The Spectrum Files: Vice Squad

 

As a kid, it's no secret that I was impressionable.  Back then at 9 years old, even though I knew movies were an art form, they still struck me as probably more real than they should have in terms of emotional affect.  To this day, I get a feeling from them, an electrical arc that may be positive or negative, despite my being more up to date with the fact that it's fiction. 

As Frani reminds me, "It's not real".  I get that.  But art still has the power to disturb.  Sometimes, as Rob Zombie said, "It's not safe."  Especially in my case.  Even at 53, I have films on my AVOID, or at least PUT ON HOLD list, because I know some of the events that may take place in the film.  Despite knowing it's a performance, I don't feel psychically prepared for what I know will unfold on screen.  So I wait. 

Anyhoo, while watching Spectrum (my film school at age 9-10), I caught a trailer for Gary Sherman's Vice Squad.  There was a character in there that the trailer did such a great job of making him the personification of evil, that I had to see the film to make sure he got his just desserts.  Mind you, he wasn't a monster, not a creature, not a demon, not even a masked serial killer, per se. 

He was a pimp.  A pimp named Ramrod. 

The trailer gave you just enough of his pure unrefined evil to make you shudder.  An evil magnified by the performance of one Wings Hauser, father of Cole. The offspring known to many as Rip on the overblown television county fair known as Yellowstone. (Rest in peace, sir, we lost Wings recently.  He did leave an interesting body of work.)

Ramrod's path of destruction leads the Hollywood Vice Unit, lead by one Gary Swanson.  This is a role where he displays degrees of empathy, and a vicious prioritization of job over humanity that when put together lead to a good illustration of his dichotomy.  Ramrod becomes his night's agenda, as he brutally beats to death future MTV Veejay Nina Blackwood at the film's outset.  Ramrod's a wily one, escaping incarceration at one point to continue his murderous trail of mayhem through the night.  He ends up attempting to seduce and take into his pimpdom a prostitute named "Princess", a single mother trying make some sort of life.  Little does he know Princess is wired up. That leads to the beginning of the manhunt.

The role of Princess is played by the former Mrs. Kurt Russell and she's incredible.  People talk about what kind of hell Stanley Kubrick put Shelley Duvall through, a sort of psychological torture.  Well, Sherman puts Mrs. Hubley through a physical nightmare and her performance is hard to forget.  It's a shame low-budget sleaze faire like Vice Squad suffers from poor dialogue and even worse acting from supporting characters, because Season Hubley's performance is sad, tortured, angry, rebellious, strong and sympathetic; deserving of acknowledgement, if not hardware. 

The Neon 80's is beautifully shot by one John Alcott, veteran of many Stanely Kubrick films, and with that pedigree, a few others one would be surprised he did.  This is some great nighttime shooting,  like low budget Michael Mann.  The action sequences pack intensity and speed, the stuntwork looks like people engaging in dangerous activity instead of stunts.  Pretty convincing stuff; the film works. 

As a kid, I probably shouldn't have been watching this sex and violence riddled affair, but it wasn't the first, and certainly wouldn't be the last. Outside of a few uncomfortable scenes, not a lot stuck with me other than the anticipation of seeing it.  But the payoff is still locked in my mind. 

And yes, it is worth it. 

Looking for Laughs: The Sniglet

Rich Hall is still around, but during the 80's he really was a driving performer in my interest in humor derived from the English Language.  Of course, George Carlin was the master in the comical exploration of wordsmithing, but Hall was no slouch. 

He started his career in stand up comedy before making a successful foray into television.  He was a writer and performer for Late Night with David Letterman (which I will eventually go into with some depth at a point in the future), before becoming a regular on HBO's Not Necessarily the News.  He was a player on my biggest ingress of Saturday Night Live, the 1984 season, and is the only performer to be on that show as well as ABC's short lived Fridays. (along with Michael Richards.  Before Seinfeld, he paid his dues.  Anyone see Transylvania 6-5000?)

While on NNTN, he unleashed the sniglet upon the world.  He of course expanded it's sphere by appearing on Late Night as a guest to sell the idea, and multiple volumes of books full of them were published. One copy I had (Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe) even invited you to send in your own creation to be published in a future book.  It even brandished an entry form at the back. 

What is a sniglet?  It's a made up word that serves to describe something that may not otherwise have a single word description.  For example, from the premiere Sniglets edition, you have:  

EXPRESSHOLES:  n.  People who try to sneak more than the "eight items or less" into the express checkout line. 

Of course being around 12 or 13, I found these things fucking hilarious, sought out and bought the one book I did end up having, and shared them with friends who always found them annoying and far less funny than I did.  I bought the slim tome in Waco, Texas, (at the Richland Mall, of course), and it went over just as poorly in Waco as it did in Wisconsin after I moved back home. 

One of those things that I should have just shared with myself I guess. 

I did make up my own sniglet, and planned to send it in to that address at the back of the book which was P.O. Box 2350 in Hollywood.  

This is it's world premiere.  DRUM ROLL, PLEASE.

PILLOTISSERIE:  The act of turning your pillow over in the middle of the night to lay your face on the cooler side.

I never did send it in.  Maybe with some encouragement, I would have done so, but being surrounded by people with no sense of humor at the time, or at least not sharing mine, I felt it futile at best. 

Anyway, long live Rich Hall and his sniglet. 

Those Quiet Moments: Music is a Time Machine

I've probably said this at some time before but music is a time machine. 

Particularly when it's a song that you heard repeatedly during an era when there is a LOT going on.  Sadly in my life, there are clusters of songs that pull me back, HG Wells style, to another time period. 

The passage of time does not wear down this effect in any way, either. 

My Dad died in late August of 1980, and songs of that era, particularly from August, 1980 to July of 1981, flick some sort of internal switch, that brings an unease to my gut.  And back then, in that time period, my head and my heart hurt constantly for obvious reasons.   Unfortunately, my stomach would eventually then take on some of that pain.  

I would probably need to count on an abacus how many times I asked my mom to stay home, even a few times calling to be picked up from school.  It was too much for this 9 year old.  Dealing with not only the gap that now existed in my soul with the permanent loss of my father, but the fear that Mom wouldn't be there when I got home one day, either.  

Unproductive and irrational thinking, yes.  But this is how the mind of a child works. So some of these physical gears of melancholy begin to turn when I hear songs of that era.  

Music charts were more organized back then, because you were far from streaming, and still solidly entrenched in the era of physical media: LPs, cassettes, and 8-tracks.  And due to the way those charts worked, entertwined with radio, often songs crossed over from country to pop and back, more so then, than now. 

One time, waiting in line at a department store, I heard a song very faintly but clear enough to recognize over the sound system.  It was Juice Newton's Sweetest Thing (I've ever known).  My gut began to twitch, as I suddenly was that sad little 9 year old boy again, and right on the brink of tears while paying for my Diet Mountain Dew, an Anchor Bay C.H.U.D DVD, and a Clark bar. 

I couldn't get over the power. All those years later.  It was just as strong as it was when I would hear it over my Seville combination stereo in 1981. This happened lying on my side in my bedroom, hearing that overwhelmingly melancholy melody, floating in the same air as the AM/FM band's light glow, and the red "stereo" light's piercing of the dark.  I'd beg whatever powers that be to allow Dad to walk back into my room again.  At least one more time.

There's a slew of those songs that still have the power to break my heart and rend my soul.  The country and pop chart crossovers being Ronnie Milsap's Smoky Mountain Rain, Eddie Rabbitt's I Love a Rainy Night, Roseanne Cash's masterful Seven Year Ache, and Teri Gibbs' Somebody's Knockin'. 

Most of these anchored my mom's favorite radio station, WMAQ out of Chicago.  A hybrid station that specialized in country, but it wouldn't be out of place to hear 50's oldies mixed in with regularity, and the occasional pop chart tune. 

Oldies stations, man. They can kill me.  And for more than one reason. that name pisses me off, because what was once classic rock, is now oldies. 

Fuck, that's stupid.  

As time moves on, it's become necessary to change radio format lingo. Because what are real oldies called now then?  Tomb tunes?  Figure it out, people.  Oh, and another thing, I hate hearing Hall & Oates followed up by Guns N' Roses.  Who's running these stations anyway.  Radio sure has changed a lot since I got out of the game.

Anyways, back to the matters of the heart: Other songs can include Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes, I Love You by the Climax Blues Band, Alan Parsons Project Time, Journey's depression farm Who's Cryin' Now? and the Petty and Nicks duet Stop Draggin' My Heart Around all have the ability to pluck my heartstrings and make my heart and gut get soaked in the downpours of sadness, because I'm pulled back to that one year window where I was a little kid spun up in the vortex of grief. 

One of the most nervous moments of my life was during my early days of broadcasting school, sitting in the booth awaiting my first shot at the microphone.  I hosted a show called "Ancient Alternatives" which had the premise of playing "deep cuts" from classic rock.  So, when the jock before me's last track ended, I faded into Nazareth's Please Don't Judas Me from their classic long player, Hair of the Dog.  Which was a mistake.  It's a long track, some 9:50 long, actually.  So, I had to sit there and wait through that mammoth tune, holding on for that moment where I would flick on the mic and say my first ever words to a listening audience.  It was unnerving and arduously tortuous.  To this day when I hear Judas, that apprehensive sensation in my gut returns, even if I have nothing to anticipate of a negative variety in the moment. 

It reminds me of something Greg Nicotero said when describing his first time seeing Dawn of the Dead.  It involved his DNA unraveling and being re-arranged. That applies to this moment. My first employment love was indeed radio, I wanted it to be my career, and I miss it.  So, even though that was a fearful, negative moment, it changed me. 

Coincidentally, our cat Frenchie doesn't usually allow me to listen to that Nazareth album, so much like getting Bloo to let me borrow The Night Before Christmas and Raylan to loan me the 1979 Christmas Batman issue, I have to ask permission of one of my pets to utilize something of mine.

Life has moments that craft us into what we eventually become. And the arts play a role in that.  Anyone that reads this site can see how books, film, and music have shaped me. 

For better or worse. 

The Awesomeness of Anchor Bay: did They Launch the Horror Boutique?

There aren't too many of us that collect physical media anymore.  I mean, even the most recent of the formats, the CD, in terms of audio that is,  has gone the way of the dustbin.  Cast aside by the streaming monsters, be it Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon's Alexa connection. However, there has been a bit of a resurgence in that CD department according to several articles I've read.  

Even so, vinyl outsells compact discs by a large margin.  The long thought dead format has shown a decade long unforeseen comeback that has put it in the billion dollar annual range in terms of sales. 

But I'm not talking about audio here. 

Right now film collectors, myself included, have many options to choose from among companies that remaster films for blu ray, and bundle them with bonus features and packaging bells and whistles.  These compete with the streaming services, and the reason they do well is the streamers don't offer a choice of picture quality, framing, commentaries, permanency of location, or sundry other options the physical products bring.  Actually, I've clicked on more that one film in recent months where the image was blurred, sized down to about 2/3 of the screen it occupied the center of, and sounded awful.  Truly a disappointment, but lucky me, I had both films on a physical format anyway. 

And really that's largely the reason for the argument made by most in the collector community why they do it. 

There wasn't always a ton of options.  Now, however, you have Scream Factory (an imprint of the long successful Shout!), Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow, and up and comers like Synapse, Severin, and Scorpion, and some European folks like 88 and Second Sight.  The overseas folks are starting to make their products available in Region 1 (to those not in the know, that means they can be viewed here in the States and Canada) and Australia's Umbrella Entertainment has brought limited amounts of re-releases into the American market. 

Let's not forget Kino Lorber.  They don't always pack the bells and whistles, but they include not just genre selections, but classic films that go way back to old school cinema, even digging up a few previously thought to be lost titles.  The variety KL provides is quite broad, but the most recently dated stuff mostly falls into the cult category.  Oddly, they released the nuclear nightmare fuel The Day After from 1983, but it must have been pressed only once.  I know this for a couple of reasons, one being because it's not available on their website any longer. The other reason is I tried to buy it once, and most folks on eBay want more than 130.00 for the damn thing.  I guess I'll have to stick with the MGM DVD copy I bought 12 years ago at an exchange for $3.99.  

Yes. I'm a collector.  But not like the ones with Instagram and YouTube accounts, or webpages.  Those folks, surrounded by thousands of titles, are either loaded, or are shipped freebies for talking about the product. I'm frugal for two reasons.  

A.  I don't have money falling out of my asshole. 

B.  The hunt is most of the fun.  Many times I have put a title back down on the shelf, or ignored its internet posting, due to the asking price. But eventually, months or years later, I'm able to track it down for a much, much more affordable rate.  For some reason, that feels like a victory.

I'm digressing. 

I'm going to go back to pre-boutique here, because really that's my point.  Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, a company called Anchor Bay was digging up slashers from the 70's and early 80's and re-releasing them.  They weren't 2K scans or anything, but the picture quality was generally greatly improved from previous offerings, and they often contained bonus features (frequently new to that disc's release) and a card with the original poster art that you could slip over their generally below Photoshop quality reworking of the cover.  

One of the flagship titles of Anchor Bay was the Evil Dead trilogy.  As a matter of fact, Bruce Campbell mentions in an interview during a Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs screening of Maniac Cop (now available on Synapse!) how much he wanted to thank Anchor Bay for their involvement in keeping the Deadites alive and kicking in the public eye. The other being John Carpenter's masterwork Halloween, along with its sequels, the less than overwhelming Halloween 4 and the abysmal Halloween 5.  The repeated repackaging, remastering, and re-releasing of these titles kept Anchor Bay's cashflow most likely humming along in the horror department.  Many of their  other titles were numbered and those that weren't were really cool one-offs (Fade to Black, The Norliss Tapes, Charles Martin Smith's Trick or Treat) that weren't seen again, or at least, not for many years. 

And it must be noted, that before Second Sight came along,  Anchor Bay was the home of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead on DVD.  My Dawn of the Dead Ultimate Edition, bought about 3 years before it's price went out the ridiculosity window due to the fact that it must have only been pressed that one time, is one of my prized Anchor Bay items. 

Mind you, the horror genre weren't the only oars that kept the Anchor Bay boat afloat, as they distributed kiddie powerhouse Thomas the Tank Engine from 1995 to 2008.  That was a major cash cow, I'm sure. 

Actually, pre-DVD, I had a slick-ass clamshell Anchor Bay VHS of the 20th anniversary of John Carpenter's Halloween that I wish I still had, but that's neither here nor there.  The point is Anchor Bay was keeping collectible horror afloat for quite a long time. 

Back in the early days of my collecting, my kiddo and myself were always excited when the fall Anchor Bay displays came out in department stores to coincide with Halloween, brandishing many horror titles to pick and choose from.  This is where I got C.H.U.D., Phantasm, Lightning Bug, Hellraiser, among others.  

I guess my question is were they the predecessor or even the impetus for the modern-day genre boutique titles?  After all, (with the exception of arthouse monsters Criterion) they were probably the only ones repackaging mostly genre films, cleaning them up, and putting them out on disc with bonus features.  Other outfits may have been releasing old flicks, but often the image and sound were terrible and you were lucky to even sniff closed captioning, let alone a director's commentary on those things. 

Regardless, among other physical media geeks, the name Anchor Bay usually draws a nod and a wink, and I'm often stunned at how many of those titles I still have, including numbered tin-cased Evil Dead II and Hellraiser pieces.  

The last I heard Anchor Bay's library belongs to Lionsgate, the house that Saw built.  Someone else bought the Anchor Bay name with the intention of once again doing what they did back in the day. Without access to their original library, and the competition from Scream, Arrow and the like, all I can say is I wish them well.  It will be difficult ground to hoe. 

But back in the day, whether at K-Mart, Shopko, Wal-Mart, or Best Buy, my eyes were always on the lookout for the white rectangle with the blue sailboat. 

Maybe they did, or maybe they didn't launch the concept of the boutique.  Either way, they were something completely different in their era, and really the only one consistently holding that line. 

What's the Deal With Lucio?

Among horror aficionados, Lucio Fulci is a legend. 

The question is why?  

So I went searching for answers.  He made many films and shows before and after the series of flicks that garnered him his status as horror film "genius".  Folks like Guillermo Del Toro and Eli Roth are huge Fulci geeks, so I figured there had to be something there. 

In 1990, I had seen Zombie, the notorious flick he is most famous for.  I don't recall being blown away by it at age 19.  Being that a friend at the time (dude was utter scum, I'd realize later) and I viewed it as the follow up to Dawn of the Dead during a Saturday of horror film viewing, that spot in our running order may have set it up for failure. 

When one factors in the tidbit that Fulci tagged the film with the moniker Zombie 2, so it could be thought a sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead, as George's film was called Zombi in Italy.  it was cheapened beyond its mere inferiority (not in Italy apparently, however.)

To begin my study of what is known as Fulci's Quadrilogy, I rewatched Zombie and couldn't explain what made it better 32 years later.  Another viewing would narrow the answer down. 

Using Joe Bob Briggs' Last Drive In series to guide me through The House By the Cemetery and The Beyond was very helpful. Helpful despite guest Eli Roth's rationalizing Briggs' very legitimate questions, (in the case of House).  He claims to be providing answers but they're more like excuses. The factoids from interviewees and opinion makers otherwise shed some interesting light on what are very confusing fucking films.  I then viewed Gates of Hell/City of the Living Dead on Tubi and completed the "Gates" quadrilogy. 

I still have no clue despite the guiding hand of these "experts" (some of whom worked with Fulci) through 3 of the 4 films.  (I rewatched Zombie a 3rd time with Joe Bob's assist once.)  Fulci doesn't write his own films, but it doesn't forgive the fact that they lazily make no sense individually or collectively beyond a few moments used to set up the very thin bones of a "story".  If you can call it that. 

1.) Zombie  So a ghost boat floats into New York Harbor.  A zombie is on it, who attacks a member of the coast guard.  (Or poorly costumed policeman). It turns out the craft belongs to the father of Mia Farrow's sister, Tisa.  She pairs up with a local journalist (Shakespearean actor Ian McCullough) and heads for an island in the Caribbean. (thin plot line shows that's where Farrow's old man is).  There, Richard Johnson is treating people who are sick and returning to life to eat people.  

These are cannibalistic voodoo zombies brought back by an off screen witch doctor (?).  Admittedly the constant drumming is an eerie effect, as you realize it's not part of the score, but coming from elsewhere on the island as part of this dead-raising ritual.  Farrow & McCullough pick up a couple as transport to the island, which gives us an opportunity for the most gratuitous scene of nudity I've ever encountered.  It also gives us a shark/zombie fight. 

ugh.  

They reach the island, where eventually a shard of wood punctures the eye (the victim chooses not to use her hands for some reason) thanks to the the aim of a member of the walking dead. There's zombies a flamin', gun shots a boomin', and conquistadors a risin'.  Eventually we end up back in NY, where that one bitten Coast Guard (or cop) officer apparently has set off an apocalyptic zombie outbreak.  I think pure mathematics would rule that out, but I'm not Lucio Fulci.  

This is the most narrative Fulci provides.  Ever.  However that final shot on the Brooklyn Bridge is a fuckin' banger. If that ain't sellin' the end of the order of things, I don't know what is. 

2. Gates of Hell (1980)   It seems a priest hangs himself in Dunwich, Connecticut (?).  In New York, a medium remote views it happening. The suicide has opened a gate to hell.  How?  (Fuck if I know). So early 80's horror icon Christopher George (journalist) picks up Christiana McColl (her first of 3 Fulci flicks.  This is a fact she long left off her resume), and heads to Dunwich (probably trying to reference Lovecraft, but this is the only way Lucio does so) to close the gate.   They gather up some locals to accomplish this and the most non-sensical ending I've experienced occurs, after a massive ruckus.  There is no true plot here, just an opportunity for some seriously gratuitous gore.  And there's a lot of it. 

3. The Beyond (1981). In the 1920's a local artist is crucified.  Why?  (Fuck if I know).  60 years later, a woman buys a Louisiana hotel which is not only where the artist was butchered by locals, it's also one of 7 doorways to Hell.  A plumber opens it by smacking a basement wall.  With a hammer.  (Somehow it seems like something like that should be more difficult).  How does this connect to the death of the painter?  (Fuck if I know).  People become blind, zombies show up.  Why?  (Fuck if I know).  Also, there's no reference to where the other 6 doors to hell are.   This movie is a narrative mess, but Fulci freaks love it and I guess praise it as a viscerally raw art film. 

4. House by the Cemetery  A girl's face shows up, staring out the window of a house in a photograph of our family of protagonists.  That's pretty creepy as she appears terrfied.  Then our family moves to Massachussets. What is it with the NY/NE paradigm in these films?  The paradigm is to give the father the common employment of being a "researcher", the most vague job in cinema history. 

Weird shit begins to happen left and right.  In a completely inexplicable scene, the nanny (?) appears to be attempting to unlock the basement with a crowbar in middle of the night to which Pops screams "ANNE!!!".  

Then you have close ups of eyes back and forth about eight times.  Leone in the house here?

Then it's suddenly the next day (?).  (The Fuck, editor?). Murders of the grisliest variety begin to happen in the house, with victims dragged to the basement.  Dad has to drive to NY to get permission from his boss to change research directions (did you install a phone, dude?), and when he comes back, he has all the answers to the hideousness related to the killings and the mysteries related to the first owner of the house. (We do NOT see how he got this information).  

Then some shit happens at the end.  I'm exhausted. 

NOW!

Fulci has some filmmaking gifts.  He frames shots extremely well, his camera movement is superior, and he doesn't need day for night at all. Considering the budgets, his night time filming is excellent.  The practical effects are pretty solid for the time, some very good scores add to the atmospheres that grow throughout the films. 

However, these movies make absolutely no sense.  The stories are barely carrying narrative.  Fulci is obsessed with filming eyeballs.  It's almost comical, whether zooming in on them, or destroying them, or covering them with what had to be painful contact lenses. 

He does build suspense as well as anyone of the era, but only within the confines of a specific scene.  Not throughout the picture, as a movie has to make narrative sense to accomplish that goal.  He refreshingly doesn't rely on sexual violence. At least in the films I'm examining here.  This is kind of a surprise, especially for the era, as his alleged real life disdain for any woman that wasn't his daughter is legendary. 

So, in the end, his films look great, often even beautiful, whilst being frequently gruesome as shit (which he dwells on), so with that combination, my findings are Lucio Fulci creates car accidents.  

They're awful, but you can't look away.