The Daily Grindhouse: Chappaqua (dir. by Conrad Rooks)

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

At the risk of sounding like every other girl who has ever sat in a corner of Starbucks and spent a few hours writing emo poetry in her Hello Kitty notebook, I love the Beat Generation. I’ve read all of Jack Kerouac’s novels, Allen Ginsberg’s poems, and William S. Burroughs’ cut-ups. I’ve even tried to listen to the music of the Fugs and I just recently finished reading the very first Beat novel, John Clellon Holmes’ Go. It was my interest in the Beats that led to me discovering Chappaqua.

Originally filmed in 1966 and released a year later, Chappaqua was produced, written, and directed by Conrad Rooks. The son of the president of Avon, Rooks had a lot of money and a lot of addictions. In 1962, Rooks checked into a European clinic where he detoxed and claimed to have been cured of his drug dependency through something called “sleep therapy.” Chappaqua is based on his experiences both as a drug addict and a patient and, since Rooks was something of a hanger-on in the American underground art scene, the final film featured cameos from such counterculture figures as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.

In the film, Rooks plays himself, a young man who is usually seen wandering aimlessly from one location to another. The film is edited in such a way that you’re never quite sure where Rooks is going to be from one scene to another. Most famously, the film’s opening features Rooks wandering across the countryside of Nebraska while images (and sounds) of New York’s 42nd Street are superimposed over his face. Later on in the film, Rooks will just as abruptly turn up walking through the streets of India and meditating with a random guru. Rooks, it quickly becomes apparent, is a man with no true home, a wanderer who seems to randomly alternate between being lost and being on a mission.

For most of the film, however, Rooks is in a small clinic outside of France. Along with telling his doctor (played by Jean-Louis Barrault) about how he came to be addicted to drugs and alcohol, Rooks goes through withdrawal and has the surreal hallucinations that dominate the majority of the film. During one hallucination, Rooks sees himself as a gangster gunning down a midget in a parking garage. Then, suddenly, Rooks is no longer a gangster and instead, he’s a vampire speaking in an over-pronounced Transylvanian accent. A druid appears and does a jig in the middle of the Stonehenge and a witch doctor shows up and starts to dance through the halls of the clinic. Throughout it all, Rooks is haunted by the image of a stunningly beautiful woman (Paula Pritchett) in a white dress, kneeling by a placid lake. Observing all of this is the menacing figure of Opium Jones (played by William S. Burroughs), who continually encourages Rooks to stay on drugs and who may, or may not, be a figment of Rooks’ imagination.

How to explain the odd (and occasionally frustrating) charm of Chappaqua. This is truly a pretentious mess of a movie, full of symbolism that is both obvious and willfully obscure. However, there’s a strange charm to the film’s pretension. The film may not make much sense but it’s never incoherent. Largely thanks to cinematographer Robert Frank, the visuals of the film are so strong and striking that they often provide the narrative drive that the film would otherwise lack. Chappaqua is, ultimately, just a fascinating film to watch.

My main reason for enjoying and recommending Chappaqua, is that the film truly is a time capsule. Both the film’s strengths and its flaws can be linked back to the fact that it was made in 1966. It’s a true cultural artifact and, therefore, it is a must-see for anyone who is interested in either the Beats or the counter-culture that was indirectly descended from them.

A Very Late Film Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (dir. by Stephen Daldry)

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier this month, I finally found the time to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the critically reviled “prestige” picture that was the center of a minor scandal when it received an Academy Award nomination for best picture back in January.

That nomination, by the way, is the only reason that I made a point of DVRing the film when I saw that it was going to be on HBO. I had already been turned off by the film’s trailer and the subject matter (a little kid trying to make sense of 9-11 by wandering around New York with a mute old man) seemed like the sort of thing that could only have been made effective by a Roberto Rossellini or a Vittorio De Sica. Say what you will about director Stephen Daldry (and I think that both Billy Elliott and The Reader are excellent films), he’s not an Italian neorealist. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close seemed like just the film to bring out his worst instincts as a filmmaker.

Having now finally seen the film, I am sorry to say that my initial instincts were correct. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the type of film that gives a bad name to good intentions. This is the type of film that you watch and you know that you should be touched by the subject matter but it just all feels so forced, heavy-handed, and ultimately quite empty.

The film tells the story of Oskar (played by Thomas Horn), a brilliant child who is also a bit abrasive and neurotic. At one point, Oskar says that he’s been tested for Asperger syndrome but that the tests were “inconclusive.” What’s interesting about this is that in the book that this film is based on, the possibility that Oskar might be autistic is never stated or even hinted at. Instead, he’s just an abrasive kid and, to be honest, the film’s decision to make Oskar autistic feels less like characterization and more like narrative laziness. It’s hard not to feel that the filmmakers introduced autism as a way to avoid dealing with the fact that Oskar (especially as played by Thomas Horn) is perhaps one of the most abrasive and annoying characters in film history.

Oskar’s life falls apart when his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), is killed on 9-11. He obsessively listens to the final 6 messages that his father left on the family’s answering machine, even while he hides those messages from his mother (Sandra Bullock).

A year later, Oskar is exploring his father’s closet and finds a vase that has an envelope in it. Inside the envelope is a key and written on the envelope is the word “Black.” Convinced that the key is a final message from his father, Oskar looks up the address of every single person in New York whose last name is Black and sets about tracking each one of them down and demanding to know if they knew his father. Eventually, he’s joined in his quest by a sad-eyed mute (Max Von Sydow) who lives with Oskar’s grandmother.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is based on a novel and the film’s central idea — that Oskar’s quest is his way of trying to make some sort of sense out of the September 11th terrorist attacks — is one that works better as a literary metaphor than as an actual story. While Oskar’s quest might seem poignant on paper, it becomes narcissistic and rather insensitive when seen on film. You find yourself wondering why so many New Yorkers are willing to let this obnoxious and rather annoying little brat into the homes, especially when he usually responds to their hospitality by being rude and condescending.

(In the film’s defense, it does try to address that very issue at the end of the movie but it does so in a way that just doesn’t seem that plausible.)

Ultimately, the film feels like a rather crass exploitation of a true-life tragedy and it’s made even more offensive by Daldry’s heavy-handed approach to the material. This is the type of material that needed more than a hint of realism and instead, Daldry seems to feel that it’s necessary to manipulate us into thinking that 9-11 was a national trauma (as if we didn’t already know that). The all-star approach that Daldry takes to casting his story also serves to undermine the film’s message. At moments when you should be wrapped up in the unfolding melodrama, you find yourself saying, “Hey, it’s John Goodman! There’s Viola Davis! Oh look! Jeffrey Wright!” Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ultimately feels less like a film about a national trauma and more like a slick Towering Inferno-style disaster flick.

The film’s one saving grace is Max Von Sydow, who dominates this entire film without saying a word or even having that much screen time. One wishes that Daldry had told his 9-11 story through Von Sydow’s sad eyes and just left the kid at home.

Scenes I Love: Keep On Dancing All Through The Night!

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I featured my favorite scene from 1996’s The Brady Bunch Movie. Today, my scene that I love is my second favorite scene from that same film. In this scene, the Brady kids save the day (and their house) with this exciting performance of Keep On.

I love the way that the song just fades out when the Bradys stop to take their final bow.

The Daily Grindhouse: Abduction (dir. by Joseph Zito)

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I went on vacation, I searched through my film collection and I found a banged-up VHS tape that I had ordered off of Amazon a while back. I had been inspired to order the tape because it contained a movie based on a true crime case that I was oddly obsessed with at that time. However, as is typical with my obsessions, I had pretty much lost interest by the time the movie actually showed up on my doorstep. Hence, that tape sat unwatched until last week when I finally curled up on my couch and watched it.

Released in 1975, Abduction is an example of the “Ripped-From-The-Headlines” genre of grindhouse filmmaking. These films specialized in taking sordid true stories and giving them an even more sordid cinematic interpretation. They were often advertised as the film that would tell you “the shocking true story!” or “the story that they don’t want you to know.” Despite a disclaimer at the beginning of the film that informs us that any resemblance to anyone living or dead is “purely coincidental,” Abducted tells us “the shocking true story!” behind the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst.

In 1974, newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was a 19 year-old student at Berkeley who was kidnapped from her apartment by a group of left-wing revolutionaries known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The SLA was led by a charismatic escaped prisoner who called himself Field Marshal Cinque and who announced — via a messages that Hearst read into a tape recorder — that Hearst was being held hostage in the name of social justice. The police and FBI spent several months unsuccessfully searching for Hearst until one day, the SLA released an audio tape in which Hearst announced that she had now joined the SLA and wanted to be known as Tania. Hearst was soon robbing banks and went from being a hostage to a wanted criminal. When she was arrested in 1975, Hearst claimed to have been brainwashed by the SLA and people still debate whether she was a sincere revolutionary, a calculating criminal, or just a weak-willed victim.

One of the more fascinating aspects of the Hearst case is that, a year before Hearst was kidnapped, a book called The Black Abductor was released. The Black Abductor tells the story of an heiress named Patricia who is kidnapped by a group of left-wing revolutionaries led by a charismatic escaped prisoner and who eventually decides to join with her violent captors. No one was sure who actually wrote the book (though it was credited to a “Harrison Chase”) and the FBI apparently investigated whether or not the book had been used as a blue print for the actual kidnapping.

(I actually have a copy of the Black Abductor. I found it in the nostalgia section of Half-Price Books, mixed in with the usual collection of detective novels, westerns, and tv novelizations. I squealed a little when I recognized the title and wow, did I ever get the strangest look at the front register when I paid for it. The book itself is actually pretty boring.)

Abduction, probably in order to avoid a lawsuit from the Hearst family, is officially based on the novel Black Abduction and not the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. That said, the movie (which was released after Hearst had robbed her first bank but before she was arrested) is totally about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

In Abduction, Hearst is called Patricia Prescott and her father is no longer in the newspaper business. Instead, he’s a real estate developer who is planning to destroy the ghetto and replace it with high-income housing. Patricia (played by Judith-Marie Beragan) is kidnapped and her older boyfriend is beaten up by a group of revolutionaries. Patricia is held prisoner in a barren apartment and, in a disturbingly clinical scene, is raped (and filmed) by both the group’s leader (an escaped prisoner, of course) and a female member of the group. Scenes of Patricia being slowly brainwashed are intercut with scenes of a brutal FBI agent beating up liberal grad students and Patricia’s parents (played by Hollywood veterans Leif Erickson and Dorothy Malone) obsessively watching video tapes of their daughter being sexually assaulted.

Abduction is one of those low-budget, relentlessly sordid films that really can’t stand on its own as a work of art but, never the less, remains a fascinating portrait of the time that it was made. In true exploitation fashion, the film is deliberately made to appeal to both sides of the cultural divide. When the FBI agent played by Lawrence Tierney is seen smirking as his partner smacks around a smug leftist, the filmmakers are both appealing to the paranoia of the liberals and providing wish fulfilment for the right. By the same token, when Patricia stands in a doorway with a smoking shotgun in her hands, it’s an image that’s calculated to be empowering, erotic, and frightening all at the same time. Like many grindhouse film, Abduction might not be a great (or even good) film but as a reflection of the psyche of the times that produced it, it’s an invaluable document.

Lisa Marie Does Julius Caesar (dir. by Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of you may know, I’ve spent the past two years on a mission. It is my goal to eventually see and review every single film that has ever been nominated for best picture. After taking a few months off, I am now ready to continue that quest. For that reason, I recently sat down and watched the 1953 best picture nominee Julius Caesar.

Julius Caesar is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic play about political intrigue, assassination, and demagoguery in ancient Rome. (Technically, what follows is full of spoilers but come on, people — it’s Shakespeare!) The citizens of Rome love their leader, Julius Caesar (played here by a very imperial Louis Calhern) but a group of senators led by Cassius (John Gielgud) fears that Caesar’s popularity will lead to the collapse of the Roman Republic. Cassius recruits Caesar’s close friend Brutus (James Mason) into a conspiracy to assassinate Caesar on the Ides of March. However, once the deed has been done and Brutus has explained the motives behind the assassination to the Roman public, the previously underestimated Mark Antony (Marlon Brando) delivers his famous “Lend me your ears!” speech and soon, the people of Rome turn against the conspirators. In the end, the conspiracy’s efforts to save the Roman Republic instead leads to the birth of the Roman Empire.

Speaking as someone who loves both Shakespeare and history, it was an interesting experience to watch this particular version of Julius Caesar. As directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who later revisited the material in the infamous 1963 Best Picture nominee Cleopatra), Julius Caesar present a very traditional (and occasionally stagey) interpretation of Shakespeare’s play. However, by this point, we’ve become so used to Shakespeare being presented with a gimmick (like modern-day costumes, for instance) that the traditional approach almost feels like something new and unexpected. That said, Julius Caesar is definitely not the Shakespearean film to show to your friends who stubbornly insist that Shakespeare is boring or impossible to follow. Julius Caesar was obviously made by people who appreciate Shakespeare and that remains the film’s best audience.

When Julius Caesar was first released in 1953, it received a lot of attention because of the casting of Marlon Brando as Mark Antony. An outspoken method actor who had been nicknamed “the mumbler” precisely because of his own internalized style of acting, Brando was considered to be too contemporary of an actor to be an effective Shakespearean. Once the film was released, critics agreed that Brando had proven that, even while mumbling, he made for an electrifying Mark Antony and that, despite only having a few scenes, his charismatic presence dominated the entire film. Out of an impressive cast, Brando received the film’s only nomination for acting.

It is true that, even when seen today, Brando does dominate the entire film. He delivery of Mark Antony’s famous oration over Caesar’s bloody corpse remains one of the best Shakespearean performances to have ever been preserved on film. It’s odd to watch this young, sexy, and energetic Brando and compare him to the legendary eccentric that we all usually think of whenever we hear the man’s name.

That said, Brando’s performance would not be half as effective if it wasn’t surrounded by the more traditional (but no less compelling) performances of James Mason and John Gielgud. Mason brings a brooding intensity to the role of Brutus and Gielgud is the Cassius by which all future Cassiuses must be judged. Their performances might not be as flamboyant as Brando’s but they’re no less important. Ultimately, the clash between the acting style of Brando and the styles of Gielgud and Mason nicely parallel the conflict over the future of the Roman Republic.

Julius Caesar won the Oscar for best art design and was nominated for picture, actor, cinematography, and original score. Brando lost the award for best actor to Stalag 17’s William Holdenwhile the Oscar for best picture of 1953 went to a far more contemporary film, From Here To Eternity. Brando, however, would win best actor the next year for his performance in On The Waterfront.

Scenes I Love: It’s a Sunshine Day!

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there! You may be reading this post on September 22nd (or even later) but I’m sitting here writing it on August 23rd. That’s because, starting on the 22nd, I will be on vacation for the next two weeks. Jeff and I will be traveling America, searching for ghosts, adventure, and love! YAY!

However, fear not, for I will be checking in from the road and I am also writing up and scheduling a few posts ahead of time. Like this one!

Since this is the start of my vacation, I felt it would be only appropriate to feature a scene that I love specifically because, every time I see it, it makes me feel incredibly happy. That scene comes from the 1996 film, The Brady Bunch Movie.

The Brady Bunch Movie is one of my favorite movies of all time and I’m happy to say that it’s one that seems to pop up on cable every few weeks or so. In the scene below, the Bradys put on their Sunday Best, go to Sear’s, and let us all know that it’s a sunshine day!

(By the way, I recently noticed that Mr. Brady and Mrs. Brady spend most of this scene handling a vibrator. It only took me a few dozen times to notice.)

Film Review: Branded (dir by Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Duleyran)

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Is it too early to declare that Branded is the worst film of 2012?

Probably. After all, there’s still 3 more months left in October and who knows what could happen. I’m still holding out hope that Zero Dark Thirty will be just as bad as I’m expecting it to be and I recently realized that I find the trailer for The Sessions to be kind of annoying. There’s still a slight chance that I’ll see a film worse than Branded before 2013.

However, I do think that it’s safe to say that Branded is the worst film of 2012 so far.

At the very least, Branded deserves the award for 2012’s most deceptive trailer.

On the basis of the trailer, you would be perfectly justified in expecting Branded to be a rip-off of John Carpenter’s classic They Live. You would be justified in expecting that the film would be a thriller, involving aliens using advertising to control people’s minds.

What you would not expect is that Branded would turn out to be an overlong, extremely preachy and didactic film about a Russian advertising guru who, after producing an ill-fated reality show, spends 6 years living as a shepherd until he happens to ritualistically sacrifice a red cow and is therefore inspired to lead an advertising war against fast food companies. You wouldn’t expect the film to be such a confused mess that, while watching it, you actually find yourself standing up to leave the theater because you’ve mistakenly assumed that the film is over (as I did several times). You also probably wouldn’t expect that the entire film would be narrated by yet another cow, this one floating around in the night sky and sending down lightning bolts to both enlighten and destroy various advertising gurus.

All of that happens and more! And you know what? As interesting as it may appear to be in writing, it’s all unbelievably dull when watched on-screen. The Russian advertising genius is played by Ed Stoppard and his American girlfriend is played by Leelee Sobieski and, as a couple, they have absolutely zero chemistry. You never believe their relationship and, as such, it’s difficult to understand why Sobieski’s character is so determined to make things work with a guy who appears to be insane. Sobieski’s father is played by Jeffrey Tambor. Whereas everyone else in the film underplays to the point that they sometimes appear to be sleepwalking, Tambor overplays every scene, as if he thought he was appearing in an episode of Arrested Development instead of this movie. In the end, the best performance in the film comes from the talking cow in the sky, even if she seems awfully proud for a character who spends the entire movie spouting banal clichés.

(Seriously, did you know that advertising is a form of manipulation? Well, you do now! Thanks, Space Cow!)

For no particular reason, Max Von Sydow is in the film as well. His role is really just a cameo and the entire time he’s on-screen, he’s got a small smile on his lips as if he’s saying, “Did you really pay money to watch this crap?”

In its defense, there is one — and only one — impressive scene in Branded but you can see that scene in the trailer for free.

There might be a worse film than Branded released this year.

But I doubt it.

The Daily Grindhouse: The Clones (dir. by Lamar Card and Paul Hunt)

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How, you may be asking, did I come to see The Clones, an extremely obscure and low-budget science fiction thriller from 1973?

It all started when I first saw the trailer for the film on 42nd Street Forever, a compilation of old school grindhouse trailers. For whatever reasons, the trailer for The Clones fascinated me. Whether it was the extremely dry narration or the fact that the trailer actually ended with a quote from a then-member of the U.S. Senate, I felt that The Clones was a film that I, as a student of film and history, simply had to see.

How obscure is this film? It’s so obscure that The Clones has never even been released on DVD. In order to see the film, I had to go on Amazon and order a used VHS copy from a some guy in Indiana. When it arrived in the mail, the first thing I noticed was the big “Property of the St. Augusta Public Library” that was stamped on the back of the worn video box.

The fact that my copy of The Clones had obviously seen better days actually added a lot to the viewing experience. Much as true grindhouse fans treasure every scratch and auditory pop whenever they watch a film like Fight For Your Life or Last House on Dead End Street, I found myself oddly proud that my copy of The Clones had obviously survived so much just so that it could eventually end up as a part of my video library.

As for the film itself, The Clones is one of those wonderful low-budget films that deserve to be rediscovered. Dr. Gerald Appleby (well-played by an actor named Michael Greene) is a nuclear scientist who discovers that he’s been cloned and that the clone has essentially been out living his life whenever the original Appleby has been at work. Though it’s hinted that he’s being set up by foreign spies, the reason for Appleby’s cloning remains obscure throughout the entire film. Whether this narrative obscurity is intentional or not, it actually serves the film well as it helps to transform Appleby into almost a Kafkaesque figure.

When Appleby attempts to reveal to the proper authorities that he’s been cloned, he finds himself accused of being an imposter and is forced to literally run for his life. The majority of the film deals with Appleby being chased across the California desert by not only the mad scientist who cloned him (a wonderfully demented Stanley Adams) but also by two ruthless federal agents. The two federal agents are played by Otis Young and Gregory Sierra, two character actors who appeared in several films during the 70s. Sierra and Young are a lot of fun to watch in this film and it’s hard not to like them, even if they technically are villains. They both just seem to be having so much fun trying to kill our hero.

From what little information that I’ve been able to gather about this film’s production, it appears that The Clones was one of the first motion pictures to attempt to take advantage of the paranoia that most people feel over the prospect of humans being cloned. When seen today, the film’s story is a bit predictable because, to be honest, there’s really only so much when you can do with cloning as a plot device. However, The Clones remains an oddly effective film. The low budget (and lack of special effects) actually contributes to the film’s success. Without the crutch of spectacle, The Clones is forced to pay attention to things like characterization. How’s that for a concept?

The film eventually climaxes with a genuinely exciting shoot out in a deserted amusement park and then it all ends, in typical 70s fashion, in a climax that manages to be both fun and depressing at the same time.

The Clones is not necessarily an easy film to see but it’s well worth the effort.

What Lisa Watched Last Night: 2-Headed Shark Attack (dir. by Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray)

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to the SyFy network and I watched a little film called 2-Headed Shark Attack.

Why Was I Watching It?

I blame twitter. Every Saturday, at 8:00 pm, a group of brave and witty film fans log onto twitter and spend the next two hours deconstructing whatever movie might happen to be playing on the SyFy network that night. Last night, that film was 2-Headed Shark Attack.

Also, how often do you get to see a shark with two heads? I saw a lamb with two heads once and that was pretty disturbing but a shark with two heads? Seriously, there was simply no excuse for not watching.

(Speaking for myself, I couldn’t handle having two heads, just because I suspect the other head would be an attention whore.)

What Was It About?

For some reason, there’s a bunch of incredibly stupid college students on a boat that’s floating out in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, they’re taking part in a “semester at sea” program though, as I watched the film, I came to suspect that they had actually been kidnapped by pirates claiming to be professors and they were unknowingly being delivered to a white slavery ring in Aruba.

Anyway, the head professor (or pirate) is Prof. Babish (former Bachelor Charlie O’Connell) and when the boat starts to sink, largely because of his own stupidity, he decides to take all of his students to a nearby atoll. There, they can all hang out and deliver terrible dialogue while the ship’s hull is repaired and the professor’s wife (Carmen Electra) works on her tan.

The only problem is that the atoll is in the process of sinking and there’s a shark with two heads prowling the waters…

What Worked?

Like most Asylum films, 2-Headed Shark Attack is a film that was made to be watched with friends. If you’re taking the film seriously, you’re missing the point. This is one of those films that invites you to sit back and laugh along with it.

The two-headed shark was the best actor in the film and it was easy to root for him.

Charlie O’Connell has a scene where he gets what appears to be a minor scratch on his leg and he responds by going, “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…” for about ten minutes straight. It simply has to be seen to be believed.

What Did Not Work?

The film’s heroine was played by Brooke Hogan and wow. Whether it was because of the sleep-inducing way she delivered her lines or the fact that her character claimed that she could repair the boat because, “My dad was a welder,” I have to say that I have never so wanted to see one person get devoured by a two-headed shark.

Initially, those of us on twitter were really excited because we thought that one of the characters was named Tequila. However, it soon became obvious that we had all misheard and his name was actually Dikilla. Don’t get me wrong, Dikilla is a pretty good name but, after we had all had so much fun with the idea of him being named Tequila, it was hard not to be disappointed to discover that we were wrong.

“OH MY GOD! Just like me!’ Moment

Though she was roundly despised by just about everyone on twitter, I have to admit that I very much related to the character who became known as “the blue eyeshadow girl.” She was the girl who continually came up with the silliest solutions to the group’s predicament. She also had a gun for most of the film but, during the final minutes, revealed that she had absolutely no idea how to use it when she fired point-blank at the two-headed shark and, somehow, managed to miss every time. Even as I made fun of her on twitter, I silently thought to myself, “That would so be me if I had ever signed up for a semester at sea.”

Lessons Learned

Double the head equals double the fun.

Review: The Dead (dir. by The Ford Brothers)

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Arleigh

Zombies.

I’ve heard the collective groans from many who have achieved zombie oversaturation. For some reason the renaissance of the zombie subgenre which began during the early 2000’s continues unabated. One just has to look at the huge popularity of Robert Kirkman’s long-running horror comic book The Walking Dead right up to the even more popular tv adaptation of the comic book which now enters it’s 3rd season on AMC TV. Yet, not everything zombie-related in entertainment could be considered scary or even entertaining. If one looks at the dozens of direct-to-video which seems to come out month in and month out that barely rises above amateur production and execution one does have to feel that the subgenre should just die and go away. Then something like The Dead by the British sibling filmmakers The Ford Brothers comes along and breathes some fresh blood into the scene.

An indie film shot pretty much in northwest Africa (Burkina Faso and Ghana), The Deadis a throwback to the classic Romero zombie films before the new millennium and, even moreso, the Italian zombie films of Lucio Fulci with emphasis on Zombie. The Ford Brothers pretty much shot the film in some of the worst conditions a film crew could find itself in. It doesn’t matter whether it was the baking mid-day heat in the open plains and desert right up to the very real armed conflict which continues in the region to this very day. These two British siblings definitely took some guerilla filmmaking lessons from their hero Romero in how to stretch their tiny budget and still come out with a very good production.

The Deadis a pretty straightforward zombie film and acts more like a road film than your typical zombie story which tend to focus heavily on the siege aspect of the genre. We don’t get sieges in this film. The openness of the African plains and desert made for an interesting change of pace to the typical urban and/or countryside locales past zombie films ended up using. The film also spent so much of it’s running time in broad daylight which also made it stand out from it’s zombie film brethren which used night time as a prop to create dread and mounting terror. The Ford Brothers were able to use that very brutal heat and searing African midday sun to give the film a beautiful look but also one that highlighted it’s apocalyptic and hopeless situation. The light showed zombies shambling along from every direction, slow as they may be, in that steady, silent pace that was as inevitable as Death itself.

The story of the film is quite bare bones with the opening sequences pretty much introducing the two storylines that would intersect very early and combine to become one. There’s the lone survivor of a military evacuation flight out of the area and back to America (at least Europe) in Lt. Brian Murphy (played by Rob Freeman) whose role as a flight engineer in the doomed flight gives him the necessary technical skills to fix an abandoned vehicle he finds, but who is not what one would call a hardened soldier unlike Sgt. Daniel Dembele (played Ghana actor by Prince David Oseia) whose role as a soldier gives him the skills to protect Murphy. The two become traveling companions who must traverse the post-apocalyptic West African landscape that always have zombies, silent and sure slowly and patiently finding their way to the two no matter how fast and far they go.

Murphy wants to get back to his wife and daughter back in the States though he doesn’t know if they’re still alive or not. Daniel wants to find his son who was rescued by soldiers in the beginning of the film as their home village succumb to an attack of the dead. These similar goals become the very thing which helps the two bond together despite their cultural and ideological differences.

The film doesn’t go too heavy with the themes and ideas of Africa and zombies, but they’re there and the Ford Brothers don’t try to avoid them either. Throughout the film one could see that the film could easily be a metaphor for the birthplace of mankind also becoming the beginning of its end. There’s also the shadow of the crimes of Western colonialism and interference in a land whose people have been exploited and used like chess pieces on the grand world stage. Like some of the best zombie films, The Deaduses the apocalyptic setting and the danger of the zombies as a way to explore serious themes and ideas but do so without being too obvious or heavy-handed. In fact, the Ford Brothers actually were quite subtle with their handling of these ideas throughout the film. This made for a much more streamlined story, but also kept the film from heading into epic territory.

Freeman spends almost the whole time on the screen which stretched his performance somewhat. At times his dialogue came out natural and then on another sequence he would come off stilted. It’s not surprise that some of the best scenes Freeman’s Murphy had was when in the presence of Oseia’s Sgt. Daniel Dembele. Hiss presence on screen almost overshadows Freeman at times and one could almost wonder how much the better the film would’ve been if it was just Daniel searching for his son and no Murphy character to distract things. Oseia’s performance becomes the moral center of the film and as the story unfolded one felt like rooting for the man to find his son even though the odds on him succeeding rises with each passing minute.

The Dead is not a perfect film and one could say that it’s very straightforward nature becomes too generic and evident at certain times during the film. Yet, the rough and raw way the Ford Brothers wrote and shot the film with some very good performances from it’s cast made up for any shortcomings the film had. Even the gore effects wasn’t hampered by the minuscule budget. This film should satisfy gorehounds and story aficionados both. That’s something that most indie zombie films can’t boast about that this film can. The film’s ending leaves things somewhat open for a sequel (something the brothers are open to exploring as a future project) with the final shot evoking a “Lone Wolf and Cub” vibe before the fade to black.

The Ford Brothers’ The Dead saw a very limited release in 2010 and 2011 but has now seen a wide DVD/Blu-Ray release for 2012. For some it would be a buy and a keeper, but at the very least it deserves a rental to see what all the hoopla was about.