Get Crazy (1983)

The first show I ever went to (I’m talking about shows in the sense of paying specifically to see bands, not go to a bar or something and there’s a band playing) was Seven Seconds.  This would have been around 1988 or 1989, I believe, and the show was at The Silo in Reading, Pennsylvania (the venue was petitioned to be shut down as a “nuisance bar” in 2012; as far as I’m aware, it was not).  I remember I wore my Gorilla Biscuits shirt (which was a medium or a large on a kid who by no means should have been wearing a medium or a large tee shirt at that time) and a pair of slacks (that’s right, slacks).  Of the bands that played, the two that I remember were, of course, Seven Seconds (this would have been during Kevin Seconds long hair and bicycle shorts phase; I don’t know if he ever came out of it) and a band from the Philly/New Jersey area called 200 Stitches (who were pretty good; I still have the demo tape I bought at the show, and I saw them again some time later when I was in college; the lead singer was amazed that someone knew a lot of the words to their songs).  During the course of getting my feet wet slamming, stomping, and basically getting sweated up, my pants tore down the back (did I mention I was a husky lad back then?), but I don’t think that stopped the fun.  I went to dozens of shows following that, but that first one stuck with me (the first time always does), because of the feelings that it elicited, feelings of freedom and commonality and the catharsis of letting out every ounce of the aggression I’d been stewing in up until then.  In its own way, and despite its flaws, Allan Arkush’s Get Crazy (aka Flip Out) does a marvelous job of evincing many of those same emotions in me.

Max Wolfe (Allen Garfield as Allen Goorwitz), owner of the Saturn Theater has a huge bash planned for the New Year’s celebration, which coincides with the fifteenth anniversary of his venue.  Calling in all his favors, he throws together a card of acts with everything from the blues to punk rock.  Stage Manager Neil (Daniel Stern) tries to keep everything together while dealing with slimy rival Colin Beverly (Ed Begley, Jr), a motley crew of backstage misfits, the various eccentricities of the performers, and the hots he develops on sight for Max’s former stage manager Willy Loman (Gail Edwards).

The first thing that will stand out to anyone from the initial minutes of Get Crazy is that it is completely and utterly not intended to be taken seriously.  Sammy Fox (Miles Chapin), Max’s nephew and cutthroat capitalist, punts a small dog across the theater’s dance floor.  Soon thereafter, he gets blown up in classic Looney Tunes style.  The theater’s crew can’t muster up the energy to get the job done, but thanks to Electric Larry, the mystical drug dealer who looks like Tex Hex crossed with the Terminator endo-skeleton, they speed their way through their tasks (see what I did there?) in one of several undercranked sequences (I maintain that undercranking should really be limited to use in episodes of Gilligan’s Island).  Virginal Joey (Dan Frischman) is a walking OSHA violation waiting to happen.  He gets punched, run over, and falls off a balcony, but thankfully pops his cherry at some point.  Every time Neil sees Willy, she becomes a sex kitten from his perspective (he looks like Tarzan in this scenario, complete with chimpanzee companion).  The lighthearted goofiness is at odds with what plot there is because it’s so over the top, but it still works fairly well.  I could see this aspect grating on some viewers’ nerves, but I also think that allowing it to ruin the experience deprives one of the full impact of the film’s core.

At its heart, this movie is a love letter to music and the collective energy of live music-going escapades.  There are ostensibly five bands that Max gathers for the show.  They are King Blues (king of the blues, played by Bill Henderson), massively-populated punk band Nada (fronted by Lori Eastside, a real-life casting director), who bring along the Animal-esque Piggy (Fear’s Lee Ving), Captain Cloud (Howard Kaylan) the totally fried hippie and his hippie entourage/cult/commune, “metaphysical” musician Auden (Lou Reed), and straight up Brit rocker Reggie Wanker (Malcolm McDowell), who, unironically, lives up to his namesake in more ways than one.  King plays first, and two of the following acts cover songs of his.  This is an act of reverence for the origins of rock ‘n’ roll, an understanding of where it came from and what modern acts owe to those who came before.  It provides a unity among the artists, a shared world of musicianship, and this translates to the reception of the crowd (though the acts being this varied might not have been as well received by the throngs of weirdo punk rockers who populate the audience, but you never know).

Further to this, Arkush and company (through some extremely deft editing; after all the man did get his start in film editing trailers for Roger Corman, and he did work in clubs, so he draws extensively from both these backgrounds) do an outstanding job of capturing just what it is that made shows like this great.  This was at a time when individuality was paramount, even within genre/style constraints.  A Fear song doesn’t sound the same as a Ramones song doesn’t sound the same as a Bad Brains song.  Personal expression, visually and aurally was very important, and this isn’t exclusive to punk (though I gravitate toward that as an example, because that’s my background).  But the individual breaks down in the face of the love for the music.  It’s the life’s blood that ties the disparate groups together (there are only so many musical notes on a scale, but everyone plays them differently), and Get Crazy really drives this point home in its pure “let’s put on a show” attitude.  It helps a lot that the actors in the film actually perform the songs on the soundtrack.  It may be nostalgia for me to say that the film took me back to the joy and excitement I used to get from going to shows, but, to be frank, I’m not against nostalgia in and of itself.  Only when it inescapably binds people to the past is it a bad thing, I think.  If more films made me feel as good and brought back as many great memories as this one did, hell, I wouldn’t be against nostalgia at all. 

MVT:  The editing in the film is truly impressive.  It keeps the rip-roaring pace up all the way through.

Make or Break:  The undercranking may be a bridge too far for some.  Thankfully, these sequences are not extensive.

Score:  7/10       

C.H.U.D. (1984)

People are going missing in the Lafayette Street area of New York City.  Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) and local soup kitchen proprietor Shepherd (Daniel Stern) investigate.  Meanwhile, photographer George Cooper (John Heard) and his life partner Lauren Daniels (Kim Griest) are drawn into this mystery due to Cooper’s work shooting the local homeless people.  But the C.H.U.D.s, as the film’s tagline states, aren’t staying down there anymore.

I’m not even going to bother trying to hide it; I have a tremendous amount of love for Douglas Cheek’s C.H.U.D.  The story, the monsters, the characters, the sly sense of humor, it all works in spades for me.  It bears a gritty New York feel to it stemming from not only the texture of how it was filmed but also in how it portrays the city.  It’s a dangerous, lonely place to live.  A great many of the exterior street scenes have almost no background people in them.  The characters in the film die alone almost exclusively, even in the company of others.  Just look at the opening hook of the movie.  A woman walks her dog along a wet, empty street, as a sewer plate steams in the foreground.  When she stops to pick up a baggie she dropped (assumedly loaded with dog poop), a clawed hand erupts out of the sewer and snatches both she and her dog down into the depths beneath the city.  They will both play rather grim roles later in the film.  

Aside from it being wildly successful as a creature feature, C.H.U.D. contains subtexts that elevate it above the standard horror films of the day (this is when slashers were heavily in vogue), aided by the fact that all its characters are adults and it doesn’t have sex on the brain even slightly (there’s nothing wrong with gratuitous sex and nudity; but it’s refreshing to get a break from it sometimes).  Oh, there’s a shower scene, but it’s the furthest thing from titillating you can imagine.  I will now bore you with my very mundane thoughts on these very obvious themes.  

The homeless and how they are treated is front and center from the film’s opening credits.  As they roll, we see a man turn a corner talking animatedly to himself, clearly a member of the lunatic fringe.  He passes by a woman slumped in a doorway, her eyes staring out at nothing.  A street cleaner scours the road of detritus, scooping up the shoe of the woman from the film’s first scene.  They and their fates are ignored by the city at large, a constant reminder of the state of affairs that more affluent people would rather put blinders on then pay attention to.  Cooper, on the other hand, stares at them through the lens of his camera from his upper floor apartment.  He was a fashion photographer who has changed his focus to more “relevant” topics, including a recent article about the homeless who live underground.  This change of calling is signified by the replacement of a framed photo on his wall of a model with one of a homeless person.  His editor/collaborator Derek is dying for new photos and a story to follow up on their first team up to the point that he’ll “fudge it” if Cooper just gives him anything at all.  And yet, Cooper is not as involved with his subjects as he could be.  Yes, he bails out Mrs. Monroe (Ruth Maleczech) and takes bandages down to her brother Victor (Bill Raymond), but Cooper has no skin in the game.  The homeless are something to feel bad about and devote himself to from a distance (i.e. from behind his camera).  He pities them but doesn’t truly understand them.  

Contrast this to Shepherd (the name alone has meaning).  He refers to the homeless who come to his soup kitchen as his “family.”  He is bowled over when one of his “flock” gives him a single flower as a gift.  He takes food down to his basement to feed the more “shy” people who reside under the streets.  Shepherd lives among these folks.  He even refuses to leave when he’s told his life is in direct danger because he has to get dinner started for his people.  Further, he’s the center of the film’s religious aspect.  Aside from his church/kitchen and its significance, there are characters like Val (Graham Beckel), who quotes from the Bible’s Book of Revelations.  Later, Shepherd witnesses a groups of C.H.U.D.s worshipping at a rather unholy altar.  

Bosch sees the homeless and deals with them every day, and he is willing to listen to what they have to say.  He and Shepherd both have a vested, personal interest in what’s going on.  The police under Bosch mirror the city’s indifference and enmity toward the homeless and toward their own responsibilities.  Sanderson (Cordis Heard) rolls her eyes whenever Bosch gives her an order.  Jackson (Gene O’Neill) won’t follow Cooper and Mrs. Monroe down into the tunnels off the subway because of the smell.  He has no dedication, and the task is more or less beneath him (no pun intended).  Officer Crespi (Sam McMurray) is outright hostile to the homeless and their allies, trading barbs with Mrs. Monroe (“How do I know you didn’t take anything?”  “How do we know you didn’t give us anything?”) and telling Cooper to “get the hell outta here!”  The disparities between these viewpoints is what allows the monsters to do their thing and flourish.  After all, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Which brings us to the other prevalent matter in the film, the conspiracy/paranoia angle.  This is represented by a triumvirate of power: Chief O’Brien (Eddie Jones), the Commissioner (John Ramsey), and government stooge Wilson (George Martin).  Like the mayor of many a town in monster movies, O’Brien and the Commissioner blow off Cooper and Shepherd’s story, more interested in saving face and maintaining the cover up as they have been ordered to from on high.  This cover up even included Cooper, who clearly has a guilty conscience over this but has been willing to go along up to a point.  The bureaucrats look down their noses at people like Shepherd, and this will, of course, come back to bite them.  More than this, though, is the truth behind everything that’s actually going on (and if you don’t know the film’s big reveal, I won’t ruin it for you here).  The highest echelons of government cannot be trusted, because they only care about their own needs.  The people under them (read: everybody else) don’t matter until they and their problems become inconvenient.  The government heads in the film are dirtier on the inside than the outside of the homeless people they disdain.  Their callousness feeds the apathy of the general populace that allowed the monsters to come into being.

Arrow Video’s bluray of C.H.U.D. is outstanding, to say the least.  First of all, we finally get a high def copy of the film’s theatrical cut along with the integral cut.  The differences between the two are noteworthy, though they both have their own virtues.  The integral cut develops the relationship between Lauren and Cooper significantly.  It follows up on the film’s opening scene, which fuels some of the emotion of the finale.  It deletes the voiceovers that the theatrical cut uses as New York City flavor, reinforcing the loneliness and ennui of the city.  Most importantly, it changes the placement of the film’s diner scene.  In the theatrical cut, this comes at the film’s end, but in the integral cut it comes at the start of the third act (it’s also extended a bit).  In the former, it’s a stinger ending that plays to the creature feature nature of the film.  In the latter, it escalates the tension of the story as it rounds third base, so to speak.  Likewise, the integral cut’s final moments resonate more on an emotional level, in part because there’s nothing coming after them.  We’re left to dwell on the aftermath of the experience and how it has affected the characters.  This is augmented by David A. Hughes’ wonderful synth score.  The disc also contains a couple of fun interviews, one with production designer William Bilowit and one with special effects makeup artist John Caglione, Jr.  There is a featurette on the film’s locations featuring Michael Gingold, who also provides writing about the film’s production in the illustrated booklet included in the package.  The bluray case has reversible cover art from Dan Mumford along with the film’s original poster art.  There are also a couple of commentary tracks, one of which focuses on the score with isolated selections and the other of which gathers the director, writer, and the three leads for one of the most entertaining commentaries I’ve ever heard for a film.  The film itself looks great, as would be expected with all the grain and grit that informs so much of its aesthetic.  As far as I’m concerned (and I don’t see anyone ready to dispute me on this) this is the definitive release of one of my favorite monster movies of all time.

MVT:  The film’s depth and sense of maturity, combined with its sense of fun.

Make or Break:  The film’s cold open provides a terrific setup of both story and tone.

Score:  8.75/10