The Lighthouse, Jojo Rabbit and 2019 Horror Fest on Monday Morning Diary (October 28)

by Sam Juliano

Halloween is just days away and Election Day is shortly thereafter in the lead up to the New Jersey Teacher’s Convention, Veteran’s Day and Turkey Day.  As always Jim Clark and J.D. Lafrance are leading the way with their extraordinary film writing.  My Caldecott Medal series has been temporarily derailed by my recent (extreme) grief over my father and then this past Sunday my favorite animal in the house, an 11 year-old cat named Dylan who passed away suddenly before we could even enlist a veterinarian.  My daily involvement with this lovable feline, when I constantly referred to him as “the Prince of Princes” has left me gutted on the heels of my Dad’s passing.  Jamie Uhler’s masterful 2019 Horror Fest reviews continue:

Lifeforce (T. Hooper…1985)
Ferat Vampire (aka Upir z Feratu/Der Autovampir) (J. Herz… 1982)

Recently I unearthed a conversation at work that I’ve had perviously herein—the idea that my favorite sub-genre in my favorite genre (Horror) is the Vampire film. I’ve said I find it (quite easily actually) the deepest in the Horror canon, probably two dozen deep in terms of masterpiece level films, and at least that many a slight tier just below that. It was quite wonderful then, when, upon completing the very silly but highly fun Lifeforce, that I thought another bizarro take on the vampire sub-genre could be done and interesting overlaps could emerge. Boy was I not wrong, as clear an indication of the malleability and breadth of the vampire idea as you’ll see should you want to throw an anchor and dive down deep.

Lifeforce is truly something else, a relatively big budget epic (it’d be the equivalent to a $60-65 million dollar picture now) that attempts to wrestle with larger themes, even going so far to be uttered as a ‘thinking man’s sci-fi film’. Nevertheless, it’s a very silly film, made more so because it does think larger and play it all so very straight. This obviously helps immensely, as there is no irony here, and the loving ode/borderline remake to Quartermass Xperiment/Pit run of films for Hammer a few decades prior fleshes itself out that much cleaner. If you know that touchpoint you know the plot; a joint British/US spaceship, the Churchill, finds itself adrift in space near an alien craft that it eventually boards. Finding entombed humans inside it, the crew ‘rescues them’ and brings them aboard only to find that once they’re on earth the humans are actually aliens in disguise, and that they need regular doses of human ‘life force’ every 2 hours to remain alive. Thus, they’re something like vampires, as once you get past the special effect electric hysterics of ‘sucking souls’ you understand them as bloodthirsty zombies meet Dracula, and that London could very easily dip the world into the apocalypse if not properly contained (the film’s final 30-40 minutes deal with just this scenario). 

On the other hand, Ferat Vampire is considerably smaller, but incredibly more bizarre. The tale of the fictitious sports car company, Ferat, who are attempting to seek buyers (and funders) for their new sports coupe, the Vampire. But they’re a shadowy, vile company run by a pale woman looking like death warmed over draped in Chanel, so suspicious takes are warranted. Oh, and the speedy car also runs on human blood, a fact they’re keeping under wraps. It takes our hero doctor and his conspiracy theory loving scientist buddy to unearth the scam as the film unfurls itself as a quite wonderful piece of anti-corporate subversion, which enough nodes to the diminishing returns of branding on our modern world to stimulate this particular lefty to high heavens! You chuckle as you hear, rather matter of factly, that, ‘under an oil embargo, blood is cheaper than gas’. Ha! It has as many issues with how cars mangle and kill as JG Ballard’s Crash does, but it’s darkly funny instead of wholly unsettling, and in the end does attempt to understand the joy that so many have motoring.

Taken together they’re a blast—it’s fun to see Hooper continue the career decline he lived for decades, while still doing almost nothing but highly entertaining trash. Seriously, you start with a genuine masterpiece trailblazer (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and then you just slide, for 40 years, into the garbage bin, but lovingingly never turning your back on the muck and grime you loved as a teen. It’s highly respectable in a way. On the other hand, I’ve loved Herz for quite some time, and not unlike David Lynch, his films are often excursions into the scary or the macabre, but generally never straight Horror works, but here he’s made his sole, definite Horror film. The results, as I’ve alluded too, are terrific, the film is full of glorious sarcastic wit with an artiness that never intrudes, it’d play for the grindhouse about as well as it would the arthouse. In laymen’s terms, that’s about the rarest, and best, of things. 

Uncle Silas (C. Frank… 1947)

Seeking to catch up a bit on my list, I dove into an outlier to my watching thus far—a relatively straight period gothic melodrama from cinema’s golden age. Uncle Silas comes from a popular Sheridan le Fanu source novel of the same name and boasted a prestigious production; shot for over a million bucks in 1947 and featuring lavish sets realized with all the deep focus tricks from Citizen Kane and a piercing score provided by the London Symphony Orchestra, it must have been a jewel in the Denham Studio crown. I’m sort of surprised it flies so under the radar, but then perhaps herein lies some of my issues with it, a sitting that had me squirming a bit during the lengthy second act as I awaiting a twist I already knew coming.

Known in the US as the infinitely more pedestrian, The Inheritance, Uncle Silas is a tale as old as time. We open to Caroline (a young, effervescent Jean Simmons) and her wealthy father discussing her future, a fact made all the more prescient when he passes at the end of the film’s first act, opening up a pit of danger around the newfound heiress even if she at first doesn’t totally realize. She’s been instructed in the will—that father Austin was attempting to rightly alter only to die before doing so—to the care of her Uncle Silas, a rather eccentric, crazy drunk of a man, who we come to learn is also broke as a joke. Eventually, after Uncle Silas’ creepy son attempts to rape Caroline do we learn that Silas’ crazy antics are mostly a con, and with the help of vampy former governess Madam de la Rougierre has murderous plans in store for Caroline in hopes of getting the family fortune all to themselves (as Silas is next in line as the sole beneficiary after Caroline).

The film appears, given my opening, a prestige picture melodrama in the gothic tradition, but that only appears as a thin veneer. Underneath is a rather campy movie, full of over-the-top performances from our trio of villains. Usually this sets it up to be some watch, and the surface delights are the films strengths: you don’t mind watching it because there is a ton of atmospheric and creatively eerie black and white photography. But in the end the push and pull between low and high alienate performances against the film as a whole which badly lacks psychological subtext, and the direction doesn’t totally know how to juice up the middle, which labors in sub-plots that, though they prove themselves eventually necessary, are often tedious to watch. Perhaps in the hands of say, George Cukor, the great vamp performance of Katina Paxinou would be better utilized and her claret swilling Madama de la Rougierre would be one of the ghouls for the ages, and the central idea of Victorian patriarchy where females (victims or villains) are cast into very similar positions for the sake of survival would better flourish. Oh well, not a terrible way to spend an evening… -Jamie Uhler

Lucille, Sammy, Jeremy and I saw two major releases in theaters over the weekend:

Jojo Rabbit    ****   (Friday)  Montclair Claridge

The Lighthouse  **** 1/2  (Saturday)    Ridgefield Park multiplex

The ferocious psychological drama “The Lighthouse” set in claustrophobic environs on a weather beaten New England island circa 1890 is shot in high contrast monochrome and is sometimes framed in academy ratio. It features Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson in what may well be the greatest performances of their careers in a film evoking Bela Tarr and “The Shining.” Contextually about a doomed power play between the two leads, the film is less driven by plot than by searing imagery, a complex sound design and some startling dream sequences. The film borders on horror and contains a measure of graphic violence in a swath of brooding atmospherics orchestrated by the talented Robert Eggers. Rating **** 1/2 (very close to five stars and surely one of the best films of the year).

Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit” is on one hand a coming-of-age tale set during the Nazi era, but primarily the film is a no-holds-barred satire on the Third Reich, one boldly presenting Hitler as a muse and daring to combine Wes Anderson-styled irreverence with the most serious of all subjects. One critic argued that in the present political climate we hardly need to reminded that there were some good Nazis, but the premise isn’t unique (i.e. Schindler’s List) The film’s heart is in the right place and it roasts those deserving condemnation. The acting is extraordinary, wit Roman Griffin Davis given one of the most remarkable childhood turns. **** (4 of 5, though 4 1/2 isn’t out of the question. I am pondering the grade, presently).

We saw “The Lighthouse” Saturday night in Ridgefield Park and “Jojo Rabbit” Friday in Montclair.