Neil Sharpson's Blog, page 9

Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

What was it about the seventies anyway?

I’ve reviewed a few animated films from this decade by this point and they are all (with the exception of the Disneys) weird as balls.

But I get ahead of myself. I’m going to let you in on a little behind the scenes secret. Ever since this mouse escaped the rat race and started writing full time, I’ve actually had less time to devote to this blog with work starting on most posts a mere few days before they’re scheduled to go live. This can be a problem when I starkly under-estimate just how much there is to research on a given movie and go plummeting down rabbit-holes

And my oh my, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure is less a field full of rabbit holes than a giant hole with occasional bits of field clinging to the edges. But okay, a little background.

So waaaaay back in the 1910s an American named Johnny Gruelle patented a doll that he named Raggedy Ann and then wrote a series of stories starring her, which were such a success that Raggedy Ann became possibly the first bona-fide modern American toy fad. And, of course, as Jane Austen herself once said “it is a truth universally acknowledged that a toy franchise in possession of a fortune must be in want of an animated tie-in.” And boy howdy, did Raggedy Ann manage to get some impressive talent over the decades. For starters, there was a short series of Fleischer cartoons that were (naturally) as charming and well made as they were horrifying.

No context for you. None.

There were also two television specials produced in the seventies by Chuck Mofawkin Jones. But, without a doubt, Raggedy Ann’s most famous foray into the world of animation was 1977’s Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure which is…well, it’s something.

Here’s what it’s like. Imagine Hasbro want a new Transformers movie. And the director they initially tap dies and so they bring in a replacement; David Lynch. And now Optimus Prime is dancing with a backwards talking midget in the red lodge. That’s kind of what happened here.

Lynch in this instance was Richard Williams, who we’ve had our dealings with in the past. One of the best animators to ever work in the medium, period, Williams was shanghaid into making a glorified toy commerical and decided to use that opportunity to have the time of his life. This film is basically Williams and some of his most talented animator friends (Betty Boop co-creator Grim Natwick, future Genie animator Eric Goldberg and Art “I created Goofy and sued Walt Disney for unfair labour practices, took him all the way to the Supreme Court and lived to tell of it” Babbitt to name a few) having a ball on the dime of the good folks at the Bobbs-Merril publishing company.

But is it a good movie? Well…

This movie’s Wikipedia page boasts that it’s “the first feature-length animated musical comedy film produced in the United States” and, despite the suspiciously specific wording I feel confident in hbomberguying Wikipedia on that and calling BULLSHIT. Off the top of my head, Snow White and Pinocchio precede this movie by decades. Of course, both of those movies are described by Wikipedia as “animated musical fantasy” rather than “animated musical comedy” but I have no frickin’ idea how Raggedy Ann constitutes a comedy but Pinocchio doesn’t. For one, Pinocchio actually makes me laugh.

I suppose the only argument that could be made is that it’s the first “animated musical” anything is that it was originally intended to be a stage musical, and then a live action stage TV special and then finally an animated feature. Oh, they did eventually make the stage musical complete with a poster that looks like what would happen if you told an AI to imagine an Indiana Jones/Strawberry Shortcake crossover as directed by Ingmar Bergman.

“What is this I see on the horizon? It is death.”

Oh, and holy fuck, this is how the play opens: Little Marcella (Raggedy Ann’s owner and a staple character of the books) is dying from a broken heart after her mother abandoned her father for another man which drove him to alcoholism. And then her dog tried to eat her bird which resulted in them both dying.

That’s not even the worst part! Marcella Gruelle, as well as appearing in the Raggedy Ann books was Johnny Gruelle’s real life daughter who died at the age of 13 from an unsterilised vaccination needle which is how Raggedy Ann got co-opted as a symbol of the anti-vax movement…gah!

Sorry! You see what I mean about rabbit holes! Okay. The movie. The movie!

So in a live action sequence we see little Marcella returning home from school with her favourite toy, Raggedy Ann. Because Ann sees more of the world outside the nursery, she’s become the de facto leader of Marcella’s other toys; Mr Potato Head, Rex the Dinosaur, Slinky Dog…*checks notes*

Sorry, wrong film. The toys are…the toys are bizarre nightmares quite frankly. I don’t even understand what half of these things are supposed to be:

What? What! WHAT?!

Anyway, we now transition to animation and, after introducing the real heroes of this whole endeavour in font that’s so incongrously wacky it’s gotta be taking the piss…

This is the text equivalent of your manager coming to work dressed as Spongebob Squarepants.

…we get the opening credits, which may be unique in the history of animation. I’ve certainly never seen their like. For you see, every character is introduced with the name of the artist who animated them. And I love this. You ever see the Key and Peele sketch where teachers are treated like pro athletes? This is like a movie from an alternate universe where the credit actually goes to where it belongs; the animators.

In the toy room, Ann tells the other toys that it’s Marcella’s birthday and that means she’s going to be getting some new presents. The first one has already arrived, and it’s crushed Ann’s brother Andy like a common witch.

“And he’s not only faaairly dead! He’s really very, very dead!”

They rescue Andy who sings a song about how he’s absolutely not a girl’s toy you guys, he’s a tough boy toy who does toy boy things.

Oh yeah, I should mention the songs. After all, this is the first feature-length animated musical comedy film produced in the United States*******. The songbook was written by Joe Raposo, who was responsible for some of the catchiest theme tunes of your childhood, including Sesame Street, Madeline and The Smoggies. He also wrote Sing which was covered by The Carpenters. So the dude has a very respectable pedigree which I hope will soften the blow when I say I think the songs are Raggedy Ann’s weakest element. And there are a lot of songs in this thing, 20 squeezed into an 85 minute film and they just grind all forward momentum to a halt.

The toys climb up the new box to meet the new toy who is revealed to be a space ranger Babette, a fancy French bisque doll.

Babette is none too happy of having to share a nursery with these American plebs, and wants nothing more than to return to Paris. Babette catches the eye of another toy, the pirate Captain Contagious who kidnaps her to be his bride.

This is the main plot, by the way. Raggedy Ann and Andy have to go on a quest to rescue Babette from Captain Contagious and his old-fashioned ideas of romance and this comes around 25 minutes into the run time. See what I mean about the songs slowing everything down?

So Ann and Andy climb through the nursery window and find themselves in the Deep Dark Wood where they meet the Camel with Wrinkled Knees, a blue stuffed camel who’s desperately trying to rejoin his caravan of camels. Who he sees floating in the sky like Pink Elephants on an Absinthe Bender.

Ann and Andy offer to let the Camel come back and live in their playroom after they find Babette and he agrees to let them ride him. Unfortunately, he starts seeing camels in the sky and races off a cliff to join them, and all three toys plummet into a giant canyon full of taffy.

What was it about the seventies? What was it about this decade that made people say “hey let’s just spend a year of our lives animating a bunch of random shit, just random nonsensical shit without rhyme or reason, one whole year of our lives doing that”? I mean, I’m not saying our current era of micro-managed, suffocated, corporatized animation production is better necessarily but I still don’t understand the thought process. In the taffy pit, Ann, Andy and the Camel meet The Greedy, a massive living goo monster that’s constantly devouring itself. This is probably the most famous sequence in the entire movie because it is:

a) Astonishingly animated.

b) Utterly baffling and terrifying.

And so basically functions as a microcosm of the movie itself.

The Greedy tells them that he eats so much because he’s lonely and desperately wants “a sweetheart”. Of course, Raggedy Ann lets slip that she has a heart made of candy which results in the Greedy trying to eat all three toys.

They escape, and come next to Looney Land where they meet Sir Leonard Looney who is just soooooo wacky!

I’m sure somebody finds this amusing but not I. Not Mouse.

Looney takes them to meet King Koo Koo, a tiny little monarch who can only get bigger by laughing at other people. Koo Koo wants to keep Ann, Andy and the Camel prisoner but they escape in a Looney Land ship presumably on loan from the Pepperland navy.

“We all live on a yellow…thing. A yellow…thing. A yellow…thing.”

They see Captain Contagious’ ship on the horizon and prepare to board her to rescue Babette, only to discover that Contagious has been overthrown and that the new captain is…Babette. She has used her feminine wiles to take command of the ship and now rules over her adoring crew with ruthless discipline and a whip.

Okay, someone was working through some kinks.

Ann tells Babette that she’s come to rescue her and bring her back to the play room and Babette is all “uh, no bitch, Babette’s going home” and has them tied to the mast while she sets sail for Paris.

King Koo Koo then attacks the ship with a giant monster named Gazooks who’s a big green blob. I mean, they could have just brought The Greedy back, it’s basically the same thing…whatever. Koo Koo orders the Gazooks to tickle them all. Laughing at their misfortune causes Koo Koo to grow to massive proportions. Andy realises that Koo Koo’s really just full of hot air and gets the captain’s parrot to peck him which causes him to explode.

In the real world, Marcella finds the toys outside in the garden and brings them back inside. The Camel is welcomed into the playroom and Babette apologises for selfishly seeking freedom from a life of being someone else’s plaything and even forgives Captain Contagious, calling him “a very romantic man”

“I see now you knew what was best for me.”

***

There are fans of animation and fans of animated films and I think this really is more for the former group than the latter. If you like your feature length animation served with a strong script and a satisfying narrative structure then, well, this movie will be about as good a time for as another Robert Williams animation.

But, if you like the idea of watching one of the most high powered animation teams ever assembled just going hog fucking wild on someone else’s dime, I can definitely recommend.

Animation: 17/20:

The problem with an animation showcase like this is that, while none of the sequences are bad at all, there are definitely some that are stronger than others and the incongruity of it all can get very distracting. Also, while the animation is frequently very technically impressive it’s not what I’d call charming. Many of the characters are frankly a little unsettling. I admire the movie’s animation more than I love it.

Leads: 06/20

I know it was the seventies and all, but it is still kinda galling that Raggedy Ann does essentially nothing in the climax of her own movie.

Villain: 09/20

Marty Brill gives a pretty fun performance as King Koo Koo.

Supporting Characters: 05/20

I feel like these characters were designed more to be interesting for the artist’s to draw and animate than for the audience to engage with.

Music: 06/20

No disrespect to Joe Raposco but this is a pretty terrible musical.

FINAL SCORE: 43%

NEXT UPDATE: 28th December 2023

NEXT TIME: What is Christmas, if not a time to reconnect with old friends?

Disney(ish) reviews with the Unshaved Mouse: Planes

Well. That was anti-climactic.

I feel like a knight who’s been on a quest to slay a terrible dragon for a decade only to arrive at the top of the mountain and find the dragon’s around the size of a chicken and died several years ago from old age.

In the early days of this blog I built up Planes as a personal bete noir, a movie I would never, ever review because it represented the worst of crass, merchandise driven movie-making for both Disney in particular and animation in general.

Oh my. How innocent I was. How innocent we all were.

But after years of the absolute garbage I have had to sit through for you people (love you all) it is with a heavy heart that I must report that Planes is…fine?

I mean, it is aggressively mediocre, don’t get me wrong. But, given the state of Disney’s output at present, there’s something refreshing about a movie that manages to hit a solid C.

In fact, I would say it was one of the most safely boring movies I’ve seen all year were it not for the fact that it’s set in the Cars universe and therefore is, as all movies in that benighted franchise are, weird as fuck.

WHAT KIND OF LIFE DOES THIS POOR CREATURE HAVE?!

The movie begins with two Air Force jets flying over the ocean and talking about Dusty Crophopper, the greatest flyer known to man weird anthropomorphised vehicle, with the kind of  gushing, on-the nose-dialogue that tells you this is just a dream Dusty’s having from, like, the very second you hear it.

Sure enough, Dusty’s boss Leadbottom wakes him from his reverie and tells him to get back to work. See, Dusty Crophopper is a crop-duster (his parents wanted to name him Trismegistus Carruthers but you now how set in their ways people are). But, would you believe this rural small-town boy stuck in a dead end job has dreams of something greater? Of course you would, but that’s because you are savvy media-literate folks who’ve seen one, maybe even two, films. Nothing wrong with formula, I guess, but I’m kinda surprised Disney didn’t just forget the planes and crank out a crossover with Star Wars about a plucky X-Wing who goes off to fight the Empire.

The scene where he had to kill his new best friend was surprisingly heart-rending.

So Dusty wants to be a racer even though he’s not built for that and it’s actually damaging him when he exceeds his recommended maximum speed, something that is pointed out to him by his friend Dottie who is one of the little forklift people from the first two movies.

We need to talk about the forklift people because, well, there’s literally nothing else of interest to talk about this movie other than the utterly bizarre world-building. What are you expecting here? The Unshaved Mouse’s Analysis of Planes through the lens of Radical Queery Theory? It’s fucking Planes. Of course I’m going to talk about about the weird forklift people.

Ask yourself, how many forklifts have you seen today? Probably one or less, right? Unless you work in a forklift adjacent profession? Pretty specialised piece of equipment?

Well in the world of Planes, the forklifts have fucking taken over. They’re everywhere. I think there was an invasion and the old car-led order was violently overthrown. Spouse of Mouse pointed out that all the forklift people seem to be a labour class. I pointed out that they also seem to be running the military and also all the cars and planes are basically beasts of burden in this world and we can’t agree on who’s oppressing who (bit like our marriage, if I’m honest). If there had been this many of them in the first movie it would have to have been called Forklifts (And there are also a few cars for some reason). I can only imagine it’s because the animators decided that forklifts have arms and are closer to human proportions so it slightly explains why these living vehicles created a world that is very obviously designed for the human body.

Anyway, the plot, such as it is. Dusty spends his days crop-dusting by day and training by night for the qualifiers for the Wings Around the Globe Rally with his friend Chug, who’s a fuel truck. Chug suggests that Dusty gets some pointers from Skipper Riley, an old warplane who’s a World War 2 veteran.

World War 2 happened in the Cars universe?

I…

I have so many questions.

What kind of car was Hitler?

Obvious, in retrospect.

But Skipper turns Dusty down cold and the young crop duster has to race in the qualifiers without his guidance.

Anyway, we’re right at the point of this checklist masquerading as a screenplay where we’re supposed to meet our cocky douchebag antagonist. This is Ripslinger.

And I’m not saying he’s an obvious rip-off of Chick Hicks from Cars. I don’t need to. The frickin’ Disney wiki did it for me.

Sayin’ the quiet part loud, eh wiki?

Fuck’s sake Disney, not even going to give him a different colour?

Dusty competes and gives it his all, but, wouldn’t ya know it? He just fails to make the cut and doesn’t qualify. Well, I guess the movie’s over. But what’s this? One of the other planes was disqualified for using illegal fuel, which means Dusty qualifies by default right before the second act. Good job, Scriptotron 3000.

BEEP BOOP. SCRIPT PROGRESS AT 30%

I kid, but you know what? There’s some solid writing here. There’s a nice scene where Dusty starts to realise just how dangerous a flight around the world will be for a crop-duster. Skipper shows up and tries to talk him out of the race but Dusty insists on going saying that he’s sick of flying around the same field and “flying thousands of miles and never going anywhere”.

Impressed by his moxie, Skipper agrees to train this rookie and discovers the reason why Dusty always flies so low to the ground; he’s a plane who’s scared of heights.

Regardless, Skipper works with Dusty to improve his speed as a low-flying aircraft. Dottie buffs his engine and also offer to remove his duster to reduce drag, something the movie makes very clear is the equivalent of Dusty losing “the boys”. That’s not a joke.

Dusty travels to New York and lands at JFK Airport…FUCKING WHAT? JFK EXISTED IN THE CARS UNIVERSE AND (PRESUMABLY) WAS ASSASSINATED WHICH LED TO IDLEWILD BEING RENAMED WHAT?!? HOW DID LEE HARVEY OSWALD HOLD A RIFLE?! HOW DID HE GET UP THE STAIRS TO THE BOOK DESPOSITORY?! 

Sorry. He lands at JFK Airport and meets his designated comedy sidekick (a Mexican plane named El Chupacabra) his designated love interest (an Indian plane named Ishani) and a stuffy British plane voiced by John Cleese in full “just put the money on the dresser and have your way with me” mode. Hell, even the designated comedy sidekick gets a designated love interest as El Chupacabra falls for Rochelle, a French-Canadian plane. Sorry I mean Carolina. Wait, no, Heidi. I mean Azurra. Sakura?

So one of the weirdest parts of this movie…no, I can’t justify that. One of the top fifty weirdest things in this movie is the character of Rochelle who was re-coloured, re-named and re-nationalised for a whopping 11 different internationalised releases. So she’s Australian in the Australian release, Brazilian in the Brazilian one and so on. And they did this because…I have no goddamned clue. Maybe Disneytoons just had a dream that every nation would get to see themselves represented as an overly sexualised plane. I know that’s my dream.

“Imagine aaaaaaall the people…”

The race begins and Dusty’s inability to fly high soon has him trailing the other racers but he starts to win them over with his unassuming do-right nature. As the race proceeds through India, Ishani takes Dusty on a tour of the Taj Mahal.

It has flight towers to show that planes built it even though it was probably built by cars even thought it would make no sense for them to build it and this entire world is like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.

Dusty tells Ishani that he’s worried about going over the Himalayas because of his fear of heights and she advises him to follow the train tracks instead. During the race, he follows the tracks only to find them lead to a tunnel. Unable to give up and unable to fly over the mountain, he does the sensible thing and just flies through the tunnel.

This ends up putting him ahead of the other racers and now he’s in the lead. But Dusty realises that Ishani set him up to fail and confronts her. He notices she’s sporting a shiny new propellor of a kind that only Ripslinger’s team uses and puts two and two together.

As the race continues, Dusty becomes a hero to vehicles all over the world who don’t just want to do what they were built for BY WHO?!?! FUCKING EXPLAIN HOW THIS WORLD WORKS YOU PIECE OF…

Sorry, sorry.

Ripsligner decides that he’s not losing to no stinking crop-duster and has two of his lackies clip Dusty’s navigating attenae while they’re flying over the Pacific. Dusty gets lost and is rescued by the USS Dwight D. Flysenhower and the various forklifts and planes that infest him like parasites on the hide of a whale.

On the Flysenhower Dusty is shocked to learn that his mentor Skipper only ever flew one mission during the war. Feeling betrayed and desperate to get back in the race, he leaves the ship, gets caught in a storm and crashes in the Pacific Ocean.

Dusty gets salvaged and as he recovers Skipper arrives and tells him the truth about the only mission he ever flew.

So, you know Thomas the Tank Engine? Did you know Thomas the Tank Engine could get incredibly dark? Like, there’s one episode where a train escapes the mass-scrapping of steam engines in England and it’s pretty much played like the dude escaped a concentration camp? Well, Planes now gives us a scene where we see Skipper’s entire squadron getting massacred by Japanese gunboats. Living, sentient planes just falling out of the sky in flaming ruins. It’s brutal and shocking and…honestly the best scene in this entire franchise. Although, keep in mind, I do loathe this franchise and that might be colouring my opinion somewhat.

Ha ha! Yes! Die! Die!

Dusty and Skipper reconcile and all the other planes chip in to donate parts to fix Dusty like he’s the Six Million Dollar Man, including Ishani who gives Dusty the fancy propellor she got in exchange for betraying him.

Dusty re-enters the race and starts to gain ground on Ripslinger. And, as always, you can probably predict all of the story beats right down to the photo-finish but I’ll say this in the movie’s defence; it’s a racing movie with good racing. The animation is lovely and the aerobatics are exciting to look at and you do get a real sense of speed. I mean, it’s not coming anywhere near my favourite animated racing movie but there’s an enjoyable competence to it all. Ripslinger and his goons try to hobble Dusty one more time but Skipper arrives in the nick of time to help Dusty escape them. Ripslinger and Dusty race for the finish line, Dusty wins, Ripslinger crashes into some portable toilets (if you recall, Cars 2 established that these vehicles piss oil) and the movie ends with all our couples paired up and a lucrative new stream of merchandising opportunities opened up for Disney and its affiliates and shareholders.

Don’t you just love a happy ending?

***

Scoring

How butt ugly is the animation? Is it as ugly as a butt?: 12/20

Cars has never been the gold standard for Pixar animation but, fair’s fair, it’s still Pixar. Disneytoons, the animated sweatshop that produced so much janky, direct-to-video garbage in the nineties actually acquit themselves very admirably. Judging on the animation alone, you’d think Pixar made this film and very few animation studios outside of the top-tier could achieve that.

Are the main characters jerks? I bet they’re jerks: 07/20

Dane Cook isn’t bad. I actually think I like him a little better than Own Wilson as Lightning McQueen. Absolute generic nothing of a part, but there’s no point where I felt he was actively bad.

Bet the villain’s a real shitpile, character wise: 04/20

Ripslinger is an actual villain, unlike Chick who was mostly just a douche. Not at all a memorable or charismatic villain but…reviewing this movie feels like reviewing a components based on the individual components. It’s like: the keyboard is not missing any keys. It is satisfactory.

Oh what’s this? Supporting characters? Fuck you supporting characters!: 04/20

Here’s where the movie does start to be actively annoying. When it tries for comedic relief, you just want to press a pillow down on its face and put it out of its misery.

Man, fuck the music. I hope it dies: 09/20

You know what, there’s parts of the score that are clearly aping Kenny Loggin’s Danger Zone and I’ll give points for that.

FINAL SCORE: 36%

NEXT UPDATE: 14th December 2023.

NEXT TIME: Yeah, I get pretty raggedy around this time of year too.

(Not a review of) Inherit the Wind (1960)

This map is wrong:

That’s not to say it’s bad.

It’s very useful.

It’s informative.

It is even, when you take a step back and consider it, quite beautiful. But it’s wrong.

The continents aren’t that size relative to each other. Not even close. Of course, you could use a different projection that shows them the correct relative size, something like this:

But now all the continents’ shapes are distorted nearly to the point of being unrecognisable.

Every 2 dimensional map of the world is wrong because, obviously, the world is not flat (I swear to God if anyone starts shit in the comments…). Ultimately, any attempt to render a three dimensional sphere as a 2 dimensional rectangle is, well, a lie. It’s an attempt to simplify that will always lead to distortion one way or another.

I love historical films. I hate historical films.

This was going to be a review of Inherit the Wind.

It became something else.

Okay, here’s a bold, contrarian take for ya. People today are probably more historically literate now than ever before. Your average Westerner today knows more about world history than a professional historian would have a hundred and fifty years ago.

And some of that, sure, is better education and the internet and the ubiquity of the printed word. But a huge chunk of the credit actually needs to go to the medium of film. I mean, take even a film that is notoriously bad history like, say, Pocahontas. There is still a wealth of genuine historical data to be absorbed by watching that film. The colony was called Jamestown. The name of the tribe was the Powhatan. John Radcliffe was the governor. The story is a mixture of myth and pure Hollywood invention but you do learn truths. Of course, you don’t just learn truths.

This is something I’ve been chewing over in my mind for a long time now. Do historical movies have to be accurate?

Well, on the one hand, no. Absolutely not. Asking a historical film to be true to history is like expecting a two dimensional map to be true to a three dimensional world. Merely by making it a film you must flatten. You must distort. You must shrink. You must make the complex simple enough to understand.

Okay, but how much distortion can you accept? I mean, if every map is wrong, is there even such a thing as a bad map?

“You gotta something to say to me, Mouse?”

Relax, it’s a metaphor. Genre matters, of course. One of my favourite movies is Death of Stalin, a comedy based around the power struggle in the Kremlin after the death of the titular tyrant. And, like with Pocahontas, you will learn quite a bit about that period in history. But there’re also scenes like this:

Which I’m pretty confident in saying never happened.

But, that’s a comedy. The rules are different. It’s when movies start expecting to be taken seriously (a dangerous pastime, LeFou) that I think you need to take out the red pen and start marking down for inaccuracy.

Let’s start with the good. No, let’s start with the great.

Fucking hell Downfall is so good. It’s the closest thing to time travel. Every detail, every performance was sweated over. In the the pantheon of great Hitler performances (and there have been some great Hitler performances) Bruno Ganz will never be touched. It’s a movie that gives me hope for the genre as a force of good and enlightenment in the world. It makes you believe that you can actually have a flat map of a round Earth.

Maybe it’s the setting. Maybe it’s the importance of getting this particular period right (or rather the potentially disastrous results of getting it wrong) that makes them really sweat the details. Another one that I think does a phenomenal job (and, maybe even more impressively, does it with an English script):

If I ever teach a writing course, this movie will be one of the key texts. Conspiracy is a dramatisation of the minutes of the Wannasee conference, the meeting where the arch-fiends of the Nazi regime met to decide just what form the Final Solution would take (in actuality, it was the meeting where the SS gathered the other interested parties in a room and said “This is what we’ve been doing. You’re all complicit now. Cool? Cool”).

It has what is to this day, the single most terrifying line of dialogue I have ever heard, the initial results of the use of Zyklon B blandly delivered by Stanley Tucci in the tone of a middle manager announcing the quarter’s earnings:

EICHMANN: And the the results are…well I have figures.

We’re at the demarcation point. This is murder on a scale that words can no longer render, and we must instead turn to mathematics.

Then there are movies that are not rigorously accurate but are still…good enough? Maybe?

“Game’s over Harry. Lost again.”

This scene is from the opening of Michael Collins. Michael Collins (Liam Neeson), Eamon DeValera (Alan Rickman) and Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn) stand outside the burned out wreckage of the GPO in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, waiting to be taken into custody by the British.

Now, this scene never happened. Collins and Boland escaped and were only arrested days after the Rising and DeValera wasn’t even at the GPO, instead commanding troops at a grain mill on the other side of the river. But I can forgive this because it’s good, efficient story-telling. It introduces three of our main characters. It explains the Rising and the men behind it and how its failure shaped Collins’ worldview and development as a military tactician. It lies about little things, to tell the truth about big things. And for the most part, I’m on board with it. For the most part.

Take for example, this scene:

Now, did this happen?

Yes…no. Yes?

There was a massacre of Irish civilians during a Gaelic Football game. It was called Bloody Sunday (not that one. Or that one. Or that one. Rough fucking century.)

British troops locked down the stadium, searching for Republican militants. Here, the stories diverge. The British troops claim they came under fire, the Irish civilians in the crowd claim that the soldiers opened fire without provocation (this happens a lot in Irish history. And Indian history. And African history. I wonder what the common denominator is).

Now, the movie obviously has to choose one account to dramatise and, after all, the film is called Michael Collins and not General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready.

Of course he had a moustache. Of course he did.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, the armoured car is the problem. That never happened. It’s a spectacular image. It’s a scene everyone remembers. But it’s not real. And…it does change things, doesn’t it? You can at least imagine unprotected foot soldiers, nervy and jumpy after a wave of assassinations just that morning (and, let’s be honest, PTSD’d to fuck from their WW1 service) thinking they’ve heard a shot and panicking. It’s quite another thing to watch that big green Dalek on wheels serenely mowing down fleeing men, women and children. Only a monster could do that.

Then again, you could argue (as director Neil Jordan did) that the reality was even worse. At least in the film, people were able to run. In reality, the gates were shut when the shooting started. There was nowhere to run.

Does it matter? I don’t know.

I do think that if you know nothing of the Irish War of Independence you can watch this film and come away with a good basis for learning more. There’s a reason it’s shown in Irish history classes. It gives you the broad strokes and I think it does more good than harm to the overall understanding of the period.

An entire generation of Irish people growing up thinking Mick was killed on Snape’s orders notwithstanding.

I don’t think I could ever write historical fiction. I’m terrified of getting the details wrong. Hell, the entire reason I became a science fiction writer was because I didn’t trust myself with history. There’s so much power. It can do so much harm. I know this from personal experience.

This. Fucking. Movie.

This thing turned me into a weird, conspiracy-addled, paranoid little shit. Because I didn’t understand that a movie this well made, this well acted, this well-scored, this well edited (and oh my God this may be the best edited movie ever made)….just this good. Could lie to me.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that so many talented people could work this hard on a lie.

This film is to conspiracism what Triumph of the Will was to Nazism.

It’s not simply bad history. It’s history in a funhouse mirror.

Behold, Lee Harvey Oswald. A hateful, wife-beating , utter failure of a human being? No! A tragic hero, framed by the Deep State to cover their own crimes. Jim Garrison, a crank and charlatan who claimed that Kennedy was killed by a gay cabal as a “homosexual thrill killing”? Well here he is being played by Kevin Costner channelling the ghost of frickin Jimmy Stewart!

Ain’t. We. Just.

And I know, I know. It’s just a movie. And even thought I want to blame this one film for…well, for everything that came after. Pizza-gate. Nine Eleven Truthers. Q-Anon. January 16th…

I know that’s just how it feels like to me, because I drank this Kool Aid.

And whatever damage this movie did, time eventually will heal it, right? The truth will out, real history will assert itself eventually?

I’m not so sure.

Alright, let’s talk about Inherit the Wind.

The first thing that people think they know about Inherit the Wind, that it’s a re-telling of the Scopes Monkey Trial, is wrong.

How people got that idea, who can say?

The movie is a fictional story that draws very, very loosely on the actual trial. But none of the real historical personages appear. Clarence Darrow does not appear in this movie. Ditto HL Mencken. Oh sure, there’s a Darrow figure, and a Mencken figure. But the names, location and actual events are so far removed from what actually happened that it might as well take place in the MCU.

And yet, I think when most people think of the Scopes Monkey Trial, they picture this:

If, when you hear the phrase “Scopes Monkey Trial” you picture a principled teacher heroically smuggling copies of The Origin of Species into his Bible Belt classroom and then put on trial in a climactic battle of science and reason pitted against medieval superstition…yeah, you fell for it.

The trial was, in actuality, a cynical publicity stunt by the town of Dayton to get some national attention. Scopes may not even have taught evolution in his class, and if he did it was from a state sanctioned text book (which, as well as a brief description on evolution also instructed students on the importance of eugenics, racial hygiene and why Caucasians are just the tops). It was all rather sordid, is what I’m saying.

But that doesn’t make a good story. People need their stories. Their myths. Their simple parables.

Probably some irony there that I just can’t see.

And so, this is history now. The Earth has been made flat.

And look, it’s certainly not the worst film in its genre. It’s obnoxious, simplistic pap but it’s not like it’s hateful or malicious.

But ultimately, I didn’t review Inherit the Wind because, frankly, this movie terrifies me. It’s the ultimate expression of the awesome power of its genre. The ability to not just distort history, or mis-teach it, but to flat-out replace it.

We have seen, we see and we will see what happens when we start to think history is just a tool for our side to beat their side. History is the foundation of the present. If it fragments, it all comes down.

Inherit the Wind takes its title from Proverbs 11:29.

A better verse for this movie, a better verse for anyone who seeks to impart history through the medium of film might be James 3:1:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers,

For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

NEXT UPDATE: 30 November 2023

NEXT TIME: You know, there was a time when this seemed like the worst movie I could possibly review. How innocent I was, once.

Bats Versus Bolts: Movies that had virtually nothing to do with Andy Warhol

These movies are terrible. I’m so glad I watched them.

Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula are in many ways the best candidate for a Bats versus Bolts  that I’ve done yet. Not only are they by the same director and share many of the same cast, but they were made practically concurrently by the same crew.

Also, when I lie to myself and pretend that there’s some kind of high-minded artistic goal behind this series beyond me getting to talk about vampires and monsters, I like to think that each BvB pair says something about the time they were created in. That is absolutely the case with these two films which are not only seventies movies, but some of the most seventies movies I have ever seen.

These films were directed and written by Paul Morrissey, one of the more fascinating film-makers I’ve come across doing this blog. A member of Andy Warhol’s inner circle (we’ll get to that) he had a front row seat to the drug-soaked bacchanal that was the sixties New York arts scene. Morrissey is fascinating to try to pin down in terms of his politics. A self described right-wing conservative and staunch Catholic…who was also something of a trailblazer in terms of trans representation in film and a body of work that lends itself quite easily to Marxist readings with a consistent portrayal of the aristocracy as a shower of evil degenerate parasites. Like I say: interesting guy. 

Note, I did not say maker of good films.

Anyway, Morrissey claims that the whole idea to make monster movies came about, appropriately enough, from meeting Roman Polanski. Polanski apparently suggested that Morrissey would be the perfect person to make a 3D Frankenstein movie, which honestly I would take as an insult. Morrissey didn’t, however, and arranged a shoot in Italy, filming both Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula back to back. Or, as they were known in the U.S.; Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. Why were they called that? Oh, that’s very simple.

Lies.

It was just a marketing tactic. Warhol let his friend put his name of the movies to boost the alogorithim. They actually used the same trick for the Italian releases, putting a famous Italian director’s name on them to claim Italian residency which actually got the production in serious legal trouble in Italy.

The resulting movies are Morrissey’s critique of the sticky, shame-filled, bitter and angry come down from the Free Love era that was the early seventies.

That makes them sound a lot more classy and high brow than they actually are.

The Adaptations

Are these movies accurate to their source material? Let me put it this way. In the nineteen twenties, Florence Stoker sued FW Murnau for plagiarism of her husband’s novel despite the fact that Murnau had changed all the names in Nosferatu. If Morrissey had tried the same trick with Blood for Dracula, I think he would have gotten away with it. Both these movies veer hard, not only from their source material but from virtually every screen version before or since.

To begin;

In Serbia (?) sometime in the 19th century, the Baron Frankenstein (Udo Kier) lives in a rambling castle with his wife/sister (it’s that kind of movie) Katrin and their two children/niece and nephew. Herr Baron is obsessed with restoring the racial purity of the Serbian race. He works day and night with his assistant Otto (Arno Juerging) robbing graves and assembling a male and female body for his new master race. And the music the director chooses to score these scenes to wouldn’t be out of place in a montage of two men slowly realising their feelings for each other while restoring an orchard together. The Baroness, for her part, spends the day wandering the Frankenstein estate, presumably looking for her eyebrows.

Instead, she finds filthy, filthy peasants, fucking in the bushes. This happens constantly. Finally realising that, if everyone you meet is a fornicating peasant, you might be a fornicating peasant, she takes one of these peasants as a lover, a man named Nicholas played by seventies model/gay icon Joe Dallesandro. The interests of the two Frankensteins collide when the Baron and Otto go looking for a head for their male monster. Frankenstein wants the head of a horny sex maniac (don’t we all?) with a perfect Serbian nose. Now, Nicholas’ friend Sacha wants to joint a monastery, so Nicholas takes him to a brothel for softcore seventies shenanigans despite the fact that Sacha is clearly joining a monastery for a very good reason.  A lizard gets loose in the brothel which causes some of the girls to run outside naked and screaming which leads Frankenstein and Otto (who have been skulking outside) to believe that Sacha must be some kind of sexual god. I mean, if that was the case then surely they would have been running towards him and not away from him but whatever. Frankenstein decapitates Sacha and attaches the head to the male monster and has both monsters join him and his family for dinner, where Sacha is seen by Nicholas who has been hired by the Baroness as her servant.

After some extremely unpleasant business that got this movie banned in the UK and which I shall not discuss here, Frankenstein tries to get the monsters to breed but, like a pair of depressed pandas, it just ain’t happening. Nicholas breaks into the lab to try and rescue Sascha but is betrayed by Katrin, who Frankenstein her with the use of Sascha as her own personal sex toy.

“Sweet mystery of life, at last I found youuuu!”

Instead, the monster snaps her like a Kit Kat. Otto tries to rape the female monster and ends up killing her and the male monster returns, and kills Frankenstein. Nicholas, who’s been trussed up like a chicken in the middle of the lab, begs the monster to free him. The monster instead just pulls out his own guts and dies (it’s that kind of movie), leaving Nicholas at the mercy of the Frankenstein children who, it is strongly implied, will dissect him for their own enjoyment.

Meanwhile, in Italy.

The mysterious, sickly Count Dracula (Udo Kier), escorted by his servant Anton (Arno Juerging) has arrived looking for a bride. He inveigles an invitation into the home of Il Marchese di Fiore on the pretext of wooing one of his four daughters for marriage. The four daughters, in order of age, are Esmerelda, Saphiria, Rubinia and Pearla. Esmerelda was once engaged but it didn’t work out and now, although still a virgin, she’s considered too old and plain to marry. Saphiria and Rubinia are both beautiful but are, in the words of one character “filthy, filthy hoors”, fucking everything that moves (including each other because it is, again, that kind of movie) which means that every time Dracula tries to feed on them, because he needs the blood of virgins, he reacts like a vegan who’s just realised that burger isn’t actually beetroot. There’s a lot of puking up blood. Is it a fun time for you, the viewer? It is not. Oh, and lastly there’s Perla, who is only 14 which really should put her off limits for everyone, shouldn’t it? Sigh.

Complicating matters further for Dracula is Mario (played, again, by Joe Dallesandro), the socialist farmhand who is doing his bit for the revolution by fucking the aristocracy. And I mean that literally. Realising that Dracula is a vampire and is on the hunt for virgins, he rapes Perla to protect her from him (what. a. champ.) and then proceeds to have the MOST ONE SIDED BATTLE AGAINST DRACULA IN THE HISTORY OF FILM by chopping off Dracula’s limbs one by one with an axe.

Pretty much.

WINNER: BOLTS 

The Monsters

I never thought I would see a performance that would make me appreciate the range, depth and comedic timing of Tommy Wiseau, but Srdjan Zelenovic as Sacha/The Monster made me realise that there is always further to fall.

I’ve been able to find next to nothing on this actor. I don’t even know his country of origin. Other than this movie, IMDB only credits him with a single other short so I’m guessing he didn’t continue on in acting and…yeah, that’s probably for the best.

I do want to give a shout out to Dalila Di Lazarro who plays the bride, the only time in a film I’m aware of  where the bride is created before the monster. She does fantastic work with a wordless part and is absolutely mesmerising.

Udo Kier as Dracula is…you know what, I would love to have seen him play a more traditional take on the character because he has so much going for him. Those pale arresting eyes and an undeniable presence. But he’s playing this Dracula, and this Dracula is absolutely pathetic. I have to admit, the central joke does get a chuckle out of me; that in these liberated times any vampire who can only feed on virgins is fucked. But it does mean we get possibly the least threatening Dracula in all of film outside of the Hotel Transylvania series (and shit, at least that Dracula has actual powers). By the end, when he’s running around screaming and getting trimmed like a privet hedge you just feel sorry for the guy.

WINNER: BATS

The Scientists

So Morrissey initially wanted all the dialogue in Flesh for Frankenstein to be improvised. Bold move. But, given that almost his entire cast did not speak English as a first language, you can see why he quickly dropped that idea. Udo Kier is a fantastic actor. He’s had a long and storied career in film and if you watch this film you will instantly see why. He is a physically beautiful, elegant and captivating performer. Unfortunately, at this stage of his career, his fluency in English is roughly on par with a 90’s SNES cutscene and he’s clearly learned his lines phonetically.

“Chentlemen I must een-seest you giff me excess to ze lavatory. I must chreeate my Zerbian master race off zombees…”

“You…mean the “laboratory” right? RIGHT?!”

“Good Lord! Someone left a dilly of a mess in the ol’ como-diddly-ode!”

“WHY DO THEY KEEP GETTING WORSE!?”

This section is usually where I discuss Van Helsing or his equivalent but Blood for Dracula doesn’t really have one except for Mario who does fulfil the traditional Van Helsing role by actually figuring out the Dracula is a vampire. But, he’s really more of a Dashing Young Man so we’ll cover him in the next section.

Unfortunately.

WINNER: BOLTS

The Dashing Young Men

It’s been a while since we’ve had an actor going up against himself in Bats versus Bolts and I hope all you Joe Dallesandro fans won’t take it personally if I say he’s no Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. It’s honestly a little embarrassing how many other actors in these movies out-act him despite the fact that he’s the only native English speaker in either main cast. And what English! The accent is pure Grade A Noo Yawk and he isn’t even trying to hide it. Anyway, Dallesandro plays two very similar characters in both movies, the slab of peasant beefsteak who all the creepy aristocrat women want to bone.

In both movies Dallesandro’s an almost impressively limited performer but I actually think Morrissey finds a better use for him in Blood for Dracula. 

Nicholas is a big old void, but Mario is actually an interesting, if aggressively repellant character, someone who espouses revolutionary ideals of equality while exhibiting deep, ocean-like reserves of misogyny to every woman unfortunate enough to cross his path. And if, as I believe is the case, this was Morrissey’s intentional critique of the free love movement I think it lands a palpable hit.

I also have to mention Arno Juerging who plays both Frankenstein’s assistant Otto and Dracula’s valet Anton and manages to be the best thing in both movies. Like Kier, he’s clearly struggling with the English dialogue but he makes up with it with some phenomenal comic facial acting.

He’s like a German Jim Carrey.

There’s a scene where Frankenstein and Otto are trying to get the monsters to mate and Frankenstein keeps yelling “Kiss him!” to the bride and Otto keeps looking down at the monster’s crotch to see if there’s any action and it is honestly hilarious.

WINNER: BATS

The Perpetually Imperilled Ladies

Look, points for novelty alone.

Having the Baroness Frankenstein be a scheming, incestuous viper is so out of left field I’m tempted to award this to Bats on that alone. It also doesn’t hurt that Belgian actress Monique Von Vooren is making up what she lacks in English fluency with enthusiasm.

By contrast, the actresses playing the daughters of di Fiore are pretty terrible across the board, with the exception of Milena Vukotic who plays the eldest daughter and actually has a very nice scene with Dracula where they discuss the paths their lives have taken. The other sisters somehow manage to make being in an incestuous lesbian vampire coven seem dull.

WINNER: BOLTS

Are either of these movies actually, y’know, scary?

Gross and uncomfortable, certainly. But, not scary. Flesh for Frankenstein does have that cool moment at the end with the Frankenstein children about to play doctor with Nicholas so I guess that gives it the edge. Oh, because there isn’t really anywhere else to put it in, both the child actors who play the kids are genuinely, unironically fantastic.

WINNER: BOLTS.

Best Dialogue:

Flesh for Frankenstein has:

“To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life… in the gall bladder!”

I don’t feel comfortable giving you the context.

But there can be no rivalling poor poisoned Dracula weeping:

“Ze blahd of zese hoors is killink me!

WINNER: BATS.

FINAL SCORE: Bats 3, Bolts 4

NEXT UPDATE: November 16th 2023

NEXT TIME: Yes. This is on brand for me.

New review and Podcast Interview

Howdy folks,

Here is a lovely four and a half star review from HorrorDna.com for Knock Knock Open Wide and an interview I did discussing the book for the Turn the Page Podcast.

Enjoy!

Frankenweenie (2012)

In 1984 Disney took a punt and gave one of their young animators, a skinny pale young-feller-milad named Tim Burton some money to make a live action short and recoiled, in horror, at what he wrought by tampering in God’s domain. It’s a truly terrifying film, and even looking at the poster has driven me quite mad. Oh yes!

It’s called”Frankenweenie” but he’s not a weenie dog he’s a bull terrier and no one ever mentions that am I MAD I MUST BE MAD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, it’s a rather charming if ludicrously cheap and cheerful little short about a boy named Victor Frankenstein who uses lightning to bring his beloved dog back to life. And Disney took one look at it and said “Dark? Weird? GOTHIC?! We never expected this of YOU, Tim Burton!” and fired his ass.

Fortunately, the short brought him to the attention of Paul “Pee-Wee” Reubens and Burton’s career was off to the races. Flashforward a few decades and Disney have finally realised that they quite like this Tim Burton character and he’s settled into a groove as one of the most reliable nipples from which they milk their never-ending stream of content. And what better way to mend fences than for Disney to pony up the money for a lavish, stop-motion, feature length do-over of Frankenweenie?

Do you need me to send you a picture of a weenie dog or are you assholes trolling me?

Now, I’m a pretty big Burton fan all things considered but his late period collaborations with Disney have been the absolute nadir of his career. But, can this return to his roots shoot a few volts into his long dead artistic drive?

So in one of those perfect, faintly menacing white picket fence 50s towns there lives a little boy named Victor Frankenstein. Victor is a quiet introverted boy with a real knack for science and a love of film-making and spends his days making home sci-fi movies starring his beloved dog, Sparky. Victor’s parents are a little worried that their son doesn’t seem to have any friends and is a little weird. Which is nonsense, because every child in this town is a goddamned freakshow and Victor is by far the most normal and well adjusted of all of them.

So how exactly do you space out a short little thing like Frankenweenie into a full length feature? Well, one option is to broaden the scope of the parody. If the original short was just the 1931 Frankenstein by way of Normal Rockwell, Frankenweenie 2012 is an homage to basically every horror movie Universal made in the mid-century with The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman all getting referenced . Plus a bit of kaijiu. Plus a bit of Village of the Damned of all things. Also some Hammer. Basically, if there’s an old-timey horror movie you can think of Tim Burton probably managed to sneak in a reference at some point. So Victor’s class has a new science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski, who’s basically Nikolai Tesla as played by Vincent Prince as played by Martin Landrau.

This is not really pertinent to whether or not Frankenweenie is a good movie or not, but I want to say it anyway because teachers never get enough credit. Mr. Rzykruski is a fantastic teacher. This is not a joke, he genuinely is phenomenally good at his job. I would have his scenes taught in teacher training courses (although probably not the scene where he tells the kids’ parents that they all idiotic monkey people). He explains complex concepts using narrative and theatricality and his passion for the subject is positively crackling. If I had had this guy as my teacher in school, I probably wouldn’t have succumbed to the siren call of the arts.

So, Mr Rzykruski tells the kids that there’s going to be a science fair with a big shiny trophy going to the winner and all the children want to get their mitts on it. Victor is approached by a weird girl in his class who is literally called “Weird Girl” and she shows him a turd that her cat, Mr Whiskers, laid that morning in the shape of a V, and tells him that something big is going to happen to him soon. Good point right here to talk about the character designs.

They are, frankly, the fucking tops.

Victor asks his dad if he can do the science fair, and his dad says that he can as long as he also joins the baseball team. During the game, Victor hits the base ball with the base ball stick and Sparky chases after it and gets him but a car which, if my knowledge of baseball is as good as a I think it is, allows Victor to steal base.

Well, it’s sad his dog is dead. But at least he won baseball today.

Victor is heartbroken but, when Mr Rzykruski demonstrates how to make a dead frog dance using electricity and that gives Vitor an idea…

No, he’s just going to bring the dog back to life.

So after some grave robbing and a scene in the attic that rather marvellously recreates James Whale’s original Frankenstein, Victor succeeds in re-animating Sparky. Sparky seems more or less okay despite being stitched together by an eleven year old. He hides the dog when his mother comes up to ask him if he wants waffles or French toast and he chooses waffles because why stop with one abomination against nature?

So here’s where the story deviates from the original short in order to fill out that runtime. Sparky breaks out of the attic and gets into all kinds of shenanigans, including wrecking the garden of Mr Burgermeister, the mean neighbour who also happens to be the mayor of the town. Sparky is seen by Edgar E. Gore, a classmate of Victor’s who realises that Victor has been doing stuff.

Edgar Blackmails Victor into bringing back his deal goldfish which has a weird side effect of turning the fish invisible. Victor swears Edgar to secrecy. And, I mean, if a weird little hunchback boy desperate for the approval and attention of his peers can’t be trusted with a really cool secret who can be?

Real “I’ll steal my mother’s underwear for you if you’ll pretend to be my friend” vibes from this one.

Worried that they’re going to lose the Science Fair to an invisible fish, two students named Toshiaki and Bob shelve their Sea Monkeys and begin working on a rocket powered by soda (fun fact, the space race started exactly the same way). But Bob is injured when he’s launched off the roof and the town’s parents angrily demand that Mr. Ryzkruski is fired for bringing the menace of science to their fair town. Also, this scene has a weird line about Pluto not being considered a planet anymore. I mean, it’s not explicitly stated when this movie is set, but I do not get a “2006” vibe from this scene.

Look at these people. They know nothing of the Black Eyed Peas! They know aught of Nickelback!

Mr. Rzykruski takes to the stage and tries to explain to the parents that they’re just ignorant so he gets fired because there are different kinds of intelligence and having one doesn’t mean you have all the others.

Meanwhile, Edgar’s invisible fish has vanished. I mean, it’s gone. Not…you know what I mean. Victor asks Mr. Ryzkruski why the experiment didn’t work the second time and he tells Victor that science depends on what’s in the heart of the scientist and, no, I’m pretty sure he’s confusing science with the Care Bear Stare.

Honestly just putting this here to have a little colour in this review.

Edgar lets slip that it was actually Victor who made his fish invisible and that he’s brought Sparky to life. Intrigued, the other children try to resurrect their own dead pets with lightning. Nassor, who is designed to resemble Boris Karloff, resurrects his dead chinchilla Colossus, wrapped in mummy-like bandages. Bob creates Creature from the Black Lagoon-esque sea monkeys. Weird Girl’s dead bat gets fused with her cat creating a vampire kitty. Edgar makes a were-rat. And Toshiaki’s dead turtle gets transformed into a fifty foot Gamera.

Know what I find hilarious/vaguely offensive? Toshiaki almost certainly bought that turtle in America.

The lightning just somehow knew he was Japanese and made his pet a kajiu.

That is some racist lightning.

Meanwhile, Victor’s parents discover Sparky in the attic and freak out. The dog runs off but when they confront Victor he explains that he just really wanted his dog back and they’re okay with it. Apparently. Like, why else would he bring the dog back? Were you concerned he was building an army of zombie dogs to conquer the world. Because, yeah, in this town, probably a legitimate concern, forget I said anything.

They find Sparky in the graveyard and everyone’s cool but then the kids come running up to tell Victor that their creations are running amuck and attacking the town. The kids have to work together to defeat the monsters, and weirdly enough, it’s not the frickin’ kaijiu that turns out to be the biggest problem. Victor and Sparky get trapped in a burning windmill by Weird Girl’s vampiric cat. Sparky is killed saving Victor’s life from Mr Whiskers who is then brutally impaled. Which…damn. I really thought Mr Whiskers was going to be changed back. But no. He gets fucking got.

Guess Tim Burton’s a dog person.

Touched by Sparky’s heroism, the townspeople rally around and use their car batteries to restore Sparky to life

After Victor finds Sparky at the town’s pet cemetery, Bob and Toshiaki find him and ask for his help. They go to the fair, where the Sea-Monkeys explode after eating salted popcorn, Colossus is stepped on by Shelley, and the wererat and Shelley both return to their original, deceased forms after getting electrocuted. During the chaos, Persephone, Elsa’s pet poodle, is grabbed by Mr. Whiskers and carried to the town windmill, with Elsa and Victor giving pursuit. The townsfolk blame Sparky for Elsa’s disappearance and chase him to the windmill, which Elsa’s uncle accidentally ignites with his torch. Victor and Sparky enter the burning windmill and rescue Elsa and Persephone. However, Victor ends up being trapped inside. Sparky rescues Victor, only to be dragged back inside by Mr. Whiskers, who is fatally impaled by a flaming piece of wood just before the windmill collapses, killing Sparky again.

To reward him for his bravery, the townsfolk gather and revive Sparky with their car batteries. Persephone runs to Sparky and they touch noses, producing a spark.

***

Frankenweenie was one of those movies that came out, got a ton of critical love and then just vanished into the ether. Maybe it was the fact that 2012 was something of a banner year for 3D animated horror movies aimed at children, with Frankenweenie going up against ParaNorman and Hotel Transylvania. For the record, none of those three films are bad but ParaNorman probably has the edge in terms of animation and Hotel Transylvania is definitely a safer bet for the “Just keep my damn kids quiet for ninety goddamn minutes, please” demographic. And, while the decision to keep the movie entirely in Black and White was definitely the right one artistically, I can’t help but feel that might have hurt it at the box office.

Scoring

Animation: 19/20

Call it 19.5. At one point I had to stop and google that this movie wasn’t actually CGI because the stop motion is just so gorgeously fluid.

Leads: 10/20

Victor is a sympathetic enough lead (what am I going to say, “who cares about this small boy grieving the loss of his dead dog”) but he’s nothing special.

Villain: 13/20

Mayor Burgermeister seems like he’s being set up as the main antagonist but doesn’t really effect the story in any meaningful way. In the end, all he has going for him is a menacing, gravelly vocal performance by…holy shit, really? Martin Short? Well damn. Also, great design.

Supporting Characters: 16/20

It can come across as a Muppet Babies version of the Universal Horror monsters but these characters are a lot of fun.

Music: 07/20

Danny Elfman on complete autopilot here.

FINAL SCORE: 65%

NEXT UPDATE: 31 October 2023

NEXT TIME: You thought you were safe! You thought it was over! But it returns from the grave! Bat versus Bolts is back, and it’s here to fuck you in the gall bladder!

Guest Post for Crime Reads

I was delighted to be asked back to do another post by the good folk at Crime Reads, and you can read it HERE where I discuss the places where Irish folklore meets horror.

Knock Knock is Out Out!

Just in time for Halloween, Knock Knock, Open Wide is finally on sale in the States at all good and mildly dodgy retailers! What’s that? You want reviews so you can make an informed purchase?

“Transporting readers to a blood-soaked Ireland, Sharpson (When the Sparrow Falls) delivers modern horror at its best. . . . By turns tender and terrifying, sexy and stomach-turning, heartwarming and heartrending, this folklore-steeped exploration of generational trauma is a high-water mark for the Irish horror novel.”―Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Genuinely terrifying, the sort of book you shut away in the freezer at night so it won’t come looking for you. That is, if you can put it down. Knock Knock, Open Wide deservedly places Neil Sharpson at the front rank of modern horror writers. Open wide, if you dare, and read.”―Alex Grecian, New York Times bestselling author of Red Rabbit

“Irish mythology melds with family damage and a decidedly contemporary love story in this deftly told novel. Circling around one of the most terrifying versions of a child’s TV program in fiction, Knock, Knock, Open Wide has a remarkable ability to reveal the cracks in reality which, if we’re not careful, we can be pushed through, landing in a darker-hued reality that huddles snarling beneath.”―Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World

“Celtic creepypasta Knock Knock, Open Wide is a dark miracle and Neil Sharpson is an infernal bard belched straight out from Hell itself. Your next nightmare has just arrived.”―Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters

“Reading Sharpson’s latest. . . is like being grabbed unexpectedly. Readers know something feels terribly wrong but cannot get away from the horror and mystery of the story; it simply demands that they understand the truth and reach its conclusion. Irish folklore provides the foundation for this intriguing, otherworldly book about the doors we keep closed, the doors we cannot help but open, the things we cannot kill, and whether the truth is worth knowing in the end.”―Booklist

“Never read me the bit in the farmhouse again or I will divorce you.”- My wife.

Gotham Knight: Deadshot

Studio: Madhouse

Director: Jong-Sik Nam, Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Writer: Alan Burnett

Wha’ happen’?

Bruce has a flashback to his parents death in Crime Alley (just in case you were fuzzy on the details). Alfred asks Bruce when he’s getting rid of his bag of sewer guns and expresses surprise that Bruce even wants them in the house given his history with both guns and sewers. Bruce then casually gives the most ludicrously out of character speech in the character’s 84 year history by waxing poetic about the appeal of firearms: “their heft, their sleekness…”

“Also, I love clowns and I think Superman is just the coolest”.

From that, we cut to Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, shooting a target from half a city away from a moving Ferris Wheel. Later, Deadshot is called back to Gotham for a new assignment.

On the roof of the GCPD, Crispus Allen tells Batman that the cops have gotten word that Deadshot has been hired to kill Gordon, and Batman tells him that he has evidence that this isn’t Floyd’s first murdercation to Gotham, and that he killed the community activist who died in Field Test.

Batman tails Gordon through the streets of Gotham with Alfred providing surveillance via satellite. Alfred says that the ideal place for Deadshot to snipe Gordon would be from the railway bridge, but that fortunately he doesn’t appear to be on the bridge and, hah, I mean, it’s not like he’d try to shoot Gordon from the roof of a speeding train right?

“I know people who do things the sensible way and they’re all cowards.”

Lawton takes his shot and Batman…

Batman PUNCHES THE BULLET OUT OF THE AIR.

Shit’s metal as fuck.

Batman and Deadshot battle on the train roof and Deadshot realises that Gordon was just bait and that Batman was his real target all along. They fight, but Batman has already proved that fist beats bullet so he cleans Deadshot’s clock.

Later, in Wayne Manor, Bruce reveals that fighting Deadshot reminded him of the night his parents died (what is a train, if not an alley with wheels?). Bruce expresses doubt as to whether he can ever make a difference but then sees the Bat Signal in the sky and goes to work. It’s probably just some routine bank robbery or something.

How was it?

Okay, apart from that scene this is the strongest short in the anthology so far.

But holy shit, that scene.

Even with Bruce’s caveat that he’d never use one himself, the whole gun speech is just weird. I dunno if you’re aware of this but Batman has traditionally had a somewhat contentious relationship with firearms.

In the first episode of Batman Beyond, Bruce has to resort to using a gun to save his own life. Not even shooting it, just aiming it. And he’s so disgusted with himself that he refuses to every put on the cowl again. And that felt so right.

But, apart from that, this is awesome. The animation is top-tier (Madhouse also did Program, the best animated of the Animatrix shorts) and this is just a great little yarn.

Plus.

He punches a bullet.

What else do I need to say?

Gotham Knight: Working Through Pain

Studio: Studio 4°C

Director: Toshiyuki Kubooka

Writer: Brian Azzarello

Wha’ happen’?

Pursuing one of Scarecrow’s goons in the sewers, Batman is shot and slowly bleeding to death. As he desperately searches for a way out, he remembers his time travelling the world, learning the skills that he would use to become Batman. In flashback, we see Bruce travelling to India to be trained by fakirs in how to overcome pain. But the fakirs reject Bruce sensing he has ulterior motives for learning their ways, which are only to be used for the attainment of inner peace and enlightenment.

“And pussy. Looooots of pussy.”

Bruce’s guide instead hooks him up with Cassandra, a local woman who studied under the fakirs disguised as a boy until they threw her out. Now considered a witch by the local village she agrees to train him. This angers some local youths who arrive at her door in the middle of the night. Cassandra tells Bruce she”l handle it but he intervenes, beating the youths up and driving them off. Cassandra tells Bruce to leave, angry that he didn’t listen to her and that he’s simply made her stock in the village fall even lower when she was in no danger (after all, they literally couldn’t hurt her). Bruce thanks her for her training, and she tells him not to, saying that she wasn’t able to help him deal with his pain because he doesn’t truly want it gone.

In the present, Bruce finds the gun that the young Russian threw into the gutter during Field Test and then finds another and another.

Alfred arrives in the Batmobile and reaches down, asking for Bruce to give him his hand. He sees Bruce, literally holding armfuls of abandoned firearms.

“I…I can’t..”

How was it?

Well well well. If it isn’t Brian Azzarello daring to show his face on my blog after what he did.

But I gotta say, this ain’t bad at all. Firstly the animation is beautiful. Highly detailed, graceful motion, no notes. Best animated short in this thing so far, hands down.

Cassandra is a genuinely intriguing character and Parminder Nagra gives a lovely performance. It’s a slow, meditative short that I remember not really liking the first time I saw it but I’ve warmed to it a lot.

My only real criticism is that some of the “Indian” accents of the other minor characters…woof. Y’all owe Hank Azaria an apology.

But, it looks great, it’s an interesting look at Batman’s early years and, in that final shot of Bruce helplessly holding the guns and realising just how endless the tide of violence in Gotham really is this series has its first, truly iconic moment.