Midnight Movie of the Week #184 - Mute Witness

I love being able to call a movie "Hitchcokian" almost as much as I love Hitchcock. Heck, saying a movie is Hitchcockian - which means "feels like a movie Hitchcock would approve of or make himself" in my mind - is my way of saying a movie has made it in this world. In my mind it's like Hitchcock is Roy Hobbs at the end of The Natural and I'm Bobby Savoy and the movie I get to call Hitchcockian is the Savoy Special. That's how awesome I feel when I can say it and mean it, and I don't care if that reference is nearly thirty years old and doesn't fit my blog and may be a little obscure. "Go pick me out a winner, Bobby" is one of the most uplifting movie moments of EVER, and that's how I feel about great Hitchcock clones.

Which brings us to Mute Witness, a 1994 thriller that's full of holes but has this wonderful manic energy that teams with a devilishly playful script to create something twisted that you just know would make Hitch smile. The plot revolves around a young, mute woman who is working as a special effects artist on a Russian horror film and just happens to stumble upon the filming of a snuff film. I don't want to explain what a snuff film is to you innocent readers - I didn't learn about them until I was 17 and my mom took me to see 8mm - but I don't really want you to google it either. So, I'll just go ahead and say that you need to prepare for a sex scene with a murder at the end and leave it at that. Is it uncomfortable to see that? You betcha. Does it ramp up the tension for everything that's going to follow it? Absolutely.

Considering the plot, the film could also draw a viewer's mind to Hitchcock homages made by Brian De Palma like Blow Out and Body Double. Writer/director Anthony Waller doesn't shy away from brutality and bloodletting, but at the same time the film always has that sinister charm that keeps you feeling safe while watching it. If there's one thing that sets a Hitchcock thriller apart from most other films is that there's this perfect balance where you feel in danger while also feeling like you're having fun. It's what I call the roller coaster principle, and Waller - like Hitchcock and De Palma before him - understands that principle.

The key to any good roller coaster movie is that the pace can't follow a formula. There are always going to be ups and downs, but if we get into a rhythm and start to expect them they lose their power over us. Mute Witness gets this. It starts off with a bang - the snuff filming happens way earlier than you would expect to see snuff filming in a movie - and there are a few moments after that shock where the viewer is left wondering if there are any more thrills to be had. Patience will pay off for the viewer, as the film always seems to have something new coming with the next twist.

Russian actress Marina Zudina takes the lead as Billie, the mute special effects girl, and is fantastic throughout the film. Considering the fact that her Wikipedia page discusses her aspirations to be an opera singer and her musical background, I'm going to go ahead and assume she's not mute in real life. But I would never have believed that based on the film - in fact, I've seen it 3 or 4 times and I just now made the connection that she might not be mute and now I feel kind of in shock and it's derailing this whole paragraph. Thanks to Zudina's performance - by far the most polished in the film - Billie is a fun character to be stuck in a mystery with as she comes up with some very unique (and R-rated) ways to interact with her surroundings while not speaking.

The film is also slightly infamous thanks to a cameo from a "Mystery Guest Star" who agreed to speak a handful of lines for the film as long as he wasn't mentioned in the film's advertising. As such, I have chosen not to list his name here - but I will tell you he once built a bridge and at another time used Force. You can look it up on IMDB, but to do so might spoil one of the most overly dramatic reveals in the history of movies. To say that Waller milks this star's presence for all it's worth would be a huge understatement. As the music swells around him and the camera lingers as his faces peeks out from a darkly lit car I half expected Humphrey Bogart to show up as an evil mastermind. (SPOILER ALERT: It's not Humphrey Bogart.)

Mute Witness has some problems - bad acting from the supports and a few lulls between shocks are the biggest of them - but then that sly Hitchcockian/De Palmaesque attitude shows up on the screen and it's nearly impossible to avoid being hooked. This is a high concept thriller full of surprises, a crowd pleasing film that should keep anyone who can find the fun in murder smiling. If nothing else, it should do the same thing a good roller coaster does - distract you from reality and keep you anticipating the next thrill.

Midnight Movie of the Week #170 - Frenzy

Today is the day when perhaps the greatest talent to ever write about the movies died. Roger Ebert, known to casual film fans as the thumbs up or down guy and known in critical circles as one of the most astute and knowledgeable men in the world has passed away at the age of 70. Part of me thought about pausing to pay my respects to the man - and part of me won, because I'm kind of doing that right now - because I sincerely believe that I learned as much about writing from him as I did anywhere else in this world. And then I stopped myself, realizing that the best way to honor Mr. Ebert would be to write about a movie.  Not just to write about any movie, but to write about a great movie. And when I think of great movies, I think of Hitchcock.

Which brings us to Frenzy, a film that was loved by Mr. Ebert and a film that, for our purposes, is more importantly Mr. Hitchcock's most brutal, vile, and morally reprehensible film. This is the next-to-last film the director completed before his death, and more than 40 years later it feels kind of like the director is holding up a pair of middle fingers to anyone who's ever been on his bad side. It's no secret that Hitch was always a bit devious, but this is the first time his playfully macabre sensibilities seem to be completely untethered. Ebert probably said it best in his review, saying that the film could remind us of "Psycho without the shower curtain."

After the gates of violence in cinema were flung open at the beginning of the 1970s - see Dirty Harry, Straw Dogs, or The French Connection  for proof - it appears that Hitchcock could tell that things that were once taboo to mainstream audiences were suddenly available to him. Working from a script by Sleuth and The Wicker Man scribe Anthony Shaffer, Frenzy gives the director a chance to use his "wrong man" formula in a new "adults only" manner. One one hand this is the same thing the director was doing when he was at his peak, but on the other hand it is something completely different. It's a Hitchcock film, but it's also a film that opens with a naked woman's body being fished out of a river.

My greatest memory of Frenzy is a perfect representation of the aspect that sets it apart from the rest of the man's films. A few years ago, two friends and I decided to try to watch all of Hitchcock's work. Over the next several months, we hammered through renowned films like Rear Window (my personal favorite movie ever) and obscure stuff like the romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith and even Hitchcock's short and French World War II propaganda films. And then there was Frenzy, which was at least the 18th Hitchcock film we watched. And there we were, three friends - one who had seen the film before and two who had not - watching this murder plot unfold, and suddenly I realized that the discomfort in the room was unlike that I'd felt during any of the films we had watched before.

These newcomers to Frenzy had seen Hitchcock murder women (among others in Psycho), and they had seen him do rape (most notably in Marnie), but they had never seen him bring the camera into the personal space of a murder or a rape. They had never seen him fill the screen with the chest and face of a beaten woman, with her defeated face in one corner of the screen and her exposed nipple in the other, separated only by the glistening cross around her neck. They hadn't seen the woman's face as she was choked to death. This was not what they expected of Hitchcock. It was the first time that he had gone past simply implying what was happening and had instead decided to blatantly shove it in their faces.

In a world with looser moral standards and an acceptance of brutal cinema - so, basically, the 1970s forward - I have to believe that this is what you would have seen from Alfred Hitchcock. The man took pride in every shock he could offer the viewer, he took pride in every beautiful woman that he could ogle with the camera, and he took pride in every bizarre and controversial idea he could fit into a film. Frenzy not only represents an example of what the 72-year-old director could still do to an audience in 1972, but it represents that one place in time where he had the freedoms that I assume he always wanted, even if he does retreat back into the playful cop vs. fugitive vs. killer games of his past in the second and third acts.  He doesn't bash us over the head with depravity, but he certainly earns his first R-rating.

As someone who grew up with his more popular fare, it's always been hard for me to accept Frenzy alongside some of these masterpieces. But much of my pause comes from how rare and unpolished the film is compared to those sly movies with Grant or Stewart and every beautiful woman who ever mattered in Hollywood. Yet that's exactly what makes Frenzy so appealing as counterprogramming to the rest of his work. When it comes to vile behavior and visible sleaze this is not on par with The Last House on the Left or its brethren, but it's got moments that are a lot closer to that than anything else Hitchcock has ever made. At the same time, it's a film that's made by Hitchcock - with his trademark playful moments like the potato truck predicament our killer faces late in the film - and the combination of these elements is a one of a kind experience.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #3 - Psycho

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining  Number 10 - An American Werewolf in London  Number 9 - The Thing  Number 8 - Dawn of the Dead  Number 7 - The Evil Dead  Number 6 - Night of the Living Dead  Number 5 - The Innocents  Number 4 - The Wolf Man

Psycho

(1960, Dir. by Alfred Hitchcock.)

Why It's Here:

Many of Hitchcock's films were slightly notorious in their day (actually, one of them WAS Notorious, but that's splitting hairs), but Psycho seems to be a thing of legend. (If you don't believe me, watch the movie about it this Thanksgiving.)  Groundbreaking in many ways - I love the claim that it was the first film to ever show a toilet flushing - Psycho is one of the most spoiled films in the world these days, yet it's still endlessly fascinating to film lovers everywhere.  And, for the rare viewer who can see it with a blind eye to the twist, it can still be quite shocking.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

C'mon - you know the moment. And I'm not gonna talk about it, just in case those blind eyes are reading. But man, is it good.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

If Psycho's just not sleazy enough for you, you could fast forward about 21 years and watch Brian De Palma's sinister homage, Dressed to Kill.  An all-star cast led by Michael Caine (back when he did random horror stuff) and Angie Dickinson (back when she never aged) is framed perfectly by De Palma's trademark style, and a ton of melodrama just makes the whole thing juicy and enjoyable.

What It Means To Me:

I love Hitchcock's films more than about anything in cinema, and I can't help loving his most "horror" film.  I was one of those kids that saw the movie without knowing what was coming, and I don't remember ever being so intensely involved with what was going on on the screen.  Anthony Perkins' performances as Norman Bates has long been my favorite in any film, and I can still watch Psycho any day and just be amazed by how well made it is.

Book Review - The Testament of Judith Barton by Wendy Powers & Robin McLeod

I don't think there's a more hypnotic movie than Vertigo.  Alfred Hitchcock's tale of deception and desire in a surreal San Francisco setting has kept me fascinated for most of my adult life, and would easily rank as one of my three or four favorite films.  So when I got offered the chance to check out a new take on the tale, I dropped my "Hey, I don't know how to read you guys!" defenses and jumped at the opportunity to spend more time in the film's world.

That opportunity presented itself in the form of a new novel, The Testament of Judith Barton, which is told from the perspective of the female character who is the center of attention throughout Hitchcock's film.  Let's not kid ourselves here - Jimmy Stewart is the man, but it was Kim Novak that really drew our stares. So the chance to spend more time with her got me to light up my Kindle, hanker in to my recliner (which has a Vertigo poster right above it), and start turning the pages as fast as I could.

Despite how many times I've seen Vertigo - it was enough times to write a film history term paper on it more than a decade ago, and that number's gone up since - I'm not sure I ever really thought too deeply about Judy Barton, the small town girl from Salina, Kansas who became the key ingredient in the macabre plot. (I suppose talking about Judy Barton herself is kind of a spoiler for the film, but a) her name's kind of in the title, so it's inevitable, and b) if you haven't seen Vertigo in the last 54 years, there's probably no hope for you anyway.)  In my mind, I think I believed that Judy Barton was a lost soul by the time we were introduced to her in Vertigo.  I caught the back story about who she really was and where she really came from, but she was still just a pawn in a rich white guy's plans. (More on that guy later.)

This testament leaves few stones unturned, tracing Ms. Barton back to her hometown and her childhood.  After a brief introduction set in the middle of Vertigo's dangerous plot, the authors' decision to backtrack to her teenage years surprised me, but the first act of the novel quickly won me over by creating a whole new world and a strong sense of hope around a charming young girl.  Interactions between young Judy and her father - a hard working man who taught her a lot about life - and her older sister - an aspiring teenage actress with dreams of Hollywood - felt incredibly fresh and got me to take another look at the woman who I knew from Hitchcock's film. There's a lot of growth in the character as her early years are chronicled, and I really enjoyed what the authors' did to build Judy Barton into a sympathetic small town woman.

The second act moves from Judy's hometown past to San Francisco - and what I would call "the present" in Vertigo's universe - and it's then that the book gives a fresh coat of paint to another key character from the film.  But it's not the guy you'd expect - Jimmy Stewart's "Scottie" Ferguson really gets the short straw here - it's the devilish Gavin Elster.  The man who brings the two leads together is kind of an afterthought in the film, played only briefly by Tom Helmore. (BTW, is there a movie that relies more on its two stars than Vertigo? It's like the '91 Chicago Bulls of movies, except Kim Novak is about 12 zillion times hotter than Scottie Pippen.)  The Testament of Judith Barton, on the other hand, gets plenty of miles out of the Elster character, who I started to picture as a snarky fella in the vein of Laurence Olivier's character from Rebecca.  We know the character is a bad man once we've seen the movie, but this book really reminds us just how sinister the character who set up his wife really could have been.

I have to admit that I got a little disappointed as the book moved through the events that we saw in Vertigo.  I enjoyed the build up and I enjoyed gaining a better understanding of who Judy Barton was and how she got caught up in this awful situation, but re-tracing the steps that led to the film's finale was a slight buzzkill.  There were still some nice reveals inside Judy's mind, and the fact that we're drawn so much closer to her character makes the events that unfold even more heartbreaking than they were on film.  I should commend the book for these steps, and it's only fair that they remained faithful to the film.  Maybe I'm just let down by the final act because I really didn't want Judith Barton's story to end the way I knew it would.

The Testament of Judith Barton is at times a little too cute when it makes sly references to the film - a direct nod to Kim Novak had me struggling to decide between rolling my eyes or snickering at the twist - but there are also times when words that were spoken by Ms. Novak took on an entirely new meaning in my mind.  I'm not going to sit here and say that everyone who loves Vertigo will fall in love with this book, because I know how protective us nerds can be about our classics sometimes.  The book also acknowledges that it varies from the French novel that inspired Hitchcock's film (D'entre les Morts, if you're keeping score at home), but I'm definitely OK with Powers & McLeod's alternate take on Judy Barton's mind.

In fact, this Hitchcock nerd was more than pleased to scroll through The Testament of Judith Barton.  It might not be the most ground breaking novel, but it got me thinking about one of my favorite stories and opened my eyes to new perceptions of something I thought I knew completely.  That's worth a lot in my book, and I found myself unable to put The Testament of Judith Barton down.  I think there's a lot of entertainment to be had from the novel for even those who don't adore every minute of Hitchcock's film, too.

If you want to find out about Judith Barton on your own, feel free to head over to the book's website, which offers the plot synopsis, a sample, and the all important purchase links.  At an incredibly reasonable price ($3.99 at Amazon or Barnes & Noble!), there's no reason fans of Hitchcock or Vertigo shouldn't check this book out and see what they think about her journey from Salina to San Fran.

Midnight Top Five - The "Have a Little Faith in the Teenagers" Edition

If you've ever watched a horror movie, you've probably been told that teenagers are pretty much worthless at life.  It's true to an extent - if teenagehood was Mass Effect, you could say I took the paragon path all the way and I was still a stupid idiot 97% of the time - but people who are jump to conclusions often miss the good parts of what's going on in these mostly undeveloped human people.

But horror movies are more wrong than most people when it comes to teenagers.  They show the worst parts of teen behavior, and often punish the kids for it harshly.  Look, I get it. It was a message to change their ways and it lost its meaning and now it just happens, sort of like how people used to say the pledge of allegiance in school because they meant it and now they just do it because they're told to and they're trained to and they don't even think about the words they're saying.

But I'm feeling hopeful tonight.  I feel like taking the world by the ears and shaking at and shouting "Hey! There have to be good teenagers out there or there wouldn't be people who grew up to be good people!"  I'm not sure if my shouting would be entirely true, but I'm trying to have faith here.  Heck, I'm so faithful that I might even set this post to some soulful Joe Cocker.

Yeah, I went there.  Now lets take a look at five reminders that teenagers aren't always the downfall of society, and can in fact be really friggin' awesome beacons of hope for the future and stuff.

Charlotte "Charlie" Newton

Played by Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt

(1943, Dir. by Alfred Hitchcock.)

Charlie wasn't always the picture of virtue - that whole romance with the like 40 year old cop was really weird! - but she's perhaps the earliest perfect example of a teenage character who is given power over her world in a dark world.  We're not talking Nancy Drew here, we're talking about a normal girl in a normal town with a normal family who worships her seemingly normal Uncle who just might be an abnormal killer of rich widows.

Teresa Wright did all kinds of great things with this character.  To start, there's an incredible streak of altruism that runs through the character, who really fits into the film's pre-World War II setting as an ambitious and driven young woman.  She seems to just believe so much in the world around her, including her suspicious uncle, and her hope for the world is pretty contagious.  But when things start to turn in the final scenes of the film and Charlie begins to take a stand - that's when the character really blossoms.  She shows an ability to grow and adapt, and sets the tone for hundreds of female teenage characters who would follow her in genre cinema.

Steven Andrews, Jane Martin, Mooch and the Boys

Played by Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, James Bonnet, Robert Fields, Anthony Franke in The Blob

(1958, Dir. by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.)

I've wasted so many words on The Blob - this one's my favorite collection of them - but I never get old of the ridiculously wonderful '50s teenagers of The Blob. And yes, I'll get it out of the way right now - they're not actually teenagers. The actors are older than that. I know.

As the teenagers mobilize in the name of what's right - and what might actually save humanity - I think my favorite thing about the group is the dopey Mooch.  With his creepy hair and his red sweater, James Bonnet's character is the personification of the wholesome values The Blob wants us to see in these characters.  Along for the ride and always willing to jump into the fight with a CO2 fire extinguisher, these kids represent their era perfectly and always make me smile.

Dennis Guilder

Played by John Stockwell in Christine

(1983, Dir. by John Carpenter.)

The most fascinating thing about John Carpenter's adaptation of Stephen King's killer car novel, to me, has always been the central relationship between the two lead teenage male characters.  On one hand, you have Arnie Cunningham, played by Keith Gordon, a bullied nerd who seems to have little going for him on the popularity side of things.  On the other hand, we have Dennis, a football star who seemingly could be really popular - yet he hangs out with Arnie and turns down the advances of a young Kelly Preston.

Let me repeat that - he turns down the advances of a YOUNG KELLY PRESTON.

Though I still question his willingness to not have a fling with a young Kelly Preston, I adore how Dennis' character moves through the story.  As Arnie's mind becomes corrupted by that red demon on wheels, Dennis becomes the voice of reason.  He's a shockingly grounded young man for a high school star athlete, but the realization that characters like that exist shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone.  Dennis represents the good side of the teenage jock scene, and he does so quite well.

Nancy Thompson

Played by Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street

(1984, Dir. by Wes Craven.)

This one really doesn't need many words.  I'm notoriously hard on A Nightmare on Elm Street because I hate the ending so much, but I will never deny the possibility that Nancy Thompson is the prototype for teenage heroines in horror.  If there's one thing Wes Craven can do well on a consistent basis (and it literally might be the only thing he can do consistently!) - the man can make a heroine who is smart and who is strong and who won't back down when it's time to stand up for herself.  And it all pretty much began with Nancy Thompson. 

Kirby Reed

Played by Hayden Panettiere in Scream 4

(2011, Dir. by Wes Craven.)

Speaking of Craven, we come to the Scream series - where female characters have varied from one end of the spectrum to another like a squirrel who takes antidepressants every other week. (Don't think about that last analogy for too long, it will break your brain.)

But when we get to Scream 4, we meet the female character who pretty much made every horror fan in the world fistpump with pride.  She's Kirby Reed, and she's played with surprising panache by Heroes alumni Hayden Panettiere.  I'm pretty sure no one expected this from the young girl, but she makes female horror nerd look fun, playing off her straight laced friends and the nerdy male cinephiles equally well.  She's the smart, normal, socially adjusted image that a lot of horror fans wish people saw more often - which is a big part of why so many horror fans loved her.

---------------------------------------------------

There are probably a lot more wonderful teenagers in horror I've left out here, but this isn't a Midnight Top A Lot list.  It's a Top Five.  So please, Midnight Warriors, hit up the comments! Tell me who I missed, tell me who you love, tell me you love me - whatever you want to tell me.  (Maybe not the love me thing. It might get weird.)

In the meantime, have faith.  Because someday, the good teenagers are gonna be the old people who think there aren't any good teenagers, while we all watch from our retirement castles on Mars and laugh.  It'll be awesome.  (Or, we'll all turn into Crazy Ralph.  Which isn't bad either.)