CRUISING / INTERIOR: LEATHER BAR

Al boogies in  the gay bar 

CRUISING (1980). Director: William Friedkin.

INTERIOR: LEATHER BAR (2013). Director: James Franco; Travis Mathews.

Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is assigned to go undercover in the gay leather milieu to see if he can get leads on whoever is murdering the patrons of these bars. Burns feels uncomfortable in his assignment, but his superior (Paul Sorvino) talks him into continuing. Burns seems to have caught the killer when another murder occurs .... Modern-day viewers may wonder what the fuss was about when they look at this through 21st century eyes. But in 1980, decades before LBGT sections on Hulu and Netflix, there weren't that many films about the gay lifestyle, and it was enraging that the best that two major filmmakers (Pacino of The Godfather and Friedkin of The Exorcist)  could come up with was this mediocre slasher film that exploited the gay community, presenting one-dimensional characters to be slaughtered. Most of the film's opponents (which included this critic and activist) didn't object to the movie exploring the gay s & m scene (which was always more about role-playing than anything else) but to its complete failure in any way to positively illuminate that scene aside from sexual activity. While Cruising is well-produced, with a lot of atmosphere due to James Contner's cinematography, and Pacino's performance is okay, it is a much less effective* "slasher" film than, say, the original Friday the 13th,which came out the same year. (Friday the 13th was also much more influential, and while also excoriated by critics, made a lot more money than Cruising.)

Seen today, how is the movie? Well, it's still mediocre, not only due to its exploitation of gay men but to its penny dreadful script. Its use of multiple maniacs (which is apparent once you try to figure out who the killer is) only makes the pic much more confusing than it needs to be. Then there's that ridiculous early sequence where we see two men clad half in leather and half in drag -- like that ever happens (except maybe on Halloween)! At one point Burns expresses sympathy for a gay suspect beaten by police (in an utterly ludicrous sequence that was supposedly based on fact), which makes the implied ending more ridiculous. (This suggests that Burns murdered his friendly gay neighbor as the character did in the crappy source novel)  There's no point in trying to figure out who the different murderers are because it's clear that -- while Friedkin today tries to make it sound like he had some master plan all along -- the movie is simply badly structured and edited, a sloppy hack job in every sense of the word. Friedkin and company could have made a much more positive (and coherent and fascinating) film while remaining true to its thriller/slasher origins. 

One of the cast members of Interior: Leather Bar

And now we come to Interior: Leather Bar, a silly documentary made by actor James Franco and Travis Mathews. The idea was to recreate the supposedly lost forty minutes cut from Cruising that presented more raw footage from the backroom gay bar scenes. The reality is that only a few minutes have been recreated; most of the film is about actor Val Lauren's discomfort in being associated with the project. In some sequences he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than in this movie. There's at least one gay sex scene, and James Franco admirably talks about why it's unfair that such scenes are often suppressed in major theatrical movies, which is not the case with straight sex scenes. The whole idea of this movie seems to be to get a group of both gay and straight actors in a room and have them interacting in a homoerotic manner, but I get the impression this is more about the filmmakers' fantasies than anything else. One can imagine this is one way the recognizable Franco can be in a gay bar without actually being in a gay bar!

[*Friday's shock/murder scenes are better handled, the film has more suspense, as much atmosphere, and its characters are no less dimensional than Cruising's. In addition, the movie's victims aren't members of a persecuted and marginalized community, unless you think camp counselors are a minority group.]

Verdict: Cruising: **1/2.
              Interior: Leather Bar *1/2.

THE SLASHER MOVIE BOOK

THE SLASHER MOVIE BOOK. J. A. Kerswell. Chicago Review Press; 2010.

This thick, heavily illustrated trade paperback looks at the slasher film genre: Friday the 13th, Freddy Krueger, Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis, and so on. There are chapters on pre-Psycho horror movies; Italian giallo films; German-made multiple murder films based on novels by Edgar Wallace; British and American Gothic films; "The Golden Age of the Slasher" from 1978 to 1984; and slasher films from other countries in the eighties, nineties, and afterward. In addition to notes on the usual suspects, I came across quite a few movies I had never seen or heard of before. I didn't agree with everything in the book, of course. For instance, Kerswell writes of Psycho: "Equating transvestism with mental illness seems to date the film," but the sequence with the psychiatrist at the end goes to pains to make it clear that Norman Bates was not a true transvestite. But The Slasher Movie Book is more concerned with the later slasher outcrop than anything else, and does as good a job as anyone of knowledgeably surveying the scene. The book is chock-full of movie stills and posters.

Verdict: If you dig this sub-genre, the book is engaging and interesting, if a little gross,  to look at. ***.

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2016

Scream for Your Life!

HALLOWEEN HORROR 2016

Well, we've got a huge crop of horror movies for this year's installment of Halloween Horror. There are movies from the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, as well as a couple of more recent vintage. Jason Voorhees is back in two installments of Friday the 13th, and we've even got the 2009 gay slasher flick, Hellbent. Plus two movies about Jack the Ripper, one British, one German, and two films about The Town that Dreaded Sundown. You'll also meet The Creeper and the people of Haunts and The House of Seven Corpses. And news about my latest horror epub!

Have fun!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Welcome to Great Old Movies' annual round-up of horror movies. This year it's a mixed bag of old and new, with everything from Vincent Price and Barbara Steele to those lovable maniacs Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees and other mad slashers, as well as "horrible" books, and blood-curdling TV shows.

Curl up with a nice slice of pumpkin pie (with real whipped cream) and have some Halloween horror!

DARIO ARGENTO AND THE ITALIAN GIALLO FILM

Dario Argento

DARIO ARGENTO.

Why do I like many of the films of Italian horrormeister Dario Argento, and dislike others just as much? Part of this is Argento's over-reliance on gore (although this can be very effective in some movies) and his acceptance of screenplays that, to be charitable, need a lot of polishing that they don't always get.

On the other hand, if you study Argento's films, especially his great ones, you can easily see that the Italian giallo filmmaker is miles ahead of the hack (no pun intended) directors of "mad slasher" schlock like, say, most of the Friday the 13th films and their ilk. His films generally have plenty of style, and his best movies are undeniably creepy and suspenseful and have some kind of (slightly demented) mind behind them, as well as some bravura sequences.

Argento never got mainstream respectability, like Hitchcock, but Argento is not in Hitchcock's league as a filmmaker. Some of his fans are simply interested in the gory shock scenes (Argento tends to cater to them too much) even though there are those of us who also enjoy the twisting plots and tense moments that are virtually in all of his movies. As Argento got older, he perhaps tried too hard to capture the young American mad slasher/splatter movie crowd even though he was capable of far greater things. Argento has never quite fulfilled his potential despite such memorable films as Deep Red and Trauma. (Argento's first film was the creditable The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in 1970).

Argento's other films are of varying quality. Great: Sleepless. Good: Phenomena; The Card Player; Cat O'Nine Tails. Mediocre: Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Bad: Do You Like Hitchcock?; Giallo. And there are others.

Argento's films were clearly influential on such diverse movies as The Eyes of Laura Mars and 88 Minutes, among others. Argento, who is now seventy-five, last directed Dracula 3D, and his next film will be the serial killer thriller The Sandman.

Below you will find reviews of some of Argento's other movies, as well as a write-up on a book about the director and his work.

GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM, 1978 - 1986

GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM, 1978 - 1986. Adam Rockoff. McFarland; 2002.

When such films as Halloween  and Friday the 13th became big money makers, there was a rush to come out with cheap, gory films with psychos on the loose slashing and hacking at everyone in sight. Rockoff intelligently dissects the genre, which he loves, examining the styles of different directors, as well as going behind the scenes of many productions. The book is bolstered by comments from producers and others. A final chapter looks at the revival of the genre with the Scream movies. [It's too bad this came out too early to cover all the recent remakes of famed slasher films such as Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, and others.] Being human, Rockoff does at times tend to be kinder to films made by people who consented to be interviewed as opposed to others, but when he thinks a film is a stinker he isn't shy about saying so. The book is quite well-written as well.

I appreciate that Rockoff mentions my 1985 tome Stay Out of the Shower: 25 Years of Shocker Films Beginning with "Psycho," and acknowledges it as one of the very first books to discuss slasher films (along with other horror films.) However, I can't say that I "loathe" such movies as he claims [I've certainly seen plenty of them, then and now.] I've always enjoyed the original Friday the 13th, among others in the genre, but I confess I do prefer films -- slashers, among them -- that have decent production values, a firm directorial hand, some three-dimensional characters, generous suspense, and a plot with some kind of mystery to it, and most slasher films -- maybe most movies -- don't fit that criteria, more's the pity. So I would say I don't so much loathe slasher films but am disappointed by them.

Verdict: Slasher movie fans will love this. ***.