The Pool

Ping Lumpraploeng, 2018, Thailand

Prime’s description, “Day is stranded in a partially filled deep pool next to a crocodile farm” amused me greatly. Hilariously contrived horror set-up, I thought, which made me curious.

Beginning with a something a little surreal and stylish with a fancy sofa being dropped into a pool – it’s a photo shoot. But pretty soon, crew dog trainer Day (Theeradej Wongpuapan) is letting himself fall asleep drifting on the pool as it drains. It’s a pool with no shallow end or fixed ladder, so he soon finds himself unable to get out. His dog Lucky (yes) is left poolside, and he needs his insulin and he breaks a nail… and then, for no good reason, a crocodile joins him. And then his girlfriend falls in…

I can’t even say the CGI crocodile was good or bad… I mean, what’s expected? I certainly didn’t think it destabilised the for-fun mentality. Perhaps the cartoonish edge inspires more tolerance? The fun is less in the monster movie elements than in all the contrivance, in all the props being set up and coming into play – for example, there’s full mileage gained from the sofa. A horror farce, amusing for its po-faced execution of daftness, but at the same time it twinges with self-awareness. It moves swiftly through its mixture of inventiveness and stupidity and is therefore always entertaining if not convincing. But make no mistake, it’s all overdone and silly, oh so silly.  

And then, as these things tend to do, it makes a bid for emotional engagement because it’s all about a man taking responsibility and proving himself. But there is a somewhat sour subtext: as Trace Thurman notes, “Day is being punished over and over again for wanting Koi to have an abortion since the operation is only legal in Thailand if there is a health issue or if the fetus is a product of rape or incest.”

It may be just one location, but Lumpraploeng’s script continually finds new angles, new ways to torture Day, manages to avoid repeating itself and offers a few surprises. You’ll be criticising Day’s sometimes moronic decisions as well as deriving glee at the film’s mechanisations against him. It’s the kind of film that in one moment, he can barely drag himself through the sewer pipe, and yet for the next that won’t stop him from a heroic smackdown when necessary.

And the means by which Day finally gets out is agreeably grim and black humoured.

As Matt Donato says, it works because, “Lumpraploeng’s popcorn-savvy mentality that always favors amusement over reality.” That’s a formula that won’t automatically win with me, but ‘The Pool’s ridiculousness entertained throughout. I can imagine it was a real fun watch with a genre crowd at a festival.

 

Westworld

writer & director - Michael Crichton

1973, USA

 

Undeniably a tentpole Seventies sci-fi. The glorious high concept pulp and smarts is straight from the covers of sci-fi magazines. There’s a theme park called Delos for rich folks where the imaged archetypes of bygones eras are recreated with life-like robots. There’s Medievalworld, Romanworld and Westernworld, and you can more-or-less do or be whatever you want. It’s all arranged to pander to your ego. But, as always happens with these things, there seems to be a glitch…

If you were going to pick holes, you could wonder why the robot snake biting a guest is such a safety issue when there’s no apparent concern with a no-holds-barred barroom brawl where no one knows if the other is a robot or not (and wouldn’t robot punches be an issue?). But it seems no bones are broken and there’s no bruising: it’s just like a fracas from an old TV show – and that’s the point. The ugly-free violence of the era’s entertainment – minimal blood; very little bruising; a sore head to make you groan, etc – is very enjoyable and all, all this jovial violence, but how would you like it if it was real? A barroom scuffle is fun! Right? But then the gunslinger character is hunting you down and it’s no longer enetertainment. Indeed, Delos wouldn’t work because there’s too many variables, as JP Roscoe says, , but the metaphor holds. As a satire on an audience living variously through the archetypes and narratives of TV and movies, it certainly has not dated. Man will pay for his thoughtless, narcissistic and irresponsible hedonism.

Of course, there will be datedness and the Western motifs certainly made more sense in 1973 – it’s easy to take the cornball cowboy stuff at face value, to smirk, but that’s in keeping with the fantasy being bought. Michael Crichton directs solidly, if unremarkably, so that there’s never a distraction from the central concept. However he captures many memorable and vivid visuals: Brynner’s eyes reflecting silver; a Roman statue in a stream; the parks being turned on; a robot prostitute staring blankly over the shoulder of her client; the first “robot behind the humanface”  etc. But when it changes gear, the film clips away the diversions and drives ahead. No beleaguered death scene – “I’ve been shot…” – just a face in the dirt and we’re off.

Gunslinger Yul Brynner has very few lines, but he doesn’t need them. Just his glare and that particular walk is iconic. The original Terminator: that machine that won’t stop hunting you down. Josh Brolin is all Seventies TV-maco-cocky, and Richard Benjamin is agreeable as his newby sidekick, learning the ropes in this brave new world of entertainment. But it is Yul Brynner that defines it, commenting on his ‘The Magnificent Seven’ role, stripping away its humanity. The acting being a cut above sells the archetypes.

If there’s any major shortcoming, it is that there’s nothing here for women, not even a damsel in distress. Robot fun tied to a sketchy morality tale, so enjoyably straightforward and swift that you won’t notice or care about any limitations in the sets or characterisation. Or asking awkward questions like, “Wait… a dungeon…??”

Seventies sci-fi pulp doesn’t come more seminal than this.

And then, of course, Crichton thought: What if there was a Dinoworld…?

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Christine

 

John Carpenter, 1983, USA

Screenplay: Bill Phillips 

 

 Made at the time where Stephen King adaptations were everywhere. This is early John Carpenter, which is such a great, iconic run (everything up to ‘They Live’: that’s where I start to part ways although that is much loved and I understand that the 80s wrestling machismo, however tongue-in-cheek, isn’t quite my thing). Carpenter homage is  notable trend in the current horror generation, and for good reason. ‘Christine’ comes after ‘The Thing’, which is now considered undefeatable but at the time was quite critically loathed, so ‘Christine’ seems a much safer, cosier bet as a follow-up.

John Wyndham was criticised as “cosy catastrophe” by Brian Aldiss, which has a very specific meaning, but I would venture that King is a general source of “cosy horror” in that he offers up the comfort of genre tropes, nostalgia and reassuring sentiment. Not always, of course, but the guy has written so much that he’s touched base on practically every horror nuance, inadvertently or not (‘Storm of the Century’ is certainly not reassuring, for example). With Kubrick ‘The Shining’ and Darabont’s ‘The Mist’, these adaptations find other and/or extended ways to push the material (‘The Mist’ takes from the Grand Guignol play ‘The Ultimate Torture’ for its kick).  In ‘Danse Macabre’, King writes that horror is essentially conservative in intent, but that isn’t even the default for the gamut of his own oeuvre (he’s written so much, etc). However, the subtext of ‘Christine’ would seem to be “don’t try to strike out on your own from your overbearing parents or you’ll be sorry”, which is undeniably conservative.

‘Christine’ offers King nostalgia for bygone eras – the Fifties, the Seventies: neatly bridged by Buddy Holly’s ‘Not Fade Away’ segueing into Tanya Tucker’s cover – and that King staple of outside “Evil Forces” corrupting an already vulnerable or unstable victim. It’s a tale that drools nostalgia for the 57 Plymouth Fury and the rock’n’roll hits it uses appositely for one-liners. Despite the wealth of Golden Oldies, it’s George Thorogood and the Destroyers ‘Bad to the Bone’ that has always meant this film for me. [I hadn’t seen ‘Christine’ since my teens, but that opening riff, even as a work colleague’s ringtone, means I’m always reminded of this film.]

In this case, a possessed car corrupts poor Arnie Cunningham, a bullied nerd who just wants to gain some independence. It doesn’t quite hit the heights of Carpenter’s best, but it does have that wonderful Carpenter framing and iconic electronic musical stings. There’s a reason why the current generation of genre filmmakers seem obsessed with eighties’ style, Carpentereque scores and why the director has had a successfully latterday run as a live musician. The moments when Christine rebuilds herself are the hooks and highlights.

But it also has Keith Gordon’s dedicated portrayal of Arnie Cunningham, finding nuances from Arnie’s transition from put-upon nerd to homicidal asshole in an arc that’s been greatly reduced from its source, a characteristically King brick of a book. If the bad guys are 2D nasty bullies, what’s also interesting is that despite the crude guy-talk, the film doesn’t objectify love interest Leigh (Alexandra Paul), and that Arnie’s transformation runs parallel to his jockish best pal Dennis’ (John Stockwell) downfall as a football star. In fact, it’s Arnie and Dennis’ friendship which is the true emotional and touching core of the film. This is not the typical broad strokes of eighties high school characterisation; and however nostalgic King may be, it’s never quite rose tinted.

But no, it doesn’t solve that essential problem that killer vehicle films have to overcome: Christine has to rely on people just not getting out of her way or getting in her at unusual moments to get her kills. The best kill in the film is Christine squeezing in the narrow dead-end. But otherwise, the performances and Carpenter’s recognisable aesthetic make for a solid if – by this director’ standards – a straightforward, enjoyable, slick if somewhat unremarkable horror.