Evilspeak (1981)

I’ve often said, and I maintain that I’m correct in this, that I have never been what anyone would consider cool.  I don’t say this to be humble or to be self-effacing or to be hip by being square.  I say it because this has been the accumulation of my experiences in my life.  I am too antiestablishment for establishment people.  I am too establishment for antiestablishment people.  I am too conservative for liberals.  I am too liberal for conservatives.  I am too smart for the low brows.  I am too dumb for the high brows.  Hell, I rode a skateboard for a few years and never even learned to Ollie (yeah, I was that kid).  Consequently, it has always been a very rare thing for me to feel like I truly belong anywhere, and so I’m usually not comfortable in most public situations (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it).  Don’t misunderstand; I don’t think that this makes me unique in any way, shape, or form (if anything, it should simply make me average, but our own problems are always bigger and crummier than other people’s, right?).  In fact, I think the vast majority of us have felt this way at one time or another, and it is precisely the reason why we love films about underdogs and about outcasts taking revenge on their tormentors.  Even people who have always seemingly been “on top” enjoy movies like these, because deep, deep down (cue the Danger: Diabolik soundtrack) they have insecurities on which these films touch.  Plus, the very act of growing up ensures that, at some point in their youth, damned near everyone has felt less powerful than someone else.  Movies like Eric Weston’s Evilspeak resonate with that ingrained, possibly even buried, crack in people’s psyches.  If you’re human, you identify on some level with characters like Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard).  You probably haven’t gone to the extremes that he and his classmates do, however, but you understand why these events transpire.

Lorenzo Esteban (Richard Moll) is your average sixteenth century heretic who gets drummed out of Spain for turning his flock on to Satanism and human sacrifices (and who immediately performs a black mass in protest).  Via a pretty clever form cut we are transported to contemporary California, where the boys of the West Andover Military Academy have lost yet another soccer match because Stanley (whom they call “Cooperdick”) is incompetent at the sport (and having nothing at all to do with their goalie being absolutely awful).  Stanley endures the steady stream of threats and abuse, both emotional and physical, from his classmates and superiors in equal measure as best he can.  Inevitably, he comes upon the writings of Esteban in the school basement (maybe sub-basement, but who’s counting?), and, with the help of a purloined school computer, translates the how-to manual for his occult revenge.

The interesting thing that Evilspeak does is it incorporates the then-burgeoning world of computers (or at least I personally knew of very few people who owned a home PC at that time) with the world of occult horror.  In this filmic world, as in so many, technology becomes conflated with evil, even though Stanley’s computer is merely a tool, a conduit for Esteban, not an active participant in any flagitious behavior.  That said, it becomes a metaphor (not the most cogent in the way that it’s handled in the film, but still…) for technology in modern life.  In much the same way that science fiction films of the Fifties and into the Sixties warned us not to meddle with nature because of the dire results to be wrought, this film warns us that technology, for as much as it makes certain things in our lives easier (translating black mass rituals, for example), also presents us with additional temptations that, if allowed to go unchecked, could consume our lives.  Bring this notion into the twenty-first century.  A great many people today can’t go even a day without their computers, their smartphones, and so forth.  Rather than engage in actual human conversations, many kids have abbreviation-loaded chats (even when sitting inches from the person they’re talking with) where any conflicts are devoid of actual discomfort because of the disconnect inherent in the medium.  Naturally, this makes neither texting nor these kids “evil.”  But what it does do is insidiously detaches them from the real world where real people deal with real emotions and real actions carry real weight.  My polemic out of the way, Stanley untethers from the normative world in a similar way through his interaction with Esteban in the computer.  What starts off for him as a tool to help with a school project becomes a cookbook for evil, and it becomes Stanley’s obsession and his downfall.

Bearing in mind my opening paragraph, I feel that Evilspeak also posits evil (or alternately Satanism) as being a form of individuality (even though in this case it’s, you know, bad and leads to things like slaughter, madness, and such).  There are three people at the academy who don’t traditionally fit in: Stanley, his one friend Kowalski (Haywood Nelson of What’s Happening fame) who is seemingly the sole black student at the school, and Jake (Lenny Montana of The Godfather fame) who is the lowly, shirtless, neckerchieved cook who befriends Stanley.  You could argue that Sarge (R.G. Armstrong) is in the same class as Jake, but Sarge was in the military prior to his current state, and he sides with the others against Stanley, so this makes him an establishment figure (or at least moreso than it does Jake).  All of the other characters are conformists.  The very idea of setting the film in a military academy explicitly points to this idea.  Characters from Colonel Kincaid (Charlie Tyner) to Coach (Claude Earl Jones) to Reverend Jameson (Joe Cortese) are the ruling class.  They tolerate people like Kowalski and Jake because they are useful in some way (Jake cooks, and I don’t know what Kowalski’s saving grace is, but he must have one for the students and faculty to refrain from punishing him like they do Stanley).  For this same reason, they despise Stanley.  Stanley can’t even get out of his own way, often tripping, dropping his books, and so forth.  Whatever he attempts, he flubs.  Because Stanley can’t conform (not won’t; he tries and fails, and this is unacceptable), he is left with no respite from his abusers than to turn to evil.  Under Esteban’s computerized influence, Stanley finds something that he can do.  He distinguishes himself from the others at the school (even while aligning himself with a drift of pigs [Esteban’s spirit animal apparently]), and in this distinction he makes himself more powerful than all of them.  For a time.

Evilspeak is the sort of film in which almost nothing happens between kill scenes (unless you count electro-Esteban messing around with all kinds of computer-inspired animations and typographic designs).  As a result, you find yourself asking questions you really shouldn’t be asking of a film of this nature and picking up on the logic gaps and plot holes that run rampant throughout the whole thing.  For example, how do Bubba (Don Stark) and his cohorts find out about Stanley’s puppy without having seen it or heard about it (since I’m almost positive neither Jake nor Stanley would have told them)?  What school has a bikini pageant (dubbed “Miss Heavy Artillery,” get it?) for its students, even if it is a military academy?  How did absolutely no one ever find out about Esteban’s chamber and ancient apothecary, especially Sarge who’s been sleeping practically on top of it for years?  What was the purpose of the scenes with Mrs. Caldwell (Sue Casey) being escorted around the campus except to show us that she’s Bubba’s mother (a useless bit of information that is never paid off or brought up again).   

Speaking of characters, the ones in this movie are completely undeveloped.  If Kowalski and Stanley are such good friends, why do they never hang out together?  The adult bullies are irrationally cruel and don’t have a sympathetic bone in their bodies.  The student bullies are arguably even worse.  Kincaid’s secretary Miss Friedemeyer (Lynn Hancock) at least serves the purpose of getting naked during the film, but we still spend an inordinate amount of time watching her try to pry the medallion off of Esteban’s journal (assumedly because she thinks it’s either shiny/pretty and/or worth some money), and we learn nothing about her as a person.  Everyone is strictly in this to get to the big finale (or die beforehand).  Jones states in an interview on the Scream Factory disc that the film is a comedy, and I suppose that’s a good possibility, because it is so over the top, you can’t take any of it seriously.  However, if it was actually intended to be funny, I didn’t find much at which to laugh (this seems to be a trend in my moviegoing experience of later).  By that same token, the mean streak running through the film would make any intentional laughs uneasy.  The film is still interesting as a curiosity, and there are some standout segments (Miss Friedemeyer, I’m looking at you), but its deficiencies and that the filmmakers allow the audience the free time to ponder its deficiencies really drag it down.

MVT:  The build up to Stanley’s vengeance is the name of the game, and it is long and grueling.  The filmmakers put the cherry on top with the final insult, and I have to admit, by that point I wanted all of these pricks dead, too.

Make or Break:  The finale cuts loose in a big way, and it is oh-so-satisfying watching these jerks get their gruesome comeuppance.  Incidentally, the moment with the crucifix in the chapel scared the ever-loving shit out of me as a child.

Score:  6/10

Bleeders (1997)

Incest has always been a go-to subject in the porn industry.  For a period of time in the Seventies and Eighties, it was acceptable and/or desired to watch family members bump uglies.  Entire movies were produced around the subject, and it played an integral plot point in some others (back when porn films actually attempted to have plots that they followed; and to be fair, some still do, but the vast array of what you’ll find out there on the internet is little more than loop scenes, the same as you would have found in a grotty porn theater booth way back when, just with [usually] better production values and a higher likelihood that you won’t stick to your chair afterward).  It’s still a theme in a lot of internet porn, except the producers are very, very careful to explain that incest is a crime in many states in America.  They further backstop this by concocting scenarios where the participants aren’t lineally related.  They are stepdads, stepdaughters, stepsons, stepmoms, et cetera.  Kind of takes the taboo elements out of the equation, doesn’t it?  In line with our focus today, incest is also an aspect of some potent horror films, and therein it doesn’t lose its bite, most likely because commonly there aren’t explicit, intrafamilial sex scenes that exploit that element.  In horror, incest takes on a sad, often abusive aspect, and when well done, it adds impact to the gut punch that horror films try to deliver.  With that said, the inbreeding component in Peter Svatek’s Bleeders (aka Hemoglobin aka The Descendant) does add to the film’s disturbing story, though the film feels like an amalgamation of older, Hammer-esque horror movies and more modern, graphic horror movies.

Back in Victorian times, Eva Van Daam takes up incest with her brother in an attempt to cure the maladies affecting her aristocratic family’s bloodline, like anemia and hemophilia, but bad things develop from this (who could have predicted that?).  Cut to: modern times, where John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) and wife Kathleen (Kristin Lehman) travel to the small island where the Van Daam family went into seclusion in search of answers to why John still has such horrible blood-based issues (I guess inbreeding didn’t do the trick).  Making the acquaintance of local physician/exile, Dr. Marlowe (Rutger Hauer), the couple dig deep into John’s lineage, while something else is digging deep into the flesh of the local populace.

As stated, Bleeders has a very classic structure to it.  There is little seen of the monsters until the end.  The majority of the story is a slow buildup of pieces being slid into place, of a mystery being dragged out into the light.  The focus is primarily on Kathleen and how she deals with her husband (who you would think would be the main character, but he’s not, and there is a significant reason for this) and his behavior.  Further, John is not a nice fellow, and physically he makes Richmond from The IT Crowd look like one of The Wiggles.  The action of the film is handled by Dr. Marlowe (in a redemptive/Van Helsing type of role), a man who is pulled into the story reluctantly.  I think this is a mistake, since it takes the focus off Kathleen, and it feels akin to the Amazing Larry suddenly becoming a prominent participant in the finale of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.  

There is also a Gothic atmosphere that the filmmakers use to its fullest extent.  The locales are dreary.  The island is remote and haunting, like the forested settings of a great many vampire films.  The buildings the Strausses investigate are constructed of cobbled stone and creepy as hell.  The local cemetery looks like it was transplanted from a blasted heath in Britain, and the coffins supplied by local exploitress Byrde Gordon (Joanna Noyes) are the plainest of old school pine boxes imaginable (that the damage done to them gives them an added texture is just gravy).  In the Hammer films of yore (by which I do believe the makers of this film were heavily influenced), there was a sensuality, and, for their time, they were considered quite lurid.  This film mirrors the feel of (early) Hammer, but makes more straightforward the more unseemly components (somewhat like later Hammer).  Bleeders is also daring enough to not only put children in peril but actually knock them off (and not just once for the sake of shock), and once the third act kicks in, the action and tension ratchet up, becoming a siege film with cannibalistic horrors in place of savages.

It’s intriguing to me, this idea of developing from incest to cannibalism.  Both are taboo things in civilized society, but that one could lead to the other is kind of fascinating.  It is as if the Van Daams have cursed themselves for transgressing against the natural order, damning what they intended to save.  The bloodline they had hoped to purify has not only been further degraded but has also produced monsters.  Blood became the means of survival for them, though the blood they need can’t be pure (or that’s what I got from the narrative), because they are no longer pure (or as pure as they ever could have been).  In some respects, these creatures appear like children; their heads are large and bald, they are short-statured, they are non-verbal.  Yet they also externally embody the consumption of flesh (familial and non-familial, sexual and culinary) which created them: they have multiple noses, multiple eyes, and hare lips.  They are gestalts of the piling up of evils which engendered them and which they then propagate across the island.  What has been passed down the family tree is equal parts curse and punishment; transforming from one into the other while simultaneously being both is the ironic tragedy of the story.  All of this began in order to cure an ill, but the laws of both man and nature were broken in the attempt, and this is why the family in total is penalized.  Sure, the creatures may be unwilling participants (we can assume), but their alternatives are non-existent.  Surrounding them is a sort of fear of difference taken to a novel level.  Incest is certainly not the norm in most civilized communities, and its public exposure turns the islanders against the Van Daam clan, who they likely didn’t care for due to their wealth regardless (especially since we get the heavy implication that the Van Daam’s were both arrogant and uncaring, and this is carried on with John).  The islanders (working class) are different from the Strausses (moneyed) are different from the monsters (literally dirt poor), so that all of the inter-relationships create a circle, in addition to the one about social mores (heteronormative to incestuous to cannibalistic).  That there is some thought going on beneath the film’s surface is admirable, and the movie overall succeeds more than it fails.  Why it isn’t talked about more than it is confuses me, not because it reinvents the wheel or anything (it doesn’t), but because it’s better than its title and cover pic let on (its VHS cover was one of the great gimmicks of the medium, consisting of a layer of blood-colored liquid over a photo of the film’s beasties).

MVT:  I love the dark, grim tone of Bleeders.  It works for the subject and distinguishes itself from other horror films of the time (and even, arguably, today).

Make or Break:  There is a grave robbing scene which hits splendidly, even though you can see what’s coming a mile away.  It’s a very well-constructed, well-directed sequence.

Score:  6.5/10 

Fortress of Amerikkka (1989)

In the rustic, woodsy town of Troma City, California, a war is being waged between a corrupt political machine (personified by racist sheriff Tom “Tex” Bodine, played by David Crane) and an evil corporate syndicate (personified by Colonel Denton, played by William J Kulzer and the mercenaries of the Fortress of Amerikkka guerilla group).  After shooting and blowing up a young couple who just wanted to do “The Beaver Call” (and other people, to be fair, who may or may not have wanted to do the same), nobody still seems to grasp what’s going on up in the hills.  Into this strife struts ex-con John Whitecloud (Gene Lebrock) who is burning for revenge against the sheriff but instead winds up doing just about everything else but taking it, including re-hooking up with his ex-girlfriend Jennifer (Kellee Bradley).  Meanwhile, characters are dying and boning all over the place.

When a film begins with voiceover narration explaining that “this is a story about you and me,” and then goes on to detail the greatness of America and touting the plight of the little man, you really need to consider if the filmmakers are earnest or not about their story.  Eric Louzil’s Fortress of Amerikkka (aka Fortress of Amerikkka: The Mercenaries) is just such a film.  Bearing in mind that this is a Troma production, the possibility for a humorous approach is high, yet I never got any indication that the filmmakers were joking about their subject; this despite the film being over the top in a great many ways.  Having fun with it, yes, but speeches like those in the voiceover are completely outside the tone of the rest of the film.  Later in the movie, we’ll get something similar between two completely insignificant (despite the amount of time spent on them, though the larger part of that time is strictly to showcase Kascha’s gigantic, fake breasts) characters.  Actual dialogue between the two consists of howlers like, “People like us are the backbone of America,” and “We have freedom in this country.  But with that freedom comes a responsibility of doing what’s right.”  This is during a scene set immediately after they have escaped from the mercenaries (I’ll leave out the full context of all of this so you can witness it for yourself).  As the film wraps up, our narrator returns to enlighten us with, “In America, one little guy can stand up to the evil that wants to destroy our Bill of Rights.”  The commentary in lines like these overplays the filmmakers’ hand, and it’s delivered so straight-faced, you can’t help but laugh, particularly because none of the rest of the film backs lines like these up in the slightest (unless it’s so slyly subversive as to elude all detection).      

That the rest of the movie is a mess composed of some enjoyable bits is perplexing.  The premise is simple.  Theoretically, there should be no way to fuck it up.  Nevertheless, Louzil and company manage to lose the thread at every turn.  Disregarding lapses in logic like the fact that John wouldn’t be allowed to purchase firearms because of his criminal record, or that Jennifer would likely have been killed for what she witnessed, or that no one raises an eyebrow at the myriad cars blowing up out in the forest multiple times a day and connects this to Fortress of Amerikkka, the script seems to intentionally veer away from tying its multiple plotlines together.  John claims that he craves vengeance for the death of his brother, but does absolutely nothing to forward this agenda.  He just visits his brother’s grave (inside Bronson Caves, no less) and whines a lot.  The sheriff and his police department suggest that they know that there are war games going on up in the hills, but don’t connect the dots to all the people being killed (some even turning up with “Fortress of Amerikkka” carved into their flesh).  There is a bar brawl that stands out as being even more superfluous than normal cinematic bar brawls, which are, by definition, superfluous.  The only reason anything gets resolved is because the film eventually has to end.

But the mercenaries themselves take the cake.  Colonel Denton is a zealot who believes that he and his army have been ordained by God to “serve freedom and peace.”  He has a trespasser torn apart between a tree and a moving car rather than simply putting a bullet in his head, just because.  He believes that, “winning is everything, and losing is defeat!”  Furthermore, there is no purpose to what the mercs do.  If we believe the opening narration, they are in service of an “evil corporate syndicate,” but all they do is tool around the woods, shooting people and blowing up cars.  Are they terrorizing the area because some company wants the property?  Are they claiming this section of land as their own in some half-assed secessionist plot?  Who fucking knows?  There are odd interludes at the mercenaries’ camp which include spouting pseudo-spiritual horseshit, getting laid, a cat fight to the death, getting laid, killing soldiers who don’t want to be in the gang (and it is a gang) anymore, and getting laid.  There are lines about adhering to some type of code, but the majority of these guys don’t give a shit, and the other half are just plain psychotic (one in particular, a female skinhead who heavily resembles Lori Petty and loves caressing her rifle, stands out as being the most clearly insane, so you kind of have to wonder how she got recruited at all; maybe that’s the point?).  And it all revolves around animal instincts, especially sex.  There are very few scenes in Fortress of Amerikkka without naked breasts in it, and oddly enough, this is one of the few things that actually fits into the film.

For all of its stupidity, its piss poor line readings, its apparent intent to be as incoherent as possible, its inappropriate (what sounded to me like) library music track, its non-narrative (in the sense that things happen, but they have little or nothing to do with each another) approach to its story, I found myself liking this film.  Every scene that doesn’t have naked female breasts in it has action in it, and despite everything, the picture is fast paced.  What ultimately holds it all together (if that expression is even suitable for this movie) is its success at what it does well.  This boils down to boobs, bullets and blowing shit up.  Regardless of whether or not this movie is supposed to be taken seriously (maybe the insanity of the film is mean to reflect the insanity of the world as Louzil sees it?  It’s a theory, I suppose), I don’t think it’s possible to do so in the slightest, and I’m okay with this.  Fortress of Amerikkka is certainly a memorable experience, and it isn’t painful enough to make you regret watching it.

MVT:  The action scenes in the film are plentiful, and they are also well-handled, by and large.

Make or Break:  The opening scene gives you everything this film is about while simultaneously being both gratifying and nonsensical.  Not that those concepts are mutually exclusive.

Score:  6.5/10