Eaten Alive

[domino harvey]

Does it take that many words to just say “Mathilda May is hott”?

[colinr0380]

5,000 word thesis on: "The pansexual and transgender thematics underpinning the body-hopping, same sex kiss scene, and eventual skewering climax of LifeForce". But rest assured that it will be safely confined to the first ten copies of the extremely limited Arrow boxset of course!

[beamish14]

What’s the consensus here on Spontaneous Combustion? I think Brad Dourif is as reliable as ever (I can’t think of any other film where he REALLY delivers the “Chucky” scream on camera), and I love the scenes set in the 1950’s, which includes some of Hooper’s funniest material. It really suffers from a very limited budget and a choppy second half

[therewillbeblus]

What’s the consensus here on Spontaneous Combustion? I think Brad Dourif is as reliable as ever (I can’t think of any other film where he REALLY delivers the “Chucky” scream on camera), and I love the scenes set in the 1950’s, which includes some of Hooper’s funniest material. It really suffers from a very limited budget and a choppy second half

I haven’t seen it yet, but I noticed there’s a workprint-quality “rough cut” on back channels that’s over 30 minutes longer than the released cut. Can anybody speak to it? The image quality is pretty awful so I doubt I’ll watch it before the original, but maybe it fixes some of the issues in the second half you speak of

[therewillbeblus]

Now LifeForce is the film to write an essay on!

The director's cut of Lifeforce is the best thing I've seen from Hooper yet (and given how close I am to finishing his filmography, and the general impressions on what's left, I imagine it'll stay that way), but I just revisited The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for the second time in less than a two-week period, and it may just pass Lifeforce as my favorite. I don't know if I'll ever write an essay on it, but I find my rationale for its genius is comprised of complementary simple and intricate contexts. The latter feeds the former, and is sourced in a comprehensive progression of Hooper's filmography. But, to remain focused on one key aspect, it's amusing to think of Hooper jokingly making The Funhouse into a mostly fragmented, episodic series of static voyeuristic encounters with and observations of stripped-down activity, taking on more of a parodic Rear Window conceit, until its finale when he finally actualizes a more fluid, "funhouse"-esque set piece. That's how I read that film, at least, but what appears to be the punchline in that final act is then stewed on and refurbished into a candy-colored sequel to the grindhouse slice of punk-rawness that put him on the map.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 doesn't even try to retain that feel from the original, and it seems to be deliberately combining the words "chain" and "saw" to stress a less gritty form of chaos resembled by the disconnected words from the first film, in favor of a smoother form of chaos in the gleeful rollercoaster ride of its sequel. Hooper goes on to show us that he can in fact concoct the ultimate "funhouse" movie, making this a long-delayed punchline to not only his titular funhouse movie but in response to critics and fans alike who expected certain things from his early, caustic filmmaking style. This is a film that excels in delivering every shallow pleasure a horror movie can offer: style, relentless forward momentum, creative set pieces, raveled and detailed set design, and self-conscious pastiche that serves a purpose in besting its previous versions, humorously molded by the very same filmmaker! The thematic depths most horror movies might venture further into, Hooper acknowledges and chooses to subvert, like Dennis Hopper's faux-protagonist who enters the narrative with a deep-rooted history of revenge-fueled trauma connected to the first film. He hardly gets any character development or screen time or catharsis (his exit is cheekily dismissive of his character's worth in contrast to what Hooper is interested in doing here), defaulting instead to the labyrinthian travels of Caroline Williams' scream queen. The exploration of all established connections to the first film are deflated and revealed as red herrings, but Hooper distracts us with enough blistering fun to hypnotize us from even realizing we wanted that at all, or how integral the promises of getting it were to the first chunk of the plot!

There's a lot more I have floating around in my mind, but this close-quarters second watch really highlighted Hooper's intelligence at using deceptively-simple ideas through simple (read: lucid, not easy) craft to provide something that's incredibly rich in both shallow and complex ways, at once dispatching a product that's pure cinematic spectacle and, underneath, referencing self-reflexive jokes in terms of genre and career expectations, for starters.

[colinr0380]

I really hated Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 on first seeing it, feeling rather disappointed that instead of wonderfully surprisingly delivering the opposite of what people might have expected with that title from the first film (i.e. an almost completely gore-less film - at least until Sally gets her finger cut - which manages to be unbearably tense instead through a combination of implying the nastiest parts, the incessant screaming and revving by the end that kind of takes over from the clanging atonal soundtrack and becomes the musique concrète-style score; and just pure filmmaking skill) and delivered the sequel that people probably had been expecting the first time around (i.e. a film so ultra-gory, reveling in carnage and with characters pushed to such cartoony extremes and with metaphors so thumpingly unsubtle that nobody could miss that the chainsaw was supposed to be a phallic symbol this time around!) That felt so extreme a tonal shift that it could easily seem that Tobe Hooper was so addled by the special effects phantasmagorias of Poltergeist and LifeForce that he had lost track of what made the first film work. So I pretty much dismissed it as a dud at first, although I always found Dennis Hopper's scenes amusing, where he is only slightly less unhinged than the character he played in the same year's Blue Velvet!

But after a reluctant re-watch, and enjoying revisiting the other two titles in Hooper's Canon Films trilogy of LifeForce and the Invaders From Mars remake whilst also belatedly realising that they work better seen as tongue in cheek comedies as much as the serious sci-fi I had assumed them to be in my teens, TCSM2 really started to grow on me. Back in the day LifeForce and Invaders From Mars traumatised me too much as a teen to be able to see the blackly comic joke, and now I kind of see that the first watch of Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 even in my 20s had done much the same thing by not only upending my expectations but also poking fun at my expectation of what I was coming to a sequel (or a remake or a sci-fi action film) for by not taking its source material particularly seriously at all!

So whilst I think the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is still one of the very best horror films ever made, I don't think TCSM2 'betrays' the first film any more (or at least I don't feel as 'betrayed' by either it or the Invaders From Mars remake as much now that I can let them exist as their own goofily strange and irreverent things and not feel as if they are crudely over writing a legacy of excellence any more), but I can completely understand why any first time viewer's reaction is likely going to go to a polarising extreme of either "this ruins the original!" or "this is exactly what I wanted that the first film never did!". It has probably had the biggest swing out of the Tobe Hooper films I have seen so far (I'm afraid I have not seen anything more recent than TCSM2 as yet) from outright dislike to a kind of admiration for its complete tonal whiplash! At the very least it marks itself out as its own thing and gains a certain sense of power in its ending of different characters doing the insane chainsaw dance rather than the expected baddies, suggesting that the entire society is just waiting for the chance to cut loose, rather than there being a few extreme crazies out there. By being so distinctive as well, it is also a more effectively memorable 'bad sequel/remake' than Escape From L.A. was for John Carpenter!

And much like Wes Craven's turn into special effect driven pieces in the decade (where the gruelling Last House On The Left and The Hills Have Eyes from the 70s turned into the more overtly fantastical horrors of A Nightmare On Elm Street and Shocker in the 80s), I think the contrast between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is really reflecting the gaudy, flashy excesses of the 80s and, unable to perhaps take the ramping up of the explicitness as seriously as something like The Fly or The Thing remakes do in being able to successfully take their gore into never before seen areas, treats its over the top gore as absurdly comic instead!

(For me, the main horror film of the 80s that does successfully balance that ramp up of the explicit horror to a traumatising extent and keeps a wry tongue in its cheek about the absurd goings on to just the right extent has to be the 1988 remake of The Blob!)

[therewillbeblus]

What’s the consensus here on Spontaneous Combustion? I think Brad Dourif is as reliable as ever (I can’t think of any other film where he REALLY delivers the “Chucky” scream on camera), and I love the scenes set in the 1950’s, which includes some of Hooper’s funniest material. It really suffers from a very limited budget and a choppy second half

I thought this was a blast, including the second half. I'll be curious to watch the longer cut at some point, but I think the "choppy" elements actually serve some of Hooper's strengths in concocting dubious paths of set piece tethering. As Dourif begins to discover information, the film maneuvers into muddled and surreally-pitched set design and technique to match his confusion and acute frustrations, including a physical journey through disjointed serpentine schemas. Everyone feels disconnected, and even the reveals barely hang on by a thread, but that seems appropriate. This is especially the case when we contrast the methodically consistent set-up that engages the audience on a respectful level of careful information-sharing with the film's gradual departure into an eruption of WTF chaos. We don't even have a grasp on exactly who's being deceptive and why, just that feeling of being paranoid and deceived, which Hooper understands is the right attribute to emphasize and actually far more respectful to the characters than spoon-feeding his audience a meal with the same consistency as the setup. I continue to be amazing at how intelligent and in control Hooper is with the filmmaking process, often risking alienating his audience for the sake of staying true to the artistic sensations he's aiming to evoke, manipulating the structure and style within his own works to craft intentionally-uneven reflections of psychological fragmentation and various defense mechanisms of the characters and audience alike.

[beamish14]

Cannon, Tobe Hooper, and Dan O’Bannon were a match made in heaven; their sensibilities complemented each other’s beautifully, and Lifeforce is an amazing movie. The company really hedged their bets on it, even producing 70mm prints (which still pop up at repertory screenings today; I believe one just played in London), and it’s sad that the general public didn’t initially warm to it

If it had been more of a success, we could have gotten this proto-A.I. Artificial Intelligence from them

[therewillbeblus]

For a while, Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper’s episode of anthology series Masters of Horror) appears to be a Rob Zombie-ish sensationalized version of The Lost Boys. It’s a bit programmatic in setting up the character dynamics, and irritating in its raw digital editing style- not my thing. But then, the long final act in the nightclub enhances the technical bombast to levels that become riveting experimental art (a callback to his psychedelic visuals in Eggshells more than anything since), and effectively reflect the heightened sensitivities of the drug and trauma-addled youth, as well as the more universal experiential modes of anxiety one endures in finding their way into new romances and social circles that carry with them senses of danger and excitement. The dystopian ideas of this Richard Matheson adaptation are strong, but I particularly admired how the film feels like it’s about a new kid entering a gang of vampires (like the previously identified influence) only no otherworldly creature is substituted for addicts, they just are addicts, emphasized to disturbingly alien form. Then way this concept is implicitly introduced and sustained is really interesting and admirable for de-romanticizing addiction to repulsive depths.

The denouement is incredibly twisted, if not exactly earned across a mere hour, but this is exactly the kind of cumulative stylistic rhythm Hooper excels at- it’s made of the material that postures at nothing until it slowly occupies a sense of power that required a repelling build to achieve. Not enough to overcome its flaws, but I always relish the rare viewing experience of slowly feeling alienated and giving up hope on a work, only to be magnetically coerced back into the game with smart directorial choices and a confident follow through on actualizing a chosen path of risks in narrative and visual design. For those on the fence, the last half is basically a narrative arc centered around the Sheena is a Parasite music video’s aesthetic, which is enough of a reason to give it an hour of your time.

This is about as close as we've got to a Tobe Hooper thread, so I've gotta rave about his other, superior episode of Masters of Horror in its second season: The Damned Thing. Apparently based very loosely on the short story, Hooper weaponizes his skills in obfuscation to heighten the experiential elements and themes of the story. We are never invited into the internal logic of what's happening here, while being provided with all the familiar trappings. It's part supernatural-monster/part body-snatcher movie, but how that works, I still don't know, and the scares primarily rest in that alienating exclusion. The film touches on the fears of invisible, intangible forces, as well as the potential of our corporeal neighbors and closest intimates to morph into alien vessels, or disclose sides of themselves that destroy our ideas of them. It's a film that taps into our fears of our own evolution occurring without our consent or awareness, reflexively emphasized by depriving us of a stronghold in a surrogate - the film even postures at our main narrator beholding a nebulous force that frightens us, but it works because he himself is afraid of a side of him he doesn't understand, and cannot begin to grasp his own trauma in a palpable way. There are plenty of distinguished narrative devices, but they're repeatedly dislocated and abandoned in media res emulating the acute swarm of chaos permeating the milieu... until we believe we've arrived at a solution by eliminating an enemy in human form, and the invisible cataclysmic energies beyond our peripheries suddenly formally suffocate us and annihilate the film's narrative -and by extension, world- like Two-Lane Blacktop

[M Sanderson]

really enjoying the discussion on Hooper, as well as Norman J Warren elsewhere.

I'm an admirer of most of Hopper's films, and finally got hold of The Toolbox Murders on German Blu-ray. Although it was an SD upscale it looks very acceptable on a smaller TV (say 32"), especially as most of its home video life has been via a subpar Anchor Bay DVD. For me the film is a stripped down masterpiece of the uncanny, going beyond the slasher conventions into something more obtuse. Unusual for a Hooper film, as the director often revels in excess, mess and overload. But in this one, it feels almost as if something has been subtracted, deliberately and takes us closer to the spirit of Weird Fiction than perhaps any film I've come across, in particular Ligotti. Also with its focus on architecture and recurring alchemical symbols, in the riveting scenes that Angela Bettis researches and subsequently explores those vague spaces between walls, it also echoes Argento's INFERNO.