Want to know where the new wave of horror is coming from?
Well I’d say it’s Latin America! Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay… just a few of
the spawning grounds for original genre fare right now – and has been for the
past four—five years, amusingly just after the success of the Spanish wave.
Still not sure that this is right? Well just look at your recent genre fare!
Directors like Adrián Garcia Bogliano, Jorge Michel Grau, Fede Alvarez and
others, are popping up in anthology flicks, getting big exposure for their
domestic flicks, and in some cases even getting shots at and remaking their own
films all over again but now with Yankee dollars in the USA! (where did Gustavo
Hernandez go, and when does the third generation of Cardona’s break through? And
No I haven’t forgotten the master of them all; Guillermo Del Toro, he just plays
in a completely different league!)
Patricio ValladeresEn las afueras de la ciudad (Hidden in the Woods) is no
exception. This piece of savage but contemporary Mexpoitation trash did the festival circuit and
then got picked up for a US remake featuring Micheal Biehn, Willam Forsyth and
Robert Rodriguez regular Electra Avellan in lead roles.
Kicking off with a classic “Based on a true story” card, drug
dealing drunk, Felipe [Daniel Antivil] is will stop at nothing to learn the
name of his wife’s secret lover, and murders her in front of their two infant
daughters. He buries her body in the woods and tells them that mommy has gone
to heaven. The years pass and Felipe raises his two daughters, Ana [Siboney Lo]
and Anny [Carolina Escobar] in his own disdainful way, complete with nightly
visits and day after stories laying the blame on “the bogey man” for abusing
the girls. Further down the road, Anny gives birth to his own grandson, an
inbred mutated beast with sharp teeth and an appetite for raw meat.
Felipe makes his living by hiding drugs for regional Kingpin Costello
[François Soto] who makes random visits to the cabin in the woods and looks the
two young women over with an unhealthy stare and disturbing remarks about
Felipe sending them over to him when they are old enough… Ironically despite
all his terrible flaws as an abusive pedophilic, incestuous parent, Filipe will
let no one else harm his little girls.
The so far delightfully trashy and on spot exploitative plot
takes a sharp turn when Felipe is sent to jail after attacking two police
officers with a chainsaw! The girls grab their mutant child/nephew/teenager
Manuel [José Hernandez] and make a dash for it. Out of the frying pan… into
Hell!
Being all-alone with no money or a place to stay, makes it only
a matter of time before Ana takes to giving random dudes blowjobs for cash, and
for some reason blowjobs lead to cannibalism. Well at least it get’s the girls,
and inbred kid off the prostitution racket! Felipe find himself in his own hell
too, as he’s thrown in jail with a bunch of bad-asses who all work for
Costello, who just for the sake of it want’s Felipe dead before he tells of his
drug dealing affairs with Costello. Ironically Felipe is the only one who knows
where Costello’s drugs are hidden and uses this fact as leverage against
Costello in an attempt to force the drug lord into getting him out of jail…
In a counter move, Costello sends his goons out to find the
girls, Felipe breaks out of jail to save his daughters, and after being beaten
and raped the girls decide to confront Uncle Costello once and for all in what
promises to be a bloody mess of family resolutions and rushes of harsh insight!
Hidden in the Woods is a fun, shit-kicking movie that is more or less a
concentrate of everything that the Latin American horror films stands for! It
brings it all to the park, dark violence, inbred freaks, incest, abuse, rape,
cannibalism, death, revenge, oh and I almost forgot the birthing scene! One
could sum it up as: find a taboo and push past it. Find a body and abuse it
physically, sexually, demonically or any way you can. Find a character and make
it suffer and bleed. Find the rules and break them! Hidden in the Woods is a feisty
little mongrel and I loved every demented minute of it! If you want a provocative
piece of trash that nurses a genre “taboo fetish” majestically and has a blood
lust like none other, then Hidden in the Woods is the ticket for you!
Franco Prosperi, no not the Mondo maverick, but the other
Franco Prosperi, writer of such classic films as Jess Franco’sMondo Canibale
(White Cannibal Queen) 1980, Mario Bava’sLa ragazza che sapeva troppo (The
Evil Eye) 1963 and Ercole al centro della Terra (Hercules in the Haunted World)
1961 - which he co-directed with Bava, and director of low budget and
exploitation films such as Un uomo dalla pelle dura (The Boxer) 1972 and this
one, Last House on the Beach, serves up a decent home invasion rape revenge
yarn with a solid set of actors like Ray Lovelock, Florinda Bolkan, Sherry
Buchanan and Laura Trotter in the cast!
Basically, and vaguely, The Last House on the Beach is yet
another take on Ingmar Bergman’s Jungfrukällan(The Virgin Spring) 1960, written by Ulla Isaksson. The same movie that
inspired sardonic grit-fests like Wes Craven’sLast House on the Left, Aldo
Lado’sL’ultimo treno della note (Night Train Murders)1975 and Ruggero
Deodato’sLa casa sperduta nel parco (House on the Edge of the Park) 1980, and
also this variant Franco Prosperi’s La settima Donna (Last House on the Beach).
Three bank robbers, under the lead of Aldo [Ray Lovelock],
take to hiding in a summerhouse inhabited by Sister Christina [Florinda Bolkan]
and half dozen young women. The men take the young woman hostage – after
beating the maid to death with a hot iron.Tension builds as the thugs start to rape and abuse the women one by
one, eventually forcing Sister Christina to go against her faith, refuse to
turn the other cheek and start to take revenge!
Romano Migliorini and Gianbattista Mussetto wrote a
screenplay from the story by Ettore Sanzò. Ettore Sanzò had previously written
screenplays to Aldo Lado’sNight Train Murders and Massimo Dallamano’s
magnificent La polizia chiede auto (What have they done to Your Daughters)
1974, so Sanzó had been up the “young women in peril” street before. Despite
being gritty, misogynistic and grim, the movie is still somewhat cheesy,
possibly more due to the shoddy dubbing more than the actual performances or
narrative.But not all is lost, some
effective passages of dialogue work in a timeframe that helps set a time limit
and a tension builder in the shape of the returning buss that will arrive and
pick up Sister Christina and the young women. In some ways it works as a
reliever as we know help – or possible salvation – will be on the way, but when
the Nuns at the convent call, without getting through, to tell them that the
buss will be a da late, it works as a tension builder instead. Sister Christina
is relying on keeping everyone safe until the buss arrives on the third day,
but as this isn’t going to happen, tension builds to a boiling point… well kind
of.
Characters are polarized; the male bank robbers are
sinister, randy and somewhat dumb, whilst the girls are gentle, savvy and innocent–
despite an early scene where they slip out of their tops whilst sunbathing, but
quickly put them back on when Sister Christina approaches the pool area. This is
simply Good versus Evil, with the exception of Lovelock who, in this mix, comes
off as a dimensional character. (Which he isn’t really.)
Lovelock acts as something of a red herring, as he at times
steps in to stop abuse, or help a girl out, but on the other hand provokes the
two other kidnappers to go over the edge, holds a knife to Sister Christina and
forces her to watch the other two thugs rape one of the young women. He also
has a strange flirt with Margret [Luisa Maneri] who he bonds with and shows some
form of affection for… but we all know that just below the surface it’s old
school manipulation!
As all rape-revenge flicks, the main narrative is to push
the god-fearing protagonist as far as possible until this character snaps and
becomes a like worthy or equal force of antagonism towards the antagonists. In Last house on the Beach, a very symbolic act is used to show Sister Catherine's transition as she steps up and takes on the villains who have molested, terrorized, raped and
murdered members of her young flock!
Early on you can hear a super weird Roxy Music sound-alike
track “Place for the Landing” courtesy of Roberto Pregadio with Ray Lovelock
blurting out vocals in his best Bryan Ferry imitation. But there’s a really
neat title track with the great Edda Dell’Orso that adds the versatile mix of
this movie. If nothing else, I take the great soundtrack with me from this
film.
A lurid piece of trash that possibly becomes grittier as the
groovy Roberto Pregadio soundtrack is blasted loud over almost every scene of
violence and misogynist moments are depicted in surreal fashion mixing extreme
close ups, victim point of view, and slow-motion whilst eerie dronish beats
play over the sadistic acts. Last House on the Beach is rape revenge, home
invasion cheapie done the book, worth the time, but not one that left an
imprint in time.
Oh, and if anyone knows if there’s two or one Franco
Prosperi, and if so, who made what, then please let me know. Personally I can’t
decide if there actually where/are two or really just one. They both worked at
the same time, in the same industry, in the same country in the same genre and
at times on the same film it seems… Reading filmographies, their paths cross a
few steps to close of each other on several occasions to be just coincidental.
Right now, I’m leaning towards there being only one, as THIS Franco Prosperi
supposedly edited Jacopetti & the other Prosperi’sAddio zio Tom (Goodbye
Uncle Tom) 1971… it’s confusing, so anyone who actually KNOWS, you are more
than welcome to let me know.
There are two kinds of filmmakers in this world. The kind that make films under
the illusion that it will make them rich and famous, and the kind that make them
for the want of telling a story and the sake of art. Fast forward a lifetime,
and the filmmakers wanting to be famous will become bitter, whilst the artist,
or auteur as they may be called, will be moved that we remember their work.
The Sarnos - A Life in Dirty Movies, tells the story of Joeseph and Peggy Sarno. Joe’s an old-school exploitation filmmaker with ambitions and
Peggy is his dedicated wife, actress, all-round crewmember and Cicero of this
warm document on their life together. That’s important, they where always together.
Together through it all.
We learn their dedication to their craft, from youngsters to
now, always looking for a way to make movies. Their lives spent between
apartments in New York and Sweden. Part of the film is their history; part is
current as Joe desperately tries to secure financing for making that “next
film”. As always, Peggy’s there to support him, give him advice and help make
that next film. There’s a nice moment where Peggy reads through Joe’s - kind of
sordid - script, after all there’s a difference in sexploitation in the
50-60’s, and reflects over the language the characters use, and suggests that
they use their cell phones to talk instead of calling from phone booths… after
all that’s what these modern women would do, says Peggy, lovingly bringing
contemporary times to her husbands script.
The Sarnos - A Life in Dirty Movies is a gentle and heart-warming
piece of documentary cinema. Swedish-made documentaries recently, sometimes manage to get close
to their subjects, but very few have any dimension. They may tell interesting,
linear stories, but this one has the dimension that many others lack. I’m a
total sucker for documentaries about filmmakers who never stopped chasing the
dream, no matter what path it took them through - such as defying one's own morals with the trials and ordeals this brings - and this is such a film,
seriously a fantastic documentary, This is about real people trying to do what
they believe in and their desire to be accepted as filmmakers and the qualms
along the way... all the way through their filmmaking lives. Wiktor Ericsson’s
cameras have caught this perfectly. I’d be able to recite passages of this film
that are really moving, but I won’t. This is simply one of those “Must See”
documentaries that you Must See!
There’s something completely fascinating with many of the
old sexploitation filmmakers, as so many of them have a very distinct idea of
where the line between art and smut goes. Filmmakers like Jean Rollin, Jess
Franco, Jose Mojica Marins etc. – all of them low budget filmmakers with some
great idea’s of what cinema is, and all with their very distinct style – all of
them where forced into directing pornography during their careers. Something
that lay heavy shadows on their artistic intentions, and the majority of them
dealt with some serious frustrations over being forced into areas of filmmaking
that weren’t where they wanted to go. But they had to, all for the sake of
getting a shot at making that next film.
Sarno is referred to as the Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street
and that’s wonderful words to remember him by. Because what made Joe Sarno’s
films stand out amongst others in the niche depended on two facts. The way he
wrote his characters, with depth and dimension, the way he always focused on
female sexuality and the fact that his films often used the scenes of sex to
make his audience think about difficult subject matters… guilt being one of
them! Guilt for one’s own sexuality is a pretty heavy topic to drop into a
sexploitation film, but that’s precisely where Sarno’s balance lied, tell a
story, make them think, even if it’s under the guise of sexploitation… until
hardcore cinema ruined everything for Joe and so many other grand masters of exploitation
cinema.
Interview snippets with a teary eyed Joe saying things like
“I thought that everyone had forgotten about me…” as we follow the couple to
retrospectives of his work, together with Peggy’s telling of how their love was
never really accepted by her family… and definitely not the films they where
making, all add up to make a very emotional film. One can’t but sit and wonder
if Sarno had left a legacy of the same importance if he had managed to break
into accepted cinema? There’s a bitter sweet conflict within the reality that
some directors would never have been remembered if they had broken through into
mainstream, and in their alienation only really found their art.
The main body of insight comes form interviews with Joe and
his wife Peggy. Although people like John Waters, Jamie Gillis and Annie Sprinkle,
do participate, the most interesting interviews are with film historians, film critics
and experts who give a fair and honest picture of Sarno’s films and what they
meant at the time, the imprint they will leave in cinema history. I love when experts and academics are used to reflect upon
the importance of low budget and exploitation cinema filmmakers that others
sneer snobbishly at. A big part of this film is all about being accepted.
Accepting Joe Sarno as the filmmaker with ambitions that he really was. A
topic Peggy and Joe Sarno obviously had to deal with all their lives. The
closing scene is poetic justice at it’s finest.
Yes, I know that Sarno is responsible for one of the most
famous Swedish pop-cultural adult films of all time. Everyone refers to “that
film” at some point or other. But that’s not what this film is about, that’s
not the Joseph W. Sarno of this documentary, and I feel that bringing that into
this piece would be disrespectful to the Sarnos, as this is a film about the
people, not what they did.
The final chapter, at least as we know it so far, in the
saga of Zé do Caixão - Encarnação do Demônio (Embodiment of Evil) is upon us. The part that José Mojicas Marins
himself refers to as his masterpiece, the movie he has waited all his life to
make. A movie which sees his iconic character Coffin Joe make a final return to
the screen in his search for a perfect woman to birth him the son who will
continue his bloodline.
Forty years have passed since Zé do Caixão fell into that
murky corpse ridden swamp at the end of Esta noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver (This Night I Will Possess Your Soul) 1967. A
lot has changed in the world since then, but Zé do Caixão still has his
conviction that he must find a woman to further his bloodline, which he tells
us in his customary opening monologue. A murky prison, agitated police
officials swearing loudly that they have to release a prisoner they have within
their walls. Stern dialogue presenting exposition, the man they are about to
release the beast! The characteristic nails protrude out through the tiny hole
in the rusted iron door. The Prison Governor stares into the face inside the
hole and proclaims Josefel Zanatas a free man, begging him to leave his alter
ego, the murderer Zé do Caixão, dead within the prison walls.
Outside the prison gates waits the faithful servant Bruno [Rui
Ressende], who escorts the greyed Zé do Caixão to his new underground lair,
complete with coffin, skeletons and new disciples.The disiples line up and start to chant the by now well known mantra "What is Life? It is the Beginning of Death. What is Death? It is the end of Life! What is Existence? It is the continuity of Blood! What is Blood? It is the reason to exist!" Zé do Caixão has not been
left dead in the cell that held him for forty years, he’s alive and kicking and
still on a mission!
With the main plot being to once again suffice a woman to
further his bloodline, there’s a delicate subplot, which initiates the forces
of antagonism and presents the threat of the film, after Caixão saves a child
from being executed by the sinister Chief of Police Oswaldo Pontes [Adriano
Stuart in his last screen performance]. This is key, as there’s always a scene
where Caixão comes to the aid of a boy child in the two earlier films. It’s a
metaphor for his desire to father a son and also a demonstration of his anger
of not having succeeded at that.
This encounter triggers a vendetta from Oswaldo and his
brother Miro [Jece Valadão, who sadly died during production]. There’s a
surprise as Miro reveals himself to be the cop who Zé do Caixão blinded in the
original censored ending of This Night I Possess Your Soul. The key scenes that
where never possible to shoot due to external pressure and conditions put on
This Night I Possess Your Soul (which you can read of in that earlier piece)
are finally overcome as Marins reconstructs the ending of that film by the
fantastic casting of Raymond Castile, a young American collector of monster
figures and Coffin Joe impersonator. To spice up the plot further, it’s also
revealed that the fact that the Zé do Caixão lawyer Lucy [Crista Aché] who managed
to get him freed is Miro’s wife! Rounding up a right raggedy band of companions
the Pontes brothers set out to destroy Zé do Caixão once and for all.
Obviously Zé do Caixão quickly becomes the anti heroic
protagonist we empathize with. Partially due to the fact that the Police
officials are such profound bastards, who wouldn’t flinch an eye at murdering a
child or spouse if it came in their way of stopping Caixão, and also by the recurrent
device of Caixão being haunted by his past female victims. Characters from both
previous instalments make appearances as they taunt the elderly Zé do Caixão through
a well-crafted mix of contemporary effects and actual footage flashbacks.
Zé do Caixão plays his game by the book that he wrote, He kidnaps
and beds a series of women and put’s them through his archetypical sadistic trials
which gives the police officials a moral carte blanche to put a stop to his
terror. Aided by Padre Eugênio [Milhem Cortaz], a frantic monk – also a victim
of Zé do Caixão’s previous activities also sworn to have his vengeance, they
set up the biggest manhunt since they last chased Zé do Caixão into the swamps.
Following the pattern of the earlier instalments, the road to ruin goes through
these tests, the desire, the frustration, the hauntings and the visions of hell
before Zé do Caixão is run out of town by an angry mob led by the Pontes
brothers. Hot on his heels, he leads them through the cursed swamp to an
abandoned amusement park, where Zé do Caixão, his antagonists and the ghosts all
gather for a last showdown.
Keeping it contemporary, the key scenes of mayhem are all
pretty intense and obviously graphic. Marins holds back on nothing and one can clearly see why he
considers Embodiment of Evil his masterpiece as he get’s to show and enact all
the stuff censorship restrained him from putting up front back in the day.
People have their mouths sewn shut in disturbing detail, there’s the classic Zé
do Caixão devices, spiders, snakes, cockroaches. But also cannibalism, baths
taken in entrails, giant rat’s rammed into orifices, self-mutilation as once
scene shows a young woman eating her own buttocks and the crown jewel of the
film shows a woman being reborn from the belly off a huge pig as Zé do Caixão
slices the beast open and she crawls out of the carcass! Where the earlier
films where received as provocative visual and offensive, they a fade in to the
full onslaught of Caixão this time around, all in full graphic, naked, gory detail.
Embodiment of Evil is nothing less than one of the most beautiful pieces of trash cinema ever put on screen. It’s a true masterpiece of the grotesque
and sordid depravity. I salute the team Marins has assembled for this must see film,
as their work is top notch! One thing that has changed though is the dark
comedic undertone of the film. A lot has changed since Zé do Caixão was locked
in his dark cell, and Marins uses that fact to add some amusing cultural
crashes along the way. It brings a sort of “Fish out of Water” tone to the Zé
do Caixão character and in many ways it’s apparent that the times have passed
him by.
Just like the earlier films, Zé do Caixão is an
existentialist. His atheism and goal keep him alive, but as previous films
taught us, it’s when he strays from his philosophy that evokes his ruin.
Falling for the beautiful Elena [Nara Sakarê], a young woman obsessed with
Caixão he falls into a deadly plan. Elena is the niece of two witches who
propose to Zé do Caixão that they can release him from his curse childlessness
and also lift the threat of his previous victims coming back to avenge their
deaths on him. Remember, this is the curse that was cast upon Caixão in the
very first film, À Mela-Noite Levarei Sua Alma (At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul)1964 and a curse that still
torments him almost fifty years later. The only catch is that they want Zé do
Caixão to acknowledge his faith, turn to god and they only then will grant his
wish.
Remember when I talked about how some movies feel like a
summary and bookending of plot, story, traits and work back in the piece on
Jean Rollin’sPerdues dans New York (Lost in New York)1989? Well, Embodiment of Evil has that feeling too.
Many references to the two earlier Coffin Joe films are noticeable, such as the
Witch being present a mere five minutes into the film. Or as Zé do Caixão’s
apostles line up in front of him upon his return from imprisonment, he has them
recite the opening monologue – which I previously pointed out to be his
philosophy – from This Night I Steal Your Corpse. Flashbacks to the two
previous films are used to make points about his philosophy, and finally Marins
got to shoot his intended original ending from This Night I Steal Your Soul
with Raymond Castille a spitting image of the young Zé do
Caixão. In many ways this brings the arc of the three films to a culmination.
The film does end as the other did, with a Zé do Caixão presumed dead, but for
once, just this once, Zé do Caixão may actually have won!
I’ve previously mentioned that one should explore these
three films of the Coffin Joe series in a chronological manner. I stand by
that, as through watching them in this way, you will see how the arc follows
through the films. You will also understand the impact the ghosts have on Zé do
Caixão in a better way. You will also understand just how wild José Mojicas Marins actually
goes with this final part when you have the previous two in mind. Embodiment of
Evil is a superb finale to a string of fantastic films, and undoubtedly one
of the few examples of a last instalment making the largest bang.
Do yourself a
favour take the time to follow the chronicles of Zé do Caixão as they where
meant to be seen and enjoy the naked, violent and strange world of Coffin Joe
in all their grandure.
Patricio Valladeres En las afueras de la ciudad (Hidden in the Woods) is no
exception. This piece of savage but contemporary Mexpoitation trash did the festival circuit and
then got picked up for a US remake featuring Micheal Biehn, Willam Forsyth and
Robert Rodriguez regular Electra Avellan in lead roles.
The so far delightfully trashy and on spot exploitative plot
takes a sharp turn when Felipe is sent to jail after attacking two police
officers with a chainsaw! The girls grab their mutant child/nephew/teenager
Manuel [José Hernandez] and make a dash for it. Out of the frying pan… into
Hell!
Being all-alone with no money or a place to stay, makes it only
a matter of time before Ana takes to giving random dudes blowjobs for cash, and
for some reason blowjobs lead to cannibalism. Well at least it get’s the girls,
and inbred kid off the prostitution racket! Felipe find himself in his own hell
too, as he’s thrown in jail with a bunch of bad-asses who all work for
Costello, who just for the sake of it want’s Felipe dead before he tells of his
drug dealing affairs with Costello. Ironically Felipe is the only one who knows
where Costello’s drugs are hidden and uses this fact as leverage against
Costello in an attempt to force the drug lord into getting him out of jail…
In a counter move, Costello sends his goons out to find the
girls, Felipe breaks out of jail to save his daughters, and after being beaten
and raped the girls decide to confront Uncle Costello once and for all in what
promises to be a bloody mess of family resolutions and rushes of harsh insight!
