One moment in: Zombie Flesh Eaters

 ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS

ZOMBI 2

Director – Lucio Fulci

Writers – Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti (uncredited)

1979, Italy

Stars – Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson

Probably the film that saved Italian cinema and part of a particularly notorious strain of extreme splatter that would fuel the  Eighties’ Banned Films list. The eye-gouging is the other scene, but the shark-versus-zombie is the sequence that stands out. It registers high on the WTF!? chart because whereas the eye-gouging is special effects, that’s a real shark.

Fulci is not an elegant filmmaker (although I did find that quality in 'Don't Torture a Duckling'), but he knows how to lay out a set piece. It’s only the set-pieces that matter; or at the RottenTomatoes critic consensus says “Zombi 2 [‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’’ original title] is an absurdly graphic zombie movie legendary for some gory scenes and nothing in between.” Yes, but it scores high on the schlock meter. One moment you can laugh at the dialogue and inattention to detail and the next admire the boldness of the set pieces. So two people got past that guard on the boat, and then he just shakes his head upon finding a couple canoodling on a crime scene? And there’s no escaping the fact that the main reason the zombies get to chomp on the cast is that they stand still long enough for the undead to shamble up. Yet it’s not in the So Bad It’s Good camp. It’s the kind of laughable inattention to internal logic and detail that brings out the nit-picker and in me, although I am less likely to dismiss an entire film on what I see as flaws now (say, far less likely to reject the roast meal because I don’t like the swede), and I do not gravitate towards schlock. However, there is something in Fulci that always intrigues me, and I put it down to the set-pieces. The final cellar scene in ‘The House by the Cemetery’ is another favourite. Although it’s the gore-pieces that get the renown, ‘Zombie flesh Eaters’’ scene of the rising of the dead from the graveyard is equally effective (hey this helmet must be 400 years old!). 

So, the scene goes: exploitation objectification of Auretta Gay as she undresses and stays topless to do a spot of underwater photography (regardless of any urgency in the search for a missing father); a bit Jacques Cousteau; then the threat of a shark; then the appearance of a zombie – underwater! – then a showdown between shark and zombie. Ramón Bravo as the zombie gets up close to tussle with the dangerous fish and it’s most satisfying. There’s an inherent pasted-together veneer to Fulci’s direction that makes any clumsiness and continuity issues in this sequence irrelevant. Is there a little inconsistency with how big the shark is portrayed? Didn’t the zombie tear a chunk from the shark? Just the verve and audacity of the concept, and the knowledge of the perils involved with filming (it would just be CGI if done now), make this fun and unique. You even get ripping sounds when underwater foliage is torn off to fend away attacking zombies, and chomping sounds from the shark. Meanwhile, Georgio Tucci’s* score throbs along most leisurely and incongruously. 

And then the characters never mention it again. 

Wikipedia says: “The underwater scene featuring a shark attack was devised by Ugo Tucci, and was shot without Fulci's approval, by Giannetto De Rossi, in Isla Mujeres, with the zombie portrayed by a local shark trainer.”** It is, of course, the kind of juvenile mash-up concept that leads to ‘Sharkotopus’, or ‘Freddy vs Jason’, or ‘Frankenstein meets the Wolfman’ and its ilk; the kind that can be more silly than inspired. But this is an occasion where it works, and of course one cannot help but think of ‘Jaws’ and in terms of a face-off between two mighty monsters. We can go meta with it: low-budget battling mainstream takeover. There’s no higher, smoother art required from Fulci – the typically negligible logic, drama, characters, dialogue, and dubbing undermine that from the start. But, again, the execution of the set pieces is all. 

The film looks great: Sergio Salvati’s cinematography capturing the anti-Gothic crisp brightness of the crewless boat on the New York City Harbour and then of the tropical island. It also means there’s no shadows for these undead – Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ showed how these monsters weren’t interested in dark corners – and these zombies look great and disgusting. Again, there’s almost a juvenile edge to this too – worms in eye-sockets!! – and how they regularly seem to have freshly blood-stained chins is a bit of a mystery.

Compared to Romero, this is unintentional comedy, but Fulci was capable of far worse (‘Zombi 3’***). It may be mockable for its flaws but its set-pieces still make this enjoyable. And notorious. 

·       * Music by:  Giorgio Cascio      (as Giorgio Tucci), Fabio Frizzi          and (uncredited) Adriano Giordanella and Maurizio Guarini.

·       ** Albiero, Paolo; Cacciatore, Giacomo (2004). Arriva il "poète du macabre", ovvero: Zombi 2 (1979), in Il terrorista dei generi. Tutto il cinema di Lucio Fulci (in Italian). Un mondo a parte.

*** As a friend chides me: "the Zombie 3 reference isn't really fair cos he only directed like 20%, the rest was Bruno Mattei."

One moment in: 'Fire in the Sky'

Fire in the Sky

Director – Robert Lieberman

Writers – Travis Walton (book "The Walton Experience"), Tracy Tormé (screenplay)

Stars – D.B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick, Craig Sheffer

 

If ever a film was defined by one scene, ‘Fire in the sky’ is it. Otherwise, it is very much feels like your decent but standard "True Story" movie. It has the feel of the made-for-TV Seventies and Eighties films and television I was familiar with growing up – look, there’s even James Garner! He doesn’t do anything, apparently having wandered over from an easy-going crime drama series where he investigates dodgy goings-on. There’s also Robert Patrick as a somewhat assholish friend, and Henry Thomas for five minutes, but we don’t get his story.

 

A group of loggers, coming back from work one night, see the sky aglow which leads to a UFO sighting and abduction of Travis Walton. This is his “True Story”.  There’s some flair in the play with lighting on a country road over the credits and the prowling take from one character to the next as the voiceover introduces them, and in the abduction scene, but otherwise it’s pretty stolid direction from Lierman and screenplay from Tracy Tormé. There’s macho posturing and belligerence and small-town mindedness as the story drags out the dilemma that everyone thinks they killed their missing friend. Which seems routine to my thinking, although it is played as an outrage … and I guess no one else saw the sky light up? I mean, it was impressive and surely able to be seen from some distance.

 

And then, ninety minutes in, it goes apeshit.

 

I grew up when alien abduction was all the rage. I was already frightened of alien attacks from reading the comic origin of Peter Quill, ‘Star Lord’: the moment where the aliens blast away his parents was one of my primal frights. It’s why I have a soft spot for 'Slumber Party Alien Abduction'  in ‘V/H/S/2’ (although I hate its shaky-cam). And I have no doubt that if I had been a kid seeing this moment in ‘Fire in the Sky’, it would have traumatised me and become and instant favourite.

 

I first encountered this scene cropped and made into a mini-vid on Instagram. But watching it again, in context, it had lost none of its power. It is totally at odds with the rest of the drama, like an acoustic folk track suddenly turning into New Wave Synth. It works as a short film within itself, and it sticks out so much because it’s not as if the film on either side bolsters unease. This scene survives autonomously. It is the flashback to Travis Watson’s experience inside the spaceship when he wakes up, abducted. He can apparently breathe the atmosphere and finds himself drifting through the low gravity of the UFO, and then subjected to alien medical procedure.

 

This moment is the stuff of pure nightmare and taps directly into the horror imaginings of human beings as to what an alien abduction would be like. It captures the fears and helplessness and works on such a primal level that it taps directly into the place that delights horror fans. These fears are mostly based upon incapacitation, suffocation, and penetration oral and ocular: rape fears, which fits the legend that UFO abductions feature anal probing, although the film doesn’t go there. Or not that we see. In fact, it cuts out just when it’s hitting peaks, which means you’re left wanting more, an to see what would follow. But the film isn’t so interested in expanding; in fact, this scene differs from Walton’s own account, meaning it isn’t much on the “True Story” stuff either. There was a hypnotic regression afterwards, for example.

 

And so, in the film, when Walton returns, he is traumatised for a while, but there are apparently no physical after-effects. No long-term PTSD for Walton, it seems. And the trauma he does have is got over enough for a reconciliation between Walton and his pal – and it has to be said that the incident seems to have more a long-term effect on Mike, who now lives pretty estranged from society. But it’s all resolved with a meagre joke, a punchline the kind that ‘Police Squad’ mocked, that trivialises the incident.

 

But that one sequence still remains as unforgettable and a treat for connoisseurs of fright scenes.

One moment in: 'Tron' and 'Speed Racer' races

There are several games in the word of ‘Tron’, but it’s the lightcycle race that’s the most memorable. It’s not meant t be futuristic, so any datedness in its look is irrelevant: it’s here that the editing and pacing really hits its mark in the wat that the rest of the film doesn’t have such a grip on. Of course, there’s the question that a crash of pixels allows a hole in the game grid for Flynn to escape, which doesn’t truly make sense: surely crashing opponents into walls is the point of the game, a built-in move rather than a flaw? But for a moment, in the 80s, it felt we were really getting a p.o.v. ride inside a game.

There's some of that in the Wachowskis' 'Speed Racer' too. The race in the ‘Speed Racer’ is a natural descendant of the ‘Tron’ lightcycle race, although where ‘Tron’ is tense in its limitations and the threat of straight lines, ‘Speed Racer’ is instead chaotic and colourful and overpacked in a way that reflects how gaming design has progressed. Of course, it’s not meant to be set in a virtual world, and it is perhaps more comic book than game, but its influences and context are obvious.

One moment in: 'Melody' (1971) - sports day

One moment in: ‘Melody’ - Sports day

Waris Hussein, 1971, UK

Wes Anderson is quoted on the cover calling Waris Hussein’s ‘Melody’ (1971) “a forgotten, inspiring gem”, and in the chock-full coming-of-age genre, this as enchanting and as affecting as any. It has that decidedly British 1960-70s feel that’s part rough-and-tumble, part cheeky-chappy, part whimsy. As they were so successful in ‘Oliver’, Jack Wild and Mark Lester are paired again as odd-couple friends. This time, Lester is a doe-eyed kid who just wants to marry his first love, Melody (Tracy Hynde). Wild is the loveable delinquent that gets involved and has pangs of jealousy. His deadpan delivery of “I thought you might” is a highlight. And many supporting faces will be familiar to anyone watching TV during that time. ‘Melody’ scores by treating the children’s romanticism seriously and as a proper put-down to the adult world.

The moment where Daniel and Melody bond through playing their instruments is a peak moment and the whole escapade all ends with some ‘Hue and Cry’ kid’s anarchy; the former scene could easily be chosen for this post, but I am going to go for the sports day sequence. Oh, I am sure there’s some nostalgia at play in my choice here, for anyone that was a kid experiencing sports day in that era will find memories and feelings stirred. There’s bound to be a little shock for younger audiences that it so casually has very young kids smoking, or a teacher asking a boy if it is whiskey he smells on his breath, but it was a very different era. 

Key to the sports day vignettes are that they are set to the Bee Gees ‘To Love Somebody’. It’s mostly through Nina Simone’s devastating version that I came to this song: I'm not a Bee Gees fan yet I have to admit to finding this track affecting. But its placement here is both surprising and transcendent, underscoring the whole school event with Daniel’s romantic longing. The music is like the sound of Daniel reminiscing as an older man about the sports day when he first had a big crush; the song's slight incongruity makes this moment feel like a memory. Yet it’s also music that places it firmly in the era. The song is slick and yearning and gives a gloss and elevation to the sports day montage that could quite easily have come from ‘Grange Hill’ or Ealing Studios. That it feels slightly at odds with the rough edges of an unremarkable school event  provokes a surprising elegance and pathos.

Oh, and watch out for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on the soundtrack too.

One moment in: 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and 'Jaws'

Stephen Spielberg

'Raiders of the Lost Ark', 1981 USA 

'Jaws', 1975, USA

I assume now that every pre-teen thinks ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ is a bit old hat and has seen the ‘Hatchet’ films at a sleepover, but when I was a kid it was hard to see contemporary horror. I always credit ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ as giving me my first “gore scene”. Of course, I mean the face melt of the Nazis at the opening of the Ark. No, I had never seen anything quite like that beforehand – maybe stills from ‘The First Man into Space’ in all his goopy glory that I had in a monster book came close (but I wouldn’t see that until much later). But here was a graphic melting face in all its bloody liquefying glory. All the credentials for a gore scene: just there because it could; graphic because it could be; a little outrageous; a moment to wrench and make you go “Wha? Oh –!!! Blegghhhh!” - but not necessarily in that order. And the hint that maybe you are watching something you shouldn’t. 

Of course, now I am thinking that it was notable what Spielberg was getting away with here and  in ‘Jaws’ which, in these moments, were just as full-on as the horrors, and were often more graphic once the horrors were cut up by censors. Even as a kid, I knew Bruce the shark chomping on Quint in the finale was silly and hints that there’s always a little condescending “Hey, they’ll swallow anything in the end” to Spielberg – but its excess works. This was 1981 and we were just on the brink of the Video Nasty panic that came with ‘81’s ‘Evil Dead’ – and the melting in both are kindred spirits – but even so, that was an ‘X’ (18) and ‘Raiders’ was rated PG, a family film. Gee, ‘Jaws’ is a PG too now, which makes me think that the censors have always had a blind-spot with Spielberg. And even now, these are treasured go-for-broke moments if not the initiation tests for gorehounds they used to be.

One moment in 'Sorcerer'

'Sorcerer' - the rope bridge

William Friedkin, 1977, USA

Very few moments in cinema can perhaps capture the lunacy and gung-ho spirit of film-making than the rope bridge scene in William Friedkin’s ‘Sorcerer’. Hey, let’s put a truck on a rickety rope bridge in the middle of torrential weather and drive it across. Yes, let’s do that. This is filtered through blue and a soundtrack of relentless storm: the scene let’s one truck cross, and then another that has more trouble as the river floods violently below and foliage is uprooted and goes flying. The weight of the truck is all one side at one point and it looks for sure that it will fall in. It looks perilous just to watch and it last around ten minutes.

Of course, the mystery and mechanics of it is laid out by Wikipedia, but the filming still reportedly was as crazy and as hard as it looks. Roy Scheider commented that shooting 'Sorcerer'  "made Jaws look like a picnic." It’s one of those mysteries whose debunking only increases the admiration of behind-the-scenes development. It’s something that CGI can’t hope to replicate.

 

One moment in: 'Kaos'

‘Kaos’

Vittorio & Paolo Taviani, 1982, Italy/France

The films of the Taviani brothers are abundant with beautiful images, but when I saw ‘Kaos’ at the cinema, there was one moment that left a long-lasting impression (and for a long time I had to keep it as a fond memory as the film didn’t seem to be available on VHS or DVD). It’s when the family visit a desolate island, away from civilisation, where the beach is made of sand as white as mountains of flour. When the kids tumble down the slope into the ocean, it struck me as one of the most beautiful and carefree images in cinema.

One moment in: 'Exists'

Exists

Eduardo Sanchez, 2014, USA

‘Exists’ is a pretty average monster horror. It suffers, as these things tend to do, from unremarkable and frequently annoying twentysomething characters, the kind you can’t particularly be too concerned with. It’s also a shakycam p.o.v. “found footage” film, with all the weaknesses that brings with it. However, it is a bigfoot film and it’s here it wins. When the p.o.v. aesthetic works, its effective to giving in an “insiders” view of horror moments we are familiar with: I’m thinking of the monster’s p.o.v. when they fly off in ‘V/H/S/’ and ‘Jaruzalem’, or the ending of ‘The Borderlands’. In ‘Exists’, there are effective shots of the sasquatch running through the woods to catch up with a victim cycling away, but better than that, and the one shot that means this film will always overcome its weaknesses with me, is that phenomenal, convincing, elongated close-up of the beast at the end. I always thought that Chewbacca was probably the most convincing alien in ‘Star Wars’ and, here, such a convincing man-in-a-suit design creates something truly scary and magnificent in the monster pantheon. All the way through the film, I wondered if we would ever get to actually see, properly, the monster. I mean, it wouldn’t necessarily matter – after all, ‘Willow Creek’ scared me and is probably my favourite Sasquatch film despite the absence of bigfoot sightings – but then when the bigfoot got his close-up, and sustained it, I was mesmerised. Many sasquatch films have kept the beast at arm’s-length, because after all it is just a man in a monster suit and it’s best not to reveal its shortcomings too much, and anyway things are better with a little mystery. But this monster-mask is convincing, scary and is thoroughly able of absorbing scrutiny.