Review XCI - 女虐: Naked Blood

Review XCI
女虐: Naked Blood (1996)

What's a Halloween without a Japanese horror film? While looking up Meatball Machine (totally loved it when I watched it years back, though it was cheesy and weird) to get suggestions, I came across Satō Hisayasu's Naked Blood. The description seemed interesting enough, but what really hooked me was the "It's absolutely disturbing, but it was touching." What, touching? Guys, I'm down! I'm watching it! This is the last film I'm reviewing!

Eiji (Abe Sadao) is trying to fulfill his destiny of being a great scientist, as proclaimed by his father. He develops a serum that is able to turn pain into pleasure, and he's sure this will happen change the world for the better. However, he has to test the serum, which he calls "My Son", to see how effective it is on people. His mother, who is testing a new contraceptive on three women (seems like a small experimental group, but anyway), comes to his help, sneaking the serum into the contraceptive liquid. Now he's ready to see how great his creation really... isn't.

I was disappointed with this one. I mean, I guess I should have expected it to be absolutely awful given the horrible rating on IMDb, but I like gory nonsense sometimes. And this one was supposed to be gory, but honestly, it wasn't that bad. That's not say I didn't cringe. Let me discuss the three women in the experiment... The first is a woman who loves to eat (Hayashi Yumika; she's out to find the perfect, the best meal. The second woman is obsessed with her body image (Kirihara Mika), preferring to "starve and die" than get fat. The final one is an insomniac (Aika Misa) who hasn't slept since she got her period (which her doctor claims is a result of the "shock of menstruation". ... Okay). I don't want to give anything away, but at the same time, would you really watch this film? Probably not. Therefore, beware, spoilers! *breathes* Alright, we here? The woman with the self-esteem issues ends up mutilating herself in order to clear out every pore, every imperfection. It was... lame. It didn't look that cool, and we missed most of the gore for that one. It was more her just piercing her ear, cuts away to other scenes, and back to her sitting on the floor completely full of cuts and sharp objections piercing out of her skin. So scratch woman number two. How about the first woman? Okay, this is more like it. First the woman is at home cutting up some squid for some sushi (or something of the sort) when she cuts herself. Her cry is one of a sensual nature, and she starts sucking on her finger desperately. The serum doesn't make blood tasty, it only makes pain pleasurable, but whatever. The next time we see the woman, she's dipping the lovely battered squid into oil. But her hand is also covered in batter. Hmm... Fried hand, anyone? I think the hand was left undercooked, but the sound effects of her eating her fingers was pretty cool, I will admit. Now, the final scene with her in it. This one is infamous for being gruesome. She starts by first eating her labia (yum, yum), which looks super hard for some reason; then, she proceeds to eat her left nipple (the crunch sound seemed off to me - pretty sure it wouldn't be crunchy like her hand). Finally, she chops down on her eye after pulling it out with a fork. While I cringed, it was more the idea that got me feeling a little squeamish. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the optic nerve and tissue surrounding the optic nerve is not that rigid. It would have been cooler if it was stringy and she's pulling it out. All those connecting ganglion cells and all. But seriously, this is the most gruesome scene, and it wasn't that bad.

Wait, so what about the final woman? Well, she ends up becoming a serial murderer because the pain of killing others ends up becoming great pleasure. The idea was cool, but it was half-assed, and this little love thing with Eiji was... weird. It was forced on to the movie just so he could impregnate the insomniac at the end, only to be killed. That whole woman was... off. She had this idea that she could become one with a cactus in her room, and she'd use it to empty her heart and go into a "dream-like" state. While her one dream gives us the idea of her wanting to kill, I didn't get the cactus thing. I mean, maybe she's supposed to be the cactus, deadly to the touch or something, and it would make sense since, once she has sex with Eiji - or is about to have sex with him, can't remember - the plant flowers. Flowers are the sexual organs of a plant, and, well, she's about to undergo coitus. But that's lame. And this whole being at one with the cactus... It's shoved in your face. And no one would be like that, unless she really is crazy because of the insomnia. And, especially, Eiji goes along with this. Does he not know this woman is crazy? *sigh* It was just a bit too weird for me without being weird enough for me to think it was cool. And then that bit at the end? Well, two parts. First, the son makes out with his mother before saying goodbye. Is he really embodying his father in this scene? BUT WHY. WHY THE INCEST. It was pointless, and it was never hinted before. And I don't care for it! Then, right at the end, the woman is left with her intestines exposed, and her husband, who was dead or disappeared or whatever, says they can finally be together forever and proceeds to climb into her stomach, closing it up with his hands. Then in a few scenes later, she fades away, just like her husband. Obviously there's this play with eternity in the film. Eiji is called so for "eternity boy". Then the father says he wants to be with his wife forever. But see, the wife doesn't support this idea, hence why she's developing a contraceptive. "Contraceptives will save the world," is what she claims to the girls before they get the injections. And throughout the film, the son claims that his mother didn't support his father's idea. The idea might be of this eternal life by having children, passing along your genes. But in the end, the son ends up failing by indirectly killing two of the women through his serum. And, in the end, he dies himself. Is the director trying to say that pain is necessary for life? Is it being looked at in a religious way - I mean, there's vanity, gluttony, and then the killing... And using a drug to go against the pain of life. But this is a Christian view of things, and most Japanese are shintoists. I don't know enough about the belief system to put a meaning into the film, but honestly, screw it. It isn't even necessary. This film was boring and I didn't get quite the gore I wanted out of it. I didn't think it was that touching, even if it tries to put more meaning into the film than other horror gore films (I guess).

Skip this one this Halloween and check out Meatball Machine instead. At least that one had humour to go along with the gore...

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Review XC - The Thing

Review XC
The Thing (1982)

I've mentioned this before, but I love to repeat myself. When I first watched John Carpenter's The Thing, I didn't like it. I was expecting something horrifying, something phenomenal, but instead I got nothing (oooh, what a good one!). But then, you know, I gained some knowledge of the awesome of John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, and I knew I had missed out. Obviously I had been holding a grudge against the game and horror films in general and had forgotten the most important thing about watching horror films - just have fun (though most of 'em still suck). Anyway, I sat down to The Thing, prepared to be disappointed again, but knowing I probably wouldn't be.

Those Norwegians are crazy! The film starts with a helicopter chase of a huskey across a tundra of Antartica. The huskey makes it to an American research outpost before one Norwegian researcher accidentally explodes via a grenade and the other is shot by one of the American researchers. Obviously something is up, so three of the Americans, including R.J. MacReady, the awesome (cough) pilot, head to the Norwegian base to find out what exactly is going on. But what they find ends up being more of a mystery... until their own base gets infected by... the thing.

So, how was my second viewing? Totally loved it. I must have just been in a real pissy mood when I watched the film the first time. Or maybe experience made me realise how many worse horror films there are out there... Either way, I liked it. How did I find the effects? They were cool. I mean, they seemed a bit cheesy at times, but honestly, I won't hate on it. I like cheese, I really do, assuming it's done well. And in The Thing, it is. The film is not only about the effects - it's really about the psychological strain every character is under. Is Clark (Richard Masur) infected? Is Windows (Thomas G. Waites)? Is Blair (Wilford Brimley)? And what about MacReady? Is he really okay? I loved that. It's a cat-and-mouse game throughout the film where even the viewer is trying to figure out who's infected and who isn't. It makes it so much more fun! Plus, remember the idiots of Alien? Well, we have idiots here, but it's not as bad. I'll be spoiling stuff every so often here, but not enough to ruin the film. Nonetheless, you've been warned from here on out. In Alien, everyone just seemed vapid and useless. In The Thing, we do have intelligent characters who know the dangers of what's going on once the thing ends up killing Bennings (Peter Maloney). I mean, sure, it might seem a bit stupid to just go bring back this misformed alien whatever from the Norwegian camp, but at least it seemed dead, unlike in Alien where the crew would gladly go over to a huge egg - clearly alive, I might add - and stick their face in it. And then we have bad-ass MacReady who, as our protagonist, is ready to dispose of someone who is infected and is ready to take control of the situation. Like I said, there are stupid moments, but I forgive them because overall, the film presents an acceptably interesting and smart crew.

I basically summed up the film, didn't I? What else is there to say? Well, I thought I'd discuss the film a bit more in depth because I watched a video about it and it made me want to share the secrets of this film with everyone! I thank my boyfriend who other analyses, too. It's one interpretation, but it makes sense to me. Anyway, the spoilers worsen now, so beware.

The film turns around this solipsistic idea with Kurt Russell's character being the "I". It's true that it's impossible to know if your mother, father, friends, teachers, bosses, workers really exist or if they're just a figment of your imagination. But given that you think, you can at least confirm your existence. This film transforms this idea, this paranoia into something more real. Throughout the film, we don't know who is infected and who isn't, and neither does Kurt Russell. He struggles to keep everyone in check, keep an eye on them, but prior to the knowledge of the infection, anyone could have gotten infected by the dog. So he's stuck with only trusting himself, knowing that he, himself, is not infected ("Now I'm gonna show you what I already know."). Thus he's stuck trying to keep track of everyone else, almost like... chess pieces? Wait, wasn't there a scene with that? Indeed there was. At the beginning of the film - and actually how we meet MacReady - we see MacReady playing against a Chess Wizard machine. He sips his whiskey, sure he has won. "*ding ding* Checkmate." The machine ends up winning, or so we think. In reality, Kurt Russell proceeds to pour his whiskey on the rocks into the machine, destroying it, and claiming it is a "cheating bitch". Let us compare this to the film, shall we? And this can really help us unravel the end. Throughout the film, Kurt Russell is moving these people around, trying to control them. While he does get accused of being an alien by Nauls (T.K. Carter), he comes out alive, stronger than ever to destroy this creature. He manages to find a way to see if someone has the thing by testing their blood (I can be slightly hemophobic, I must say. Cutting with knives and syringes - ugh. Yet here I find surgeries fascinating. Anyway.). This seems like a turning point in the film - the thing can no longer deceive the members, am I right? It can be exposed. And everyone has the flamethrowers ("Mac wants the flamethrowers!" "Mac wants the what?"), so we should be fine, right? Well, people are still idiots, and people still separate, and Blair is probably infected, but he's far away so no one is watching over him. As a result, while MacReady finally thinks he has the thing in his grasp, it soon slithers out, destroying the generators and awaiting its freezing before a search team comes and finds it once again. MacReady tries to stop it by blowing up the bunker, and he does, but then the film ends with Childs (Keith David) meeting up with MacReady. MacReady asks what happened to him, only to get a response of "I thought I saw Blair and went out looking for him." Granted, MacReady was an idiot for leaving Childs alone, but this begs the question - is Childs infected or not? Well, let's look back at that Chess Wizard scene. Remember how the machine wins, but in a way, still loses the war because MacReady just destroys it anyway? What does MacReady give Childs? Why, his whiskey. Childs gladly takes it, not concerned that MacReady may be infected. While MacReady proclaims their fight would be futile since it's about to reach 100 degrees below (is this Celsius or Fahrenheit? I have no idea), there is still a slight possibility they could survive... assuming they both were wary. But Childs gladly takes that whiskey and drinks. MacReady gives a little laugh. We know the two both have flamethrowers, and given the Chess Wizard scene, we can assume that MacReady kills Childs, thus killing the lifeform. It sounds happy, and I like it that way. MacReady the bad ass, hehe.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. I'm serious! I won't go on too much more, but I'll share one other thing that keeps you looking throughout the film. When I watched the final scene, something felt off when Childs came on screen. I didn't know what, but it just seemed... off. Now, if we look at Childs throughout the film, he always sports a navy coat. And I do mean throughout. Whenever he's outside, he wears that jacket. And in fact, attire remains consistent throughout the film. Except - you guessed it - when the thing attacks. MacReady mentions that the thing tears through clothing. There's no doubt he mentions this for a reason. The thing knows this is an issue and, thus, when it attacks the shadowy figure at the beginning, it does this late at night when the person is wearing their undergarments. Hence why Nauls finds long johns in the garbage. But sometimes it could only attack during the day, and therefore, we can kind of note when someone has been infected and someone has not. But I'll let you observe the film for that, though I'll explain the Childs scene to get you all excited. So yes, throughout the movie, and even right before the blackout, we see Childs is wearing a dark blue coat. But at the end, he's wearing a significantly light coat. Coincidence or did the thing attack him and needed a coat? Not to mention, at some point near the end, we get a panover of the hallway, the basement door, and the coat room where the door is open. Could this provide an explanation as to how Blair got to Childs? Well, I leave it up to you. But seriously, this whole thing got me creaming over the film. Alien had some thing about man rape, but I like that this film wanted you to think. Production for The Thing was delayed a year because of budget cuts, so John Carpenter had time to think about this film. And it totally made it that much more awesome.

So yes, this Halloween season, check out John Carpenter's The Thing, either a first-time watcher or a veteran watcher. I never saw the remake, but I have a feeling it's just lame. The original isn't the scariest, but it's damn well cool. Oh, and did I mention it also stars Kurt Russell?

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Review LXXXIX - Alien

Review LXXXIX
Alien (1979)

As like everyone, my horror film interest spiked in my teenage years. Probably one of the first horror films I watched was Halloween, which I hated. After that, I made it my mission to watch as many classic slasher-horror films as possible to see if the other classics were as bad as Halloween. I stopped after Friday the 13th, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. While I really enjoyed A Nightmare on Elm Street, screw every other film. They were annoying, badly written, and just out to jump scare me. I don't completely condemn jump scares, but really, if that's all I get, along with characters I hate, I have nothing. After watching some sequel to Hellraiser (watch the original - Clive Baker totally had it!), I realised I liked the gore aspect more than anything, which brought me to zombie movies. I moved away from anything not zombie, catching Silent Hill and other generic shit every so often and, consequently, completely regretting it. This led to me feeling wary every time someone brought up Ridley Scott's Alien. "But Alex, you must see the scene from the alien pops out of the guy's stomach!" I saw the bit in Spaceballs - good enough for me. Until, of course, I was dragged into watching it. I erred and ummed, but when my boyfriend said he liked Aliens, the flippin' sequel to Alien, I had to check it out. I was reluctant, but maybe I was really missing out on a goldmine...

The year is 2XXX, and a space crew (consisting of Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), Chief Engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto), Engineering Technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), Navigator/Helmsman Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)) is on their way home, frozen in stasis until they reach a reasonable distance from home. But they're woken up early. What could be the cause? A distress signal from - could it be - an alien? The crew sets off to find out more about this alien form. However, the signal turns out to be a warning, and soon Kane is infected and the crew is faced with a bigger problem than originally anticipated.

This movie, this movie... Okay, it was not as bad as Texas Chain Saw Massacre if only because the effects were cool and legit. But the plot. Oh god, the plot. Okay, okay, let me back up. Let's compliment it first. Alien, as mentioned, had some pretty cool effects. I mean, I wouldn't go and say it was the best I've seen, but given it was 1979, it was able to come across as not super cheesy even with the whole "in space" bit. I give it that. The shredded condoms, the sheep's stomach, the intestines used to make everything were worth it because it looked cool. The alien egg? Pretty nifty! The facehugger alien? I liked it. The chestburster? Hello phallusism! It went downhill. I didn't mind it, but I guess I found it looked cheesy at this point. When the thing ran across the table, I died. Oh man, I died. It was hilarious. But really, the whole exploding bit was cool. I liked it. I felt bad for John Hurt, but at the same time, didn't at all because he was a complet- no, not yet. Let's not rant yet. The final alien was also legit. It looked cool. Granted, the small, extendable mouth was a tad on the funny side when you see it extract out, but the idea was cool. The creativity and the ingenuity of making each stage of the alien was grand. I liked it. It was new, it was cool. The film totally deserved the academy award it got for effects. And the little relation to the Aztec space jockey, nice, nice. I can see all the interesting ideas that exist for the alien species. I've been told about it, and I've even read up on it myself (Weyland-Yutani, you're hilarious). I really can see all the effort put into this, and I think it paid off. I really do. I could totally watch this film again...

... But the movie made me rage. Everyone, and I do mean every human being, was an idiot. A complete IDIOT. Want me to break it down completely? I doubt you want to hear me complain for so long. But I'll give you little bits. NUMBER ONE. They get this mysterious signal coming from a nearby planet. "'Kay, must be a distress signal, lezz go." They send Dallas, Kane, and Lambert down. No problem. Except when Ripley finally asks Ash if she can check out the signal. Oh, look, binary! It's actually decipherable (albeit freakin' tedious), especially since Ripley is a master at the bare-bones of hardware. So what does Ripley find out? "Hey, this is actually a warning." Now, fine, I understand a certain excitement at finally finding an alien species. But SERIOUSLY. You LEFT the SHIP before even DECIPHERING the SIGNAL, ESPECIALLY since it takes Ripley FIVE minutes to figure it out. Screw it. This can be explained - spoilers a bit - given Ash's motives of deceiving the crew later on for reasons I won't explain. But I don't give a shit. There are how many kids besides Ash? Six. None of them questioned the fact that they didn't know why they were being sent out. Wait, no, the plot wields it! Okay, fine. Whatever.

Next issue. Kane, Dallas, and Lambert head off to check out this alien signal. They come across the Aztec space jockey (oh, pretty face and lights) and explore. Hmm... seems a bit unsafe, but what can you do? I mean, if anything were to happen, it's okay, they could totally fly awa- oh, wait, they can't. When they landed, their ship exploded or something. Anyway, it's being fixed by Brett and Parker. Well, it's fine. They'll be okay (ignore the warning signal bit here). They travel around until Kane sees an opening, a tunnel, leading downward. "Hey, guys, a tunnel! See yaz!" He heads down. Fine. They gotta explore. I mean, they come in, guns flashing. If they were to meet an innocent species - first contact, first impressions ("I don't believe in first impressions"), I might add - and blew their heads off, well, that might be kinda bad. Protocol seems... odd. But whatever. Anyway, Kane heads down. Apparently hot as a tropical forest. Then he spots eggs. Now, imagine you're in the Amazon. You spot eggs about the size of your torso. Would you, one, take your distance and/or run away, two, try and contact an expert of the forest or use the super computer just five minutes away to assess the situation, or three, go up to it, shine light on it, see it MOVING, and stick your face in the hole that opens up? If you choose three, congratulations! You have been chosen to work on the spaceship Nostromo! It's just... who would do this except a completely ignorant person? No one. Because seriously, you have a gun, but the gun is gone all of a sudden, and when you stick your face in the hole, your gun is of no use to you. And guess what happens to Kane? WELL, SHIT, HE GETS ATTACKED. What a FREAKIN' surprise. I could keep ranting, but you get the point. You get the point that, at every turn, at every corner, at every moment they could do something cautiously, carefully, they don't. "Quarantine those suckers!" Don't. "Stick together!" They immediately separate. Granted, some things can be explained given Ash's motives, as I mentioned, but sometimes, they were stupid. Sometimes you can say that, though one guy was maybe against something, there were still six other people to think rationally. But whatever. Just whatever.

My next issue is, well, a personal one. Probably most wouldn't care, but seriously, the growth rate of the alien? Ri-dic-ulous. The facehugger to chestburster? Fine. It was fast as shit, but fine. But chestburster to full on alien form? What? The thing shed some skin. It didn't shed enough. To get that big, the crew should have found a room full of old skin. That thing grew from phallus size to larger than a human in five minutes or less. An exaggeration, but seriously, I didn't like that part. It went too quickly. It should have been longer. My boyfriend argued, "No, it scares the audience because it shows that you never know what stage the alien will be at." That is true, but the human form was the largest. We got small, small, final form. Show it transform. Don't just show it as a final form. It was too meh. I was like, "Damn, the amount of energy that creature used up to get that huge." It's science fiction, but as I said, this was more personal. I was not accepting of this. I didn't like it. Point final.

Alien had some nice shots, the effects were legit, and the creativity behind it was cool. But the plot was stupid. Everyone was stupid. I can't say I'm that upset or surprised, but seriously, while I like Ripley Scott's idea of "manbirth" and showing rape on the man's side, if the plot had been given as much thought as the effects, it could have been awesome. I can see why people still watch it to this day - versus Friday the 13th which was horrendous - but seriously, that plot. I'm out.

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Review LXXXVIII - Easy Rider

Review LXXXVIII
Easy Rider (1969)

I haven't reviewed a film in so long, but I swear, it's because I've been awfully busy with exams. This review will be short, but hopefully it will get me back on track. I would also really like to watch some horror films for Halloween, but we'll see how that goes. Anyway, I've been meaning to watch Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider for a long time given its status and fame. Then my boyfriend found out Jack Nicholson was in the film, and, well, Peter Fonda go back after a misunderstanding with the film Duel and Dennis Weaver (don't ask), so finally we decided on watching this film. But let's actually talk about the movie, right?

The film begins with two men on motorcycles smuggling cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles, and thus acquiring a huge sum of cash. Our protagonists are Wyatt (Peter Fonda), who is nicknamed Captain America, and Billy (Dennis Hopper). After getting so much money, the two head on a journey to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras, a celebration prior to Ash Wednesday, where you indulge in fatty, rich foods before the fast begins. But the journey proves more despondent than the two ever imagined.

Easy Rider is a counterculture film and apparently spawned the "New Hollywood", influenced by French New Wave. You can definitely see a connection with the jarring cuts between scenes at times. But I wouldn't go ahead and say it's as jarring as À bout de souffle. Anyway, as I was saying, the movie is a counterculture movie with lots of drug use... As I established in my review of Kids, I was never into drinking heavily or experimenting with drugs in my high school days, and I'm still not into it. Thus, on the surface, I was already not relating to the film. But the more underlying message of a destroyed American dream, I could get more, even though I am not American. The religious symbolism throughout the film is what made me stay, and you really get a bitter end. The film is more than just a reminiscence of rejecting your culture - it really is showing how the government, how the people, have let us down. I mean, I won't go around and say it's a favourite of mine - personally, I thought the film was just okay - but it was still trying something new for the time, and the shots aiming to show a sort of hallucinogenic feel was pretty cool, especially nearing the end. It was genuine and totally sixties, man. But again, while the content was meaningful, I can't say it was anything spectacular. Not to say you shouldn't give it a shot - maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind - but again, nothing spectacular. Plus, Jack Nicholson is not even there that long!

While it definitely helped to establish a different style in Hollywood with a dark message, Easy Rider was not as great as I thought it would be. Nonetheless, give it a try. It's still an interesting watch, even if I wasn't super hyped watching it.

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