The Driller Killer - Perception vs Reality

I saw The Driller Killer for the first time last night, and I've since decided that you must not form opinions, conclusions or ideas about anything before you yourself have taken the plunge. There is never any substitute for watching, reading or listening to something yourself. Of course, you can gorge yourself on images and synopses, but nothing will ever compare to that unique connection created between you and any given work of art should you ever grace it with your full and undivided attention.

I've heard it said that, when questioned by the Pythons over whether they'd actually bothered to watch The Life of Brian, those self-righteous moral guardians replied along the lines of “You don't have to see a pigsty to know that it stinks”.

But this isn't about close-mindedness. It's about the discrepancy between perception and reality, and it happens to me all the time. I'm not in the habit of forming opinions in advance of experience, but I can't help but harbour ideas about things. And, in my defence, The Driller Killer does itself no favours.

For a start, there's the name. And the poster:

And the tagline: “There are those who kill violently!”

And the whole video nasty connection.

OK, The Driller Killer is a nasty film that leaves you feeling grim, grimy and in dire need of a wash. But, despite a superfluous lesbian shower session and a completely unnecessary scene that details the butchering of a skinned rabbit, I'd hardly call it exploitative. Rather, it comes across as a low-budget labour of love which, at times, veers deliriously close to the art-house.

There are some moments of extreme violence, but even those seem tame by today's standards. The remainder of the runtime is taken up by a dark, dank and claustrophobic account of desperate New York City low-life. It's like a cinematic interpretation of a Lou Reed song, or a loose adaptation of a forgotten Bukowski.

It's a visceral thrill, with talking paintings, performances that are either terrible or faithful to a whacked out state of mind, and scratchy footage that's so grainy I'm sure it would be rendered unwatchable on a HD TV.

But what I really wasn't expecting is just how punk rock is The Driller Killer. I don't use the term “punk rock” to describe something that's self-consciously anarchic. Rather, it evokes a snotty glue-sniffing frazzled sort of energy, with an in-house band called The Roosters who would be amazing (so long as they weren't living next-door). At the start you're even instructed that “THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD ”.

An extreme close-up of a life I'd never want to live myself but which I find utterly thrilling to visit, I would never have expected so much from The Driller Killer. For so long I've been happy to think of it as an exploitative, ultra-violent video nasty. Instead, it's a DIY low-budget Taxi Driver with an incredible soundtrack.

I might never have gone out of my way to see The Driller Killer, but I'm happy to have learned, in the best way possible, that everything has the power to surprise you.

Another recent incident of reality eclipsing expectation came last Halloween when I finally got round to reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Thanks to seemingly every adaptation ever, I had certain preconceptions about Frankenstein that involved lightning, a hunchbacked assistant, deranged cries of “IT'S ALIVE!” and a lumbering monosyllabic hulk of a monster.

So imagine my surprise when, upon initially confronting his creation, Frankenstein's monster replies in these words:

“All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut in the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”

That's right. Frankenstein's monster isn't a shuffling green giant with bolts coming out of his neck who communicates with one groaned word at a time. He's an athletic, acrobatic, eloquent philosopher who manages to teach himself how to talk, think and reason just by observing a family from a distance.

Again, I was quite happy with the images that sprang to mind when someone said “Frankenstein”. The reality, though, is infinitely preferable to my perceptions.

Then there's Phileas Fogg, who never once uses a hot air balloon in his journey Around The World in 80 Days. And Captain Nemo, who doesn't travel to a depth of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Rather he journeys a distance of 20,000 leagues.

My dad hasn't seen Titanic. Every time he's asked about it, he jokes “I know how it ends!” The implication is that there's no need to see a film if you know the ending.

I've passed over so many books of which I've already seen the film adaptations. Similarly, there have been many times when a preconception has made me somehow reluctant to watch a film or listen to an album.

It has been proven to me, numerous times, that even if it doesn't differ so much, the experience always outweighs the expectation.

I wonder how many life-affirming, mind-expanding, soul-enriching or just plain entertaining experiences I've denied myself as a result of skewed perception?

Found Footage Horror - Addendum

By some freak coincidence, not one week after I wrote about found footage films, the Guardian Guide opens with a similar denouement.

Yeah, that's right. I read the Guardian. Can you tell? You can, can't you? I'm going to stop soon, though. Two reasons. First of all, if you read it online (which often I do), then the temptation to scroll below the line is far, far too great. And you really do get the worst people in the world down there. Scroll below the line on the Daily Mail's website and the worst you can get is that people will agree with the article. But below the line on the Guardian's site you get people vehemently taking issue with such stories and comment pieces that should be sparking rage and uprising in an upwards direction: “People are starving to death in Britain!!!”/”Oh Boo-fucking-hoo, I see they can afford their Sky subscriptions”, that sort of thing. And when they can't find anything to attack in the substance of the article they'll attack the writer. When they've no material for an ad-hoc attack, they'll go for the “typical champagne-socialist hyperbole” line. They're the worst people in the world and they prove that the country and, quite certainly humanity itself, is doomed. Because when we're presented with the sort of material that should make us question our government's motives, we instead choose to attack the writer's grammar. If it's unhealthy to lose faith in humanity, then reading the Guardian is very bad for your health.

The second reason why soon I intend to stop reading the Guardian (let's say, after Christmas) is because they appear to have declared war on rock music. I've no idea why they've done it, but they have. Every time they write a feature on a new or existing guitar band (which they seem to do every single week), they always seem to kick-off their piece with a caveat concerning how remarkable it is that a guitar band even exists in this day and age, when rock music is dead. Their review of the Leeds Festival openly stated how strange it was that guitar bands could still fill lineups. With shocking lack of self-awareness they described it as being like an alternative universe – as if they haven't yet grasped that there's a whole world out there.

Actually, the Leeds Festival review (which might even have been a Reading Festival review) was particularly irritating in that it described Graham Coxon as being “now officially better than Blur”. Officially? I must have missed that press release.

Then there's the flip-side. Every time they cover electronic music (coverage which has more than a whiff of “right-on” Nozin' Aroun' about it), their copy will, without fail, contain an approving reference to how guitar music's been abandoned in favour of this glorious new noise. Simon Reynolds (tedium itself) had a big piece about the rise of EDM in America. Rather than scoffing that America's just “discovered” music that's existed for two decades (and removed every trace of a black face in the process – USA! USA!), sanctimonious Simon instead lamented the continued existence of “irrelevant” rock bands.

Simon, Simon, Simon! Something that means so much to so many millions of people all over the world can't be “irrelevant”. It just can't! It just can't.

I realise that I referenced a lot of articles there without linking to a single one of them. You have to understand that, in this case, sourcing a link would create the temptation to tread through that sludge again. Why would I do that to myself?

Yes, so through sucking all the joy from that which means so much to me; and through making me feel ashamed to be part of this species – I suppose the Guardian's very bad for my health. I might give it up in the New Year.

But I read it the other day, and it opened with quite a fascinating look at found footage films.

It reminded me of that thing I wrote last week! And it made me realise a few things that, previously, I'd overlooked:

1. The genre wasn't invented by The Blair Witch Project. That honour belongs to 1980's Cannibal Holocaust.

2. The genre gave us 1994's Man Bites Dog – one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen that also manages, somehow, to provide a few laughs. So there's that.

3. (REC) also uses this device, and (REC) is bloody horrible in the best way possible! So there's that, too.

4. Paranormal Activity is a thing and is something of a phenomenon in the horror genre. I've not seen it myself, so I can't comment much. But it takes the defining trope from this sub-sub genre (the “found footage” part of it) and tweaks it a little to make it interesting once more. The camera's static, for a start. That must count for something. Whether it can count for something in three sequels and counting is another matter.

5. Some films that aren't horror films are using the same device. Based on watching the trailer alone, I had no desire at all to see End of Watch. Now that I know that we're supposed to accept that the whole thing was captured on film by a bystander determined to show “how this thing went down”, well. I think I'll just pretend the film doesn't exist. Just like I do with The Human Centipede. What Human Centipede?

That's all.

The Cabin In The Woods (2012); A Night In The Woods (2011)

Oh this is interesting.

No, really, you'll like this.

You know how often I lament the state of modern horror on this here blog? This here blog which you're reading, right now, as we speak – so to speak?

Well. Tonight I watched, back to back, two films; both horrors, both made in the last year or so.

One of them relied upon established tropes, the other used ides which, whilst by no means unique, remain relatively novel.

One of these films was boring to the point of being appalling. The other will likely be considered a masterpiece within the year.

For a bit of late November fun, see if you can guess which is which!

A clue: The answer is very interesting.

Ahem, both films involved misdeeds and miscreants in the woods. One involved a Cabin In The Woods. It was called The Cabin In The Woods. The other involved three young people spending A Night In The Woods. It was called A Night In The Woods.

Let's look at The Cabin In The Woods first.

I'll get it over with now: It's this one which I anticipate will be considered a masterpiece within the year.

Remember Scream? Of course you do. The appeal of Scream was in how it played with the various tropes of horror in order to create something that was at once thrilling and self-referential. It was good. In retrospect, though, if you take away the trimmings you're left with pretty standard slasher fare.

The Cabin In The Woods is similar to Scream in that it takes all the standard horror tropes and uses them to create something that, on first viewing at least, is unlike anything you've ever seen before.

OK, maybe you'll have seen lots like this before. But, if you watch this without knowing much at all about the plot, I don't doubt that you'll be surprised repeatedly by the places it takes you. Just when you think that you've got the film pinned, something else happens that serves to raise the eyebrows further.

It's simultaneously a celebration of where horror's come from and an exploration of where it can go. I don't want to write too much about it because a lot of the love lies in not knowing what comes next.

But I will say this: I recently watched 2001: A Space Odyssey again. That film has three possible “types” of scene. Either there's dialogue, or there's music or there's silence.

I've come up with three similar “types” of scene for The Cabin In The Woods. Either it's hilarious, terrifying or awesome.

And when I say awesome, I do, to some extent, mean that inspires awe. But to a greater degree, I wish to use that word in the American sense. The last half hour of The Cabin In The Woods is awesome in the same way the lobby and bullet-dodging scenes from The Matrix were awesome.

But would the film still be great on a second viewing? Yes. You'll notice more. And that's why I believe it will be considered a masterpiece within the year. Once the initial love's died down and people realise that it's still brilliant, well. That's when the real praise will be ripe for the heaping.

Or, at the very least, it will be considered a cult classic.

And then we come to A Night In The Woods, which was just awful.

I became aware of this film on the really quite excellent Folk Horror Review blog. From the trailer, it looked like a British spin on The Blair Witch Project. In actuality, it's The Blair Witch Project stripped of everything that makes it worth watching.

The “found footage” sub-sub-genre may only be about 13 years old, but everything that could possibly be done with it had already been done by 1999.

I understand the appeal. When things are shaky and grainy, the horrors look more real. But one question will always arise which serves instantly to destroy the suspension of disbelief that's necessary to subscribe to any horror film: Why are you filming?

Well, usually the question's one of why are you still filming. In A Night In The Woods, though, it's unclear as to why they were even filming in the first place.

Worse, the appeal of The Blair Witch Project was less in the novelty and more in the graininess. Through being so ugly, it felt real. A Night In The Woods, though, is filmed on a digital camera. So too is every film these days. As a result, it ends up looking just like every other film but with inferior camera angles.

It follows the misadventures of three friends: Brody, Kerry and Leo. American Brody spends the first half hour guaranteeing that nobody who watches this film can possibly like him. He's snarky, sarcastic, humourless, clingy, creepy and, in the first five minutes, asserts American superiority over Britain using the medium of Stonehenge. Twat.

It's Brody who films everything. And, fair enough, he's told off repeatedly for filming everything, and a later exposition scene – as clumsy and shoehorned as it is – serves to offer a possible explanation as to why he might be filming – but it doesn't help. Sometimes he holds the camera at arm's length away from him and keeps it perfectly still. Other times he rests it on a rock and just keeps it running, perfectly framing an important conversation. Why?

The problem is, had they dropped the found footage conceit, they would have something which, if by no means remarkable, might have at least been worth watching. The setting, you see, is beautiful. Bleak, rain-splattered Dartmoor, with all its gloomy prisons, standing stones, crows and mossy trees. The first half hour, spent exploring the landscape, is stunning. At one point it's filmed using infra-red during the day, making the already breathtaking landscape look strangely alien. In fact, mute the first half hour and set it to a Richard Skelton soundtrack and you might be onto something.

Though it says a lot about the poor quality of a horror film set in the woods when it actually makes you want to go camping. After having watched Jaws, you'd take a desire to swim as a testament to the film's failure, wouldn't you?

A Night In The Woods, had it been successful, would have left me scared of the dark. Instead, it left me wanting to spend a night in the woods. Make of that what you will.

The final hour is spent in darkness and it's almost identical to the final hour of The Blair Witch Project – rustled tents, night-vision, lots of running through the woods. Nothing you haven't seen before, even if you've only ever seen it once before.

Christ, people shouldn't bother with the found footage conceit anymore. It was dated within an hour of The Blair Witch Project's release.

So there you go. Rely on standard horror tropes and I'll applaud. Try something relatively new and I'll describe your work as awful.

There's no pleasing me, is there?

Or perhaps the secret's in the writing? The Cabin In The Woods is written by Joss Whedon. He knows what he's doing.

I've got it. If horror is to have a future, it needs good writers.

Hello!

Are You Desensitised?

I believe you know what I mean by desensitised.

When reading or watching genre fiction, you come across some really awful concepts with shocking regularity. Murder, torture, madness; torment at the hands of all manner of monster and an overdose of disgustingly horrific ways to die.

We take it in our stride, these days. But it wasn't always this way.

I must have been six when I first saw the box-art from Carrie. It was when they still sold VHS in HMV. Those wide-eyes staring from a blood-soaked face, I was horrified in the truest sense of the word and suffered many a disturbed night's sleep.

Waking, too, was transformed into a harrowing experience when, at a young age, I saw that horse's head scene from The Godfather. All of a sudden, the bright light of morning offered no reassurances. For a while I was terrified that I'd find a horse's head in my bed upon waking.

Now, though, I find I'm rarely scared by what I see or read in fiction.

Of course, I'm frequently disturbed. I found the remade from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station quite hard to take. And, more recently, the trans-time mutilation in Looper has been plaguing my mind with images I'd have rather not seen.

I suppose I'll only be truly desensitised when I cease to be disturbed by the things I come across in fiction. At the moment, though, it's quite rare that I should be scared by anything.

I don't believe I've ever found myself scared by a book. Nothing in the complete works of Poe, Lovecraft or M.R. James was enough to make me refrain from sleeping in the dark. Films can still be scary, but, again, it's a rarity. Not since [rec] have I been properly scared by a film. Of course, you could attribute this to the laziness of modern horror, but were that truly the case, then the classics would surely render me paralysed with fear?

It's not the case, though.

Can films or books still be scary? Of course they can. It's just that they will never scare people in the way they used to. And I know why.

It's video games. As an art-form they're still very much finding their feet, but their worthiness as a medium lies in the interactivity – that which happens doesn't just affect a character. It affects you.

If horror fans really want a visceral experience, it's likely that they'll find no finer chills than in the world of video games.

This notion was hammered home in a short sixteen minute burst of gruelling terror this very evening.

Slender is completely free and might just be the most frightening piece of fiction I've ever encountered in any medium.

Whilst playing it, I felt a rare feeling in my chest – exactly that which I've been missing in my explorations of films and literature these past few years – a delicious mixture of wariness, anticipation and lovely, lovely fear.

I won't say too much about it, because the fear of the unknown is what gives this game its devastating chops. But I will say that it's simplicity itself – just you, a torch, and a seemingly empty forest in the dead of night.

It's wonderfully atmospheric and creepy as hell. It mixes psychological scares with visceral fight-or-flight run-for-your-life punches to the gut. Everybody seems keen to describe that which is frightening as being potent enough to cause you to soil yourself. I'd say that Slender is so scary you might vomit.

It says a lot about the fearful potency of something when even the readme file's enough to fill you with a sense of wary foreboding

Slender can be downloaded for free from here. Do so now. Then turn the lights off and prepare to spend the next fifteen minutes in a state of sustained abject terror.

Then spend the rest of your night reading up on the slender man mythos. Then spend the rest of your life living in fear.

Death Line (1973)

Here's one I've been wanting to see for some time. Since – oh, I don't know – probably since I read a gushing article about it in a book left in the bathroom by my then-flatmate. I can't remember the name of the book, but it was a pretty insufferable collection of tragically iconoclastic essays concerning various aspects of British cinema. There's “celebrating the less familiar” and then there's “hey, let's stubbornly pour scorn upon anything that's beloved of more than ten people”. This book unfortunately went for the latter approach on far too many occasions, which might explain why I never deigned to remember the its title.

I'm an awful fickle rat sometimes.

But Death Line. Death Line.

They were right on the money when it comes to Death Line.

I know I moan a lot on this site about the state of modern horror. Death Line, though, takes pretty much every single one of the tired tropes about which I'm so fond of complaining and demonstrates how to treat them in such a way as to make a film that's oh so much more than a sum of its parts.

It's about a dying tribe of cannibalistic inbreds who live in the “rabbit warren” that is the London Tube. Trapped beneath the rubble after having been abandoned in the wake of a cave-in, it's implied that life is bleak, damp yet ultimately quite touching underground. Though they've all but lost language, they still communicate; and that they cling to such customs as defined clothing for men and women and even burial rites makes this film, on one level, a subtle exploration of what makes us human.

Only emerging to feast on the flesh of the living, it's likely that their existence would have continued unnoticed but for two reasons. First of all, their last remaining pregnant female just died. Second of all, they made the mistake of choosing, as their prey, one James Manfred – gentleman, pervert, OBE.

Being an OBE, not only does his death invokes the involvement of MI5 (a marvellously creepy cameo from Christopher Lee, above), but it also forces adorably lazy Inspector Calhoun to actually do his job for a change.

Played brilliantly by Donald Pleasence, Inspector Calhoun appears to be the reason as to why so many people rate this film so highly. In that you can tell that, at any given moment, he'd much rather be sat alone with a lovely cup of loose-leaf tea, he's wonderful and strangely cuddly despite his caustic chronic grumpiness.

There's a very long scene in which he and his second in command outstay their welcome in a grotty little pub – getting hammered and eating sausages whilst playing pinball and being really quite rude to the ever-tolerant barman. It contributes precisely nothing to the plot but goes in a long way to explain the appeal of this film: Death Line doesn't appear to take itself at all seriously, but with its fully-drawn characters and carefully considered cannibals, scratching beneath the surface reveals fathomless depth.

The only downside is the American – the eternally dour Alex Campbell, whose character doesn't seem to stretch too far beyond “student”. He's boring and almost threatens to ruin the fun for everyone else, but even he's saved thanks to his really, really lovely girlfriend and the gorgeous book shop in which it works. Wall-to-wall Penguin paperbacks and a big poster of Dickens? If I'm good, that's probably where I'll go when I die. The tea will flow like rivers, and there'll be a really comfy chair in the corner.

Region 2 DVDs of Death Line are surprisingly hard to come-by, but this is one I want to own forever and never give away. It's this close to entering my beloved pantheon of horror alongside The Wicker Man, Eraserhead and Evil Dead 2. I'm almost certain that I've found a new favourite here.

Baby Blood (1990)

Baby Blood – otherwise known as The Evil Within – was shown as part of The Horror Channel's World Cinema season.

I do believe that it's the first time I've ever seen a French horror film. I'd quite like to see some more! Infused with a dynamic verve all-too-rare in this genre, I rather hope that Baby Blood is a typical – perhaps even “tame” - example of the French horror genre. If so, I would very much like for some kind of expert to give me a list of suggested viewing, as I feel I'm in for a treat. If not – well – Baby Blood was fantastic.

Particular kudos is to be reserved for The Horror Channel for broadcasting the original uncut French version. I've been reading about the dubbed American version. Whilst it features the voice talents of Gary Oldman, by the sounds of it, the cuts effected were so brutal as to have rendered the film unwatchable. It seems that some scenes were spliced mercilessly; their butchered footage spliced willy-nilly into that which remained; with chronology often completely and inexplicably ignored. Having not seen said version, I have no right to describe it as “a mess” or “a shambles”, but I'm ever so grateful to have viewed Baby Blood as it was intended to be viewed.

The plot involves the beautiful and distant Yanka. She lives with her abusive husband in a small caravan and performs as part of a circus's lion-taming.

The circus receives a delivery of a new leopard, who unexpectedly implodes during the night. This is because it was infected with a slimy snake-like parasite, which proceeds to slither into the uterus of the sleeping Yanka.

Yanka is immediately impregnated by this alien parasite which might well be as old as time itself. Wise and sentient even in the womb, it is later revealed that it is part of the advanced race destined to rule the world in humanities stead some five million years down the line. Indeed, the only thing holding it back is the fact that it's never had a proper birth, meaning that it's never been allowed to properly evolve.

In Yanka, however, it finds the perfect host. She's lonely and vulnerable and therefore in a perfect position to be manipulated to this parasite's own devious ends. It needs human blood to survive. It doesn't take much to convince Yanka to carry out the necessary atrocities to satisfy her parasite's blood-lust.

The result is engrossing and tragic. The violence is so over-the-top as to sometimes appear farcical, yet this somehow never distracts from the film's overall gravitas. Yanka can hear her parasite at all times, and it speaks with a disturbing babyish growl on various aspects of the human condition. The result is a film highly reminiscent of Peter Jackson's early work, except with French political musings in the place of Kiwi humour.

It's always very late at night when I watch these films, so I'm always in quite a hazy and suggestive frame of mind. I don't doubt that Baby Blood might appear comparatively underwhelming on a repeat viewing. However, it's been so long since I've been so impressed by any horror film that I'm more than willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and grant it entry into the pantheon of films that demonstrate how these things should be done.

The Masque of the Red Death

A Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe adaptation starring the great Vincent Price and the lovely Hazel Court with unforgettably technicolour cinematography by Nicholas Roeg!

This one's ideally suited for a tired late-night viewing with the sound turned so low that it's mistaken for a lurid dream. It was also perfect, though, for a rainy bank holiday weekend afternoon.

Vincent Price – with his voice like cake so rich you know it's killing you – plays the Satanic prince Prospero. He hosts a series of debauched balls in his opulent castle whilst, outside, peasant and uninvited nobility alike are decimated by a deadly plague – The Red Death.

Because the source material stretches to little more than five pages in most books, this one actually incorporates elements from two Poe stories. Interwoven with The Masque of the Red Death is the ever-satisfying story of Hop Frog; which, of course, climaxes with the decadent nobility dressed as a gorilla, immolated whilst suspended from a chandelier.

Here, though, Hop Frog is for some reason called Hop Toad. His beloved Tripetena is replaced by the creepy, creepy Esmerelda. Evidently they thought the sight of a female dwarf might upset the audience. Therefore, Esmerelda's played by a child with a dubbed adult voice – easily the most disturbingly uncanny element of the whole film.

I've always been drawn to the Hop Frog story. This might be because it inspired the song which sparked what I know will be a lifelong obsession with the music of Lou Reed:


Price's Prospero is brilliant. He's a complete and utter amoral bastard, but he speaks so passionately and eloquently about his Satanic faith that you can tell that he genuinely believes himself to be doing the right thing. All of his decisions are made based upon a dark and twisted belief system – an unholy code – which makes his performance a lot more cutting and believable than the glut of tedious self-righteous serial killers currently plaguing horror.

Also, he occasionally has moments of weakness. For example, upon slaughtering the last surviving victims of the Red Death, he insists that a child be spared. Despite his guard's protests, he doesn't give a reason – he just insists that she be spared in increasingly strained tones.

Powerful moments like this – where humanity appears to be struggling against staunch Satanic doctrine – ensure that the film and performance alike transcends any possible accusations of campiness.