Review: THE TOLL

Spencer is a rideshare driver and is going through the nearby requests at the midnight end of the shift. He picks a woman waiting at the airport. She's Cami and at the end of a long day of plane travel on her way to her dad's ranch out of town. Oh yeah, at Spencer's prompt she keys in the destination and they're off. Spencer's chat could do with a little coaching but he seems more awkward than dangerous. He notes how long the drive is and, between the decent fare and the time commitment he balances with a philosophical, "ok." The city fades behind them as his conversation takes a slight turn towards the invasive and the fatigued woman begs a little quiet time to have a doze in the back as they're going. All well. When she wakes up he's taking a weird way and they're in the middle of nowhere, entering an endless forest. At the point where she asks him to stop so she can get out the car itself stops, shutting down apart for the lights. Now what?

Well, you might imagine some trust bargaining dialogue broken with a binding external force that threatens them both. All of that but when I say this movie does this messily I don't mean that it's poorly written. On the contrary, the way this typical scenario is broken up allows for some genuinely eerie moments which are entirely done by using the setting and some imagination. There is something weird happening around them and it might be happening to them and by the time things get physical it feels far too late to do more than stand and wait for dawn. To quote one of the best lines of The Blair Witch Project, "I'm afraid to open my eyes ... I'm afraid to close them." At one point something writes in the condensation on the rear window: Please pay the Toll Man. Who or what the Toll Man is and how to pay or cheat him is the rest of this movie.

Jordan Hayes as Cami gives us a woman troubled by her family life and past and distrustful of even her nearest and dearest. Spencer is one of her many nightmares and Max Topplin plays him on the edge of unsettlingly weird and unfairly judged. It's down to these two performers to convince us that once they find that they only have each other to rely on that they will still be worth watching and the way that's done feels like actors who are ready for each other and a director who can work with that. While there are situations that edge towards contrivance later and others that speak more for art direction than storytelling we invest in Cami and Spencer with the feeling that if we didn't we too would be alone on that road surrounded by woods that have their own motives. It's in that growing dread where this film finds the originality that lifts it above some of the best small horror films. It's not gamechanging newness here (all genre films dpened on their partial resemblance to earlier ones) but a quiet and crafty hand with weaving character background with a new take on established mythology. We are left with the torchlight that makes the trees look as scary as they do when you can't see them.

The past decade and a bit have been good to genre cinema as the good credit from The Blair Witch Project and its slowburn punky legacy of drawing the most out of the least continues to bear reward. Just as no one blinked at roughness as a quality of a rock album after punk or live music that scaled down to present something stronger for being closer to its audience, a film made with slight means that appears on VoD regardless of any time in the cinema faces no serious stigma from a contemporary audience. This is how new horror films have been able to do what this one does: concentrate on a small but significant change to the rules while nurturing creditable performances. Twenty years ago the notion of feature films being shot on video was at a crossover point between looking cheap and feeling innovative. The Anniversary Party flaunted it in 2001. Stephen Soderberg boasted of shooting Unsane on a modified iPhone. Now, however it looks it's just a movie like any other and now, more than ever what gets put into it is the difference. The Toll makes a difference. It doesn't shake ground but does break a little.

The Toll is currently on Shudder in Australia.

Review: A CLASSIC HORROR STORY

Warning: this entire review might constitute a spoiler so don't read it. And don't watch the movie, either. Oh god, I've just become my own vicitm!

So...

A group of people go on the road, hit a tree and wake up in a clearing in a thick forest with a creepy wooden cabin at its centre. Then someone makes an Evil Dead reference and there's a visual nod to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and you are going to lose count very soon but you're meant to lose count and revel in the crazy post-modernism of this Italian meta horror which knows that your knowing it's clever is proof of the cleverness which the clever people who made it drew from their own shared cleverness. Is it really time to resurrect the self-reflection of '90s horror movies and then cube it up so that all possible criticisms of it will bounce off? No, it isn't.

I was in a band once where the gimmick was to rewrite pop songs as though they were socio-biological case studies. While I recall the experience of the band itself with a wince I'll have to admit that that is a good joke, still. Anyway, there was one time when the guy who did the lyrics floated the idea of singing, instead of "jaiiiiilbreak" words like "sennnnnnd-up, it's all we ever do." He was wise enough to drop it, knowing how much it would have weakened the entire act. However good the joke was it was the only joke the band had. Getting meta about that always makes it look like you're embarrassed to be on stage in your own act, at which point it's time to pack it in. No one told these writers and filmmakers anything like that so you get a movie like this which starts cramming every possible quote from the world of horror cinema that it can find, turns the recognition of that on to the viewer and then back on itself, even evoking social media criticism (that the film has created because it's so aware of all the angles). 

If you really want to get all po-mo on something like horror it really is best to avoid dissing the audience. If your setups are so authentically gruesome than you aren't going to come within a cooee of any smug folk who might enjoy genre movies getting it in the neck. Yes, this film understands how horror movies work and how social media has shaped that but do you really need to go to the trouble of creating such a self-defeating piece to state the obvious?

If they had put their considerable resources into making a straight-up, no-irony horror movie they would have seen it immersed in exactly the kind of culture they are desperately trying to be arch about. Dig? It would happen anyway (and does) but then where's the fun in that when no one "KNOWS" you've done it? Well, maybe in some popcorn chewing cinematic joy, maybe? Archness is fine but slimy self-reflection on your archness is bullshit. So, measure for measure, I'll mark this one with the worst teacher comment on any report card: Could do better.

Currently on Netflix.

1981@40: THE EVIL DEAD

An invisible force rises from a pond and moves above the water, speeding toward a rustic cabin. A group of students are driving to their holiday destination. As the force approaches and hits the building the car almost collides with another. Shaken, the group gets to the place (after crossing a dodgy bridge) and notice that a porch swing stops moving once one of them touches the doorknob. The cabin is dusty and a little shabby but they're not there for the decor. Settling in, one of the girls has her drawing taken over by an invisible force, the basement trap door swings open by itself and a book bound by human skin is found in there. So, you're thinking, sure that's time to leave; other people can make this movie. If you've ever used that as an example of why you think horror movies are silly you ought to actually watch this one.

Sam Raimi's debut feature was made for nothing and rolled out to anyone who could be contacted and wanted to screen it. This took time in 1981 and I don't think Australia saw any version of it for years after that. I was intrigued to read of some of the scenes and the general atmosphere and the word was that, apart from a few relieving comedic moments, the movie took its job of scaring seriously. When I finally saw it all that came true.

I can't quite remember when I first saw this one at a cinema but have a clear recollection of seeing it on VHS, hired from the local vid shop. The main reason it made more of an impression as a home viewing was that I'd just got back into openly enjoying horror movies after first seeing and being impressed by John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (taped from tv) when it was over a decade old. The other thing was find a place to discuss it which was the alt.horror newsgroup on the auld Usenet network. So it was in 1998 that I ploughed through the crumbly old horror videos on the shelves at the local videobusters, ticking each recommended essential. They all fell like dominoes o' cineculture and The Evil Dead was an inevitability.

There was an unsung aspect to old video rental that I appreciate more now that it's long vanished: the chain of experience you created by being the next in line to use the container of this encounter. There's a distinction in information theory that splits distribution vessels into two types (patience, I'll drop this soon but it's worth knowing about): allographic which is a representation of the information only (like an epub novel) and authographic which is the information in a physical container (like a print copy of the same novel). The first gives you an unimpeded access to the content but the second gives you the experience of it being accessed; the creases, the dog ears, the sauce stains, maybe an old bookmark. 

Rental videos are authographic (assuming prior use, o' course) and bear the ghosts of previous experience. Some of that is physical like pause glitches in racy or action heavy scenes, plot details missable in a blink. I remember hiring a copy of Herschell Gordon Lewis' folk horror Two Thousand Maniacs and letting it run to the end of the tape. Halfway through one of the end trailers, a previous customer had shot a closeup of his arse by way of a review. That's not a liberty you can enjoy on Netflix.

If something like Repo Man was made for the midnight arthouse The Evil Dead found glory in video rental. Commercial transactions aside, things like this film formed a kind of secret baton passing as the next viewer pressed play, feasted and returned it for the next stranger. As I write that I'm wondering if  the movies that I will always have in physical format and in the best version I can find were originally rentals. Some definitely weren't: Citizen Kane and Apocalypse Now are among many I treasure from an initial cinema experience but there are a host of others I could only see on tape (and were too much for tv) like Suspiria, The Beyond, Tombs of the Blind Dead, Lips of Blood. It wasn't just obscure horror but these were movies that never made it to the arthouses or rep cinemas; it was VHS or nothing. The Evil Dead was among those. I have a friend who is the same way about the Friday the 13th franchise, there's a similar sense of owing it to the formative or rich experience of cinema in this dark neighbourhood: dark not because there were a lot of horror movies but simply because we didn't know each other as movie renters.

So, when I see the creepy voyeuristic tracking shots circumnavigating the cabin and peering into the private rooms and I know it's the point of view of the force, I feel at home and on edge at the same time. The waiting woods outside breathe mist and darkness while the cosiness of the interior is for drinking games and playing the tape from the basement by the evil archeologist who sternly voices the spell of awakening (through a vintage reverb unit) whereupon the restless spirits blowing around outside take life and the souls of the holidaymakers. The scene where we are shown this remains spectacular: two of the girls are playing at card reading when the one staring out the window starts correctly naming the cards as they are drawn behind her. Her voice sours with each syllable until she levitates, turns and barks in a demonic grumble: "Why have you disturbed our sleep, awakened us from our ancient slumber? You will die!" Her eyes are boiled white. However home made this might look it is still done with such conviction that complying with the horror of it is effortless.

Most of the rest of the film is more of this, situations of possessed people attacking or taunting those yet to be taken. Lots of  stop-motion transformation effects and enough stage blood to fill a storm drain. A host of creepy sound effects that are far more potent and atmosphere-building than the sound library orchestral score which sounds cheaper than any of the purpose built material. There is a narrative arc and you do end up caring about what happens to the people on screen. The possessed are not just cartoonishly violent (though they can be) they are also frequently and genuinely eerie. The world around the cabin is not like the relatable urban streets of The Exorcist nor the imaginable holiday camp of Friday the 13th; it is a nightmare wood from a fairy tale gone out of business, closer to Hellscapes of Lucio Fulci than the nature strips of Haddonfield. The voices underground bellow for the sweet young things to join them and the trees -- oh ... the trees.

One of the girls, Cheryl, hears something outside and goes to investigate. The force moves pursues her through the woods and soon she is tangled and then actively bound by vines which secure her limbs, wrench her legs apart. A branch shoots straight into her crotch. She breaks free and runs back to the cabin. This scene is called the tree rape. It has kept this film on the iffy list for decades. It is never less than shocking, no matter how often you see it.

For my part I think it's painful to the eye and goes to an unnecessary extent. It's not extreme cinema like Cannibal Holocaust nor even unbearably brutal like the rape/assault in Irreversible but it sticks out from the tone of even the nastiest horror setups in the rest of the film (including role-reversed attempted rape, however demonically driven). But then again I just don't know. I watch it, I wince and then I keep watching. So, I can't pretend it ruins the movie for me. The violence of the rape in Irreversible has a point and forms a pivot for the whole film. There's a plot point in this one but I wonder two things: did it need that last shot to make its suggestion and if it was removed would that only add a leering suggestion to the tone, removing the shock that renders it appropriately ugly?

Here are some things to be aware of. This will sound flippant but I mean it sincerely: add a "however" or "well, actually..." as you will between these statements:

It's violence is meant to shock, a moment of horror.

It is not depicted as comedic.

It is a supernatural act not a human crime.

It is unmistakably a sexual assault.

As it is the point of figurative as well as literal penetration by the evil dead it is a genuine plot point.

Scotty returns from his own investigative sortie in a similarly ravaged fashion. There are splintered branches in his body. It is likely the same happened to him.

We do not see him suffer as we did Cheryl.

Sam Raimi has long regretted adding the moment, calling it brutal and recognising that many find it offensive.

Removing this second of screen time would not involve more than an easy edit in an era where cigarettes and guns are digitally erased from characters' in earlier movies.

He has never removed it.

...

What remains is a feat of anarchic horror cinema, the movie equivalent of an avant-gardist composer creating a punk song - the string of the melody and pop song arc are there but everything else is made of found sound, distorted nature recordings and anything they could find that could hit anything else. Sam Raimi climbed up a comparitively rapid career path to establish himself as a respected film maker who kept an inclination toward genre in the league of Joe Dante or Tobe Hooper (no slights there, by the way)  His films are never less than watchable and at their best effectively thrill but nothing he has done since (including its sequels) has come close to the delirious, ugly wonder of this first bratty ghost ride.

Viewing Notes:

So, I saw this last weekend as a forty year old film. This time it was in 4K ultra high definition. On VHS everything looked equally murky, especially when seeing the upgrade. The first DVD I saw of it was so brightened that the extra details visible included the square inset where a grossly enlarged full moon sat as though gazing through a window in the night sky. The aspect ratio of that one was in the original 4:3. The one I replaced that one with was cropped for a contemporary 16:9 screen. By the most recent Blu-Ray there was a choice offered. All of these continued the overbrightened night sky shot. Now, at the highest resolution available for home viewing I am delighted to report that the moon in the original 4:3 ratio has been corrected to look like the moon in the sky (albeit unrealistically large but that was the intention); someone did the work and it's good. For the rest of the film not only do get a lot more detail of film grain from this 16mm source but colours that feel closest to natural out of any version I have seen. The audio (Dolby Atmos) is a little more like the effect of the brightened early DVDs in that while it spreads the sound field further the fact remains that there is nothing to be done about things like hard-set reverb (used in all the supernatural voices) but there is more clarity to all the dialogue and soundmix. From ricketty, splotchy blownup 16mm in a cinema, through analogue to digital video to now, we can expereience this film from the budget side of the tracks with nothing between us and it. This is the allographic version to beat the lot and while I wouldn't want to rewind to a VHS copy I will always, to some degree, miss the stretch marks and glitches, the thumb prints of the relay of persons unknown who, hand by passing hand, knew what I came to know.

1971@50: KLUTE

John Klute goes in search of a missing industrialist who has vanished from his patrician life leaving only a dirty letter written to a sex worker. Klute's conduit into the life and likelihoods of the missing man's life is the latter, Bree Daniels, now freelancing to pay her psychotherapy bills and attempts to go legit on the stage or the catwalk. Should also say that an adulthood spent subject of the worst of malekind has left her a barely controlled cyclone with too much intelligence to indulge in denial. She really isn't giving anything away. While this sets up a dark thriller it serves up more of a warning.

America was still numb from a decade of high level assassinations, confronting protests about its own order, a futile foreign war that increasingly verged on the criminal and, a few ad breaks away, even corruption at the highest level with Watergate. The rot at the top in this story is more of a background. We learn who the perp is about halfway through. What we are witnessing on that score is the actions of corporate monsters, schoolboys with the power of pharaohs, grinding their way through anyone below who might provide some nervous relief. Increasingly, we care about the slow and difficult negotiation between Klute and Bree. The expected whodunnit tale has already been binned and there's no clear suggestion that the pair are destined to cohere. We want them to but also might settle for the respect Klute affords Bree who has known so little (as her therapy sessions attest). There is a clear sense that their union might just give us some hope in such a compromised realm.

The two leads got a lot from their roles. Neither was strictly a breakthrough but both were significant in the career timelines. Fonda was plagued by a mix of anodyne roles (the one before this is an exception; look it up) and a nation that didn't want to forgive her for being outspoken and inconveniently political. This role landed her an Oscar which in the USA , for better or for worse, allows enough cache for an actor to start making the movies they want. Sutherland broke free of a trio of roles that might have typecast him in weirdo parts for the balance of his hours (recent examples are Jeremy Davies and Paul Dano). Both enjoyed a very distinguished 1970s and more.

Sutherland, like Fonda, is playing firmly against his recent past by giving us a sober and straight minded figure, someone who needs to meet the chaos of these shadows with strength. Some might find his performance too sober, perhaps even wooden but the only way he was going to meet Fonda on her terms was to step back. He plays it nuanced, allowing silences and sparse expression to tell his thoughts. And then when he must break into violence it is with a surprisingly free physicality which both shocks and relieves us.

But this is Fonda's film. At first, she comes across as a displaced middle class slummer whose diction and vowels don't match her character and this gives an impression that the actor herself is slumming. However, there's a crucial scene that addresses this and does so with plaeasing obliqueness. Bree auditions for the part of Joan of Arc in GB Shaw's Saint Joan. She chooses an Irish accent which is called "interesting" by the director. She is not going to get the part. Fonda is playing Bree as angry, regardless of her origins, and it is an anger built of others' cruelty, subjugation and hatred. What she is left with is a means of expression which is strong and impeccable, it might sound middle class but there is no mistaking her testimony. Bree has made the choice; it is another panel of her armour.

Outside of that hers is a constantly physical performance. Almost all of this has to do with the currency of physical intimacy in light of her trade and how it differs beyond it. Her problem is with how others perceive and misconceive this. She must be constantly alert of what a caress or a hug might mean, what value they might preesage on the part of the other. She lets us see how loaded human contact is to her. This is less anger than a survivalist's constant alertness. The warmth of her clear personal strength allows us to make it through most of her scenes where the idea of touch or avoiding it unsettles us. It is a solidly committed performance made from corageous decisions.

One element I self-shamingly omit from these blogs on movies is the score. I won't be able to pass it by this time as it's such an important one, even though it is made of a lot of brief visiits rather than carpeting scenes from top to toe. Michael Small provides a tinkling shiver without bass registers, tiny clouds of  whispering doubt. I hate comparisons but the closest cousin I can think of for this is the unhelpful suggestion of a much more obscure film, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage which blends a late '60s sweetness with a spinechilling range of scrapes, glissandi, musique concrete and so on to give us a realm like this one where the danger could lie in a passing whim or distant whisper (an atypical Morricone electronic score). Small went on to create one of the finest film scores ever for the same director's The Parallax View, combining an unsettling mix of patriotic hymn and horror movie dissonance. This almost feels like a first draft of that.

Klute is the first of the informally titled paranoia trilogy by director Alan J. Pakula. While distinct from each other this, The Parallax View and All the President's Men yet share a sense of malaise, the feel of a physical trouble we let in through an inability to recognise it, painted in dank brown hallways, sterile privilege, flat corporate aesthetics and the public dressing of order in the red white and blue. This in other hands might have fallen to blunt satire or clinking allegory but these films don't. Down there in a Manhattan plagued by sleaze, a D.C. roped by conspiracy and a whole country being hollowed by complacency. In the wake of these the modified political thriller  took form for the decade of New Hollywood as the discreet lighting of boardrooms and the dripping pipes of alleyways took over as the locations for the exchange and complication of power. To look at these films again in their middle age is to enjoy the pleasure of their gravity and to miss the same in mainstream films of the twenty-firwst century. This is not to say that cinema has lost its power (that hasn't changed) but perhaps could do with the kind of comittment that allowed the scary figure in Klute to begin his confession with: "I've no idea what I'm going to do. I'm so deeply puzzled." When the serpent is this freely whimsical you need to run. That's what I miss.