Amishenanigans - Deadly Blessing Review

Stacie at Final Girl has chosen Wes Craven's 1981 shocker Deadly Blessing as her Film Club pick this month, so let's get to it.

This came out during the dawn of the slasher era, but I was still too young to gain access to R-rated movies, so I had to rely on my friends' older siblings' opinions to find out just how badly I was missing out. In this case, the verdict was pretty dire. "It sucked." said the jaded senior-high set. Shamefully, I trusted this assessment so implicitly, that I'd never bother to track the movie down and judge it for myself. The gospel of the roller-rinkers had been set down, and like an unquestioning buggy-riding bumpkin, I SHUNNED THIS MOVIE.

Too bad, because it's actually the shit. You've got Oscar-winners acting badly,bankable television stars acting like lunatics, and a young, cherubic Sharon Stone acting like, well, nowadays Sharon Stone. Add in a dash of gratuitous cheesecake and the stage should be set for a campy cult classic, right? Well, not at first. For the first hour, Deadly Blessing feeds us a few animal-icks, and one really good jump-scare, but overall, the buildup is awfully light on tension.

BUT!!! Then comes the final half hour and HOLY CRAP does the (S)hittite ever hit the fan.

Menacing Van Art!

Crushing backhands!

Blazing gunplay!

Lamps! Bedposts! Shotguns!

Mace in the FACE!

What IN HELL. This movie should be famous for its last act. I won't spoil it, but imagine cramming Charlie's Angels, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, Sleepaway Camp, and Little House on the Prairie into a Moulinex and leaving it on purée for ten minutes. That's the flavor you'll end up with. Maybe it's not to everyone's taste, but I frankly ate that shit up. Thanks, Final Girl. I have seen the deadly, blessed light.

A Package Arrives!

About a week ago, I had a dream in which my left foot was in need of some expensive surgery only offered by an exclusive hospital in Geneva. As I couldn't afford both the procedure and the transatlantic airfare, my doctor came up with a cunningly simple workaround - he sawed it off at the ankle and bade the receptionist to express-mail it to Switzerland. Then he gave me some crutches and told me to go home and wait. The latter half of the dream had me hobbling about restlessly, listening for the postman's heavy step at the front path. A package finally appeared, and I tore open the bubble-wrapped envelope with relief. My foot was repaired and ready to go. Full postage paid. Unfortunately - much like the Swedes and their damnable Ikea deliveries - the Swiss surgeons had neglected to include English instructions for re-attachment. I was, if you'll excuse the pun, stumped.

Anticipation is a potent thing. Whether manifesting as barely perceived butterflies in our waking lives, or powerful presentiments of slumbering wish fulfillment, the promise of a thing yet to come; assigned but unknowable, awarded yet unclaimable, can yield the sweetest of torments. And so it was this dread anticipation which did accompany my discovery of a manila-sleeved enigma stuffed in the mailbox Monday evening. Was it a foot, you ask?  Better, my friends. Better and bloodier. It was my pre-ordered copy of

            
The wait is over!

Many of you are familiar with the works of Stacie Ponder, professional graphic artist and tireless authoress of Final Girl. What you may not know is that last year, in the paltry span of two days, she made a near feature-length film with her own resources pretty much single-handedly. And let me tell you, it's good.



Befitting bugsplat on Google's road camera heading to Ludlow.

Krista (Lark) is looking to put some distance between her and a physically abusive spouse. We see her car arrive at a bleak desert motel in Ludlow, CA. Unpacking her meager belongings (and a seemingly endless cache of cheap vodka), she checks in to room #8.



Early on, we're introduced to Krista's constant companions: her collection of welts and bruises, her cellphone, and a rapidly-diminishing supply of assorted painkillers and anti-depressants. Ominously, each of these fairweather friends are prone to exhibit diametrically opposite functions; the bruises are both painful reminders of her past and a lifesaving catalyst for change, the phone is her lifeline to the future, as well as a dangerous connection to her abuser, and the pills will cushion her emotional trauma even as they confound her ability to cope with it. It's not just Krista who is at a crossroads - everything in her inventory possesses a dualistic, potentially malignant nature.

Ponder shows us a lot of her broken heroine's psychosexual history and the frightening depth of her instability in the hour that follows, perhaps documenting only a few minutes of Krista's downward spiral, perhaps a few days. The overall effect is designed to disorient, so further plot details become entirely subject to the viewer's sympathies. One does sympathize, however, make no mistake. Shannon Lark does a fantastic job of riveting the viewer to Krista's lonely plight, allowing us enough distance to judge her terrible choices, even as we commiserate, feeling every shock, punch and indignity.

In the highly enjoyable commentary, Stacie cites Friedkin's Bug and Polanski's Repulsion as Ludlow's thematic godparents. Myself, I would be surprised if audiences weren't also reminded of Carnival of Souls (the doomed heroine, inexorably drawn to an abandoned location), Mulholland Drive (a damaged woman's delusional reinvention of characters and events), and even a hint of Konami's second installment in the Silent Hill series, populated by self-destructive penitents trapped in their own private purgatories.

Very much in keeping with Ludlow's elegiac flavor is James Barry's original music. It is not the typical fare of no-budget independent works, and adds tremendously to the film's emotional impact. Rounding out the cast is Elissa Dowling (in two roles), and Ned Christensen as Steve, the silent, stalking Shade of Krista's subconscious.

Stacie has been reviewing and discussing films for the better half of a decade, now. She's absorbed an uncanny, almost encyclopedic knowledge of suspense and horror, and amassed legions of fans in the process. Her critical aim is true. And so here's the thing: unlike your typical backyard-zombie movie, fledgling filmmaker, Stacie had a HUGE task ahead of her. How do you craft a story - with no budget to speak of - that's going to satisfy genre fans who've seen everything? More importantly, how will you maintain credibility as a connoisseur to such a jaded and sophisticated audience? Today's fans have seen every cliché, every cheap convention and lazy contrivance there is, and this genre is rife with them, even the old pros like Romero and Hooper have fallen prey to them. We complain loudly and bitterly over the crap that tries to pass for art, and the trite shorthand that usurps true storytelling. "I could make a movie ten times better than this!" we say with the contempt that attends absolute certainty. With this in mind, the pressure to make something that isn't an exercise in hackneyed futility must have been monumental for Miss Ponder.

It's with great appreciation and relief that I'm able to say that not only did she show courage in the attempt, but incredible deftness in the execution. Ludlow is a triumph.

The Hellbound Fart

You all know Stacie Ponder from Final Girl, don't you? Her Film Club is the cat's pajamas. The lady has an unerring sense of taste, an uncanny nose for schlock, and a unique gift for picking just the right horror flicks month after month.

So I'm giving her a pass on this one, and instead blaming the disgustingly apocalyptic heat.

Because this:


WAS AWFUL!

Hellbound ( 1984 )(1994) is a Chuck Norris movie. It's a movie where Chuck Norris out-woodens the clapboard sets with his acting, where the less-than-unknown supporting cast makes you wonder if they weren't hired purely out of charity, and where any redeeming cheese factor is blighted by the fair-to-middling competence of the direction and cinematography.

This thing is just tedious. But since this is supposed to be a review instead of a heatstroke-fueled grouse, here's the rundown: Chuck portrays a Chicago detective nonsensically named Sgt. Frank Shatter. Presumably Frank Shatter is a moniker designed to confer an acuity for shattering bones, but in my estimation it's what you call a guy who quite frankly shits his pants in the past tense.


Voluminously beshatted and stratospherically waisted PANTS!

To digress just a bit - I just fucking don't get Chuck Norris, I never have. Ok, he's believable as a diminutive bearded fellow with a penchant for flailing about with his lower limbs, but hell, SO WAS MICHAEL FLATLEY back in the day. The guy's head is 30% larger than it ought to be, his shoulders seem scarcely broad enough to support even a normal-sized noggin, and his trunk and musculature befit an octogenarian (funny enough, I liked "The Octagon"). He's never managed charisma or gravitas in any of his roles, and it just amazes me how he acquired this nutty fanbase that somehow sees a badass under that baby beard and those birthing hips.

Ugh. So, it's time to wrap this up - the thermometer's climbing. Chuck Norris and his embarrassing stereotype of a black sidekick are on the hunt for a Satanic toady with ridiculous hair (actually, he's in good company) who wants to gather the pieces of a broken sceptre and raise the Devil. They end up in Israel (because production decided it was cheaper than Iraq, I guess?) and archaeology happens, and the devil dude with the wacky gurning and basso profundo dubbing, and then Chuck + roundhouse kick, + roundhouse kick = THE END.


So much bad hair.


So much bad acting (and obviously, hair).


Let's not and say we did.

This godawful shitpile is worse than all the worst parts of Dead Heat, Lethal Weapon, End of Days and Sister Act and right now I'm so hot and sticky I could cry.


My soiled diapers are still more slimming than Chuck Norris' slacks.

Lucio ad nauseum

Has it really been a year since my last post? It has! So much to catch up on! Let's see...I had a birthday! And...that's pretty much it. If you're wondering what manner of eldritch incantation finally awakened me from my ancient slumber, it was none other than the Final Girl Film Club pick for this month, to wit - "The Gates of Hell" (AKA "City of the Living Dead") Great choice, Stacie. Just for that, here's an animated GIF just for you.


Who can name all four of those iconic broads?

Anyway, for the sake of those unfamiliar with the basic plot of GoH, here's the rundown: during an ill-considered séance, a woman (Catriona MacColl) named Mary Woodhouse ((not to be confused with Mary Whitehouse, bellicose British busybody, distinguished Doctor Who detractor and all-around Anglian alarmist) clairvoyantly witnesses a priest's suicide in the churchyard of a New England town called Dunwich. The shock of the vision triggers morbid catatonia, so before anyone can even wipe the drool from her chin, she's pronounced dead and without so much as a by-your-leave (or a post-mortem), is planted six feet under. Fortunately for Mary, a nosy reporter (Christopher George) happens by before her dirt nap turns permanent. At the behest of her magnificently coiffured medium (think Rhea Perlman as SHAFT), Mary and Peter travel to New England with some vaguely-articulated plans of closing a gateway to the City of the Dead.


This old collar is dying for a little accessorizing...

Meanwhile, in Dunwitch we meet some of the locals, none of whom are particularly interesting except Bob, the town pariah and pervert (played to the squirrely hilt by Italian splatter mainstay Giovanni Radice). We learn that the town's ancestors were witch hunters (a plot point that adds up to zero, btw), and that supernatural goings-on are definitely afoot.


Afoot...

It doesn't take long before the town's population dwindles dramatically thanks to the murderous spectre of the dead priest, or in Bob's case, a drill through the face via industrial lathe.


Bob, getting some much-needed colour in his cheeks.

When Peter and Mary (Paul probably figured that leaving on a jet plane was a prudent course of action. Well played, Paul) FINALLY arrive in Dunwich following an unbelievably leisurely road-trip, the dead are a-walkin' and the maggots are a-flyin'. Seriously, Fulci interrupts one of the few moments of essential exposition with a whirlwind of WORMS. We're talking Cloudy With A Chance of Maggots here. Damn, if only today's directors had the clout and/or nerve to glue live squirming maggots to the faces of their four principal actors. I can almost hear Fulci instructing his crew in his thick Italian accent "Worms first! Actors second! Story last!"

Ultimately, the remaining characters band together and come up with a plan to find the final resting place of the priest, dig up his body, and do something to it in order to close the hell-gate. It's never made very clear, and frankly the whole grave-desecration thing seems counterintuitive in regards to closing infernal portals and such, but what the hell do I know? I'm a Unitarian. I'll not spoil the ending, suffice it to say that a) this is a Fulci flick, and b) by the time the credits roll. there's scarcely a zombie in Dunwich with an empty tummy.

Overall, one helluva great movie. I'm not being sentimental here, either; the f/x sequences are show-stoppers, the soundtrack and ambient sounds are unsettling and often way OTT (at various points, the hooting of a Kookaburra!), the plot. thin and incidental, moves along at a brisk pace, and the actors emote gamely, though the dubbing can be pretty jarring. The shambling undead are back in fine form here, too. Some of them teleport, which really cuts down on the shambling time, and decreases your odds of outwalking 'em exponentially. One spry cadaver, violating about a dozen Zombie Union rules, actually jumps down Jackie Chan-style from atop a thirty-foot fence. Totally badass.

They say Fulci unofficially counted Gates of Hell as the first entry in a potential series known to fans as the "Seven Gates Trilogy". The follow-up was "The Beyond" released a year later in 1981, but a third movie sadly never materialized. When people talk about this director's work, the time period under discussion usually centers around the early eighties in general, and four films in particular. I've made a handy little comparison chart which shows some commonalities between the "Big Four", and how they stack up. Everyone has their favorites, obviously, so there are no "winners" here, except you, dear reader. For your elucidation I present the Fun Fulci Factsheet. (Humor me and click it.)


So many common elements! Obviously, the primary link is Catriona MacColl, who starred in all but Zombi. She makes for a fiesty, albeit oft-overlooked Final Girl. And then there's Lucio himself, who brought all these wonderful gutmunching epics to life. When the dead do rise (and they will, dammit), I hope Fulci picks up right where he left off...