Stars
Do Thrills and Kills!
by
Kristin Battestella
Some
big names past and present take on murder, mayhem, slashers, and
suspense in these intriguing mysteries and fun horrors.
The Eyes of Laura Mars –
Barbara
Streisand (Guilty)
power ballads and photo negatives open this 1978
mystery directed by Irvin
Kershner (The Empire
Strikes Back)
starring photographer Faye
Dunaway (The Three Musketeers) and
cop Tommy Lee Jones (Stormy Monday).
Hazy point of view scissors, saucy magazines, fur coats, and stabbing
knives contrast the Deco bedroom accented with multiple mirrors,
reversed symmetry, white nightgowns, and strategic lighting glows.
The swanky pads come complete with vintage photography, huge cameras,
light boxes, print sheets, cases of Polaroid film, and a copy of the
titular photography book. Despite dreams of killer crimes, the
gallery galas must go on thanks to pushy reporters questioning the
steamy, violent photos and whether such photography is just an
incendiary fad compared to real artistry. Such topics are immediately
fascinating to study then when nudity was relatively new onscreen and
now as today's auteur photographer has taken a backseat to instagram
filters and cameras everywhere. The edgy pictures here, however, are
said to be a reflection of the world – recognizable selling points
for our former war zone photojournalist. Funky music and great disco
tracks contrast murder questioning as lingerie, lace, and garter
belts accent the photo shoot montages with babes pulling each other's
hair and cars on fire in the street. Editing matches the rapid fire
shutter clicks until blurry visions and more death interfere with the
couture and upscale time capsule. Violent stabbings and blood in the
eyes overtake the viewpoint as the audience thinks we see more than
what is actually shown thanks to the believe what you see or what I
tell you duality. The ugly green, harsh police station and its
neurotic smoking counters the glamorous scene and the slim, sexy
campaign while unpublished crime photos suggest a copycat and cast
suspicion on Laura's handsy ex-husband Raul Julia (The Addams Family). Sophisticated
friends think she shouldn't mention these psychic visions, however
the conversations happen while we're looking through the lense or at
the billboards, for the images are distractions from driver Brad
Dourif's (Lord of the Rings) rap
sheet and details agent Rene Auberjonois (Deep Space Nine)
isn't telling. Laura is no nonsense at work but reliant on the men
around her once something goes wrong, and the models are to be looked
at, used, or killed. Hard line cityscapes, industrial scaffolding,
and massive windows are places where a lady can get hurt. Above and
below chases, stabbings, shootouts, staircases, and filming through
railings harken Hitchcock and Bava as deadly action happens in both
the voyeur and the victim's perspectives. Video cameras and
television screens filming the sex and violence as titillation layer
the within within visuals while pictures within pictures and
photographs provide both foreground and background subjects. More
through the blinds peering and intercut editing match the slicing
crimes as funerals begat admonishing sermons, intruding reporters,
and hecklers blaming Laura. Trysts amid the trees and bed of furs
zoom in and out of focus, and our photographer is taught how to aim,
point, and shoot with a gun instead of the camera. Reflective
wrapping paper reveals a picture of the receiver when he wasn't
looking before he sings “I'm a jolly good fellow” and decoys of
decoys, tails being tailed, and men dressed as women lead to screams,
car crashes, and red herrings. Each frame is like looking at a wall
of mirrors, creating tunnel vision where the audience, voyeurs that
we are, see what we want to see until the double vision becomes one
with elevators, shattered windows, slashed throats, and cracked
mirrors. Imitators and wise viewers make the finale twists obvious
now, however this should be seen more than once for the doubts on
what we see as face value and not noticing what's hidden in plain
sight.
The Last Horror Film – Cape wearing cabbie who still lives with
his mother Joe Spinell (Maniac) fantasizes about directing
scream queen Caroline Munro (Dracula A.D. 1972) to awards
glory while stalking her at the Cannes Film Festival in this 1982
filmed on the fly slasher also called Fanatic. Boobs,
red lights, hot tub shocks, and electrocution screams garner
screening room praise amid vintage theater projectors, old film
reels, and retro film equipment in a great visual capsule of New York
streets, Riviera scenery, and topless beaches. Posters of the day –
including the giant, unmistakable legs of For Your Eyes Only
– and sly festival cameos contrast radio reports about Jodi
Foster's stalker and creepy collage shrines of Munro as Jana Bates.
Our obsessed wannabe blends in with the wild parties, filming
within filming set ups, and crowded red carpet for his hefty but then
innocuous on the shoulder camera is just one of many like today's fan
encounters never in the moment but via the ubiquitous smartphone.
Calls to the producer with script ideas for his leading lady mirror
today's chance for anybody to @ a celebrity on social media while
love triangles parallel the life imitating art relationships on and
off screen. There's 212 phone numbers, too – no 555! Busy vignette
filming with night clubs and neon slow the shoestring plot, yet the
obviously bad toppling heads, slit throats, and slow motion scares
blur the film within a film wink. Prophetic throwaway mentions of
women wanting to talk film business pushed aside by producers looking
for nude starlets accent debates about not needing security because
the audience understands the difference between reality and illusion,
actress versus character, and violence or bad influences onscreen.
It's chilling how easy it is for one man to gain star access, but
police suspect the crimes supposedly being committed must be
performance art promotion for a horror movie – again not unlike
today's fine line between PR and real life with social media
photoshop and accidentally on purpose pap strolls. Babes frolicking
on the beach taunt the weirdo who wants to watch before blinding
spotlights in the cinema, silhouettes against the blank screen, and
gory ax slices as the intercut editing merges the fantasies of our
horny, disturbed director with onscreen stabs, gouged hearts, and
fake blood everywhere. The audience eats popcorn while he bursts into
the bathroom ready to pop the cork on his champagne, and the
soundtrack fits the frenetic mental state. Lack of awareness on any
wrong doing and rejection from his favorite star lead to chases
through the festival wearing nothing but towels – and the cheering
crowd doesn't help because they think such a fabulous entrance must
be a publicity stunt. Lookalikes and security can't stop the
backstage abductions as the old school horror leaves the festival for
country villas and an over the top candlelight vampire meets chainsaw
finale. The varying versions' gore contrasting Cannes unevenness and
horror versus humor mixed tone add to the somewhat frustrating
haphazard filming, however the winks come together in the end with
the open for interpretation saucy, bemusement, and entertainment.
Spinning Man – Sunny lakeside
fun turns into ominous docks and police blotters in this 2018
thriller starring professor Guy Pearce (Prometheus),
detective Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye),
and wife Minnie Driver (Phantom of the Opera). Foreboding
flashes, yellow tape, and photos of the deceased keep restarting the
story alongside snippets of seemingly happy family fun, pieces of
conversations, and disjointed exposition. The professors debate
hypothetical
opportunities with young students and guilt versus objective reason,
but working out while the students look leads to crushes, stolen
glances, and unspoken flirtations accented by the camera's focusing
on a smile longer than it should or lingering on the long puff of a
cigarette. Family collisions, questioning versus alibis, and rival
smooth, however, are enough without unnecessary hot and heavy
fantasizing and back and forth intercuts. Sometimes our professor is
cool, yet other times he protests where there seems to be no reason.
The detectives insist this is all routine, but the viewer understands
the interplay without the story resorting to sensationalism as many
crime and procedurals often do. Paralleling police mirrors or the man
made small and isolated in the frame visuals accent interrogations
while careful editing matches the police questioning and family
arguments. Again unnecessary flashes of running in the woods break
the suspect or family man tension when in the classroom
philosophizing and literal versus figurative plays on words build
better suspicion. It's easy to talk one's way out of anything if you
interpret truth as subjective, and whispers about previous students
and patterns of behavior mean treading carefully in the semantics
with our pesky yet thorough detective. They're both searching for the
truth, but the close to the vest police unnerve their suspect with
their own existential theories. The timelines don't add up, and the
impounded vehicle certainly points to our professor. Lawyers,
however, provide realistic doubts on the circumstantial evidence –
runaways instead murder despite suspect lipstick and traps lying in
wait. Awkward family trips acerbate the narcissistic blaming and
maybe maybe not memories ironically a la Memento.
No
one says what they actually mean and a mother must protect her
children even if she doubts her husband. Perception on who's guilty
and deception that doesn't make one look good provide duality, for
hiding suspect behavior may be as innocent as putting up missing
posters for a child's pet you know to be dead or as bad as
rationalizing a scandal that puts the entire university in jeopardy.
A son may put on a cape and pretend to be someone else but as adults
we choose the destructive facades we wear. While this straightforward
did he or didn't he doesn't underestimate the audience, it is slow in
some spots thanks to the round and round. Viewers looking for tense a
minute will also be let down as this is really a character drama
misrepresented as a thriller. Fortunately, the fine ensemble and
dramatic performances provide mature introspection as the lies and
what is believed to be the truth come full circle.
I
Didn't Finish this Skipper:
Slasher Season 2: Guilty Party – This eight episode 2017 installment now billed as a Neflix
original gets off to a very rough start with shades of Friday the 13th and
I Know What You Did
Last Summer. Hip
camp counselors take a snowy drive with rad music to revisit a past
crime before torches and a hazing gone wrong lead to a bloody picnic
blanket, dumping bodies, and screams. Unfortunately, everyone is an
immediately unlikable horror stereotype deserving of what comes to
them. Supply stop cliches and warnings from the experts add more seen this horror movie before deja vu, and summer staff lacking in proper
outdoor clothing inexplicably know how to drive snowmobiles after
complaining about how much they dislike winter activities. Now the
retreat is a commune with likewise trite tree huggers suspicious in
their lack of suspicions, as apparently they don't hear the loud
arguing and x marks the spot map where the counselors fear a new
developer putting in tennis courts will discover their buried
secrets. Sudden chainsaw action and gruesome eviscerations are tough
to appreciate when far too many characters are throw at the screen
amid more contrivances for the obvious unknown witness and/or family
member revenge. From taking a vote to call the police after saying
murder is not a democracy to the drinking game for each time the
hysterical snob tells everyone else to calm down and everybody
telling each other to “fuck off” like it's “goodnight” on The
Waltons –
terrible dialogue acerbates the intercut unevenness between the
shouting killer crowd versus the happy whispering commune. The
original camp flashbacks are more interesting than the present but
the back and forth also undercuts any current tension. Strung
up skeletons and ominous tracks in the snow wouldn't sustain a weekly
viewing if this were a traditional series nor can the scary shocks
hide the laughable action and intestines wrapped around a snowman
preposterous. Emo counselors crying wolf and making themselves the
victim repeatedly ask why someone is doing this – because the “I
know you killed her” bloody writing on the wall isn't explanation
enough? Sabotaged vehicles, bloody packages, and stupid people who
don't know they are in a horror movie thinking a thirty mile hike in
the winter night is better than staying in a safe building create
inexplicable motivations while brief wolf perils, frostbite, being
lost in the woods, and a hitherto unknown medical expert among the
crowd are no surprise. Dual timelines and the all over the place
ensemble can't compensate for the too thin for eight episodes
derivatives. Most disturbing, however, are the racist undertones over
a seriously problematic love triangle with a black man and Indian
girl desperate to fit in with the white Mean
Girls. After two episodes,
the only person dressed for the outdoors is the somehow unseen killer
in a bright orange parka, and gouged eyes or snapped necks have no
deeper, vengeful meaning beyond varying the gore. There's no reason
to care about who lives or dies, and reading the remaining episode
summaries provides cannibalism, rape, more characters who happened to
visit the isolated retreat, a just missed it plane flying by rescue,
and conveniently found old camp files among yet more numerous reasons
to tune out ASAP.
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