Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes

 

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes

Director ~ Kevin Kopacka

Writers ~ Kevin Kopacka, Lili Villányi

2021, Germany

Stars ~ Anna Platen, Jeff Wilbusch, Frederik von Lüttichau

There is great set design and plenty of atmosphere as a couple come to the castle she’s inherited, and weirdness then ensues. He’s a dick, barely capable of speaking without negativity or condescension; she’s a bit of a selfish ice maiden. They seem made for one another. And then there’s a sharp turn into a shock-scene and then meta.

Expert recreations of subgenres are the norm now, and Kopacka’s film is no slouch. The title font is a dead giveaway that this will be a pastiche of retro-styles; both story and cinematic nature will be period pieces. Giallo is foremost, but the feel goes through ghost stories, films-within-films-within-realities-within-realities, a stop by vampires and home invasions, euro-horror, mystery, counter-counter psychelica and seemingly whatever takes its fancy. It’s the kind of esoteric playfulness that leaves cineasts beguiled and reviews almost as opaque as the enterprise itself.

The difference to old giallo to recent neo-giallo is that the latter is more self-aware in its playfulness where the former can often feel like cut-and-paste held together by great aesthetic: ‘Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes’ goes all kind of places, fakes out this way, piles on layers and gothic restlessness, and probably demands more than one watch to work out. A little like a melding of 'Knife + Heart' and the work of Cattet and Foranzi. It doesn’t outstay its indulgences or invite impatience, leaving its mysteries quite intact because it doesn’t really move beyond the abstract and ambiguous. You’ll be left scratching your head but thinking that that’s your fault.  There are lots of dead ends and possibilities, and of course it all goes up in flames, but light on conclusion. As a fever dream of a couple’s disintegration, there’s plenty to delve into here.

 

Perfect

Perfect

Director – Eddie Alcazar

Writers – Ted Kupper & Eddie Alcazar

2018, USA

Stars - Garrett Wareing, Courtney Eaton, Tao Okamoto

 

The voiceover ranges from teenage existentialism to earnest ad-speak, but no matter how poignant it is trying to be (and such overspeak rarely is), it is clear very early that the full worth of ‘Perfect’ is mostly all in the visuals and vibe. Not that the storyline doesn’t have promise – an oddball young man seemingly waking to a bloodbath, apparently having killed his girlfriend? and so sent to some kind of corrective retreat to “cure” him - but the abstract aesthetic takes over, leaving the storyline somewhat incoherent. But this seems wilful and much of the enjoyment will be, as a viewer, you are won over by the aesthetic and vibe over conventional clarity of story. It certainly works for Terence Malick.

 

It seems our protagonist (Garrett Wareling) is Vessel 13 whose penchant for violence for women during blackouts has to be cured at the institute like a self-help retreat, with added body-horror. An automaton, then, and these automatons sex toys? Certainly, the Pretty Things Posing vibe is suggestive. There’s a seductive glossiness that has this future all for the rich and indulgent, but that’s not an issue that rears its head here.

 

 

The house this is set in is remarkable (The Goldstein Mansion), so much so that when the film eventually reaches a peak, it retreats into a prolonged drone-tour while the narration rambles on (perhaps the voiceover here explicated more, but I was fairly tuned out as it seemed me more existential pontificating). Cronenberg is an obvious touchstone, what with the sci-fi body-horror and obsession with transformation, but there’s none of the clinical-but-exploitative edge of his early work to really make it pop with black humour and genre-bending intelligence. Rather, the floaty abstract glossy designer magazine visuals may not culminate in decipherable meaning, although the nightmare logic and the psychedelic tone almost make the need for that surplus. But this lack of clarity is also problematic in that it isn’t so easy to parse the intention; or as Mariso Carpico writes’ “watching it feels like an 80-minute commercial for an opulent, minimalist lifestyle told through a kink for sexual violence against women.” 

 

Garrett Wareling’s boyish innocence manages a grounding vulnerability, his confusion and internal conflict at least relatable character traits that provide a throughline where all other characters are tokens. As a mood piece, it achieves a distinct aura and, as with most ambience, the reward will be in simply letting it wash over you and do its thing without asking too much. But then there are two shockers at the end that stake the films’ claim on your taste for the Horror genre; and it’s here that ‘Perfect’ shrugs off its trippy elusiveness to imply “See? We were building to something.” Certainly, unforgettable as these are, it’s still not clear what. Hints of Panos Cosmatos, David Cronenberg,* David Lynch, Terence Malick – all the right names, then, and great mood; but despite its message about overcoming flaws, it lacks the definition to make its agenda about superficial sexual models and violence truly and rightfully clear. 

 

 

 

·        * Both version of ‘Crimes of the Future’ indicate how such material can be approached with clinical detachment and/or dark humour.

Curse of the Crimson Altar

 

Curse of the Crimson Alter

Aka: The Crimson Cult

Director – Vernon Sewell

Screenplay – Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln from a story by Jerry Sohl

Stars – Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Mark Eden

 

Starts in rip-roaring fashion with a buxom blonde being whipped on a sacrificial alter by a near-naked amazon whilst a dirty old priest looks on. Having been introduced to our typically staid hero, the Swinging Sixties vibe continues (as much as it censorship allows) with a big house party of wild abandon (e.g. painting breasts, pouring booze on breasts, etc). Much of the debauchery and witchy rituals look like they are auditioning for a salacious slot in such Mondo efforts as ‘Primitive London’. 

 

Manning hangs around and discovers that the atmosphere is sinister with the legend of Lavinia Morley, Black Witch of Greymarsh. Witch burning town festivals, psychedelic nightmares, blood oaths, threatening masked juries, sleepwalking, secret passages relatively easily found all follow. When stabbed in a dream, Manning wakes to find he has been stabbed in real life, but this barely seems a conundrum to him and certainly no inconvenience to shagging his host’s daughter. In fact, the film’s sexual politics are decidedly dated, what with Manning’s somewhat presumptive and aggressive come-ons. And it all ends up underwhelming and a little perfunctory – don’t these things end on the rooftop? Yes, let’s do the rooftop!

 

Based on HP Lovecraft’s ‘A Dream in the Witch House’ (uncredited), antique enthusiast Robert Manning (Mark Eden) goes in pursuit of his missing brother and gate-crashes a party at a stately home, finding himself taken as a welcome guest. “It’s as if Boris Karloff is going to pop up at any moment,” Manning deadpans – and lo! Boris does turn up, in a wheelchair, condescending and full of potent and invitations to see his collection of torture instruments. Of course, it’s Karloff and Christopher Lee that give it class (Lee’s no-nonsense sincerity and Karloff’s uncampy ham), but it’s Michael Gough that steals the show as a batty short-lived servant. Eden is uninteresting and quite bullish, like Connery’s Bond without the charm.  Virginia Wetherall’s natural no-nonsense appeal is squandered and all Barbara Steele has to do is to is look imperiously green.

 

Enjoy by simply stuffing the plot holes and cliches with the lashings of unintentional camp.