Retro Schizocinema: The Woods Edition

Hello Faithful or Semi-Faithful Readers,

I have just returned from a camping expedition to the deep, dark forest where I successfully avoided being killed for an entire week!  There were some dicey moments, but none of them had to do with a crazed killer or ferocious animal (unless you count our overly enthusiastic dog).  My plan was to write up something on location, but apparently the point of a family vacation is to actually spend time with your family, so I took my first break from weekly Schizocinema posts in over a year to just have fun with my lovely wife and awesome kids.  Plus, I was afraid my lovely wife would throw my phone into the river.

Incidentally, I can't believe no one has made a horror movie were a guy checking Twitter wanders straight into the killer's cabin without noticing.  It would be completely believable.  If someone has already, please let me know on Twitter.

Those looking for new material will be rewarded (?) next Friday with a regularly scheduled post, but to tide you over, take the opportunity to skinny dip into the archives for a classic batch of Killed in the Woods pieces.  There might be something here you missed.

THE BURNING

GRIZZLY

DON'T GO IN THE WOODS

EVIL DEAD

RAVENOUS (okay, I'm stretching on that one) 

CANNIBAL TERROR (really stretching, but it's mostly in the woods)

EXISTS 

And yes, I recognize that it would have been a great idea to do this retro idea last week and lead up to a brand new post of EXISTS today, but total lack of planning and forethought is part of my charm. 

Until next time, enjoy the great outdoors.

C Chaka

Big(foot) Trouble - EXISTS

This summer I have found myself going into the woods often, despite being specifically warned against it.  I love the woods, though, and camping is cheaper than hoteling, so I’m risking it.  I’m not worried about escaped lunatics, feral murderers, or deformed hillbillies, I’ve seen more than enough woods based slashers to know all their tricks.  Grizzlies are another matter (is it run or play dead, or climb a tree?), but since I’m on the East Coast, not much chance of seeing one.  Sasquatches, on the other hand, are more troubling.  They have never been proven NOT to be on the East Coast, so anything is possible.  According to the experts, Bigfoots (feet?) are only hostile when provoked, which is reassuring.  I still have my doubts, though, so for additional research I watched the 2014 nature documentary on the subject, Eduardo Sanchez’ EXISTS.

Capsule:

Two young, attractive couples, and their fifth wheel Brian, head deep into the woods with dreams of revelry and BMX stunts.  Distracted by some late-night car shenanigans, Matt (Samuel Davis) accidentally clips something big on the side of the road.  Finding no sign of the unlucky critter, the kids continue to Matt and brother Brian’s (Chris Osborn) family cabin.  Matt, his girl Dora (Dora Madison), alpha jock Todd (Roger Edwards), and snobby Liz (Denise Williamson) go about having sexy fun, while Brian sets up a lot of cameras.  Not to be pervy (though he does that, too), but to record proof of the bigfoot that his Uncle Bob (Jeff Schwan) swears lives around those parts.  Brian gets his wish in a big, hairy way when the legendary creature lays siege on their cabin.  Supposedly non-aggressive, this particular beastie has a serious bone to pick (or snap) with these irresponsible youngins, and nothing is going to stand its way.  

I must admit, I have not always had high regards for the found footage genre.  My first experience with the style goes all the way back to its birth, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, which Sanchez co-directed.  I went in with high expectations, after devouring the brilliant “is it real?” marketing and hype, and I left utterly pissed.  My brain wouldn’t accept the narrative style.  It didn’t seem like a real movie to me.  None of the found footage movies that followed did anything to warm me to the style.  If anything, they lowered my opinion of it.  Then came CLOVERFIELD and it finally clicked.  Re-watching BLAIR WITCH ten years later was a completely different experience.  I connected with the rawness and immediacy of the performances.  I understood their fear and frustration.  This time it drew me in.  Found footage is still not my favorite style, but in the hands of a good director, it can be extremely effective.

With EXISTS, Sanchez utilized the best of both worlds.  It’s still found footage, but there are so many cameras running simultaneously that it allows for more breathing room and variety. There is enough coverage for reactions and establishing shots with multiple POVs.  The edit can be snappy and kinetic without constantly shaking the camera.  The real-time immediacy still comes through and it even makes sense story wise.  Brian is a total voyeur, more comfortable capturing life than living it.  Given his obsession with catching a bigfoot on video, it is reasonable that he would lug a bag full of Go-Pros and set them up everywhere, continuously recording.  There are cameras on bikes, helmets, dashboards.  The fixed cameras help alleviate my biggest issue with found footage: if something scary is coming after you, stop effing with the camera and run.  Now they can do just that and still get the shot.    

The story begins in classic TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE style with a carload of kids taking a road trip somewhere they shouldn´t be going.  You get a clue to the group dynamic right away, as Brian’s friends play a little prank on him as he sleeps by trying to set his beard on fire.  Now, it has been a while since I was in college, so I might be out of touch with the kind of innocent hazing the kids are into today, but WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?   What kind of assholes set someone’s beard on fire for a joke?  “Ha ha, you should have seen the look on your face when I set it on fire!  Classic burn, bro!”  Obviously these knuckleheads have not seen THE BURNING.  Setting people on fire is never as funny as you expect it to be.  

Sure enough, the potentially scarring tomfoolery is the distraction which leads to the accident starting the whole mess.  The movie takes its time ramping up the action.  Aside from some mournful wailing in the woods, the beginning is just getting to know the cast.  This can be a bit painful, as it has already been established that these guys are assholes.  Also, they use the words “bro” and “pimp” entirely too much for comfort.  They´re just dumb college kids, nothing on the nerve-grating level of an Eli Roth cast, but I still wouldn’t want to hang out with them for long.

Brian is clearly the most sympathetic one.  He’s an outsider from the start, more comfortable talking to the camera than to the others.  They don’t go out of their way to make him feel welcome, either.  Even Matt sides with his friends over his brother.  Todd is the primary instigator of dickish behavior, making fun of Brian’s bigfoot obsession, but Matt goes along with it.  Dora comes off a little better.  She at least tries to make a connection and encourages Brian to join in the fun.  They have a sweet scene together where she comforts Brian, who is despondent over Matt's disappearance and presumed pummeling.

Of course, Brian isn’t exactly helping his case when he does stuff like record Todd and Liz having sex in the woods or wander around shouting bigfoot calls while totally baked in the middle of the night.  Plus, he is utterly useless when shit really goes down.  He gets one shining moment of bravery when trying to help his brother, but he’s still mostly a dweeb.

Bigfoot makes her (yes, a Lady Bigfoot) presence known gradually.  The kids hear ominous howling and something bumping against the cabin walls, discover their car has been murdered, and catch the glimpse of a face in the window.  I was afraid I was headed into PARANORMAL ACTIVITY territory, all build up and no payoff.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  EXISTS delivers Bigfoot in a big way.  The real carnage begins when Matt bikes out to get help and discovers exactly how fast a giant hairy beast can run (the answer is faster than a dude on a bike).  Then she heads back to the cabin and things really go crazy.

Previous cinematic depictions of bigfoots range from benevolent (HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS), to misunderstood (LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK), to malicious (NIGHT OF THE DEMON).  They are always big, hairy (with the weird exception of NIGHT OF THE DEMON), and strong.  No matter how much I love the movies, the hokey and hoaxy subject matter means I always see bigfoot as a guy in a suit.  The creature in EXISTS, however, is a straight up beast.  Her raw strength and ferocity came across in a way I’ve never experienced in this genre.  The physical performance of 6’7 actor Brian Steele, who specializes in playing enormous aliens, demons, and other nasty things is outstanding, but the aggressive sound design is also a major factor.  Frantic camerawork (purposefully) keeps us from getting a good long look at her early in the rampage, but just hearing her is actually more effective.  She has a savage, reverberating roar, and every blow she makes against the cabin walls sounds like a wrecking ball.  There is a great scene where Todd gets all pumped up and macho, blindly firing his shotgun into the trees.  The creature retaliates by hurling head sized rocks at them that sound like cannonballs whizzing by.  

The thing that really makes her feel so dangerous is her relentlessness.  Once she commits to taking these little bastards out, nothing is going to stop her.  The old wooden cabin offers as much protection as a paper bag.  Every time the kids think they have safely barricaded themselves, she comes at them from a different side.  Even hiding down in the concealed EVIL DEAD style cellar only buys them a slight reprieve before she finds them and starts tearing through the trap door.  A lucky shotgun blast sends her packing long enough for the survivors to get out of the ruined cabin, but as soon as they are forced to trek through the woods, she is stalking their every move.

These poor saps are not only outclassed physically, they are outsmarted as well.  This bigfoot is a clever girl.  She knows to destroy their means of escape, to pick off anyone trying to bring help, and to leave them in the dark by taking out the cabin generator.  When Todd’s shotgun makes direct attacks dangerous, she lures them into the confines of her den using the screams of a wounded friend.  Honestly, these guys would be out of their league confronting an angry raccoon.  Bigfoot might have felt a little embarrassed for them, when she wasn’t busy bashing them to death.

The climax unleashes another unrelenting wave of destruction, resulting in an astonishing physical stunt that blows me away every time I see it.  This is the optimal use of found footage, in my opinion.  The real time pacing and genuine reactions give it a certain verisimilitude that make it feel like the events are actually happening.  It helps that a lot of it really is happening, thanks to the low budget, "lets just do it and see what we get" nature of the movie.  Even with all the new technology, it's a nice callback to the old grindhouse days of practical--and slightly dangerous--filmmaking.  Suffice it to say, if you find yourself chased by a bigfoot, a cliff side camper is not the best place to take shelter.

Eventually we learn the reason for her rampage.  [Spoiler]  Brian, the last one left, finds out the thing they hit at the beginning was her baby bigfoot (barely a mediumfoot, really).  Mama Bigfoot pushes his head down into the fly covered corpse like she was disciplining a dog.  When he shows contrition and accepts what he has coming to him, she shows herself to be the bigger (sort of) person and lets him live.  

 Of course, I came up with an alternative theory that she felt bad about how douchey everyone was treating Brian, killed them all, and adopted him as her new son.  Now they live together happily in the woods, where she only occasionally smacks him around when he says “pimp” too much.  Basically, a happy ending either way.

All of which leads me to conclude I have nothing to fear from bigfoots in the wilderness, as long as I watch where I’m driving and don’t set anyone’s beard on fire.  I think I can manage that.

C Chaka

No Rules - DARK ANGEL

Cops in action movies of the 1980s were an interesting breed.  They largely abandoned the cynical, downbeat tone of ‘70s cop movies like THE FRENCH CONNECTION and DIRTY HARRY in favor of one that paid less attention to realism and morality and more to excess and explosions.  Cops in the ‘70s cheated to get around search warrants and due process.  Cops in the ‘80s didn’t know what those words meant.  Rules were made to be broken, if there were rules at all.  ‘80s cops did whatever they needed to bring the villain to justice, and justice was best served from a gun.  Filmmakers had to create super criminals to stand up to the lawless lawmen and women.  Terrorists, army sized street gangs, drug cartels, ninjas, anything went, as long as they were flashy, well-armed, and indiscriminately dangerous.  Action director extraordinaire Craig R. Baxley closed out the decade by one upping them all, pitting Dolph Lundgren against drug dealers of both the terrestrial and extra variety in 1990’s DARK ANGEL (aka I COME IN PEACE).

The Capsule:

After losing his partner in an undercover sting gone bad, Houston PD detective Jack Caine (Dolph Lundgren) will stop at nothing to take down the man responsible, sleazebag yuppie drug lord Victor Manning (Sherman Howard).  He has to put his vengeance on hold, though, when a new player in the drug game literally explodes onto the city.  The newcomer (Matthias Hues) is seven feet fall, has white eyes, shoots razor sharp CDs, and steals endorphins straight from people’s brains.  Due to the strange nature of the case, Caine is saddled with a straight laced F.B.I. agent Smith (Brian Benben).  As the bodies pile up around the city, Caine and Smith start to suspect their target is more than your average drug dealer.  He’s a drug dealer…from space.

I caught this strange little sci-fi/drug war action mash up when it was going by the slightly hokey but more relevant title, I COME IN PEACE.  That was the US title, since they didn’t want American movie goers confusing it with THE DARK ANGEL, the 1935 relationship drama set against World War I.  I can see how that could happen.  While DARK ANGEL is a classier title, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Is the endorphin stealing alien the dark angel?  He did fall from the sky, but that is as close as he gets to anything angelic.  He’s a big blonde German-looking dude, so the dark part doesn’t really fit either.  I COME IN PEACE, on the other hand, is entirely appropriate.  That line is a running gag in the movie.  It’s the alien’s standard greeting to people just before he stabs them in the heart with a heroin pumping harpoon.  Either he has a terrible translation guide, or he’s just being a dick.  Either way, he doesn’t really come in peace.

Dolph Lundgren is one of my favorite B list action stars.  He had the muscles and stature of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger, but there was something enigmatic and veiled about his performance that worked equally well for playing the hero or villain. At the time, his two biggest roles were from ROCKY IV and RED SCORPION, so most people thought of him as a dour Russian.  DARK ANGEL gave him a chance to show he was neither.  At first glance, Jack Caine seems like the stereotypical maverick cop. The kind you would expect to first meet waking up from a hangover in a messy bedroom, knocking over beer cans as he tries to answer the phone.   Baxley plays around with that assumption a bit, letting Lundgren’s natural intelligence shine through (IRL he has a masters in chemical engineering, he’s not dumb).  To Agent Smith’s surprise, as well as ours, Caine has a tidy, nicely furnished apartment and has an appreciation for wine and art.  He has a bad habit of putting his job ahead of his sexy coroner girlfriend, Diane (Betsy Brantley), but when she’s not slapping him, he’s quite the romantic.  There is more to Caine than his 6’5 karate Viking appearance.

Even though Caine keeps a neat apartment, F.B.I. Agent Smith is the Felix in this odd couple.  Uptight, inflexible, and critical, this character could easily have come off as an insufferable jerk or the butt of all the jokes.  Brian Benben, who I consider woefully underrated and underused, offsets Smith’s irritating qualities with endearing ones.  Benben has a talent for being sympathetically insecure; he brings a wonderfully immature quality to his roles.  It’s like he was the kid in a body swap movie who suddenly wakes up as an adult, but never got to switch back.  Once Smith starts to loosen up to Caine’s laissez-faire style of policing, that child-like enthusiasm begins to peek out, especially when he gets a hold of one of the alien guns that shoots explosives.  His transition from worrying about chain of command to gleefully blowing up cars is very satisfying.

Caine and Smith’s relationship is one of the strongest elements of the movie.  Their first meeting when they are forced to work together is clearly antagonistic, and they butt heads over procedural styles throughout, but they warm up to each other surprisingly quickly.  Even though their squabbling never stops, they do seem to like each other.  It takes on a brotherly dynamic, where Caine is the cooler older brother that Smith pretends not to admire.  The rather glaring size difference adds to the comparison.  There is even a scene where Smith borrows an old football jacket from Caine.  Smith is impressed that it fits him.  Caine explains it was from when he was 12.

It’s hard to compete with a 7 foot tall alien endorphin harvester, but Baxley comes close with his ridiculous hometown bad guys, The White Boys.  They are the ‘80s action movie equivalent to the Baseball Furies from THE WARRIORS, a group that could only exist in film.  The yuppie drug dealers are so far removed from reality that the alien seems more plausible.  All the White Boy goons wear fancy suits, drive expensive sports cars, and have douchey slicked back hair.  They are a blatant personification of evil capitalists: Wall St. scumbags with Uzis instead of cell phones.  These guys are just below Nazis and white supremacists on the easy to hate villains scale.  

Now that I think about it, I bet I know where Donald Trump got the template for his cabinet. 

Sherman Howard plays head asshole Victor Manning as far from DAY OF THE DEAD’s lovable zombie, Bub, as he could get.  The smugness radiates off of him in waves.  He is completely unconcerned that his murder of an undercover cop was caught on tape.  Just like CEOs in real life, Manning gets away scot free while is underlings catch all the shit, which in this case means getting blown up by a giant alien.

Sam Anderson is even more fun as the number two corporate hood, Warren.  Caine busts in on him as he’s chairing a heavily armed board meeting.  Warren tells his goons to put their guns away, not because they are threatening a cop, but because he doesn’t want to get blood on the swank carpeting.  Caine gets to throw his weight around for about thirty seconds before Warren turns the tables on him.  He even forces Caine to be a drug mule for them by holding Smith hostage.  And just like Victor Manning, Warren gets no comeuppance at the end.  The Houston PD should really re-evaluate their anti-organized crime tactics, because they ain’t cuttin’ it. 

This movie shares a lot of similarities with another alien-hunting-criminals-in-the-city movie from the same year, PREDATOR 2.  They both involve drug cartels being slaughtered by an alien, an exotic projectile found by the cop hero, and murdered partners.  DARK ANGEL beat its more famous sibling to the punch by a couple of months, so it can’t be accused of stealing from that one.  It can be accused of stealing from TERMINATOR, though, since Matthias Hues’ massive space drug dealer is clearly modeled after Arnold’s unstoppable cyborg.  Hues is even more impressive than Schwarzenegger, in my opinion.  Not only is he just as physically intimidating, he is remarkably athletic as well.  He doesn’t just run, he leaps over car hoods parkour style, before parkour was even a thing.  For such a huge guy, he is amazingly nimble.  He also seems to be naturally fire resistant, since he shares practically every scene with an explosion.

And unlike Schwarzenegger’s scowling, all business robot, Hues’ character is having a fucking blast.  There's a barely contained grin on his face every time he unleashes a bit of destruction.  His first fight with Caine is also a great source of amusement.  The big Swede unleashes a barrage of punches and spin kicks on the space invader that is as effective as a four year old swinging a cardboard tube.   He gives Caine the chance to go through all his moves before demolishing him.  How can you not have fun driving a stolen police car through a mall?  It’s always nice to see someone really enjoying his job, even if that job is sucking brain juice through some poor sap’s skull with a giant, wrist mounted hypodermic needle.

It should also be noted that Hues is such a badass alien that he doesn’t even need a spaceship.  A fireball lands on an irate businessman’s Mercedes (Baxley really hates yuppies), and Hues struts right out of the crater without even needing to dust himself off.  I think he just jumped from orbit.

Even though it came out in 1990, DARK ANGEL is 100% of the ‘80’s.  Movie cops in the ‘80’s followed their gut, made their own rules, and got results.  Smith’s obsession with proper procedure is portrayed as a flaw.  He badgers Caine about silly things like warrants, chain of evidence, and police brutality until he learns to relax and just roll with the violations.  

The thing is, no matter how cool we think Caine is, he is objectively a terrible police officer.  He never catches Manning or stops the White Boys, despite knowing exactly where they hang out and having a ton of evidence on them.  He only figures out what is going on with the bad alien because the good alien who was hunting him (while obeying Alien Cop regulations, no doubt) sneaks into Caine’s car and gives him all the key details before croaking.  

That’s not the worst of it.  Victor Manning may have been the one to pull the trigger, but Caine is the real reason his partner is dead.  First of all, he and Ray (Alex Morris) seem to have set up the whole undercover drug sting by themselves, with no backup or even a mention to their boss, Captain Malone (a perpetually beleaguered Jim Haynie).  The real kicker is that at the very moment Ray needs him most, just before Manning calls him out for being a narc, Caine gets distracted by a convenience store robbery and abandons the surveillance to beat up some meth heads.  By the time he gets back, Ray is already dead.  His last words should have been “My partner is such an asshole.”

Ultimately, though, Caine does take down the alien his way, only proving that rules are completely worthless.  Caine, Smith, and Diane walk away triumphantly, and we leave Houston a marginally safer place.  Still plenty of drug dealers, considerably less cars, but absolutely no aliens.  

As a wise man once said, “Fuck you, spaceman.”

C Chaka