House (1977) -- A semi-critical analysis

It seems to be a common belief within a community of opening weekend movie-goers that art films -- or films with the flashings of avant garde -- are slow-moving, laborious and boastful knick-knacks. Like the abstractions of Jackson Pollock, arthouse productions carry with them the stigma that only a segregated group of critics and artists are going to watch and care about them, to say nothing about writing essays about the emotional nucleus and visual narratives within the film. An art film often relies less on the sediments of acknowledged storytelling, electing to deconstruct those traditional elements and in the process, alienating those who are not predisposed to the filmmaker's aesthetic intentions. Without the focusing lens of artistic understanding, viewing an art film can be the most labyrinthine filmic processes a person can endure.

Although I'm a little more predisposed to watching these films, the business of entering into that attitude is often just as difficult. Although I enjoy recognizing and comprehending art in cinema (especially when it isn't pointed out to me by the filmmaker), often I need to empty my mind afterwards with some kind of thoughtless diversion, if only to feel my feet firmly on the ground again. Art can be beautiful, ugly, and all points in between...but perceiving it correctly in its most complete form can drain your senses, well, senseless.

And so it goes that a few hours ago, I entered into watching House, Nobuhiko Obayashi's utterly demented 1977 haunted house film, which was recently distributed on DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection. I loved the way the Criterion writers described House: "An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava." As open-ended a statement as that is, it's about as close of a coherent explanation as you're likely read about a film which, to my mind, is nearly indescribable. It is complete, unvarnished "arthouse" cinema that manages to avoid those previously mentioned failings.

To briefly describe House: Seven high school-aged girls (with names like Precious, Kung Fu,  Fantasy, Melody, Sweetie, etc.) take off for summer vacation to a home in the country, where Precious' love-sick Aunt lives. Throughout the movie each of them slowly turn up missing, and the surviving girls uncover the macabre secret that the actual house is (spoiler alert) literally eating them. I cannot disclose any more plot points about the film because, and I write this in all sincerity, that simply IS the plot. And with a feeble 88 minute run time, you may anticipate a film so uncomplicated getting tedious and monotonous very quickly. But House is not JUST a movie about school girls surviving inside a haunted house. No sir, no ma'am. House is a near extra sensory experience that left me whirling like a dervish. Love it or hate it, House is a film that is not to simply be watched, but absorbed and experienced with nearly every sense rattled to the bone. 

Obayashi, known throughout Japan as an expert and proficient television commercial director, had desired to make a film, and after seeing Steven Speilberg's Jaws, aspired to make something even more compelling. From his adolescent daughter he repurposed stories about what made her scared or frightened: Mirrors that do not reflect what is intended; A piano whose keys stuck together and could pinch the skin off of fingers; Towering grandfather clocks whose rusty, metallic gears slowly gyrate into infinity. They were simple fragments of horror to a child, but Obayashi gambled that a horror movie-going audience who had previously seen just about every other act of terror on screen, would react strongly to the nightmarish fables of a child's imagination. Indeed, he gambled not only his own reputation, but the credibility of one of Japan's largest and most respected film studios.

Essentially the film takes an exhausted genre staple, the haunted house, and quite literally turns it inside out. House contains images, camera movements, music cues, and special effects that I have never seen in a movie before. As members of the audience, we watch as a piano EATS young Melody, her body flailing within its wires. We watch, captivated as one of the girls grasps in her hands the giggling head of Mac, just before she vomits blood all over her. During one decidedly harrowing scene, Gorgeous preens in front of a vanity mirror. The image that is reflected however shows Gorgeous with vampire fangs. Eventually Gorgeous' face and body melt away, leaving only an outline of her body enveloped in flames.

House's special effects were realized not necessarily by trick photography or outrageous make up effects; rather, Obayashi decided to garner his film with animated effects, frenetic editing, and eccentric music cues. It all rushes up to the screen so furiously that I don't think we're intended to digest it all at once, but simply bask in the malevolent insanity of it all. Several scenes can be viewed as either funny or horrible to the audience, depending on their reactions, and nobody would be incorrect in their analysis. House is just that kind of film, otherworldly and set completely off to itself, even though its final message of a love that never dies is totally universal. With a conundrum this bewildering, it's amazing that I've summoned the words to write anything coherent at all. But that is also the legacy of House and why I believe it to be a genuine art film that's easily assimilated by the masses: It's a haunted house story, told in a way that even a child could understand.

With the recent home video release of House, there are probably scores of reviews posted on the Net, but I doubt if any of them will sufficiently characterize its raw intensity and unconventional effects. I really hate to adopt the old "you gotta see it to believe it" chestnut, but that's what it all boils down to. House is a film that I can see myself returning to, hopefully very soon. 

Never mind the bollocks...

...the last post below was obviously nothing more or less than an onslaught of meandering, misinformed thoughts that have little basis in fact. I should have known better than to write out something and post it before organizing my thoughts into some kind of coherent shape. I'd delete the post altogether, but I'd sooner allow it to remind me to think before I act.


Sorry!

A rambling post that is only my opinion that I probably should have kept to myself

Outside the prosaic dimension of Top 40 radio (aka: the ineffectual scraps that unfortunately approximate what's being listened to by an All-American Idol consuming audience), breathes a near-infinite multiverse of independent musicians and record labels, grinding out what's assumed to be refined and unpolluted harmonies with clever, precise lyrics... unmarked by the those greedy metallic corporate fingers. The indie patch is often worn frayed, its stitching sewn by undelicate hands. Rough but true and pure. Indie is regarded by many as the final bastion of uninterrupted musicianship... where the bands own their sound and cleave fast and hard to their DIY ideals. 

In the broadest sense, I love indie. I love indie films and I love indie music. I host a weekly independent music show. Just a few months ago, I was given the "music director" moniker for the non-comm radio station I work for, allowing me access to even more independent artists. There's nothing more true or noble than a garage guitar hero whose blood circulates raw passion for real music. Hearing a new song or uncovering an unknown band can make your day, month, or possibly even your whole year.

Now having broken in my title at the station for a few months, I have amassed a rather lanky stack of CD's, most of which are lingering in a cobwebby corner of the office. Rarely a day passes that I do not receive at least one or two albums in the mail, all addressed to me, from humble record labels anticipating me to add their artists to our music rotation. For a job that forks over real money, I confess that I could be doing a lot worse right now. I've known people who'd blithely allocate a few quarts of their blood and perhaps even a vestigial organ or two for a racket like mine. There's no denying that listening to music in exchange for a paycheck accordingly elevates one to the "lucky bastard" stratosphere.

But there's a lesson to be learned when programming new, discovery music for a radio station and it is this: Indie music IS a genre standing by itself... it is NOT a wide-spread collective of music-makers with a heart for stardom. The two should not be confused, but unfortunately it is more than a little difficult to tell them apart. A band such as the Arcade Fire are still looked upon as "indie," probably because they are distributed by Merge Records (which is a fine record label, based in Durham, NC). Merge could never contend with the likes of Sony or Capitol Records, but many of their artists are bubbling just under the surface of mainstream success, standing with toes over the ledge of national acclaim. Earlier this year, the Arcade Fire released their third LP, The Suburbs, which debuted at number ONE on the iTunes Music Store. All of the Miley Cirus and Green Day fanatics around the electronic world had downloaded or in some measure listened to part of the album. This is not my endeavor to attack Arcade Fire's newest... I really like it. However their success on the charts should torpedo to smithereens their indie status. Perhaps your local Wal-Mart may not carry many copies, but if Best Buy is featuring it on their new music rack, your independence has been redeemed for a full-on franchise.

Why are bands such as Arcade Fire still labeled indie? Because indie is a genre of music, just like rock, hip-hop, electronic, and jazz. It's doubtful that Pop-Pop and Gram-Gram know them, but their grandkids are wearing these bands' t-shirts. Indie is a genre, a style that fortunately does not discriminate against style of music. Indie embodies all of rock, hip-hop, electronic, jazz, country, etc... and neatly places them within itself. It provides a soundtrack to the culture of counter-culture. It gives abiding cred to the pork-pie wearing hipsters who dance alone by the juke. Indie music is GOOD music that has real value.

I really mean that.

But it is not the music I'm paid to listen to. The fore mentioned stack of CD's left to stagnate in my office are MOSTLY a collective of entirely worthless albums distributed by tenderfoot record imprints. Just for a second, remember your record-collecting neighbor who practiced their guitar until three in the morning attempting to forge their own moment in music history. They wanted to be like Clapton. Maybe they have a band and play over at Stumpy's on the weekends, covering Stevie Ray Vaughn and Deep Purple. Maybe they scare up enough shekels to go into a recording studio and hammer out a few tracks and make an album. By and large, these are the artists that I made to listen to.

It's really, really bad. These artists are reaching to be heard by a lot of people, but rarely can summon the creative flow to sound even vaguely similar to the TRUE artists that have inspired them. Maybe I'm the wrong person for the job, but in these cases all I manage to hear is well-pronounced noise in the form of insipid, forgettable music that should remain in the bars, where it may at least be appreciated by a captive audience of the inebriated. I cannot fathom ever seeking out a copy of an album by The XXX XXXX Band, forget paying real money for it.

I've spanned the entire world to make a point, here. Perhaps I'd better just get back to work...

Nancy Drew, Reporter

Recently I discovered an outmoded but glowingly adorable film on Turner Classic Movies...one that did my heart a lot of good. Over a bowl of cereal, I watched "Nancy Drew, Reporter" (1939), the first in a series of films chronicling the adventures of Carolyn Keene's young, daring female sleuth. This venturesome film has a trifling running time of just over an hour, but packs enough moxie and 1930s good-nature to come off as a charming, forgotten relic. The prudish - nay, puritanical - principals that Drew and her chums are governed by, as well as the stark contrast between black and white - right and wrong - are unbelievable to the point of being comical. But through that naive, wide-eyed optimism lives a moment in time when true value was still being placed in good manners and honest morals. At least, it certainly seemed that way.

The plot isn't much to speak of. Nancy Drew (Bonita Granville) learns that a woman on trial for murder has been falsely accused, and the evidence which would absolve her is in the possession of a sketchy-looking couple. She spends most of the time searching for clues and trying to outwit the criminal element, all the while placating the local (and mostly useless) police department. But in the end we know good and well that the criminals will be hauled away to jail, and Nancy and her pals will have a hearty laugh at their own expense, ending the film on a warm, affable note.

The charm of 1930s-era Hollywood films (particularly the whodunit murder mysteries) have an undeniable magnetism that never fails to betwitch. The strictly enforced Hayes Code denied filmmakers any opportunity to be even marginally provocative in their stories. Moreover, the bad guys were never allowed to win, righteousness prevailing each and every time...no matter whether the circumstances were believable or not. Because of this, many of these types of films can seem quite wooden in their execution, quite flat in how they are directed, written and acted. Admittedly, there weren't many cinematic marvels to come out of Hollywood then.

Regardless, I love these movies. "Nancy Drew, Reporter" did me a lot of good. It reminded me of my helplessly old, home-spun soul...luring me backwards into a place and time when basic moral values were highly esteemed. No, people didn't really talk and act that way, but it's kinda heartwarming to imagine that it was how folks knew they ought to be. Plus I'm simply infatuated with the breezy jazz and and the 1930s colloquialisms. Watching with the right kind of eyes and ears can leave one nearly tipsy with outright nostalgia.

The Price of being Vincent

And so it goes, I'm a fan of Vincent Price's career (my first thought was to write "I'm a STUDENT of his career," but the man's been dead for far too long ... and though I've lauded his film output, one can't put a film like "Witchfinder General" -- no matter how good it REALLY is -- on the shelf next to anything WORTH studying, like the works of Coctau or Jean Renoir) but always felt the man capable of more than the gothic hash the world mostly knows him for. That said, Price never seemed to elevate himself beyond the material he worked with, which is why his performances always seem genuinely eery.

Then someone sent me this the other day ...


... and I couldn't believe it. First things first, Price NEVER played Dracula ... so why the Lugosi Dracula costume and cape??

But what really just GALLED me was ... Price was a man who once played leading man to the likes of Gene Tierney and was a 20th Century Fox favorite ... reduced, nay, CASTRATED into doing a TILEX commercial???

I was also sent this:


Perhaps what adds insult to festering injury are these corporate set-ups ... using the likeness and voice of Vincent Price, placing him in a generic "haunted castle with thunder and lightning" setting ... reducing the length of his career into a paltry mass of pop culture goo. There was a man who was a master chef, art collector and historian ... a master thespian (the word "actor" just doesn't work in his case) ... at the twilight of his career becoming a mouthpiece for the likes of shower cleaners and blank VHS tape companies.

To his credit, Price didn't appear to condescend or trifle with the material. As schmaltzy and gutless as it all is, he took it all in stride and somehow managed to very slightly elevate the material, giving it credence it most certainly didn't deserve.

...but first, an introduction.

Now that you are here, most likely by some cosmic shift in the global blogosphere, I bid you welcome. My presence in this dusty corner of the big ole "w-w-w" is an attempt to produce a viable blog, navigating the chasm between the rational and demented. I've jockeyed around the net, rifled through enough blogs (or WEblogs ... whatev) to realize just how mundane the word and idea have become. The concept of a man or woman dispatching opinion and commentary on the net - swimming in a sea of opinion/commentary (fair and balanced ... most likely otherwise) - bores me, frankly. Dissections of political climate, social agenda, and the cannibalism of religious freedoms should probably be left in the hands of a capable analyst. Otherwise our collective opinion is absorbed and scattered throughout the web ... for anyone to read, but few to find.

So I humbly offer up this blog to the great digital yonder. Am I to be just another long-winded blogger with little to offer besides conjecture and uninformed opinion? Yeah, probably. But my design is something different ... nothing extraordinary, but my aim is lofty.


Not even sure where I'm going with this ... except to say that I'd like to author a blog in which style and substance entwine ... offering intellectual and pop culture penetration, refracted through a deep-focused lens of art, philosophy, and Christian faith. My ideas for this here blog aren't at all tangible yet, but I've never been a "big picture" kind of guy. I'm often swept up in the tiny details of any job I work on. This blog will probably be no exception. But it should be interesting to see how it works out.
"14 Seconds To Hell" is a title I didn't originate, but one I think most clearly 
exemplifies the tone of this blog (or once again, my intention). It was the title of a pulpy (and somewhat trashy) American spy novel first printed in 1968, as part of the "Nick Carter, Killmaster" line of espionage paperbacks to come out of the 1960s and 70s. Printed on cheap paper stock and sold off paperback racks in American drug stores from sea to shining sea, the Nick Carter line was directly inspired by the international success of Ian Fleming's superspy, James Bond. Featured in bold print on the spines of nearly all the early Carter novels was the inscription: "Another Killmaster Chiller ... Out-Bonds James Bond!" This simple bit of marketing proved effective, generating the sales of several million copies of each paperback. Indeed, each Nick Carter adventure is a thrilling and mildly compelling read, despite the dated Cold War storylines and politically incorrect treatment of women and ethnicities in general. These novels were the last bastion of the "men's adventure" magazines and novels that, at their beginning, perfectly reflected America's exhausted mistrust and loss of innocence in the wake of World War II. These novels were lean and mean, not wasting a word in favor of telling a story at the speed of a freshly dispersed bullet. Violence and sex, though tame by modern literary standards, seeped through the pages like condensation from a glass of ice water. Unlike Bond, Carter didn't rely on gadgets and pie-in-the-sky technology to help accomplish his mission. His gun, nicknamed Wilhelmina, a stripped down German luger, and his knife, Hugo, a pearl-handled stiletto, were his only resources from mission to mission ... though a great deal of luck and the frequent incompetence of his antagonists often played large roles in Carter making it through intact. 

Interestingly, Nick Carter, Killmaster was the reincarnation of another literary figure to first emerge in the U.K. After Arthur Conan Doyle first premiered his master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, American magazines scrambled to jump on the trend. By far the most popular and bestselling was "Nick Carter, Master Detective," published by Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine. Carter appeared and reappeared from novel to novel until the early 1950s, and was known for his creative, if cumbersome, methodology in capturing ne'r-do-wells. He often wore disguises to "get his man," sometimes resorting to dressing in drag. Later in the series (and even in a short-lived radio show), Carter relied less on his cunning deductive skills, applying intimidation and often brute force.


Anyhow ... "14 Seconds To Hell" was probably the most outlandish of all the Killmaster paperbacks. I remember reading it during my last semester in college, probably within the space of just a few hours. For the life of me, I can't recall the meaning behind the title. To me, it's eye-catching and somewhat repellent. It's a title that's clumsy in its verbiage, but compelling, wrapped up nicely with the promise of, if nothing else, explosive action.


Though I don't promise action or adventure, I fully intend this blog to be straight-and-narrow in its preaching and meandering in its conjecture. I want to be serious and speculative in equal measure. But if nothing else, I want it to be an accurate reflection of who I am, what I believe, and where I wish to go. Makes no sense, does it? It's cool ... I'm just as lost as you. We'll make it, though. With flashlight in hand, we venture forward, cuttling like a machete through the tangled amazon of idle chatter in the blogosphere.