Adaptation Insanity: The one that was an anime more anime than anime

 

Title: Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer

What Year?: 1984

Classification: Unnatural Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

As I write this, I’m rounding out the month while editing an actual novel, and I decided it was time to do another entry in this still-new feature. It also happened that I’ve been down an extra rabbit hole with a decades-old multimedia franchise I’ve only just heard of. That brought me to one particular artifact I decided to write up for this feature, even though it is animated. As we will be seeing, however, it’s also a very odd treatment of a strange and often retrospectively horrifying property. Without further ado, I present Urusei Yatsura 2, a film based on a franchise where a literal stalker and a compulsive womanizer are the couple we’re supposed to want to get together.

Our story begins with a contest between clubs at a high school whose student body includes Ataru, a slacker who harasses every female in sight, Lum, an alien with electroshock powers who insists she is already married to him, and Mendou, a rich kid who can afford his own tank. As events progress, the cast begin to notice things that are odd even in their frame of reference. Soon, they find themselves in an empty city where electricity, water and food simply appear without explanation, an arrangement the slacker seems happy to accept at face value. But the rich kid and his self-described spouse are determined to get to the bottom of it. They discover that the familiar cityscape is really a reproduction floating in space on the back of a turtle, but even that may still be an illusion. It’s up to the slacker to find the truth, and along the way, he must confront the nature of reality and his relationships!

Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer was a 1984 theatrical animated film, the second based on the manga and anime series created by Rumiko Takahashi. The film was written and directed by Mamoru Oshii, also the director of the preceding film Only You, reportedly with little or no participation by Takahashi. The film was released in Japan in 1984, and on US home video with an English dub in 1993. It was initially poorly received by fans of the manga/ anime series, but became well-regarded as a pioneering anime film with themes that anticipated later works such as Ghost In The Shell. (Dammit, I’m going to have to do that one…) It is currently available for free streaming on Tubi.

For my experiences, this all started because someone introduced me to the original Urusei Yatsura manga, which I have found simply mindboggling. I would have to give it a separate writeup if I was going to cover it at all, but it will suffice to say that I can only find it comprehensible by comparison with my own Exotroopers series (see the Samus figure post/ rant): These are characters who are and should be absolutely horrible, yet are entertaining enough for us not to want them to die. After going through a few volumes of the manga run, I came to the present film, and I found something different and much stranger. What I found especially striking was its timing, obviously well after the beginnings of anime (compare with Castle of Cagliostro and Lily CAT) yet still well before it took the forms we would take for granted now. As a corollary, it is a full-blown case of what I call the Anachronistic Outlier, for once already noted by many besides me, with the especially curious tendency of comedies and parodies (see Dark Star, Twitch of the Death Nerve and less auspiciously Galaxina) to be more innovative than “straight” treatments from the same time and even significantly later. That, of course, leaves the question whether it is good, and a lot will depend on taste and mood.

Moving forward, the main thing to get out of the way is that this film very much presumes prior familiarity with the franchise. If you don’t understand the characters, relationships and assumed world already (or like them in the first place), you aren’t going to have many chances. The paradox on this front is that this does not become a source of “insider” humor. Indeed, the movie doesn’t have that much in the way of humor, beyond the bizarre situations and wildly flawed characters already built into the franchise. On a deeper level, the film genuinely shifts the perspective, which in turn becomes foreshadowing of what will be revealed. When the focus moves to the secondary characters, the “stars” simply look like idiots that nobody else would have any reason to care about, unless of course this world was literally built around them. The final twist is that when the actual main character takes charge, he really does manage to think through the situation.

That leaves the story’s visual, and that brings us to one more paradox, little if anything here is “psychedelic” or even surreal. The “baseline” style is semi-realistic human characters in realistic and often very detailed environments. I will say personally that this is absolutely a believable portrayal of how “real” mental illness works, and I will shout loudly that it makes for an exponentially better payoff as the dream world encroaches on the setting. It should be of further note that even then, there is not a fundamental change in the animation style, which is where certain pros and cons come in. Again, it is effectively acknowledged that people who experience hallucinations often perceive them as part of the actual world. On the other hand, many sequences simply feel like a sane person’s idea of madness, which I have already ranted about. Per my longest-running complaint, the part that films like this often overlook is the breakdown of the very sense of the passage of time and linear causation, which is exactly where even the severely delusional will realize they are hallucinating without necessarily pulling out of it. The most intriguing example is Shinobu’s encounter with a spectral girl whose status is never made clear as her own surroundings become distorted. She clearly realizes that this is not the “real” world, yet this is still short of the terror of total breakdown.

That leaves the “one scene”, and the one I knew I would go with is exactly at the half-hour mark. At this point, a nurse/ priestess who is easily the most intelligent and consistently competent character in the franchise has gotten in a cab at night. She voices the suspicion that the ride is taking longer than needed. The cabbie starts to talk, quite charmingly, and this becomes our introduction to the antagonist, voiced by one Draidyl Roberts in the English dub. He begins with what could be a casual joke that time feels slower in a cab. That leads into a metaphysical ramble in which he asserts that time, space and reality itself are all products of human perception, all while the lady clearly grows more aware that this is not simply a talkative driver. What keeps this interesting is that none of his points are inarguable in universe. Human perceptions of the universe may be shaped by all manner of biases, but it will become clear that this character’s own angle is talking up his own power to warp reality. Even so, the lady is already able to see through his illusions. What matters is that this battle of wits is clearly just beginning, which is exactly why a good scene like this matters.

In closing, what I find I come back to is my own feelings about anime. I’ve already regularly commented that people who know me would expect me to be a lot more of a fan than I am. The underlying reality is that I have never tried to “follow” anime in any comprehensive way. That means that I have undoubtedly missed a lot that is very good, and even more that is very, very bad. I consider the present film a good example of why a little anime can be better than a lot. It’s a well-made entry in a long-running series that requires some background knowledge but not a detailed knowledge of everything that came before. Perhaps most significantly, it’s a well-regarded and influential anime that was never hyped up into a “classic” you have to watch for fans to take you seriously. (No way I’m naming names…) It’s just good fun from a time when that was still the benchmark for the artform. Watch it, if you have the time, and you won’t be disappointed. With that, I’m calling it a day.

Futures Past: Nintendo exotrooper figure!

 

As I write this, it's the last week of the month, and I realized I had something backlogged. While I was spending the last 2 1/2 months writing a Nintendo fan novel (see my fourth demo), I finally gave in and tried to buy a figure of one of the classic NES characters I was obviously ripping off. I refer, of course, to Samus Aran, from the iconic game I can't recall playing or seeing anyone else play once. I found a landscape of figures pulling scalper prices, and with a whole lot of bonus points, I got the newest and in all likelihood least impressive one. Then, of course, I took it out of the packaging, because I do this to make "real" collectors cry. Here's pics of this thing on card.

You know the suit is from the 1980s because her shoulder pads are literally bigger than her helmet.

Now to go all the way back, I can recall being aware of Metroid in the 1980s and '90s, and what stands out is that it didn't have that big a profile. Up to when I was in junior high, there was still only the original game, from the ancient year of 1986. From what I heard back then, it was simply a space adventure with a where-do-I-go element that a whole bunch of games were trying to do. It didn't help that the main reason I heard about it was because Mother Brain was the main villainess and quite possibly the most irritating character on the now-legendary Captain N TV series, which I really did watch regularly. It was in a revisit of the game in Nintendo's propaganda outlet that I first learned of the reveal that quite possibly created Rule 34: The space adventurer in the armor was actually a lady.

Now for the figure, this is a figure released this year by Jakks Pacific, which has been making figures of this character since at least 2014. The most distinctive thing about this figure is that it has a matte texture where earlier figures had been glossy. I have to admit, this is pretty good. The points of articulation, while more gimmicky than useful, are in places that make sense. The detailing is the right balance between realistic and stylized. And, wonder of wonders, it's quite easy to persuade this thing to stand up. Here's some pics of the figure.

And for a little fun, here's a couple articulation tests.

Okay, I was not expecting Samus as a cheerleader, but it's probably out there.

And here she is with the 4-inch Space Guys (whose own adventure was ironically derailed for all this). These figures are usually listed as 4 inches, but this is definitely bigger, I can believe 4.5 inches.

Now, the question I come to is what put this one in this sporadic and meandering feature, where does Samus really fit in pop culture evolution? There were plenty of lady adventurers before her, as evidenced in Heavy Metal (which I repeatedly reference in my novel), though it was something new in video games. I would propose that the character had more impact through popularizing the combat exoskeleton/ mech suit, though I can attest that I was drawing such things in the late '80s-early '90s timeframe independent of any direct influence. (I swear I kind of invented the term "exotrooper", but I have never had to explain it.) The biggest step forward was a game with a focus on exploring an environment, which as alluded was quickly done to death. To me, she remains what she was then: A cool character.

And to wrap this up, here's a couple sketches I did for the book. I was trying to think of an exotrooper design crossed with Greek armor, so I drew a finback with a sort-of Corinthian face plate. I spent a lot of time trying to work out how it would raise, then an illustrator I am working with just drew it scrunched up in a way I'm going to have to work into the book. And the other one is a Flower Girl who can turn into a Psittacosaurus-dragon thing.

And one more, because the best sketch is always the one that goes completely wrong...

And with that, I'm calling it a day. That's all for now, more to come!

Fiction: Nintendo parody novel extra!

 

As I write this, it's Sunday and I haven't gotten in the post I meant to do this week. So, I decided to post yet another demo for the parody/ fan novel that's been consuming most of my time (see demos 1, 2 and 3 plus the badly edited appendix). This is the first draft of a scene I tweaked a bit to set up themes and references I didn't think to put in the first time, but it's mostly the same in the final draft. All in all, this is the part that was just fun...

King Ajax watched Aeacus’ ship depart through a telescope in the turret that was called the Royal Observatory. It rose to rejoin a modest fleet of ships high above. Meliboia pointed out the different ships. “That’s a Cygnus like mine,” she said, pointing out a familiar twin-nacelled craft. “There aren’t as many as there used to be.” She pointed out a double-hulled craft, and another with three equally spaced wings. “There’s a Gemini medium fighter, and a Trident interceptor.” She focused the telescope on a craft that her father’s ship was in the process of docking with. It was an elegant ship divided into three sections including the lander that had just rejoined, each with a wide pair of sweeping wings. “And that is the Geryon. It’s the most powerful Myrmidon warship there is or ever will be. It wouldn’t look like much next to a Union cruiser, but it has the armament of a ship five times its size. It could blow ships 20 times its size out of space, and it has.”

“I take it, then, I should not upset my in-laws,” Ajax said. He noted Mel's brother Amyclas loitering with a companion.

“That is always the best policy,” said the Dowager Prunus at his side.

 

As lunch gave way to afternoon, they walked with the Dowager in the upper galleries of the Palace, where numerous windows gave the feel of open air. “I am pleased that you came,” Prunus said to Mel. “Frankly, I am pleased with your choice of dress. The people of the Kingdoms have been so scandalized, one might think you were parading around like a nudist. I made my own inquiries. My judgment was that you dress like a Maiden courting rumor. It has its place, but there is a time when a Lady must consider her years.”

“How old do you think I am?” Mel asked coolly.

Prunus laughed. “You will not trap me that way,” she said. “Know this, King Ajax has been in this world 12 of our years. When he came, he was 26 by the reckoning of Earth. When he and his brother first appeared, I had them searched. I personally examined, I believe it was called, his driver’s license.”

“Then he is younger than me,” Mel said freely. “By a little. I suppose that would be a scandal. Maybe almost as much as a man of fifty marrying a woman of twenty.”

“We do not actually have much of that here,” Prunus said. “Our bonds of love are strong, or so others judge. Our bearing is easy, even in our later years. When a man does outlive his first Maiden, or parts from her, he usually finds a widow or Matron preferable in his maturity. The elders do not often compete with the boys for the Maidens. How is it among the Myrmidons?”

“Well, we aren’t really what you would call a self-sustaining population,” Mel answered. “They recruit among the males of the Diaspora and from other Misthioi. Most of the females are orphans and refugees that no one else will ransom or adopt, like me. At any given time, there are 2 or 3 men for every woman of age. It causes fewer problems than you might suppose. Many of the young men that join do so because they do not wish to marry. In Aeacus’ time, there was still a vow of celibacy. The ones who do take lovers do so as a fighting Triad, not a pair. Most often, two men fight with one woman. More rarely, two women fight with one man… Ah, perhaps this is too much for my Lord.” Ajax was blushing.

“It does not sound like a bad way to do things,” the King said carefully.

“Now, there is another matter,” the Dowager said. “There has been talk that Lady Meliboia is unable to bear an heir…”

“If it were so, it would be between her and myself,” Ajax said instinctively.

“Do not misunderstand,” the Dowager said in amusement. “I would have you know, I have your back. I do not care if a man and Lady bear Fruit, by choice or not. I say to all Hells with the `integrity’ of the bloodline. You and your brother have been Kings as great as any born to the noble Houses, and you came to us as landless peons with only your tools, the Music Box and a book of silly stories.”

“Trust me, I know,” Mel said. “I’ve met plenty of kings of high and noble blood. The good ones were dumb as Hydrae. The bad ones only left me alone when I told them I wasn’t going to give them Fruit. Or, I just killed them.” She considered. “Is there any chance I might see the things he brought with him?”

“King Ajax keeps his tools and his book for his own use,” Prunus answered.  “But the rest of the Relics of Ajax have a place of honor in the Palace.”

“Then I would like to see it,” Mel said.

They descended to the lower galleries where visitors wandered at will. A whole transept was devoted to Ajax and Hector. It was divided equally, but it was clear that most of the visitors favored Ajax’s side. A number of them pointed and murmured as the King approached. They passed the trophies of his greatest battles, like an Invader’s exoskeleton and the anchor of Naam’s skyship. At the very end was a cabinet for the relics he had brought with him. As they drew near, Mel covered her mouth.

About half the exhibit was devoted to the Music Box. It was a small, boxy portable tape player. Beside it were the headphones and two batteries, one of them encrusted with crystallized acid. The player was hooked up to two alchemist’s jars for power. A contraption the size of a small refrigerator had been set up to play sound for the guests. “I gave it to the Dowager after the batteries died,” Ajax said. “They had figured out enough physics and chemistry to reproduce its functions. They just don’t have the manufacturing methods to make compact electronics.”

As they watched, an Attendant carefully loaded a cassette and pressed a button. “Leaving On A Jet Plane” and “Walk Away Renee” played through the contraption’s speakers, badly. An old Mushroom Man and a Flower Girl had burst into tears before the Attendant returned the tape to its box. “Let me see that,” Mel said. At a nod from the Dowager, the Attendant handed it to her. It was a 90-minute mix tape with a list of tracks written in pen on the insert. In several places, one title had been scratched out and another written in. All told, there were 23 tracks.

“It’s my brother’s tape, really,” Ajax said. “We used to take turns recording songs off the radio.” Mel considered the two other tapes. They were the soundtracks from Heavy Metal and Krull.

“I want to listen to this,” she said, rattling the Mix Tape. “On the Box, with the headphones. I have my own power supply.”

The Attendants were clearly ready to protest, but again, Prunus intervened. “That was the second playing of the day, is it not?” she said. “Then the guests will be deprived of nothing if the Lady is allowed to use it.”

It took several keys to take out the Box and its components. Mel matter-of-factly produced a power pack clearly designed for similar devices. As she rewound the tape and began to play, she considered the other Relics on exhibit. Ajax could not have said whether the tape or the exhibit made him more uncomfortable. There was his slouch cap, with the letter A in metallic red. There were his tool box, his screw drivers, his plastic thermos. She finally turned one of the headphones. He could overhear “Nowhere Man.” He followed her pointing finger to one of the items.

“We were general maintenance contractors,” he said. “We did a lot of things. Anyway, it was a storage room for the janitors. We were just taking our break.”

“Still,” Mel said, “did you have to use that name?”

“It is my middle name,” King Ajax said.

The item was a blue can with bold red letters on a white field. It read AJAX. “For a while, we used it in the Palace,” the Dowager spoke up. “The Attendants were impressed. So were the Alchemists. We got through half the can before I had it sealed up for further study.”

She gave them distance. Mel looked at Ajax again with a smirk as she pointed at one more artifact. “Now, come on,” she said. “They must have figured that one out.” The object was marked, Expunger of Evil. It was a wooden rod with a large red cup.

“We called it that where we came from,” Ajax said. “It was our father’s.”

“Show me,” Mel said. She stopped the tape. This time, an attendant opened the case without further bidding. Ajax lifted it up with both hands.

“Stagnant water, you will flow,” he said. He went on with a flourish, because there was no way back. “Thing of evil, you will go!!!”

Mel clapped. So did the onlookers, which he belatedly realized included Hector, Daffy, Amyclas, and the High King of the Azure Realm. He smiled and bowed, still holding the Expunger.

Mel listened through the whole tape as they walked the grounds. She tapped her foot to “Popcorn” and “Music Box Dancer”. She started at the snap as the player reached the end of the first side, Ajax knew in the middle of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. She flipped the tape and resumed listening with a respectful nod. She wiped a single tear at the end of “Big Yellow Taxi”. Finally, she frowned as she reached “Today Could Be The Day”, which lasted barely a minute before the tape snapped. 

“I tried to get that one in at the end,” Ajax said. “Then Hector rerecorded over another song and cut into it. I asked Morrie to try putting the rest together. He was Lady Pruna’s court minstrel. He  ended up creating a whole new song.” (Author's note: Yes, I tried "song fic" chapters in here. And rewriting the song was the most remotely sane way to get around the legal issues.)

“So,” Mel said as she  rose to her feet, “you let me listen to your mix. A lot of guys wouldn’t do that. So what do you have to say?”

He dropped to his knees at her feet and prepared to say what he had intended to wait days, perhaps a week for. Only then did he realize that he did not have the carefully chosen ring. Mel rested her hand on his scalp. “Wait,” she said, “there is another way. You humbled yourself. Now, rise.”

Mel removed the sword and sheath from her belt. “This is a custom of the Myrmidons,” she said. She knelt and held up her sword. “My brother, with Janus as my witness, I offer you my loyalty and my love. Take from me this sword, and I will be your sheath.” She blushed at the innuendo but did not pause. “Be my lover, my captain and my mate, and I will follow you to Heaven or Hades.” By then, her eyes were closed. She smiled as he took the sword, gaping in wonder.

“My Lady,” he said, kneeling again, “be my Queen!” He held out his own signet to her.

There were cheers as they rose. Mel waved. Then Daffy rushed in. “Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh that was so romantic-! Sorry.”

“I’m okay,” Mel groaned beneath her.

“Welcome to the family,” Ajax said. He reached down and helped her up.

“Welcome to you, too,” Amyclas said. He threw an arm around the King. “By the way, you do know you just married her. Right?”

The Horrible Horror Vault: The one with tentacle zombies

 

 

Title: The Void

What Year?: 2016

Classification: Improbable Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Ow, My Brain!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

As I write this, I have once again gone until Monday without finishing a weekend post. This time, however, it was never in doubt what I was going to review, and this particular movie was in the lineup as soon as I revived this feature. It’s one that’s been on my radar for a long time as one of the strangest and quite possibly one of the worst movies I have viewed, yet always found that neither fully described the whole. (And I have Shanks, House and Death Bed as a baseline…) Now, I’m finally ready to take this one on, and needless to say, I’m not playing nice. I present The Void, and it is among other things the kind of film that could have been custom made to annoy me.

Our story begins at a house in the countryside, where a guy makes his escape from a group of rednecks. We then find the survivor at a rural hospital that’s about to close, under suspicion of multiple homicides. He’s watched over by a kindly doctor and a lawman who is already wary. Tensions rise when strange, shrouded figures surround the hospital, and a pair of vigilantes push their way in. In the midst of it, the patients and staff start to transform into Lovecraftian abominations, and the doc is picked off. The lawman is left to guard the survivors, including a mother-to-be who might be more than a sympathy hook, and it doesn’t help when he gets a call from the deceased and no longer so friendly doctor. It’s a long night of growing horror and quasi-religious imagery, where the only thing that’s sure is that none of this makes any sense!

The Void was a 2016 independent cosmic horror film written and directed by Canadian filmmakers Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie, known for horror and science fiction/ fantasy comedies including Manborg. The project was reportedly influenced by Guillermo Del Toro (see… Pinocchio?), who had been in casual contact with the filmmakers during work on an unproduced adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novel At The Mountains Of Madness. The production was partly funded through Indiegogo. The film starred Aaron Poole as Sheriff Carter and the late Kenneth Welsh (see Of Unknown Origin) as the doctor. Gillespie was credited as supervisor for the film’s effects. The film was shown at Fantastic Fest in late 2016, and given a limited release in the United States, Canada and the UK in 2017. It received generally positive reviews. The film is available on digital platforms including the free Tubi platform.

For my experiences, I encountered this one through a casual viewing, after seeing it listed with some quite favorable reviews. As alluded, my immediate impression was unfavorable enough that I came back to it during the brutal countdown for No Good Very Bad Movies. In that maelstrom of kaka, it was inevitably sidelined by far more worthy contenders (see, again, High Tension, and for that matter Deadgirl). I thought of it again when I put together my capsule reviews for the Revenant Review ebook, but it was always “zombie adjacent” rather than a zombie movie, and again, there were others that were more deserving of attention for good or ill (compare, if anything, Contracted). Now, I’m finally back for a rematch, and I find it an oddly suitable companion to Wind Chill. On a certain level, this is an “evil twin” to it, except more like equal and opposite: Where that was a polished near-mainstream effort that would have benefited from pushing itself further, this is the kind of competent indie-horror effort that rarely declines to cross a line for its own sake, even when said lines are basic principles of coherent narrative. If it were my verdict to pass, I would send them both back for more work.

Moving forward, what’s front and center is that we have two concepts that could each have easily sustained the film on their own, which instead clash together. On one hand, there are the cultists, ruthless and genuinely cunning antagonists who are never presented as anything but human. On the other, there are the Lovecraftian abominations, done very well with an emphasis on their very corporeal nature. I have to say right here that the former are far more effective for the majority of the film. On that front, the first act is greatly aided by the cultists’ visually compelling costumes, which readily calls to mind the obvious real-life counterparts (and the darker elements of the underlying source material) without making this feel like a half-baked “message” story. My further editorial thought is that the abominations would have been more effective as a final-act reveal, which we do finally sort of get when the doc finally introduces a group of them in the subbasement. This is also where I have to make a further complaint: While the camerawork and storyboarding are linear enough that one can see where the creatures are and what they are doing within the environment, there’s still a trendy emphasis on poor lighting for its own sake. In this already late entry, the whole trend is conspicuously shown as what it was, an attempt by journeymen to revive an artform whose masters were long gone.

For the rest, what I decided was worth more detailed comment are the characters and story. This is precisely where actual quality becomes more frustrating than outright badness. The characters of Lovecraft himself  rarely rose above expendable exposition generators (the major exception being none other than Herbert West), which made for an acceptable conceit. Here, on the other hand, we see the bar raised to the standards of modern storytelling. These are characters we can like played by real actors, especially but not limited to Poole and Welsh. Their reactions are both rational and relatable from the outset, and we will see that they have plenty more pain behind them. Where things go off the rails is that far too many character and story points seem to come out of nowhere well into the final act. I may be bad at paying attention to these things, but this is egregious, to the point that I initially thought an entire scene was a “flashback” because I had not worked out that two characters were supposed to be married to each other. That, in turn, was all because a character is impregnated with an abomination without explanation before we know the actual pregnant lady’s real story. (I was going to go into her fate, but… just no.) My big rant, building on the last, is that these things could have been laid out in detail in the same running time as the first few monster attacks. The final testament to the outright redundancy is the doctor’s chilling introduction of his creations, which would have been there to do his bidding the whole time: “They want to die, but I won’t let them…” That is how a developed reveal works, so why did anyone think we needed to see anything but the creepy cultists before this?

Now for the “one scene”, there is one that truly embodies my issues with this film. Partway through, the lawman ventures outside, after the first of the abominations is dispatched, accompanied by the very paranoid vigilantes. Of course, the cultists are waiting, and this is their finest hour. We first see them standing in their white sheets, lit by the flashing lights of a patrol car. They all draw weapons, but only one seems to rush in for the attack. We get one of our closest looks at the black triangle all of them have over the face. A shotgun blast takes him down, and the lawman retreats. The camera flashes back to the cultists, and we see them still standing there, with absolutely no reduction in the evident threat. To them, this is clearly just a skirmish which they have already won. But what brought me right out of it is that the lawman does nothing about the downed cultist. It’s reasonably obvious that he is already dead or going to be, but surely there would be something to learn from at least a glance under the sheet. In fact, given the assumed small-town setting, it’s very likely that all of these guys (???) are people the sheriff would already know, something the film will never acknowledge or explore the implications of. And that is how you lose even a reviewer as mild-mannered as me.

In closing, I come to the rating, and this is where I literally punted. On my regular rating scale (which I never updated from The Revenant Review), this would be either 1 or 2 out of 4, very much depending on my mood. (As I regularly point out, just being on the scale is enough to separate a film from the actual “worsts”.) What finally stayed my hand is that I have seen how well it resonates with a genre fandom I have never quite been a part of. Beyond that, there are certainly strengths that I cannot easily address in my review format. The bottom line is, if you like this movie, I’m not the one who will tell you that you are wrong. I gave it a chance, and that much was what it deserved. That’s enough to call it a day.

Fiction: Assumed mythology line-up!

 It's the start of the weekend, and I still don't have the second post of a three-post week. That left me without anything in particular outside my fairly massive and ridiculously quickly written novel that I already posted a spoiler for. I considered one particular chapter to post, because I keep revising it, with more spoilers and a whole lot of stuff without the introduction or buildup. Then I decided to do something different that was actually fun to do. I like to work mythology and folklore (see Chelsea the (bad) Social Worker, which has some overlap) into my stories, and for this project, I had the idea of a whole culture based on ancient Greek mythology but with such a skewed perspective that their take would be equivalent to theistic Satanism. (Yes, I've encountered that in the wild...) With that in mind, I went as far as writing out a list of the characters these guys would choose as their heroes. So, here goes...

These are the names of the 12 Heroes of the Myrmidons, who defied the gods who are not gods and brought the wrath of gods and men, and the accounts of their deeds as told among them and the Misthioi.

 

Aeacus the Ruler: He was a demigod king of the island of Aegina and founder of the Myrmidons. Seeing that he was loved by his father Zeus and his people, jealous Hera destroyed his kingdom with a plague. Finding himself among the bodies of his subjects, he beheld the ants and the brotherhood and good order with which they marched. In grief, he called on Zeus to make him a new people and a great army from the ants. Zeus granted his wish, and the ants became the first Hoplites of the Myrmidons. He lived long and well, and when he came to the shores of Tartarus, Kind Hades appointed him as a judge of the souls of the dead.

 

Aesclepius the Healer: He was the greatest of physicians and kindest of men. It was said that his medicine could cure all disease, and some even told that he could return the dead to life. Kind Hades pled that his power be drawn back, lest the living fill the Earth until there was no food to eat or land to grow it. Instead, Zeus slew him, fearing that one with the power to restore the dead to life might also learn the secret ways to slay the immortal gods. But the people revered him in death, even as a god himself, and Just Hades honored him with the sign of the serpent in the heavens.

 

Amphion the Defender: He was the founder and builder of great Thebes, the impenetrable city, and husband of rash Niobe. When the gods slew his sons for their mother’s insult, his daughters prevailed on their mother to come to the temple of the Sun and Moon in penitence by the promise of a false oracle. Guessing the gods’ trap, he breached the temple to find his daughters slain beside the bodies of their brothers, save Meliboia. He fought the Assassins of Olympus, one against two, and it is said that he wounded the arm of mighty Apollo, or else moved him to mercy by his show of valor. But the cold Lady of the Moon cast a dart he could only slow with his shield and his body. Then, knowing himself mortally wounded, he cast himself down from the temple mount so that the gods could not claim to have extinguished his line by their hands alone. But where he fell, only persephones were found, to show that Kind Hades and his Queen had favored him.

 

Arachne the Challenger: She was the greatest and proudest weaver of all mortal men, so great that she challenged Athena to prove herself better. They held a great contest, which only Zeus would judge. Arachne showed the sins of the gods, where Athena showed the fates of those who had defied them. And the gathered peoples said that Arachne was the better, save that Athena wove with finer thread that no mortal had seen from the wealth of the heavens and the depths of the Earth. But Zeus judged his daughter victor, and in spite, the goddess smashed Arachne’s weaving along with her loom. Then humiliated Arachne prepared to hang herself with her last measure of pride, but the gods or mysterious Fate transformed her to a spider, the first of her kind on the Earth. To this day, Athena curses the sign of her kind.

 

Cassandra the Counsellor: She was the greatest and wisest of all prophets and seers, moved to warn the kings and their people of disaster. Mighty Apollo wooed her, for he knew his own oracles could not match her vision. But when he offered to make her the very Queen of Heaven if she would foretell to him alone the dooms that might yet fall on the gods themselves, she spurned him. So the god laid on her the curse of Moira, that ever after, she would foresee every doom, but no mortal from outcast to king would believe her or heed her until the Fates she foretold had come had already come to pass. Worse, it would be her lot to fall in the path of every great calamity, to warn in vain and then suffer, yet never find death. And so she wandered the Earth, from land to land and age to age until east became west and tomorrow became ancient legend, and some say she wanders still, warning of the doom that will yet smite the very stars from the sky.

 

Chloris the Accuser: She was the daughter of Amphion and last princess of Thebes, wounded by the gods themselves but not destroyed. It is said that she was first named Meliboia, meaning Honey And Milk, but when men beheld her risen from the tomb of her family, they called her Pale One. Ever after, it was appointed to her to testify to the evil deeds of gods and men, whether in the courts of Olympus or the halls of Kind Hades. From of old, the rescue of Chloris and the love and valor of her mother was portrayed in song and in stone. Yet, many of the ignorant and unknowing instead tell that the daughters of Niobe fell nameless beside their brothers.

 

Hephaestus the Armorer: He was an Olympian, the god of the forge and of arms and armor, and the only one besides Kind Hades to earn the veneration of the Mymidons. He was born to Zeus and Hera, so ugly and deformed that his mother cast him from the Heavens. Yet he returned, and proved himself by casting the most beautiful ornaments and most cunning weapons of the gods. A day came when he defended his mother after his father wronged her, and his father cast him down again. Then he taught his arts to mortal men, and the Myrmidons say it was he rather than Prometheus the First Benefactor who first revealed the secret of fire. At last, Zeus restored him in fear that he would arm the men of Earth as the gods themselves. And so he crafts his father’s mighty thunderbolts, yet it is said that he keeps the deadliest bolt of all for himself, in case a time should come when the gods plot to expel him again.

 

Idas the Redeemer: He was the faithful lover of Marpessa, whom Apollo sought as a trifle. He alone prevailed against the gods. His lady was not tempted, for she loved Idas and was wise enough to know that gods were rarely true or kind to mortal women, but they both feared that the god would not leave them in peace. So great was his love and bravery that Idas dared to challenge mighty Apollo to combat for honor, and Zeus feared the disgrace of all the gods if the mortal man prevailed or if the god resorted to treachery to best him. For the first and only time, the King of Heaven pledged to honor the choice of a mortal woman between god or man. The true mortal rightly received his bride, and Zeus was forced to swear that the gods would trouble them no more.

 

Mestra the Maiden: She was the daughter of Erysichthon the Hungry, whom even the Myrmidons count most justly accursed, yet the punishment of the gods caused more woe to her than the sinful King. Consumed from within by Limos, the Demon of Famine, her father became a deathless ghoul who devoured the harvest of his kingdom, and all the food his wealth would buy, and finally his own servants. He at last threatened to consume Mestra if she did not bring him food. To escape him, she agreed to be sold as bride to six master even crueler in exchange for a ship full of food. Her suitors thought to cheat the king with moldering bread, diseased livestock, putrid meat, poisonous fruit, bitter herbs and ancient bones. Each time, her father consumed the offering in a day, while she escaped with her power to change shape and returned to be sold again, and when her husbands pursued her, the ghoul devoured them as well. Her seventh suitor was Autolycos, master of thieves. To him, she revealed that her father could not look upon his own reflection. Mestra lured the ghoul into a chamber lined with mirrors, and the gallant thief sealed him in. Trapped, the wicked king consumed himself, and the Maiden became Autolycos’ lady and partner. She is held up as an example of the virtue of fulfilling all oaths and the bonds of family, even to the unworthy, but her marriage is a byword for a bargain made in desperation and bad faith, to no benefit.

 

Orestes the Avenger: He was the heir and avenger of Agamemnon, whom Aegisthus slew for his throne and the favor of his faithless queen Clytemenstra. Orestes slew the usurper, but for presuming to slay his king, the gods sent visions of the Furies to torment him to madness. Against the specters he alone could see, he raged and flailed, until he dealt a mortal wound to his sister Electra, believing her a Fury in a mortal guise. He then prepared to murder his mother, who confessed that his father was not Agamemnon but Aegisthus whom he had killed, and then slew herself instead. At the last, he swore that the gods were not gods if they would drive men to greater evil for a sin made in ignorance and madness. Only then did the Furies disappear from his sight, never to return.

 

Palamedes the Diviner: He was a wise king and commander in the war against Troy. Of the great heroes, he alone was wronged by men and not by the gods. Among his many deeds, he invented the dice, and in so doing learned much of the ways of Fortune and Fate, which are greater than the so-called gods. It is said those who rolled against him came to mistrust him and resent the debts they owed. It was perhaps for this reason that he came to be accused of treason and spying, and finally charged based on a letter many held to be forged by his chief enemy, the famed Odysseus. He submitted his doom, proclaiming that his own fortune had been cast, and some say it was this injustice that led to the disastrous voyage of Odysseus.

 

Sisyphus the Truth-Teller: He was the founder and king of Corinth, and judged the most cunning of all men. He brought riches to his city by his dealings, which some said were gained by murder and treachery against his guests. But others told that he could tell no lie nor break any promise, but could by omission and incomplete truths deceive more completely than the most brazen liar. It was even said that he escaped Death and Hades by his trickery. The greatest test came when an enemy of Zeus sought a hiding place where the god had taken a damsel, and Sisyphus gave witness against the King of Heaven, revealing what he knew of a secret place he had seen the god enter. Some say that for this, he was punished to an eternity of hard and futile labor, others that he defied the gods in the knowledge of the doom that already awaited him.

The Horrible Horror Vault: The one with Emily Blunt

 

 

Title: Wind Chill

What Year?: 2007

Classification: Mashup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

As I write this, I’ve been going back through some movies I previously put in the vast “maybe” pile, particularly ones I watched through the Jurassic rent-by-mail service that is publicly shutting down shortly. That gave me an epiphany just how many films there are that I probably wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of watching if my choices had been to stream or buy them outright. This, in turn, brought me back to what just might be a definitive example. It’s an odd film that came on my radar because of the participation of someone whose profile has risen since, which I have still never seen spontaneously mentioned by anyone else, and it happens to fall right in the post-2000 horror category I have been covering since I revived this feature. I present Wind Chill, and even by my standards, it is odd.

Our story begins with a guy and a girl (with no other names) who have just gotten out of college for Christmas. They apparently know each other just well enough for the girl to accept a ride from the guy, which isn’t actually going to lead to that kind of horror film. Things do start to go wrong when the guy tries to take a scenic shortcut, only to be run off the road by a mysterious car that doesn’t seem to leave any tracks on the snow-covered road. The pair face a night of isolation in the wilderness as temperatures drop, and the girl soon discovers the guy hasn’t told her his full story. But any creepiness on the guy’s part takes a back seat as mysterious figures and strange visions begin to appear. The girl soon realizes that they are only the latest of many to be trapped on this road, and the passers-by are the victims of a nasty ghost who started it all. Can they fight back against the undead? Or is it all in their heads? Either way, it’s cold outside, and this is definitely the kind of horror film where nobody is sure to come out alive!

Wind Chill is a 2007 British/ American supernatural/ psychological horror film directed by Gregory Jacobs, known as a veteran assistant director on films including Nightmare On Elm Street 6. The film was a coproduction of Tristar, the British company Blueprint Pictures and Section Eight Productions, the last associated with George Clooney. Filming took place in Vancouver and other locations in western Canada (which is “America”…) in 2006.  The film starred the British actress Emily Blunt (see A Quiet Place) and American Ashton Homes as the unnamed girl and guy, with veteran character Ned Bellamy (Mystery Men) as a would-be rescuer. The film received a limited US theatrical release and subsequent DVD releases in 2007, coinciding with appearances by Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada and Sunshine Cleaning. The film received mixed reviews. It is currently available for digital purchase or rental on VUDU.

For my experiences, this is one that I watched within the last year and gave some consideration for my No Good Very Bad Movies feature, which was not in itself ignominious distinction. By all my recollections, the reason I passed over it at that point was that it didn’t really stand out from many, many other contenders good and bad. (I suppose Frozen and High Tension ended up representing the respective extremes for the current millennium.) With further reflection, what does set it apart is just how unknown this one is for a modern film with a significant star, in those terms a plausible challenger to Two Evil Eyes as the most truly and unaccountably obscure film I have reviewed. Another potential distinction is that it is very much a mashup, specifically of the different varieties of horror. It is usually counted as supernatural horror, but I find it more like “survival horror” with either psychological or supernatural elements. The paradox is that I have found it difficult to say if that should be counted as a nuance in its favor or simply as being too timid to pick a line. On that among other things, the viewing for this review did not really help.

Moving forward, the things the film has going for it come down to good cinematography and camera work and predictably good acting. On the first point, the film’s visual vocabulary speaks for itself: The wilderness shots are utterly forbidding, with little if any romanticism of nature, while the interior scenes are claustrophobic without exaggerated melodrama. On the latter front, it’s striking that Blunt never simply upstages the other lead or anyone else. As things move along, there is a real building of rapport in spite of multiple revelations that clearly give the lady reason to question the guy’s intentions. What is genuinely unconventional is that the survival situation never becomes a projection of the “relationship”. It becomes clear that the guy is misguided to put it mildly, but the film never asks the viewer to invest in his redemption or demonization. What we see is a flake who doesn’t deserve his fate any more than a happy ending. If there’s a problem, it’s that we are still given more reason to sympathize with him than the heroine who is clearly slated to survive.

That leaves the ghosts, and this is where things get hit or miss. The first few appearances of the phantoms are very effective, but this is to be expected given the noted high standards in play. When the film tries to build on this early moments with effects and gore, it becomes a literal case of “too much and not enough”. The makeup is more convincing and effective on the specters that are clearly intended to look like regular people, and the occasional attempts at jump scares are bluntly telegraphed. The best moments all come from the very bad ghost cop, who transforms by increments from a jerk to an animistic god-demon that seems to personify the cold. Where the story cops out early is that it stretches “ambiguity” to whether the living characters are doing anything but freezing in the car, which spoils the narrative stakes of what would be the most effective moments of the film (especially the death of Bellamy’s character). Something also has to be said about the rating, which is upped to R for absolutely no comprehensible reason. (It’s all the more enraging given what “’70s PG” horror films like Tourist Trap got away with.) There can be little doubt that this was a case where the filmmakers were going for PG-13, and it’s hard to imagine anything that could have placated the ratings police after such an arbitrary verdict. However, there are certainly ways this could have been better if they had gone back and tried to “earn” the rating outright.

That leaves the “one scene”, and this is yet another time I returned the disc before I got this far. Fortunately, there’s one particular scene I thought of several times in the course of this review, which is the appearance of the villain. Partway through, the pair are still thinking of their misadventure as waiting for help while a few odd characters pass by. They are relieved when someone knocks on the window, and we see a smiling patrolman. The lady in particular is immediately relieved, but the cop goes right into a spiel like they are a couple he caught making out, with all the grotesque implications that implies. The pair still take this at face value and scramble to get some pocket money together. Then, in a questionable decision even for a horror movie damsel, the lady leaves the car to deliver the bribe, aside from anything else ignoring his strong insinuations that what he wants isn’t money. I admit I don’t recall exactly what happens from here, but it is an effective sequence that gets more intriguing on cross-examination. Is this a Sixth Sense deal where the ghost still thinks he’s alive? Is he acting out his former misdeeds before moving in for the kill? Or is this already a hallucination or completely visionary experience? It’s the kind of thing that makes a film like this fascinating, but it’s the most conspicuous point where this would have been better without any tomfoolery about what’s “real”.

In closing, I come in my usual course to the rating. I have to say that this is one time where the rating I give is exactly what I planned on before and after. This certainly isn’t a “bad” film, and it definitely deserves to be a lot better known. But it remains very much a “middle of the road” movie, in large part by its own choices, and in those terms it can be more frustrating than a more seriously flawed but ambitious film like Two Evil Eyes or Dead Heat. (Yeah, I need to do something about Treat Williams.) The bottom line, they tried, they did okay and then they went on to better things. That’s good enough for me to finish on a high note. Onward and upward!

Robot Revolution: The one that's the good Transformers movie

 

 

Title: Bumblebee aka Transformers: Bumblebee

What Year?: 2018

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

As I write this, my channels have been a bit quiet, enough that the biggest news is a new entry in a franchise everyone has been saying they want to end but won’t stop putting money into. It also happens that I had been considering one particular entry for my semi-randomized survey of robot films. Without further preamble, I’m diving in. Here’s Bumblebee, the Transformers movie people actually liked, and as far as I’m concerned, the only other entry worth any attention was the one with Orson Welles as the Death Star.

Our story begins with the fall of the world of Cybertron to the Decepticons, during which the heroic Bumblebee escapes to Earth. That leads to a three-way fight with a Decepticon and a persistent military man, in which the sympathetic bot’s voice box is disabled. He goes to ground as a piece-of-kaka VW Beetle in what turns out to be the actual 1980s time frame of the original franchise. He finds a friend in a spunky teenage girl named Charlie who tries fixing up the Bug and is surprisingly cool with both discovering a robot from an alien civilization and legally owning a sentient AI. Soon, they bond over Eighties pop culture, and Charlie opens up about her actually moving tragic backstory. But the Decepticons are closing in, aided by a fair-weather alliance with the military over our military man’s objections. Robots will fight, character will be built, and cliches will actually be used effectively. And to quote/ rip off Brandon’s Cult Movies, congratulations, your toys sold well enough for you to live!

Bumblebee was a 2018 science fiction/ drama film directed by Travis Knight, previously known for animated films including Kubo, from a script by Christina Hodson.  It was the 6^th film in the live-action Transformers franchise by producer Michael Bay, and considered a prequel to the preceding films. The film starred Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie and Angela Bassett as the voice of the villainess Shatter, with John Cena and John Ortiz as the government men. Other voice cast included Justin Theroux as the hench-bot Dropkick and Peter Cullen in a limited role as Optimus Prime. The film was a commercial success, earning $468 million worldwide against a $135M budget, and was well-received by critics and fans as the best entry in the franchise. A direct sequel has reportedly been in development. In June 2023, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was released as a second authorized prequel, without the involvement of Steinfeld or other cast and characters from Bumblebee.

For my experiences, I have already gotten a lot of ranting about Transformers out of my system with toy blogging and my review of the animated film (see also the Gobots movie…). The bottom line has always been that I liked the idea of the Transformers better than the toys, and I clean missed out on any incarnation of the TV franchise. When it comes to films, the 1986 cartoon had enough sheer weirdness to impress me, and the original live-action film was good enough for a viewing or so. After that, I completely bailed on the cinematic franchise until the present film came along. I saw it in theaters, and it earned what was for me somewhat grudging respect. In the time since, I’ve given it a fair number of repeat viewings, which if anything have improved my opinion. Saying it’s the best Transformers movie may be an easy joke, but this is far more; it’s one of the best recent treatments of robotics/ artificial intelligence to come out of what can still be considered the “mainstream” studio system. In those terms, the only other films to appear here that even suggest themselves for comparison are M3GAN and Robot and Frank, and those already set the bar very high indeed.

Moving forward, the one thing to get out of the way is that mustering goodwill for this one is going to require a high tolerance for both the franchise assumed mythology and general 1980s pop culture. The latter is where the “mainstream” description starts to feel like a “con” rather than a “pro” (also an admitted issue with Robot And Frank). What the film has going for it is a feel of sincerity rather than, or at least in addition to, the presumption of nostalgia that will definitely be hit or miss for people like me who were actually around in the Eighties. The bots are allowed to be truly good and very evil, and their battles see victories and defeats for both sides throughout the movie. It’s of further note that the stop-motion veteran director knows how to portray the bots in real-world environments in ways that make it clear who they are and who’s winning. The humans are the weaker element, but for once, it’s not because they are an underwritten afterthought. The problem is that there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, a fact that is amplified by the frequent references and inside jokes. The payoff is that we can actually get to like these characters far more as the story goes along. The standout to me is Ortiz, a prolific character actor in a typically disposable role, whose character by any fair appraisal proves himself by far the most intelligent here without considering that he’s applying the rules of chess to a rugby match.

Meanwhile, the thing that has to be talked about for this feature in particular is Bumblebee himself, an absolutely first-rate “sympathetic” bot. Again, it’s especially noteworthy that this is done with an animator in the director’s chair (and a woman as writer to boot), and the character shows everything that can be brought to the table: He has distinctive features, mannerisms and an expressive face. The most interesting part of the setup is his lack of speech, which to me could have been all the more intriguing if it was a permanent part of his personality rather than a posited physical (mechanical???) injury. (On the gruesome side, aphasia is a very real problem for victims of major head trauma…) The results are a little hit or miss, with a high proportion of cutesy pratfalls and still more pop-culture references. In form for the film, the premise gets fully developed into what becomes a thoughtful portrayal of nonverbal/ preverbal intelligence. It’s especially striking to see the bot contextualize music and audio snippets to express himself and draw out his human counterpart. For that matter, there’s dark irony in the further contrast with the highly articulate and very anthropomorphic villainess, who proves that familiarity in no way reduces menace.

That leaves the “one scene”, and this is a rare case of a scene that upped the rating. Partway through, Charlie ends up at a beach party where someone brings up the established backstory that she was once on the school diving team. When one of the jerks takes a dive that would definitely not be safe if you don’t happen to have a topographical map, the gathered kids cheer for Charlie to do the same. The parked Transformer joins in, bumping her with an open door and playing an egregious track from the animated film. We get all the Eighties movie buildup as the spunky heroine goes to the edge… and then walks right back. It’s a calculated anticlimax, and what impressed me enough to raise my opinion of the whole movie is that this is contextualized as Charlie absolutely in the right. It’s a moment that proves a film can both use cliches and subvert them effectively. It’s just right to bring this one from 3 to a (kind of) perfect 4.

In closing, this is a case where I’ve already covered everything, for once including the rating. Enough time has passed to say that this is not a “great” movie, but it would not be at all surprising if the next five to ten years sees it hailed as a “classic”, which has certainly not been the case with any other live-action incarnation of the franchise. On its own, it might be no more or less than “pretty good”, but after what came before, it’s the kind of film where just being adequate would be enough for a seasoned viewer to kiss the ground. Sometimes, you have to take what you can get, and fortunately, this is one that more than delivers. My highest compliment is that I’m glad to have gotten to it. “I’ve got better things to do tonight than die!”