Categorie archief: Films

Glen or Glenda

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


“I Changed My Sex!”

Director: Edward D. Wood Jr.
Written by: Edward D. Wood Jr.
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Lyle Talbot, Tomothy Farrell, Dolores Fuller, Edward D. Wood Jr.

Year / Country: 1953, USA
Running Time: 68 mins.

In the making of this film, which deals with a strange and curious subject, no punches have been pulled – no easy way out is taken. Many of the smaller parts are portrayed by persons who actually are, in real life, the character they portray on the screen. This is a picture of stark realism…taking no sides…but giving you the facts…All the facts…as they are today… You are society…JUDGE YE NOT…..

This is how it starts. Director Ed Wood sure meant business. As a cross dresser, he was driven to bring his ‘dilemma’ to the screen. Glen is what medical science calls ‘a transvestite’. The world doesn’t understand it. A very serious subject. But if you want the audience to take it seriously, throwing in Bela Lugosi in improvised talkie scenes, completely unrelated to the story, is probably not the best idea.

Director Edward D. Wood Jr.’s breakthrough movie suffers from way too much explanation. There are some very funny scenes though. Glenda in front of the store window, Bela Lugosi’s ‘pull the strings’ monologue intercut with buffalos, Bela being entertained by sexy girls. Hilarious then, hilarious now. Glen or Glenda belongs in any cult geeks collection.

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Biography: Edward D. Wood Jr. (1924, New York – 1978, Hollywood) is widely considered as the world’s worst filmmaker. His low-budget movies, usually mergers of science-fiction and horror, are mostly complete disasters in terms of production values and continuity. In 1994, Edward D. Wood Jr. became the subject of an amazing biopic directed by Tim Burton called Ed Wood.

Filmography: The Sun Was Setting (1951, TV short), Trick Shooting with Kenne Duncan (1953, short), Glen or Glenda (1953), Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tuscon Kid (1953, TV short), Boots (1953, short), Jail Bait (1954), Bride of the Monster (1955), The Night the Banshee Cried (1957, short), Final Curtain (1957, short), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), Night of the Ghouls (1959), The Sinister Urge (1960), Take It Out in Trade (1970), The Young Marrieds (1971), Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love (1971)

Repo Man

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Alex Cox
Written by: Alex Cox
Cast: Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash

Year / Country: 1984, USA
Running Time: 92 mins.

Repo men are repossessors. They take back cars from bad debtors who have failed to pay their bills. They often work through the night and rely on speed to keep up with the demands of the job. Suburban punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) lands a position with the Helping Hand Corporation, where his mentor becomes veteran repossessor Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), who shows him the ropes.

Together, Bud and Otto make an effective car-recovery team, but the job comes with plenty of threats: the fierce Rodriguez brothers as rival operators, a gang of punks, and even the government. Trigger-happy car owners frequently complicate matters as well. The story really gains momentum when a highly valuable Chevy Malibu is flagged for repossession. What no one realizes, however, is that the car originates from Roswell, New Mexico and that its trunk contains a mysterious alien device.

Writer-director Alex Cox once worked as a repo man himself, and he blends that firsthand experience with sci-fi elements to create something decidedly unconventional. Repo Man carries a strong cult vibe, which is both rare and appealing. The downside is that this atmosphere sometimes feels like the film’s main selling point. Still, a number of funny moments and consistently enjoyable performances make it a very watchable movie, just not quite the cult masterpiece it might have been.

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Biography: Alex Cox (1954, Liverpool) left law school to study film at Bristol University. Then he worked as a repo-man. He used his experiences in this profession to write and direct his feature debut Repo Man. After that, he worked as an actor, writer and director. He was successful in the eighties, especially with Sid and Nancy. Since the nineties, he mostly directed TV-movies and documentaries.

Filmography: Sleep is for Sissies (1980, short), Repo Man (1984), Sid and Nancy (1986), Straight to Hell (1987), Walker (1987), Red Hot and Blue (1990, TV), Highway Patrolman (1991), Death and the Compass (1992), The Winner (1996), Three Businessmen (1998), Kurosawa: The Last Emperor (1999, TV-doc), A Hard Look (2000, TV-doc), Revengers Tragedy (2002), Mike Hama, Private Detective: Mike Hama Must Die! (2002, TV), I’m a Juvenile Delinquent, Jail Me! (2004, TV), Searchers 2.0 (2007), Repo Chick (2009), Straight to Hell Returns (2010)

Horror of Dracula

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Terence Fisher
Written by: Bram Stoker (novel), Jimmy Sangster
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling

Year / Country: 1958, UK
Running Time: 82 mins.

With The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957, Hammer Studios began the revival of early Gothic horror films. The team behind it consisted of director Terence Fisher, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, and actors Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the creature. It became a considerable classic. After Mary Shelley, it was now time for a retelling of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. The cast and crew remained largely the same.

The story is well known: a librarian named Jonathan Harker arrives at Dracula’s castle and quickly notices that no birds are singing. He is supposedly there to index Count Dracula’s books, but secretly intends to destroy the count and end his reign of terror. His mission fails. Not long afterward, Doctor Van Helsing arrives with the same purpose as his former friend and colleague. A deadly game ensues between the demonic Dracula and the cunning Van Helsing.

Unlike Tod Browning’s original Dracula, the Hammer version has not aged nearly as noticeably. As a result, this is the version that can still be enjoyed by generations to come. Fisher’s vision is compelling; he reportedly refused to watch Browning’s film so that it would not influence him and he hit a home run. Horror of Dracula proved universally popular and is commonly regarded as both Fisher’s and Hammer’s finest work. Despite the typical Hammer gore, Dracula has seldom appeared as majestic as he does here.

The cast is a joy as well. Lee’s first performance as the Lord of the Undead is strikingly pure and memorable, not yet diluted by the countless unnecessary sequels that would follow. Peter Cushing may be even better as Van Helsing. He takes the material seriously and knows how to involve the audience in his sacred mission, while still managing to throw in touches of humor here and there.

For the ultimate Dracula classic, look no further than this version. It’s absolutely spellbinding. Classic horror was seldom better.

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Biography: Terence Fisher (1904, London – 1980, London) was a very active British filmmaker who directed no less than sixty movies in his career. He entered the film business as a clapper and made it to editor quite soon. When he made his directorial debut he was already quite old, but swiftly made up for it in quantity. His big break came in 1956 when, at the age of 52, he directed the Hammer Studios’ remake of Frankenstein. The Curse of Frankenstein became a cinema hit. Fisher continued to make films for the Hammer Studios, making many remakes of Universal monster classics. He directed Peter Cushing fourteen and Christopher Lee twelve times. He kept making horror movies till the end of his career in 1974. He died in 1980, aged 76.

Filmography (a selection): Portrait from Life (1948), A Song for Tomorrow (1948), Colonel Bogey (1948, short), The Astonished Heart (1950), Home to Danger (1951), Distant Trumpet (1952), Mantrap (1953), Spaceways (1953), Face the Music (1954), Final Appointment (1954), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents (1953-55, TV episodes), The Flaw (1955), The Last Man to Hang? (1956), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1956/57, TV episodes), Horror of Dracula (1958), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Dial 999 (1959, TV episodes), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), The Gorgon (1964), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Island of Terror (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Night of the Big Heat (1967), The Devil Rides Out (1968), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

Videodrome

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: David Cronenberg
Written by: David Cronenberg
Cast: James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky

Year / Country: 1983, Canada
Running Time: 84 mins.

In David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, shabby network TV-producer Max Renn (James Woods) is searching for the ultimate shock-TV experience to serve his buccaneers. When his tech-man Harlan breaks into a secret cult-network show called ‘Videodrome’ he finds what he is looking for. A series of snuff videos that are very grotesque, realistic and brutal. Not meant for public consumption. But, as Max puts it, his channel is too small to be considered public.

Max justifies his occupation with economics. His network is small and can only survive by giving the audience something they can’t get anywhere else, hence his interest in Videodrome. When Max participates in a television debate about the ethics of his work, he meets the girl Nicki with whom he hooks up afterwards. She turns out to be pretty much a masochist, who wants to audition for Videodrome herself. Then Max finds out that the show – that is all about torture, mutilation and murder – is real.

When Max goes to speak to television guru Brian O’Blivion, he starts having hallucinations. And very soon the lines between reality and video begin to fade. It goes deep. What we learn along with Max is that reality is pure perception. According to O’Blivion, Videodrome will eventually evolve the human brain so that it will be able to control hallucinations and change the human reality entirely.

Master of body horror David Cronenberg sets up this creepy movie perfectly. The prospect of an unleashed hallucination machine is pretty much terrifying, especially after seeing what Max sees. Max has to watch his own body mutate when a videocassette inserter appears in his belly. This can be used by the creators of Videodrome to insert hallucinations in the form of pulsating VHS-cassettes. The flesh transformations are made very gruesomely by FX-wizard Rick Baker. A frightening exploration of the mind of those who like extreme stuff. A movie that was ahead of its time and is still powerful today in both style and message.

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Biography: David Cronenberg (1943, Toronto), also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, grew up in Toronto. His father was a journalist and his mother a piano player. Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in literature after switching from the science department. He then turned to filmmaking and reached a cult status with a few early horror features including Shivers and Rabid. He rapidly became a very popular genre filmmaker and eventually a true auteur, making profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society.

Filmography (a selection): Transfer (1966, short) / Stereo (1969) / Shivers (1975) / Rabid (1977) / Fast Company (1979) / The Brood (1979) / Scanners (1981) / The Dead Zone (1983) / The Fly (1986) / Dead Ringers (1988) / Naked Lunch (1991) / Crash (1996) / eXistenZ (1999) / Spider (2002) / A History of Violence (2005) / Eastern Promises (2007) / A Dangerous Method (2011) / Cosmopolis (2012) / Crimes of the Future (2022)