Have You Seen The New Kurosawa...?
First Issue    Editorial    A Bourgois Liberal Writes..    Have You Seen the New Kurosawa    Universal Chaplin    Weimar artist's Social Satire    Rejection    An Autumn Evening in Hertfordshire    Holding a Candle to the True Gothic    Forthcoming Feature    Thought Page		"We're only on the front porch of a monstrous mansion full of critical Zombies waiting to be awakened and engaged. Soon enough - we'll be in the basement…" Phillip Brophy, September 1985 In 1972 a film was released, or should it be unleased, on an unsuspecting cinema audience. The film in question was entitled "The Exorcist", and still remains, probably, the most seminal horror film ever made. "The Exorcist" was the first mainstream Hollywood-produced film to have plunged it's audience's into a vertigo of stunning gore effects. This shocking film is about the possession of a cute 12-year-old girl and her subsequent defacement by the film's special-effects man- Dick smith. Viewing the film again (the first time I viewed the film I was a pubescent 14-year-old), made me realise how the film has lost none of it's original shock appeal. The same, sadly, could also be said about the print showing at The Plaza, Bangor on the 17th and 18th of January 1992. I can report that the print showing was as near a version as was originally shown in 1972- no moralistic intervention by the censor, James-"Scissorhands"-Ferman, this time. Yet the version shown at The Plaza was frequently interrupted by unintentional jump-cuts: akin to watching one of those Z-movie spoofs that Benny Hill excelled at in the –late 1970's. To cite an example. One second the mother of Regan(her fictional name escapes me) appears in the back of her kitchen watering some plants, then, the picture jumps violently and the same woman is miraculously transported into the foreground, and can be seen completing the washing-up of what can only be described as a dinner service large enough to suffice the inhabitants of Western Samoa. This anarchist juxtapositioning version of "The Exorcist" drew, on occasion, hoots of laughter from an audience predominant with students(how else does one account for such esoteric comment like "But don't you see it, Miranda, Regans condition mirrors that of a corrupt capitalist system": dialectics or diorriah?). Although much of the audience had, it seems, indulged in some pre-drinking (of the kind that affects especial groans when Regan's green vomit appears), most of the laughter generated was as a result of the films graphic and disturbing scenes. Utilising my laymans psychology I would guess that much of the audience were exorcising their fears through the emotion of laughter. But all this is conjecture compared to the matter at hand. "The Exorcist" can be seen as the instigator of a generic break with the traditional horror film. It's influence abounds in numerous rip-off's, such as "Amiterville 2: The Possession", or in comedy spoofs such as Pete and Dud's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and the more recent "Repossessed". "The Exorcist" has now become a part of popular culture's folklore; it's references appropriated by hundreds of subsequent films. For many, the film has even become a part of their childhood rite of passage: Like being dared by your peers to ride on an infamous roller coaster, or enter a creepy derelict house; likewise, "The Exorcist" frequently meant a collective viewing experience of something terrifying, coupled with a post-denial of any bad after-effects. There is something disquieting about this particular violation of a young childs body by an evil spirit(s): a nihilism that leaves you with the question, why this girl? As younger children maybe we can become more susceptible to some of the established church's religious dogmas. Such an idea would seem applicable to an audience regardless of age; could "even the fictional Regan be included? It should not be forgotten that after all the gore and special-effects, "The Exorcist", remains a _tale of Good triumphing over Evil, in-effect a tale of catholic moralism. Alcoholic intoxication aside, the audiences reactions those two nights at The Plaza, cinema were interesting in light of how the horror genre has changed since 1972. It seems likely that an audience faced with "The Exorcist" in 1972 would have had far fewer cinematic reference points; this could not be applied to the visually sophisticated 1992 audience. "The Exorcist" was a landmark in social and cinematic realism, utilised through the genre of horror; this is the films most frightening aspect. Special-effects were employed to such an extent as to blur fact and fiction and prompt the question from the viewer of just how such effects were created? This latter digression from "safe" gore, such as those used by Hammer films, would have the viewer not only contemplating the special-effects but also the validity of such events existing in the physical world itself. The modern cinema audience is now versed in a horror film that revels in it's own genre. Audiences don't just view some new horror film, they also keep continual dialogue going with numerous other horror films. The horror genre has become so self conscious that it doesn't take itself that seriously: horror and hilarity. This may partly some of the outbursts of laughter attributed, in some instances, to unintended humour in "The Exorcist". In the same year that "The Exorcist" was released another film would achieve an infamy that would linger on in the consciousness of the horror genre; albeit on exposure to a smaller cinema audience. The film in question was Wes Cravens "The Last House on the Left". The film depicts a loose plot centred on a violence of misogynist proportion: systematic male violence towards two women; and how eventually the murderers find themselves, unknowingly, in the house of the dead women's parents. The films shows how the middle class parents treat their murderous guests with social protocol indicative of bourgeois manners. The audience is thus in the privileged position of realising this comedy of manners, and awaits the time when the couple realise the folly of their hospitality. The parent's will end the film as violent and ruthless as the original murderers. "Last house on the Left" was later to become part of an infamous batch of "video nasties". The whole debate, or hysteria if you cite the arguments of the politicians and moralists, was based on the "accessibility" of the video films themselves. Paradoxically Conservative free market ideology worships the right of individual consumer choice, and the video recorder technology which made the films available is another example of consumer goods supposedly "raising the standards of living". Government intervention (surely antithetical to laissez-faire economics?} was therefore based on the pro-Conservative tabloids' sensationalism of the issue in order to increase sales, coupled with the Government of the day utilising an old political trick - deflecting attention away from their own problems, like economic recession (the "video nasties" issue occurred between 1982-1984). It was through viewing Wes Cravens new film production "The People Under the stairs", that ideas concerning common themes became a viable proposition. How "The Exorcist" is such a potent film because the viewer enters the seemingly "normal" house of an affluent bourgeois family. How most of Wes Cravens films are centred, much like "The Exorcist", not just around the attempted destruction of the body, but also of the family. "Amiterville 2: The Possession" is an example of the violation and destruction of both body and family. Horror had now moved into the fragility of family relationships, in opposition to the traditional narrative device that hinges on the individual. "Amiterville 2: The possession" is certainly an exploitative exercise in blatant plagiarism, even going as far as using incest as a device for titillation. Wes Cravens "The Hills Have Eyes" was to contain scenes of graphic violence, yet now there certainly exists the trait of comedy in many of the films situations. A white, all-American family decide to explore the frontier- much in the spirit of the first white settlers- in the luxury of their mobile home. These fortunates have the misfortune to come across what can only be described as a distorted mirror image of themselves: an inbred "family" consisting of mum, dad and assorted cannibalistic offspring. "The Hills Have Eyes" can be seen as "The Addams Family transposed into Jean Luc Godards "Weekend". The old black and white series," The Addams Family", would seem in it's scenario to question ideas of "normality": whos the more grotesque, the principal family or those "normal" people who represent intolerant, reactionary forces in society? Craven's films would seem to pose the same question through a subversion of "normal" family values. "Society"(1990) is another film which, although a special effects extravaganza, also critiques "normal" values associated with the middle class family. The film itself borrows from a tradition established, among others, by Wes Craven; but more so from the influentional director David Cronenberg. Cronenberg's films, such as "Shivers" (1974) and "Rabid" (1976), converge around the destruction of the human body. This theme can also be found in films such as "Scanners" (1980) and "The Fly" (1986). "The Evil Dead" (1982) was a clever pastiche on the typical B-movie horror film. This film can be seen as a cry of exhaustion for a genre so conventional in format that the only way for a departure from formula is to take the cliches to their extreme. It is also noteworthy that "The Evil Dead" was to become one of the central texts of contention in the "video nasties" debate. The outcome was that the initial reactionary forces of the B.B.F.C and the D.P.P had to admit that, in effect, they had taken the film more seriously than the textually literate public they had tried so hard to protect. One of the strangest cultural phenomenons of the 1980's is the icon of Freddy Kruger. This near hero-worship of a physically disgusting child murderer is, in my view, a back-lash by young audiences tied of the anonymous psycho-murderer who butchers attractive American teenagers. Freddy is the ultimate bogey man of everybodies more disturbing dreams. Hence the most successful aspect of a "Nightmare on Elm Street" is, aside from Freddy's warped humour, the surrealism of the dream scenes. To witness a cinema audience enthusiastically advocating that Freddy employ his lethal finger-nails on some cute teenager, does not point to mass psychosis. The celebration of Freddy is the celebration of the deviant (although the sequels have now all become episodes in formula film making). Wes Cravens "Nightmare on Elm street" stresses the fragility of the family, witness the behaviour of the parents of Freddy's original victims; through the parents covert destruction of Kruger is unleashed the nightmare of Freddy. "The People Under the Stairs" (1992) is the newest offering from Wes Craven. In my opinion the film works as an exercise in horror and hilarity. The film contains some memorable scenes, but what seems of major significance is the casting of a young black actor as the films protagonist. This is a rare occurrence in a mainstream Hollywood cinema that usually marginalizes black actors into stereotypical roles, such as criminals. "The People Under the stairs" does depict the "criminal" activities of Leroy and "the Fool"- the major difference from other representations is that the two characters are portrayed sympathetically. In fact the film even espouses that crime is, when viewed in the light of economic deprivation, perfectly justified. The contrast between a down-town ghetto and a large bourgeois property are shown for all their obvious political message. Political and economic "simplicity may be levelled against the film, yet what use is Marxist dialectics to mainstream audiences that merely require an entertaining evening out? In "The People Under the stairs" the family, as in most of Craven's film's, is shown as distorted and dysfunctional. The mother and father are depicted as psychopathic role models for the young girl-Alice(an intentional name-sake of Lewis Carrols'). In fact, besides their cannibalistic tendencies (a Craven leit-motif), they are revealed, later, as brother and sister- "each generation crazier than the next". The brother, or daddy as he is known, is prone to bouts of S & M game hunting, his targets "naughty children"; whilst his sister expects the children (who have all been abducted) to "See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil", lest they find themselves minus eyes, ears or tongues, respectively. The two adults are corrupted, they have lost a supposed age of innocence and so embody this innocence onto another object - namely the child. This reverence of childhood, it must be remembered, is a recent concept established in the late Victorian era. Like Victorian morality, which was centred on the church and family, the brother and sister are religious zealots believing anybody not fitting their own narrow idealisations must "Burn in Hell". But "The People Under the stairs" does have some genuinely funny dark humour, revolving round the Gothic tradition of the Old Dark House. When the menacing pet Rottweiler comes trotting up from the cellar, mouth gaping with the remains of a human hand, such dark humour can also be found in David Lynchs' "Wild At Heart"; which in turn "borrowed" from an early surrealist film by Luis Bunuel. When the “fool's" (the film's protagonist) sister visits the home of the mad brother and sister, she launches into an attack of how her own communities deprivation is at the hands of exploitative landlords - who happen to be the brother and sister. When the mad sister produces a gun and justifies her intended murder of the young black woman with the line "There's no community here": A strange deja vu of a similar statement made by Margaret Thatcher seemed all too apparent. At this point, though, a huge crowd merge into the background behind the spirited campaigner. When the film's young black hero finally destroys the warped brother and sister the whole house explodes releasing all the money accumulated by the rich white couple from their non WASP ghetto neighbours. The film ends with all the people from the cellar escaping and together with the crowd gathered from the ghetto "retrieve" (or as the Law would say "steal") what had been accumulated at their own material expense. The Public Enemy track "Do The Right Thing" then begins it's pounding beat; sound and image certainly making it's message more emphatic than Spike Lee's film equivalent. The people under the social system have emerged from the basement to claim what is rightfully theirs. DJ