After last week's Flashback Friday review for A Night to Dismember, I received a comment on social media about how someone loved the film for precisely the reasons I dismissed it- they even offered to buy the DVD from me! (I probably would have sold it, too, if I hadn't watched it online, lol.)
That got me to thinking- was I even able to enjoy bad movies the way I used to, back before I knew any better? Put another way, before I really had a sense of how films "work," before I went to film school, before I started reviewing movies & TV and so forth for money?
After all, a lot of the bad movies I love were sort of grandfathered in from when I was a kid/teen. Sure, I've enjoyed some of the more modern stuff that's been released since, such as The Room, Birdemic and what I've seen of the Sharknado series, but the last ones in particular seem to be purposely "bad," and clearly in on the joke.
Ditto the more recent Piranha flicks, although being knowingly camp can just as often backfire, i.e. Cabin Fever 2, which you'd never guess was directed by the otherwise talented Ti West, of House of the Devil and The Innkeepers fame. Maybe it's a creature feature thing, as I tend to give those Syfy-Saturday-night-type movies a longer leash on being silly, as they ALL tend to be that way.
The point being, it's actually harder to find a "so-bad-it's-good" kind of film these days, so, as a direct result, I've seen less of them that fit the bill. (Not everything can be lightning-in-a-bottle like The Room!) That was part of the reason I decided to dip back into the past for some of those types of films, noting that they were more readily accessible in the internet/DVD/Blu-Ray age.
Unfortunately, if you look back at some of my choices as of late, in terms of the movies I haven't ever seen before, it's been more miss than hit. Had I lost that childhood sense of wonder that made such films so enjoyable once upon a time?
Well, I'm happy to say that, with today's choice, Night of the Demon, I finally hit pay-dirt. The gratifying thing is, I wasn't even really trying to do so, it just happened randomly. In fact, TBH, I think the film I really meant to watch was Demonwarp, which has a similar set-up, but I got the titles mixed up- understandable, given their similarity.
The interesting thing is, a lot of NOTD's failings are pretty damn similar to A Night to Dismember. On the plus side, it isn't all narration like that film, which my loyal readers know, is a pet peeve of mine- I consider it to be a crutch for most films, with certain rare exceptions, i.e. A Clockwork Orange.
music, et. al. And yet, here it worked for me. But why?
As with last week's selection, I watched the film alone, as it was a Thursday night, and it's hard to get friends over to watch something on a weekday once you hit a certain age. Hell, you're doing good to get some of them even on a weekend, really, especially if kids are involved.
I was also stone-cold sober, so that wasn't a factor, either. But then, a lot of those movies I saw as a kid I saw alone for the first time, and (obviously) sober as well, so I'm not sure that's as much a factor as some think, though I suppose a case could be made that being around friends partying a bit helps one to get more into that childhood mind-set than one might watching such things alone.
In this case, it may have, in part, been the general set-up, which hews pretty close to the slasher movie formula, which is a sub-genre I have a soft spot for- it having been the main reason I fell in love with horror movies in the first place, and the sort of gateway to cult movies in general for me.
Of course, Dismember was essentially a slasher movie, too, but it had a distinctly 70's vibe to it, whereas I'm a child of the 80's, so I lean more towards that era, at least when it comes to slashers.
I do love 70's horror, but what could be called the "proto-slashers" of the era often don't do it for me as much as those of the 80's heyday- something about the general vibe, which tends to be pretty humorless and grim: see my review of The Centerfold Girls for an example. Though not always (i.e. the original Black Christmas and Halloween, which are both a lot of fun), to be fair.
NOTD is actually sort of a combination Creature Feature/slasher movie, which might have something to do with it as well, as I love the former, too. Oddly, it's kind of like a proto-Blair Witch Project-type film, believe it or not. Check out this synopsis:
A group of college students and their professor, who arranges the trip, go to a nearby forest in search of a Bigfoot-type creature that has been rumored to be responsible for a series of disappearances and mysterious deaths, some of which we see in flashbacks. Among them is a fisherman, whose daughter also accompanies the group, in hopes of finding out what happened to her father.
Once they arrive, they question the locals, who tell various tales of the creature, as well as an alleged group of satanic worshipers that lurk in the woods, who might be the real reason for all the mysterious goings-on. There's also a mute woman that lives somewhere deep in the woods, driven insane by reportedly having given birth to a deformed baby that died, along with her minister father, under equally mysterious circumstances.
These interviews are quite similar to the ones conducted by the student filmmakers in Blair Witch, and the whole subplot of someone looking for a missing family member was also present in the first sequel to that film. I would be willing to chalk it up to coincidence, if, in fact, one of the BWP directors hadn't gone on to ALSO do a Bigfoot-gone-amok film himself, the enjoyable Exists. So, yeah, they likely saw this one.
Another thing to keep in mind is that this film coincided with the so-called "satanic panic" of the 80's and early 90's, which, if you grew up around then, you undoubtedly probably remember. I certainly do, particularly in respect to music, with heavy metal in particular singled out as a big offender of "promoting" Satanism and Devil worship and the like.
Combining a creature feature with a Satanic subplot is a novel idea, and it really works to make this film stand out from the pack of other similarly-themed films, like Bigfoot (1970 and 1987), The Legend of Boggy Creek films and Sasquatch (1977), among many others. Factor in the slasher movie-esque trappings and you have a pretty fun ride.
The film is also surprisingly gory in places, and even features some equal-opportunity nudity, a holdover from the 70's that later faded out in popularity as movies eventually got more puritanical in the mid-80's, or at the very least, the MPAA did. You will not see the male frontal nudity here coming- much less what happens after!
Needless to say, Bigfoot- or whatever the creature is- goes on quite the rampage, killing most everyone that gets in his way, often in pretty spectacularly violent ways, culminating in a go-for-broke finale in which a whole host of people are killed in a free-for-all massacre that leaves only one person standing. (Not a spoiler- he's the one narrating the story from the beginning from the hospital.)
Factor in the nutty, left-of-center Satanic worship angle, which the film admittedly could have done more with (it's implied that the creature is actually Moloch at one point, which was cool and unexpected), and you have a fun time at the movies, at least as far as I was concerned.
As with Dismember, the cast is relatively star-free, save a few minor actors, such as Michael Cutt, making his debut here as the professor who lives to tell the tale. Cutt also crops up in the slasher Sweet 16 and the home invasion thriller Hider in the House, before becoming a regular face on 80's TV, notably in the sci-fi/horror miniseries Something is Out There.
Cutt continued to work steadily throughout the 90's (he had a recurring role as a cop on 7th Heaven, and was in Kiss the Girls and Kill Your Darlings) and into the 2000's before his career cooled a bit around the middle of that decade. He has several planned features in his future, though, including a horror flick called The Patriarch, so he's got that going for him.
Actress Lynn-Eastman Rossi, who played Susan, had a bit part in the classic Phantasm, though most of her stuff was cut out (you can see more in the deleted scenes on the DVD/Blu-Ray), and also cropped up in Project X (with Matthew Broderick and a monkey), Unlawful Entry and the fun B-Movie throwback Showtime flick Reform School Girl.
Paul Kelleher, who played the Sheriff- and originally had a bigger role to play in the film, as the one who rescues some of the group at the end (the producers decided to kill almost everyone instead- good choice, IMHO)- was in 1977's Meatcleaver Massacre, which sounds fun, and, after taking a break from working after this film, worked steadily throughout the 2000's, notably in Spirits of the Fall, The Demon Within, The Devil Made Me Do It and The Amityville Asylum. Like Cutt, he continues to work to this day, with several new films planned in upcoming years.
Actor Bob Collins had bit roles in the likes of Police Academy and Se7en, and co-star Joy Allen also worked fairly steadily, particularly in British TV.
Jennifer West, who plays the girl who gets it in the van after having sex, was a softcore and X-rated movie regular throughout the 70's and 80's. Her oddly orgasmic attack here is a highlight, bringing to mind the wacked-out dream sequence in Dismembered, as she moans and groans inappropriately as her boyfriend is slaughtered. Hey, you can take the girl out of porn, but you can't take porn out of the girl, I guess, lol.
Finally, there's Shane Dixon, who played the creature. As was typically the case with such roles, it was played by a stuntman. Dixon also did stunts in all sorts of 80's and 90's classics, like Real Genius, Raising Arizona, the Lethal Weapon series, They Live, The Hunt for the Red October, Ghost, Point Break, The Mighty Ducks, Outbreak, Copycat, Breakdown and plenty more where that came from.
It's pretty slim pickings after that, with many of the actors listing this as their sole credit, and others only having a couple of other credits to their names. Likewise, this is the only credit listed for director James C. Wasson, as well as the screenwriter, although it's not THAT bad.
In fact, NOTD is a lot of fun, with a nutty plot and lots of freaky, violent, unexpected moments- such as a Girl Scout attack, a pre-Friday the 13th, Part VII-style sleeping bag kill, a Satanic ritual in the woods- complete with an attempt to impregnate a girl with a "demon seed"- an insane flashback involving the mute woman, her father (who's like the male equivalent of Piper Laurie/Julianne Moore's mother character in Carrie) and the creature; "Bigfoot vision" and that nutty finale, where you get to marvel at the way each character patiently awaits their doom one by one, instead of running for their lives!
So, call it kismet or whatever, but just when I was beginning to wonder if I could enjoy a good/bad movie, along comes this delectable slice of cheese to reassure me that, yes, indeed you can. Hopefully, all you bad movie connoisseurs can seek it out and enjoy it as well.
As per usual, the film is readily available on YouTube, with a cleaner cut available for rental on Amazon. It's also readily available on DVD, including as part of several multi-film collections, notably this one. To the best of my knowledge, it has not been released on Blu-Ray as of yet, but with the frequency of cult films coming out these days in the format, it's probably only a matter of time.
Honestly, I almost prefer these movies to look sort of diminished, the way they no doubt looked on VHS or after one-too-many screenings in theaters. For every movie it works wonders for, i.e. Humongous, which was damn near unwatchable before it's Blu-Ray makeover; it kind of backfires for multiple others by exposed their shortcomings. There's such a thing as TOO enhanced, IMHO.
But maybe that's just the kid in me. I kind of feel for this generation, not being able to see movies in a certain way, even though it's much more convenient these days, obviously.
But then, you could say the same for my generation, who largely never got the chance to see these types of films the way they were REALLY meant to be seen, in Drive-Ins and Grindhouse theaters and the like. (I've never been to either, as they practically didn't exist by the time I was going to the movies.)
Be that as it may, I will always have a love for these sort of cut-rate, silly no-budget flicks, I think. My enjoyment of this film helps to reinforce that, even if I have slightly higher standards for such things these days. I think it's really just a matter of finding a sweet spot that works for you, whatever you might be into. For me, it's slasher flicks, maybe for you it's bad sci-fi or action or whatever. To each their own, I say.
By all means, check this one out! 👿😈
No comments:
Post a Comment