Midnight Movie of the Week #195 - The Shining

One of the biggest challenges I face as a guy who writes these kind of things is coming up with something new to say about movies that have been dissected for ages by smarter and wiser folks than I. I get excited when I have the chance to share my love for an obscure and/or less-respected film, because it's easier for me to develop a personal connection with that movie and I feel like I'm accomplishing something when I start to talk about that movie. But, when I start talking about a movie I love that everyone else loves I can sometimes get intimidated. Some movies are so widely loved that it really does feel like there's nothing left to discuss about them.

One such movie is The Shining, which I've wanted to add to the Midnight Movie of the Week pile for ages yet have always been afraid to write about. And when I sat down with the newly released documentary Room 237 this week, I became completely aware of something I'd always assumed to be true - The Shining has been devoured by more intellectuals than any other horror movie ever made.

The good thing is that Room 237 gave me something of a cheat sheet for thinking about The Shining, though the effect it had on me is not the effect that was intended by many of the contributors to that film. For those who are not familiar with the documentary, Room 237 is explained in subtitle as "Being an inquiry into THE SHINING in 9 parts" and is in actuality filmmaker Rodney Ascher's mash-up of theories about Stanley Kubrick's horror film. That sounds like a boring idea for a movie - until you realize just how entertaining some of the crazy theories about The Shining that are floating around out there are.

Ascher took a very simple approach to making his film - he went out and found a few well-spoken, intelligent people who had spent too much time analyzing The Shining, and then he let them share their opinions and theories. The results are as wildly entertaining as Kubrick's film itself, because these commentators turn The Shining into everything from a metaphor for the destruction of native American races (which seems slightly plausible) to an admission that Kubrick helped fake the moon landing (which seems bat-stuff crazy). The ideas expressed within Room 237 can seem very ridiculous, which is exactly why the film becomes so engrossing, even when it seems that the "proof" behind most of the theories is "Kubrick was really smart and there's no way he didn't mean something with every detail."  (I don't buy in to that mindset, but I like that people have it.)

While the ideas of the people in Room 237 seem like poppycock, the fact that people actually spent the time thinking about them and have convinced themselves to believe in them is terrifically exciting. As a film nerd I've always believed there's a great value in being able to come up with your own ideas about the movie you're watching, and that any movie that will inspire you to reconsider its reality is a movie worth talking about. And that matters, even if you're wrong about the movie. As a writer, I admit to often pitching my own perceptions of a movie and making assumptions about a film's meaning - that's essentially what film commentary is - and I love the idea that these people are out there obsessing this strongly over a film like The Shining.

Room 237 does not explain The Shining. I want that to be clear and - judging by the disclaimer at the beginning of the film and twice on the DVD packaging - Ascher wants that to be clear too. But Room 237 does perfectly explain why The Shining is such a memorable film. Kubrick turned Stephen King's novel into a nightmare, and the result is the kind of lucid dream that someone might have after they read the novel. It isn't true to the page and it doesn't always make sense and - just like a great nightmare - it leaves itself open to interpretation.

I've seen The Shining dozens of times, and I'm still not sure what my interpretation of the film is. Maybe Jack Torrance was just a crazy guy and the final shot was Kubrick's way of messing with the audience. Maybe it was just a parable about being stuck in purgatory and how parents drag their children to Hell with them. Maybe it's just an excuse to axe Scatman Crothers in the gut. I don't know. But, like the people in Room 237, I love thinking about it. I love talking about it. And now, thanks to Room 237, I'm excited to watch it one more time and to re-live that impossible nightmare known as The Shining.

My Amityville Horror

(2012, Dir. by Eric Walter.)

When I was a kid, I was once in the middle of an earthquake. It's hard to believe that I, a mid-Iowan farm boy, could have been caught up in an earthquake in my natural habitat - only 13 earthquakes have ever been recorded in the state, and none within a three county radius or a 15 year time span of my childhood - but I remember it vividly.

Well, actually, I remember my parents telling my sister and I that there was an earthquake after a glass that my sister was holding fell and broke. What actually happened, as far as I assume, is that my younger sister dropped the glass, which shattered and made her cry like a little girl. (In fairness, she was.) My parents, trying to shut her up, told us that there was an earthquake and that was why she dropped the glass.  And we bought it. Or at least I did, I think. Heck, maybe this never even happened. Maybe I dreamed it and just assumed it was real. I don't know. I was a kid.

So when I consider how gullible I was as a kid and/or how my memory may be playing tricks on me, it makes me naturally skeptical about My Amityville Horror, a new documentary that revisits one of America's most notorious hauntings through the memory of a childhood survivor. Daniel Lutz, the son of Kathy and the adopted son of George Lutz, was the oldest of three children living in the infamous house, and now he's the guy telling us about his life and his childhood experiences at 112 Ocean Avenue.

Daniel Lutz, now in his 40s and working for UPS in California, comes off as a volatile man with that stereotypical "New York" accent and attitude, and his distaste for any doubt of his story would probably make him mad at this reviewer already.  While it seems like I'm making light of Daniel's story by pointing out that children are a) susceptible to manipulation and b) not the most trustworthy folks at remembering things, I don't mean to condemn the person as much as I want to cast doubt on our faith in human memory. There's a reason why most Psychology professors and doctors and generally smart people will tell you that eyewitness testimony isn't generally reliable - because it's not.

Horror hounds might find themselves a little bored with the early stories told by Daniel in this documentary, as they seem to follow the events we've seen immortalized in print and on film far too closely. Who's to say that Daniel's memory hasn't been influenced by the public versions of what happened inside his childhood home?  Some of the second hand accounts of other peoples' experiences and the experiences of the few people involved that are left - mainly a former TV investigator and an elderly woman with connections to the supernatural - corroborate Daniel's story, but it's hard to really buy in to new accounts from 35 year old memories, especially when they are based in the supernatural.

Despite all of the reasons to be skeptical, it's actually pretty darn fascinating to see what has become of Daniel Lutz.  I don't know if what he says happened is what actually happened, but I am certain that Daniel Lutz believes that it happened. At the same time, the character is most fascinating when he talks about his relationship with George Lutz, who we all are still afraid of thanks to James Brolin, and there's a lot to read into when it comes to Daniel's hatred of his stepfather.  What we think about Daniel Lutz is immaterial, because the story that Daniel tells is told with such frank honesty.

Though I'm cautious about the implications of My Amityville Horror - which insists that a story that was generally debunked 30 years ago might still be true based on testimony of a child - I still found myself enamored with how it told its story. The production slickly moves between reminders of the events in the Amityville house and accounts of Daniel Lutz' life since then, and it's easy to feel sympathy toward a man who's had to deal with something - whether it's supernatural or criminal - of this magnitude for most of his life. My Amityville Horror inspired a lot of internal debate within me, but that added perspective on The Amityville Horror is more than welcome.

I may not believe the Amityville story is true, but I'll listen to Daniel Lutz talk about it just in case.  If you're interested in the book, the film, or just hauntings in general, you'll probably be interested in hearing his story too.

FMWL Indie Spotlight - The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features

(2012, Dir. by Strephon Taylor.)

There's this picture that I've seen several times on this here internet that has always spoken to me. I never bothered to look into the backstory of said picture.  In fact, I think I once knew who the man in the picture was and why it was taken, but I think I mentally blocked myself from retaining that information.  I mean, the picture was so cool - so why did I need to know why it was so cool?  Anyway, the picture looked like this:

So yeah. That's an awesome picture. And for me, the picture was awesome because I looked at that catchphrase written on that oval backdrop, and I just smiled.  I'm a dude who loves horror movies (I really hope you knew that by now, if not....SURPRISE!), and I love the idea that watching horror movies builds up a person's resolve.  Perhaps it's a childish belief, and perhaps it could be said that a dedicated conviction to any hobby could build a person's resolve - but I still kind of love it.  And the guy looks like a perfect time capsule back to a simpler time in horror, and I loved that too.  Yet I never really looked into who this guy was.

Anyway, my computer tells me that it was September of 2010 when I downloaded this picture that I thought was awesome.  And it was just about two weeks ago that a guy named Strephon Taylor contacted me about a DVD produced by November Fire called The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features.  I've been pretty worn out by work lately and also playing too many video games when I'm coming home like a zombie and it's been hard to keep up with emails, but I skimmed the dude's email and saw that this was a documentary about a horror host of days gone by and I was like "Oh, cool, I want to see that!" because I love horror hosts.  And then the DVD showed up and I looked at the insanely cool packaging (more on that in a bit) and I was like "Hey....that's the guy from the picture!"

So yeah, long story short (TOO LATE!) - the guy in this picture that I've loved is a horror host named Bob Wilkins. And I didn't even make that connection, ever, until this friggin' DVD showed up on my doorstep. The point of the story? I am a big honkin' doofus!

Now that my history (or lack thereof) with Mr. Wilkins' work has been detailed in painstakingly silly detail, let's talk about the man himself. As I quickly learned from the press release when I re-read it after realizing I am a doofus and the description on this DVD package, Bob Wilkins hosted horror movies on three television stations in California from 1966 to 1981, a fifteen year run that included more than 1800 movies.  Wearing nothing more than a suit and some very distinguished glasses, Wilkins made his name by being a straight shooter about the movies he was showing - which basically means that he told the audience when the film stunk - and by showing up to work a lot of times with a lot of movies.

Proclaiming that it covers every one of those movies that Wilkins hosted, the first reaction that I had to The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features was the feeling of being overwhelmed.  The format of a film is less like a traditional documentary and more like an ad reel for what Wilkins represented.  The first thing that captured my eyes was the "ticker", of sorts, at the bottom of the screen, which scrolled through the entire documentary and listed the film or films that were shown on every single Bob Wilkins hosted show.  The folks at November Fire boast that "you definitely will not catch it all on a single viewing", and this ticker alone makes their claim accurate. As these dates and titles are being shown on screen the rest of the screen is throwing tons of information at us, and there's no way I saw everything there was to see.

For most of the film, one of the comic book-esque panels on the screen shows vintage artwork for a film being mentioned or artwork from Wilkins' show.  At the same time, the majority of the screen speeds through a collection of interviews with Wilkins, footage from his shows, and trailers of the films he covers.  There is no narrator or host, and there are very few telling interviews with anyone but Wilkins, who is only featured in retrospective footage briefly throughout the film.  The most lengthy interviews are transferred from his past shows, showing off the host's interactions with stars.  

These interviews are also few and far between, but all fantastic and interesting in their own way.  Christopher Lee and John Carradine represent the classic horror scene, while a sequence with John Landis, John Belushi and Donald Sutherland talking about Animal House and their other projects of the time is completely bizarre. (At one macabre point, a potentially stoned Belushi even jokes quietly about his impending horrible death.)  Perhaps the best piece of vintage Wilkins material in the film is an interview with Blacula star William Marshall, which shows off the host's ability to work with an actor, discussing the serious tone of the film in question and how it relates to different races.  The film notes early that Wilkins didn't always care for or have a ton of knowledge about the films he was showing - and that he faced some criticism for suggesting viewers change the channel at times - but each of this interviews show the man as a respectful host and a quick thinker in conversation.

The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features is certainly marketed to a complete genre nut or a prospective horror scholar, but I imagine some will find the product slightly disappointing.  The use of film trailers seems a lot like filler at times, and I felt like there were a few gaps where the only information relevant to Wilkins and his journey in horror was the list of titles that kept showing up on the bottom of the screen.  There's a lot of good information about Wilkins and his show throughout the film, but I at times felt like the amount of material was a little slim for an 87 minute documentary.

Thankfully, I am one of those genre nuts, so I wasn't too put off by interludes that showed off the films Wilkins hosted.  Like most good documentaries about those in the film industry, I was left with a list of movies I wanted to watch or re-watch and plenty of reminders as to why I love movies.  But most importantly, the work of Bob Wilkins that is shown here reminds me why I love spreading the word about horror cinema to all you people out there.  Bob Wilkins was a trailblazer in horror cinema, and The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features seems like the perfect way for horror fans to experience his unique place in horror history.  

If you're interested in checking out The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features, head on over to November Fire or pick up the disc at Amazon.com.  On the topic of the DVD, I should note that fans of Wilkins should love the fantastic packaging job that November Fire has done here.  The colorful cover shown at the top of this post is complemented on the cardboard packaging by a reproduction of a "Creature Feature Fan Club" membership card featuring Wilkins and a certificate that denotes membership in a Creature Feature Freak Fan Club.  The latter comes with an honest comment that Wilkins signed off on, which I will reproduce below as an example of Wilkins' fantastic persona.

KTVU Channel 2 appreciates your loyal support and contribution

in making Horror, Fantasy, and Monster Movies an important part

of the American Way of Life. Bob Wilkins, Channel 2, the economy,

and our nation thank you. Your continued viewing of these movies on

Saturday nights will Help Keep America Strong.

                                                                                                 - Bob Wilkins

I'd sign my name to that club any day of the week.

FMWL Indie Spotlight - Screaming in High Heels

(2012, Dir. by Jason Paul Collum.)

The three women who are profiled in Screaming in High Heels - Brinke Stevens, Linnea Quigley, and Michelle Bauer - certainly have a special place in the history of smutty b-cinema.  The majority of their films - things like Nightmare Sisters, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama - are not what I was expecting when I became a horror fan after watching things like The Phantom of the Opera, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Blob.  So I've always found their slice of the horror pie - the one filled with direct-to-VHS titles that generally offered great nudity and terrible storytelling - to be a strange one.

For those who weren't around in the '80s, Screaming in High Heels documents who these women are and how they got here, but it also spends much of its time (perhaps too much) trying to justify why these movies were necessary and how these movies were so great.  There's an incredible bias on display, as the few people interviewed are directors and actors who worked on the films headlined by the three women, and some of these men seem a little too excited about their work.  There's a loving tone, to be sure, but the amount of superlatives thrown around makes it really hard to really believe that these guys are offering a fair assessment of a subgenre they made a living in.

(I do not intend to debate whether or not these men are right or wrong about the value of their films.  Where there's a niche, there's value in a product.  My thoughts on these films - most of which I am not acquainted with - is a different story for a different day.)

The heart of this documentary - as the title suggests - is the three women who headlined this era.  Each of the actresses appears and is frank and candid about their experiences, for the most part. (Though, I did think it was a little weird when Brinke Stevens explained how "she studied SCIENCE" and she came to LA "to get a job IN SCIENCE" like she was a bad sci-fi character. An area of specialty might have made her story more palpable.)  Bauer, who has distanced herself from acting more than the others, is the most down to Earth and accessible of the the three queens, while Quigley and Stevens seem to still fit perfectly with the image they represented in their heyday.  In each case, it's easy to see the intrigue each actress offered to their films (which is not just their willingness to get naked, of course).

The trouble with Screaming in High Heels, on the whole, is that there's just not a lot of intrigue outside of a few tidbits in interviews that perk your ears.  Unlike more accomplished genre docs - like the amazing Corman's World, which I covered earlier this year - the scope of this film is very limited.  We get the opinions of the three stars and a half dozen folks who worked with them - and that's it.  I suppose the argument could be made that this doc, like the film's its talking about, should be held to a much lesser standard than more financially sound productions, but it still feels like there's a lack of outside perspective.  Instead of fans and critics talking about these actresses and filmmakers, we get these actresses and filmmakers talking about fans and critics.  There's talk about families of the involved, but no actual talk with the families of those involved. Things like this hurt my interest in the film, and left me a little bored at times.

If you don't know much about these women and these films, and want to learn what they were about in their own words, Screaming in High Heels should interest you.  Just be prepared for a rather slight and one-sided look at these films.  The low retail price of the disc compared to other releases seems to reflect the short (it's barely an hour long) and sweet approach to the production. On the other hand, fans of these films and stars probably aren't going to learn a lot from Screaming in High Heels.  To me it feels more like a DVD extra than a full length documentary, because it doesn't dig deep enough to really cover a wide berth of topics regarding this movement in genre film.

Screaming in High Heels will be out on DVD on August 28th, and is worth at least a rental to those interested in learning about the best of '80s sleaze scream queens.  Horror buffs will probably enjoy the interviews, but might feel like they already know a lot of what's being said.  Still, this one's probably worth a rental.

Popatopolis

(2009, Dir. by Clay Westervelt.)

You know you're a b-movie nerd when you find yourself immensely fascinated by the chance to watch Jim Wynorski at work. I've never given much thought to what it's like on a Martin Scorsese set or pondered how much work gets done in a day by Quentin Tarantino. But when I heard about Popatopolis - a documentary that follows Jim Wynorski through the filming of a b-movie - I was instantly intrigued.

I've written a little bit about my experience with Wynorski in the past, but here's a recap. When I was a wee The Mike, Wynorski's The Return of Swamp Thing was one of my favorite things in the world.  That was my first Wynorski experience, so imagine my surprise when a much older The Mike decided to give Cheerleader Massacre - which looked like a cheesy slasher from the outside - a chance based on Wynorski's name.  The gap in both style and substance between the goofy and fun '80s flick and the poorly constructed, z-grade slasher with a softcore sex scene in the middle was gigantic as can be.  (And that's considering how little style and substance something like The Return of Swamp Thing has.)

My studies of Wynorski moved backwards to campy '80s goodness like Not of this Earth and Chopping Mall - and I seriously had a conversation yesterday with someone about Chopping Mall being one of the 100 best movies ever - so it was another sharp contrast when I jumped into this documentary, which follows the director as he makes his 2005 opus The Witches of Breastwick - and does so in three days.  The film follows Wynorski and his cast - which consists of a bunch of girls who are willing to "pop their tops" and one dude - while also interviewing some b-movie icons like Roger Corman, Julie Strain, and Andy Sidaris - about Wynorski's work.  The disconnect that I felt is certainly present in this movie, too.

In fact, the most interesting thing about the documentary to me is when the people around Wynorski - primarily actress Julie K. Smith, who seems like that one person in a group of friends who is smart and likes everyone but just can't stop gossiping about stuff - start to question the director for "settling" into these softcore thrillers instead of making drive-in-style films like Chopping Mall or Swamp Thing anymore.  Many of the actresses interviewed - like adult film star Stormy Daniels, who seems to have no understanding of where she's at while making her first "mainstream" movie (though she did go on to appear in both The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, which is probably proof that Judd Apatow likes porn - don't have a lot to add to Wynorski's story and are just in the film because they happen to be in this softcore film. But Smith and Wynorski alumnus Strain, have a lot of interesting things to say about where Wynorski is at this point in his career and how the man works.

Another interesting, if not sad, twist occurs when the filmmakers interview the 55 year old Wynorski's mother, who talks about how little she knows about his films and how she saw Chopping Mall and doesn't understand why there had to be a naked scene in it.  The filmmaker seems to be making another comment about Wynorski's choice of genres at this stage in his career.  I haven't done all the research, but I'm willing to bet that the majority of Wynorski's 90 films have some female breasts in them, but titles like The Bare Wench Project, The Witches of Breastwick and the more recent Cleavagefield (you get bonus points for that pun, Jim) leave little doubt about what the director's intentions are.  And yet, here we are, talking to his 75-80 year old mother, about what kind of sweet boy he was and how he warns her not to watch his movies because she won't like them.  It's more than a bit awkward.

Popatopolis almost makes a joke out of Wynorski - Smith probably gets the biggest positive rub from the film, even though I get the feeling that the actress tries really hard to come off as a pair of tits with a heart of gold - but as we see him at work we get the feeling that there's more to the director than his half-hearted boob films.  The Jim Wynorski we see on set of this throwaway film is a passionate director who cares about what he's making and seems determined to overcome terrible odds to get his film done.  In a way, Wynorski reminds me of every day challenges where we have to buckle up, admit that we can't make everything perfect, and just fight to get the best out of the resources we have.

I've made a bunch of assumptions about a bunch of real people in this review, and I mean none of them as disrespect.  The corner of b-moviedom that hosts Jim Wynorski is just as valid to me as any other, and I'll gladly sit down with more from the director (probably from his early years, but I'm not too discriminatory) any time.  It's just that Popatopolis pulls back the curtain that I was already wondering about (Curse you, Cheerleader Massacre! You didn't even have cheerleader outfits in that movie!) and got me in that same kind of loving gossiper mode that Smith seemed to enjoy.  For better or worse, Jim Wynorski has done some cool stuff for b-movies, and Popatopolis helped my clear up my perspective on the director in plenty of ways.

If you wanna check out Popatopolis, I encourage you to use that Instant Netflix thingy and check it out.  It'll take 75 minutes of your life and - if nothing else - remind you of a few cool '80s flicks and show you some chests.  If you're like me, you might get even more out of it too.

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

(2011, Dir. by Alex Stapleton.)

Is it weird if a movie that almost drives me to tears is a documentary about a filmmaker?  It's probably weird.  But when the movie's about the legendary "schlockmeister" Roger Corman, it's a fact of life to the genre film freak.

I've craved Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel ever since I first heard of the production, and the final product - released on DVD/Blu-Ray this week - does not disappoint one bit.  It appears to be just a collection of clips and interviews at first glance,  but anyone who knows anything about the infamous filmmaker will quickly find themselves falling in love with the film.

For those who don't know much about Roger Corman, the list of Hollywood stars/filmmakers that are interviewed for the film might send a mixed message.  Actors like Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro or directors like Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich generally have their names associated with critically acclaimed and award-winning cinema fare, but it's their connection to the world of the ultimate low-budget filmmaker that brings them here.

To put Corman in perspective, consider this. As I type this, a look at Roger Corman's filmography says that the man has produced 401 movies.  If you peruse the IMDB, you'll find that only FIVE of those films have been given an average ranking better than 7/10 by IMDB users.  Though IMDB ratings are pretty far from being valid data, you'd be right to assume that critical acclaim and Roger Corman are two things that do not generally go together.  And yet, all of those well-regarded people listed above are "students" of what is often referred to as Corman University.  At some point in their careers, they all worked under the watchful eye of Roger Corman.

Serving as both a recap of the man's career and a tribute to his legacy, Corman's World gives plenty of airtime to people like Nicholson and filmmakers like Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show), Joe Dante (Gremlins, The 'Burbs), Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs).  The fact that these people are willing to take the time to pay tribute to the man behind what are generally regarded to be their worst films is a telling statement on just how beloved Corman is, despite his distance from what is generally respected in Hollywood. (Though one point that is repeated is probably respected in Hollywood by most - Almost all of Corman's 400 movies made their money back.)

While talking about their experiences with Corman - working on films like The Terror or Hollywood Boulevard or Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women -we get a lot of insight on just how Corman helped these future superstars get into the film business.  As is the case with mainstream viewers, some of the interviewees don't seem to "get" the appeal of Corman's films - Nicholson states at one point that Corman occasionally messed up and made a good movie, while others lovingly call him names like "The King of the Bs" despite Corman saying he hates those nicknames - yet everyone on board paints the filmmaker as a smart man, a shrewd mind, and a person who deserves the respect of those who follow him.

I think most genre geeks like myself have always understood that Corman matters, but what director Alex Stapleton has done here is spelled out why in big bright letters.  The information might not all be new - though it was definitely the first time I considered the effect the birth of the blockbuster in the '70s affected folks like Corman, and I was reminded how badly I really need to see The Intruder - but it's presented in a manner that's easy to relate to.  Corman, of course, is directly involved in front of the camera, but this is a lot more than one more dot on his resume.  It'll probably end up as one of my favorite movies released this year, simply because it does such a good job of honoring a man who deserves so much credit for what independent genre cinema is today.  I was honestly thrilled to see such a passionate picture of the man's work, and I can only hope that more people will get a chance to truly appreciate what Roger Corman means to cinema through this fine film.