are involved in a motorcycle accident. The girl is injured seriously enough to slip into a coma. She also needs a skin graft which turns out to cause more trouble than she had anticipated. She wakes up with a phallic underarm appendage that can drain cows, grown men and nubile girls who slip and fall into a jacuzzi of their blood. Talk about a Freudian slip. Suddenly, medical aid paying out is not her only concern.

But that's not all. After being sucked dry by Marilyn Chambers (not in the usual adult actress fun way but in the her underarm schlong attached itself to my neck and sucked my blood dry kind of way. Don't you hate it when that happens?), the victims start foaming antacid tablets at the mouth. They also become covered in blush. Lots of blush. The only logical conclusion for a film of this kind is to let nearly everyone turn into catatonic zombies who spew antacid tablet foam and try to cover everyone else in blush.

Review

When one considers the budget, this film is simply incredible. All the practice Marilyn Chambers had with breathing heavily and contorting her face while faking orgasms in pornographic films proved to be quite suitable to horror films. She makes a fine lead actress and carries the film well.

Her boyfriend spends some guy time in his garage fixing his bike while listening to some of the most porno music I've ever heard. It sounds like French disco funk and it's nearly as unsettling as the contorting faces and the antacid tablet foam.

The murder/love scenes provide a flash-forward to Cronenberg's unnerving kind of erotica he would explore in more detail with Crash. This has to be the most unnerving kind of erotica this side of Asian tentacle porn. Cronenberg must be one sick puppy.

Campy, low budget in the B-grading way and with enough fake blood and gratuitous boob shots to keep any goremeister enthralled. Not quite as epic as Dagon, not quite as classy as The Addiction and thankfully not as silly as Devil's Nightmare. One of my top ten horror films made to date.

Director

David Cronenberg

Cast

• Marilyn Chambers


• Patricia Gage


• Frank Moore


• Susan Roman


• Joe Silver

Rating

Top 10 Horror Films Made to Date

The formidable Vault of Horror requested a top 10 Horror film list from some goremeisters of the blogosphere. While I'm straight and homophobically so, Brian Solomon's smooth tenor voice eventually won me over so I present to you the Top 10 Horror Films Made to Date as determined by the caprice of the Necro Files.

By the way, the title does not refer to films you can actually date, although luring an unsuspecting member of the opposite sex to your lair to privately view one of these celluloid autopsies might help in your quest to sift the wheat from the Children of the Corn, as it were.

My Top 10 Horror Films Made to Date

1. The Addiction


2. Brain That Wouldn't Die


3. Dagon


4. Bram Stoker's Dracula


5. Devil's Nightmare


6. House on Haunted Hill


7. Manhunter


8. Plague of the Zombies


9. Rabid


10. Sleepless

I do realise that I skipped on a few stalwarts of the genre like the great Alfred Hitchcock and the bitterly satirical George A Romano, but you can find those on just about any horror list. Here follows a short description of my reasons for choosing each film:

The Addiction

Artsy fartsy director Abel Ferrara brings this black and white masterpiece to life. Whether you put stock in its allegorical references to drug addiction or not, this is a pleasure to watch. It's much deeper than an ingrown toenail, yet about twice as gruesome. One of my favourite films, of any genre.

Brain That Wouldn't Die

One of those classics that just gets better every time I watch it. Picture a movie about giving head. No, not in that way, I mean really giving head. Exit bowel movements and sensation of your lower limbs. Enter existential crisis. Mayhem ensues.

Dagon

A patchwork of Lovecraft tales strung together with the sinews of a race of uncanny fish people. Lofty literary pretensions aside, it features a few gratuitous boob shots and buckets of blood.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

For a change, they did it by the book. With by the book I mean they did in fact base it on Bram Stoker's Dracula. This is not Bram Stoker's Dracula cut from the same cloth as Stephen King's Children of the Corn. Nay, nay, this is Dracula more or less as envisaged by Bram Stoker, complete with Hungarian expletives and the whores of Satan.

Devil's Nightmare

This delightful film tells the tale of a group of tourists who get stuck in a castle. A succubus visits the castle and manages to seduce all of them. Each tourist represents one of the seven deadly sins. Fucking tourists. They have no moral fibre.

House on Haunted Hill

No horror list would be complete without at least one Vincent Price film. I chose this one, but Shock or The Last Man on Earth would also suffice.

Manhunter

I have a morbid fascination with this film. It must be the shocking pastels of the synthetic materials they wore in the eighties. I also enjoy the fact that the film focuses on the eerie Tooth Fairy instead of on the eerie Hannibal Lecter.

Plague of the Zombies

No horror list would be complete without at least one Hammer film. Of course, the same goes for at least one Dracula film and at least one wolf man film. This is Hammer's only Zombie film, and one of the most influential Zombie films from the Voodoo inspired side of the genre. Still some of the hottest corpses I've seen. I can scarce believe that the actresses are English.

Rabid

David Cronenberg cut his teeth on low budget happy accidents like this one. Featuring the delectable Marilyn Chambers, this film is gorno with suitable metaphor before there even was gorno devoid of metaphor.

Marilyn Chambers is a topless and bottomless (depending on the weather, I guess) waitress who turned into an adult film star. After that, she nearly broke into the mainstream by landing roles such as this one. Unfortunately, her past as an adult film star made film producers nervous and she was kept out of big mainstream films. It is unfortunate, because she's a fine scream queen and she does an amazing job in this film.

Sleepless

A brilliant addition to the giallo genre long after it had been declared dead and buried. You simply can't touch Dario Argento when it comes to stylish, sterile and meticulously planned murder scenes. While I am a huge fan of both Susperia and Deep Red, this film has all the trademarks of a resurrection. Unfortunately, the resurrection didn't go anywhere and giallo has been declared dead more times than Rasputin.

That's my current top 10 list. Of course I neglected to add a wolf man. If I did, I would've included Curse of the Devil. I also haven't included any of the excellent Korean horrors of recent years because I haven't delved into them yet. Comments, queries, black mail, lacy thongs and beer money are all welcome!

Roger Ebert gets a badass review

Roger Ebert has been sticking his thumbs up and down like a Roman emperor since time immemorial. His general premise is that your movie sucks and he goes at great pompous lengths to convince you that it does.

Since I am an avid horror fan, it is inevitable that Roger Ebert thinks some of my favourite movies suck.

Now the tables have turned. I asked some of the BlogCatalog bloggers to review Roger Ebert in 250 words or less. This is the result of the highly scientific experiment. That's highly scientific according to the broad definition of science as subscribed to by Dr Michael Behe, whose definition also includes intelligent design and astrology. No, I'm not making that up.

Eberthator 2: Judgement Day

In typically grand bigger and better American fashion, I made this parody of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day film poster. Strangely enough, when it comes to writing the English language, Americans prefer smaller and not better. That's why I called it 'Judgment Day' and not judgement day. Hey, no child left behind requires some degree of compromise.

Your reviews of Roger Ebert

"Being gay is not a bad thing, unless you're Roger Ebert (the homeliest closet homosexual evar). Two thumbs up where the sun don't shine for him." Krapsody


"Writing about movies is like dancing about plumbing." Jack Payne


"I quite like him, actually. But if I wanna see a movie, I don't let a critic convince me otherwise." Drowseymonkey


"I used to agree with Gene Siskel a lot more than Roger Ebert. There's one thing about movie reviewers, though: there are no experts. Sure, some might know more about movies, but their tastes in movies aren't any better than anyone else's." Ben Hoffman


"I would review Roger Ebert as being totally clueless. Yeh if you are about 100 you might agree with him, but aside from that, if he hates it, most likely I am gonna love it." Lil' Blog of Horrors



"He should take a long deserved vacation somewhere he can't watch films." Wehireu


"I felt, when it was Siskel and Ebert, Ebert's reviews were a bit more of a practical/everyman viewpoint than Siskel's were, which were typically pretty harsh. Reviewing on the web, however, is a whole new bag of popcorn." Thrift Shop Romantic

My babes and badasses reviews

• A bit of badass ithyphallic death metal in the shape of Black Seeds of Vengeage by Nile.


• Some babes in tight PVC as found in the lycans versus vampires film Underworld.


• Badasses who sometimes look like babes in Dr Feelgood by Motley Crue

Curse of the Devil (1973) Review

Conclusion

A legendary film with a cult following, also known as El Retorno de Walpurgis or 'the Return of the Walpurgis'. You can't really go wrong when your blood looks like molten crayons and your werewolf costume looks like one of the Berenstain Bears.

Actually, you can go very, very wrong when your werewolf costume looks that Semitic. Not that there is anything wrong with looking Semitic, just that it doesn't exactly conjure up images of a savage half man, half beast creature. I'm talking Ashkenazi Jews here.




Fair is foul and foul is fair. May every Daninsky be covered with hair.

This movie is entertaining because the translation leaves much to be desired and the blood looks like molten crayons and the werewolf costume looks like the Berenstain Bears. Pyjamas and all.

Plot

Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) accidentally kills a werewolf, thereby fulfilling an ancient prophecy. This prophecy holds that one of the Daninsky family would accidentally kill one of the Bathory family. My karma ran over your dogma who happens to be a werewolf.

The murder sets a curse that the Bathory family placed upon the Daninsky family in motion. The Daninsky curse in general falls onto Waldemar Daninsky in particular. The Bathory family were burnt at the stake by the Daninsky family on Walpurgis night, and from there the return of the Walpurgis in the title.



Exhibit A: Spot the difference between the Berenstain Bears and Waldemar Daninsky (this is Waldemar Daninsky).



Exhibit B: Spot the difference between the Berenstain Bears and Waldemar Daninsky (this is the Berenstain Bears). Taken from Pbase.com

During the film, Waldemar adds nearly as many notches to his bedpost as the average James Bond does, but with far more fleas.

Review

• Paul Naschy holds the record for playing the Berenstain Bear, er I mean wolf man the most number of times.


• In the first half hour, you have duelling knights, a black mass, a public execution by hanging, an occult curse by one Bathory and a burning at the stake. Somehow, this film does not manage to steer clear of the cheese after that either.


• In all fairness, this film is not bad at all. The acting and the set design are both great, and the plot gives a nod to ancient European superstitions. It is made with much passion, but it did not age that well and it is unintentionally hilarious at points.


• At the time, Paul Naschy had problems with the authorities regarding the religious, sexual and violent content of his wolf man films. This is hard to believe - almost as hard as believing that the actors managed to keep straight faces through all the molten crayon blood. The times they are a changing indeed.

There is however one aspect of Curse of the Devil that still applies to our times. This is of course the mass hysteria of the pitchfork wielding peasants. Despite some authors like James Surowiecki arguing that crowd wisdom is superior to individual wisdom, it is clear that as much as crowd participation compounds success, it also compounds dismal failure. In his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, Surowiecki identifies four elements required for a wise crowd:

Four Elements Required for a Wise Crowd

• Diversity of opinion, whereby each person should be privy to his own viewpoint, no matter how eccentric.


• Independence, which determines that each individual is allowed to formulate his own opinion without fear of favour or prejudice or death threats.


• Decentralisation, making provision for localised and/or specialised knowledge, like say the knowledge inherent in the separation of powers principle.


• Aggregation, which is a mechanism for orchestrating the various judgements into a cohesive decision. An example of such a mechanism is Dotmocracy.

It is clear that the pitchfork wielding peasants were not allowed a diversity of opinion, I mean either Wandinsky is the wolf man and deserves to be killed or... no, that's the only option really. They were thus not free to disagree with the mob leader either. Similarly, they did not allow for localised or specialised knowledge, since the investigator sent by the authorities was ultimately not allowed to give his input. Even after he allowed them to pursue their own ways of dealing with Wandinsky, they killed the investigator. There is also a noted absence of aggregation. The mob merely goes from one mob leader to the next, ironically much like a pack of wild dogs choosing its leader by virtue of him being the strongest. As usual, truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense, as the famous quote goes.



Exhibit C: Spot the difference between a real mob and a fictitious mob (this is a fictitious mob exhibiting compound failure).



Exhibit D: Spot the difference between a real mob and a fictitious mob (this is a real mob exhibiting compound failure).

Note the similarities between the real mob and the fictitious mob. The one has made up its mind about who is guilty, who is innocent and no matter what the reality is, they already decided to kill those who oppose them. On the other hand, we have the pitchfork wielding peasants who run after Wandinsky in the Curse of the Devil.

For those outside South Africa who might still be in the dark, try this erudite legal opinion on the ANCYL leader Mamela's threat to kill those who oppose Jacob Zuma.

Director

Carlos Aured.

Cast

Fabiola Falcón, Anna Farra, Jacinto Molina, aka Paul Naschy, Inés Morales, Martiza Olivares.

Rating