DVD of the Week: Godzilla: Criterion Collection

Godzilla is more than just some guy in a cheesy rubber suit terrorizing badly dubbed Japanese actors and stomping miniature cities. The original film, made in 1954, is actually a tragedy of epic proportions, a potent warning of an escalating nuclear arms race and messing with atomic power. Of course, Godzilla mainly works as an entertaining monster movie, too.


When a 7,500 ton freighter is mysteriously lost in the South Seas off Japan, the authorities are baffled. Soon afterwards, a fishing boat is destroyed in the same manner: from an underwater explosion. It is a mine? An underwater volcano? There are only a few survivors and one of them claims to have seen a creature in the water. Some elderly citizens immediately claim that it was Godzilla, a creature that lives in the sea and occasionally surfaces to feed on mankind when food in the ocean is scarce.

Sure enough, late one stormy night, something destroys several houses in a village in such a way that it could not have been the result of natural causes, like a hurricane. Director Ishiro Honda wisely prolongs the first actual appearance of Godzilla for 21 minutes, cleverly employing traditional horror film techniques to create tension and build anticipation. We never actually see the monster in the initial attacks – just a hint of him but nevertheless his presence looms large, much like with King Kong (1933). When we finally do catch a good glimpse of the creature, it is little more than a head but it is a fantastic shot that effectively establishes his massive scale and is more than enough to send the locals running for their lives.

The country’s leading scientist Professor Yamane (Takashi Shimura) theorizes that Godzilla is the result of atomic testing, a mutation that exists to punish his country for dabbling in the dangerous waters of atomic energy and radiation. Naturally, the Japanese government wants to destroy Godzilla but Yamane respects the beast and wants to study it. Yamane represents a sobering humanistic voice that mirrored Honda’s own beliefs and acts as a sharp contrast to the government’s foolhardy shoot first, ask questions later attitude.

Look past the guy in the rubber suit and the obvious miniatures and you’ve got atmospheric black and white cinematography by Masao Tamai that is haunting, especially the night scenes with an almost silhouetted Godzilla destroying Tokyo that is a devastating site to behold.

Godzilla was born from the ashes of A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the fallout of which Honda witnessed first hand. In fact, the film’s opening scene, where a freighter is destroyed by an explosion from under the water, was a reference to an incident in which a tuna trawler got too close to an H-bomb test courtesy of the United States and its crew became sick with radiation poisoning. With this knowledge, it’s hard not to see Godzilla’s swath of destruction through urban Japan as a metaphor for the A-bomb and a powerful critique of the dangers of atomic radiation. This is what elevates Godzilla above countless other monster movies from the 1950’s and has inspired countless sequels that have transformed the giant monster into a pop culture icon. The Japanese version is the way this film was meant to be seen with all of the stark footage of the dead, maimed and shell-shocked and numerous the A-bomb references – something that is missing from subsequent sequels that have turned into admittedly entertaining battle royales.

Special Features:

A few years ago, Classic Media released an excellent special edition of Godzilla with an unimpressive transfer and a decent collection of supplemental material, none of which has been carried over to the Criterion Collection’s new and improved edition so completists may want to hold onto that previous incarnation. As you would expect, Criterion’s transfer is near flawless and a significant improvement on the Classic Media version, making it more than worth the upgrade.

The first disc features an audio commentary by film historian David Kalat who provides a nice mix of analysis and production information. He goes into great detail examining the relationships between the characters and their purpose in the film. Kalat also touches upon the difference between the Japanese and American names for Godzilla. He also good-naturedly addresses the absurdity of the oxygen destroyer and other scientific inaccuracies. At times, he comes across as a little too enthusiastic but this is tempered by his encyclopedia knowledge of all things Godzilla.

“Photographic Effects” features effects director Kawakita and effects photographer Motoyoshi Tomioka revealing how some of the special effects for Godzilla were done with examples from unused footage. They point out the extensive use of matte paintings and composite shots.

Japanese film critic Tadao Sato examines Godzilla’s role in Japanese culture. He remembers seeing the film when it first came out and recalls his first impressions. He also points out how aspects of the film evoked memories of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan.

“The Unluckiest Dragon” is a 2011 audio essay about the Daigo Fukuryu Maru fishing boat tragedy that inspired parts of Godzilla. The crew witnessed a powerful U.S. atomic bomb test and became sick with radiation poisoning. This essay examines the socio-political implications of the incident.

Also included is a theatrical trailer.

For completists, both versions – the original 98 minute Japanese version and the 80 minute Hollywood version, entitled Godzilla, King of the Monsters – are included, each on their own disc, but after seeing the original it is really hard to go back to the other. American movie producers acquired the North American rights and promptly Americanized the movie, inserting a reporter played by Raymond Burr with only 60 minutes of the original film intact, the rest was cut and new footage shot. Criterion has also included a trailer and David Kalat returns for a commentary where he starts off by providing the brief backstory to the nuclear arms race between Russia and the U.S. He discusses the Americanization of Godzilla including its unusual structure of flashbacks, which he explains may actually be reminiscent of film noir.

There is an interview with actor Akira Takarada who talks about his experience working on Godzilla. He talks about his initial impressions of the screenplay and tells several filming anecdotes, including working with the legendary Takashi Shimura (The Seven Samurai).

Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima (who played the creature in 12 films) talks about the challenges he faced playing the iconic monster. He recalls being told to study King Kong for how to move like a mythical creature. He talks about what it was like moving inside the suit and how he had to adjust his performance.

Features effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai talk about their work on the film. They start at the project’s origins and go all the way through production providing invaluable recollections on how the various effects were achieved.

Composer Akira Ifukube talks about his long, illustrious career and, of course, his groundbreaking work on Godzilla. He talks about his humble beginnings in forestry to how he eventually got involved in scoring films.

The Relic

The late-great Stan Winston was responsible for some of the most memorable monsters in modern cinema: the endoskeleton robotic killing machine in The Terminator (1984), the ferocious Queen Alien in Aliens (1986), the alien that hunts Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator (1987), and, of course, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993). I don’t know where the Kothoga from The Relic (1997) fits in the pantheon of Winston’s creatures but it is one of my favorites of his creations. Based on the best-selling horror novel of the same name by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, The Relic was a modest hit at the box office and predictably received mixed reviews by critics but remains one of my favorite creature features. Peter Hyams’ film has no other ambitions other than to tell an entertaining, things-go-bump-in-the-night story and does so in refreshingly no-nonsense fashion.


A ship arriving from Brazil is stopped by the Coast Guard in Lake Michigan and they find out that everybody on board has been killed. This doesn’t sit too well with Chicago police detective Vincent D’Agosta (Tom Sizemore) who has been put in charge of the investigation. Meanwhile, at the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, evolutionary biologist Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) is trying desperately to get a grant so that she and her team can continue their work. However, a co-worker (Chi Moui Lo) is doing his best to steal her grant away to fund his own work. They both get a chance to impress a crowd of the city’s wealthiest patrons at the gala premiere of a new exhibit. As luck would have it, D’Agosta will also be attending as he investigates a gruesome murder that occurred at the museum the night before. Could it be an ancient creature known as the Kothoga which, legend has it, is the offspring of South America’s answer to Satan? It seems that it was in one of the crates on the ship from Brazil and has now decided to snack on some bluebloods during the gala. It’s up to D’Agosta and Green to stop this creature.

Tom Sizemore brings a solid, matter-of-fact vibe to his character that feels like he carried it over from his role in Heat (1995). D’Agosta isn’t some wisecracking cop trying to make the moves on Penelope Ann Miller’s cute biologist. He’s interested only in solving the murder. However, he does have one distinctive trait: he’s superstitious. Sizemore manages to insert it here and there throughout the film without belaboring it to the point of being painfully obvious. I like that he gives D’Agosta a genuinely inquisitive nature. He’s not some burn out or a stereotypical loose cannon but a guy good at his job. He’s also savvy enough to realize that the murder at the museum hasn’t been done by your garden variety psycho and doesn’t let anybody, not some jerk rent-a-cop or even the condescending mayor of the city, distract him from his investigation.

Sizemore enjoyed a good run in the 1990s, appearing in films like Natural Born Killers (1994), Heat, and Saving Private Ryan (1998) before a myriad of personal problems burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood and relegated him to direct-to-video hell. He’s quite good in The Relic, his first leading man role and the cheap shots by critics back in the day that blasted him as resembling an overweight George Clooney were unfair. Sizemore certainly has the presence and the intensity to be a credible leading man and his blunt cop anticipates a similar one he played in the short-lived television show, Robbery Homicide Division. He was attracted to The Relic because he finally got to play the male lead in a film: “I had the responsibility of pushing the narrative forward.”

Penelope Ann Miller is just fine as the plucky heroine and thanks to action producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens) Margo Green is smart and proactive. She’s no damsel in distress and is actually quite resourceful, which is a refreshing change in a film like this one. It is nice to see characters using their intelligence in a horror film. For example, at one point D’Agosta takes Green to her lab so that she can figure out what the creature is and how to stop it. He opens up a little bit and tells her why he’s so superstitious. It’s a brief scene but it gives us some good insight into these characters. In the ‘90s, Miller made a significant push to be regarded as an A-list leading actress in high profile studio films like Awakenings (1990), Carlito’s Way (1993), The Shadow (1994), and The Relic, but none of them set the world on fire in terms of box office and she never became much of a critic’s darling either. I always found her kind of annoying and often miscast (see Carlito’s Way) with the notable exception of The Freshman (1990) in which she was perfect as Marlon Brando’s spoiled daughter. Before The Relic, Miller had not done a horror film but was drawn to director Peter Hyams’ desire to have a strong and smart female lead.

Hyams does a decent job establishing The Relic’s premise and introducing the characters, all the while building towards the climax: gala night at the museum with the creature on the rampage. He cuts between the guests trying to escape the museum while D’Agosta and Green attempt to stop the monster. Journeyman director Hyams epitomizes meat and potatoes filmmaking with his straightforward camerawork devoid of any distinctive style. Guillermo Del Toro he is not but that’s okay. Hyams keeps things moving along while plugging in the requisite jolts at certain moments throughout the film. Once the power goes out in the museum, he uses the darkness to tease us with glimpses of the creature until the full reveal during the final showdown. If I had one complaint it is that he relies too much on the dark and sometimes it is hard to tell what is happening.

Also of note is the solid supporting cast including Linda Hunt as the pragmatic director of the museum and James Whitmore as Green’s kindly old colleague and mentor. Genre veteran Clayton Rohner (G vs E) has a nice role as the junior detective working with D’Agosta. He’s put in charge of taking the mayor and a few others to safety. It’s not a flashy role but he does the best with what he’s given.

The original novel was written by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston, an ex-journalist and former public relations director for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Because their book portrayed the museum’s administration in an unflattering light, they turned down the film’s producers’ request to film there. Paramount Pictures, the studio backing the production, even approached the museum and offered them a seven figure amount to film there but ultimately the administration was worried that a monster movie would scare kids away from the museum. So, the filmmakers were faced with a problem as only museums in Chicago and Washington, D.C. resembled the one in New York. Fortunately, the Field Museum in Chicago loved the film’s premise and allowed the production to shoot there. In addition to shooting on location in Chicago, a set was built in Los Angeles of a tunnel flooded with water for a sequence later on in the film. Sizemore and many of the cast spent most of the shoot either damp, cold or soaking wet. He caught the flu twice and the production shut down briefly when Hyams became too sick to work.

Hyams reviewed makeup artist Stan Winston’s early drawings of the Kothoga and his only suggestion was to make the monster more hideous looking. The director suggested certain invertebrates for inspiration and Winston came up with an arachnoid outline for the creature’s face. He and his team made three creatures with two people moving the heads and people on the side working the electronics to move the arms, claws, mouth, and so on. In the scenes where the creature is running or jumping, a computer-generated version was used.

Film critics of the day gave The Relic negative to mixed reviews. In his review for the Washington Post, Richard Harrington wrote, “the DNA speculation that supposedly fuels the plot feels right out of Beavis and Butt-head.” Entertainment Weekly gave it a “C+” rating and wrote, “If you can stagger around the plot holes (how'd a Brazilian cargo ship with a dead crew get to Lake Michigan?), the last 30 minutes are pure, dumb monster-movie fun.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Geoff Pevere wrote, “The movie is a shameless cut-and-paste of a half-century of bogeyman-movie clichés.” USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and Susan Wloszczyna wrote, “amid caviar-quality Oscar contenders, it’s a palate cleanser – if you have a taste for explicit decapitations and loopy macabre humor.” However, Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “All of this is actually a lot of fun, if you like special effects and gore. To see this movie in the same week as the hapless and witless Turbulence is to understand how craft and professionalism can let us identify with one thriller heroine and laugh at another.” In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “Yes, we've seen it all before. But The Relic proves that the hoariest clichés, when stirred together with enough money, shaken vigorously and artfully lighted, can still make the adrenaline surge.”

Ultimately, The Relic is barely a notch above the cheesy creature feature films that popular the SyFy Channel but so what? The dialogue at times is kinda clunky and most of the characters never go beyond their stereotypes but that’s what you get when you have four screenwriters credited with writing the damn thing. That being said, the film is relatively devoid of narrative fat, which I like, Stan Winston’s monster looks pretty cool, there’s decapitations a-go-go for the gorehounds, Sizemore plays a gruff, superstitious cop, and Miller’s pretty scientist gets to kick ass. The Relic is a well-oiled thrill machine that delivers on its promise of providing a rollercoaster ride. What more do you want from this kind of film?

 

DVD of the Week: Cloverfield

Cloverfield was the first media sensation of 2008 and an excellent case study in canny marketing. A teaser trailer appeared in theaters months ahead and featured a few, brief, tantalizing scenes of chaos in Manhattan with no mention of a title or who was in it. The only thing that was certain was that J.J. Abrams was somehow involved. Fans speculated about possible similarities to his TV show Lost or the likelihood that he had masterminded a new kind of monster movie. This teaser trailer sparked intense interest on the Internet which the studio brilliantly exploited with snippets of information staggered over succeeding weeks. The marketing paid off and the buzz resulted in a strong opening weekend and decent critical reaction.

The film’s framing device is that what we are about to see is “found” footage recovered from a digital camera in what used to be known as Central Park in New York City. Hud (T.J. Miller) has been entrusted to record testimonials for his friend Robert Hawkins’ (Michael Stahl-David) going away party. Rob recently got a promotion that will take him to Japan. During the party what feels like an earthquake forces everyone to the roof where they all witness a huge explosion in the distance. The partygoers make their way to the street and all kinds of debris comes flying down the street including, incredibly enough, the head of the Statue of Liberty.

In the distance, a skyscraper comes crashing down and the ensuing dust cloud and people running eerily echoes footage from 9/11. It looks exactly like a terrorist attack except for something massive glimpsed briefly moving between buildings. A huge tail that later takes out the Brooklyn Bridge confirms that some kind of creature is wreaking havoc in the city. After losing his brother, Rob decides to go rescue his friend and love of his life, Beth (Odette Yustman) with Hud and friends from the party, Lily (Jessica Lucas) and Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) tagging along. What follows is an intense, white-knuckle journey through Manhattan as Rob and his friends try to avoid the thing that is tearing the city apart.

Cloverfield’s take on the monster movie is brilliant: imagine Godzilla (1998) shot like The Blair Witch Project (1999) fused with the same story structure as Miracle Mile (1989). This gives the film an immediacy that is very effective, especially in a scene where our heroes decide to walk through a subway tunnel only to realize that some things are chasing them. Director Matt Reeves ratchets up the tension with a chilling shot of rats scurrying away en masse while our heroes are traveling through the tunnel. There are all kinds of shots like this throughout the film, most notably a haunting shot of a riderless horse-driven carriage going through a deserted intersection. In addition to the aforementioned films, Cloverfield is also influenced by the original Night of the Living Dead (1968) in the way we (and the characters) get bits and pieces of information about what might be causing all of the destruction via newscasts. Like George Romero’s film, there is a raw, almost documentary-like feel that enhances the horror of what we are watching.

The comparisons to 9/11 – especially visually – are unavoidable as is evident early on in the initial attacks on the city and when the military show up with images that are not only meant to evoke that day but also footage of American soldiers fighting in the streets of Baghdad. More than any other film before it, Cloverfield is a cathartic experience for those of us who experienced and lived through 9/11 much like the original Godzilla (1954) film was for the Japanese after the atomic bombings during World War II.

Like any good horror film, Cloverfield is a metaphor for the horrors of real life. For people who actually lived in New York City at the time of 9/11 this film is particularly harrowing and traumatic ... but in a good way if that makes any sense. What makes the film particularly gripping is that the filmmakers take the time to allow us to become emotionally invested in the characters so that we care about what happens to them. We are given just enough details about their lives and their relationships with each other to make what happens to them later that much more powerful. This is visceral filmmaking at its finest that finally eradicates the waste of celluloid that was the Roland Emmerich Godzilla remake and finally gives America a decent monster movie to call their own.

Special Features:

There is an audio commentary by director Matt Reeves. He starts off talking about the genesis of the project and how he got the gig. He speaks about the casting process and how it was shrouded in secrecy with the actors auditioning scenes from J.J. Abrams TV shows Felicity and Alias. Reeves says that he resisted the urge to have a lot of obvious edits in favour of long takes or invisible edits in order to mimic a film actually shot by an average person who was there. To that end, he points out that the style of the film was meant to suggest that anyone could have shot it. This is an engaging and informative track with very few lulls.

“Document 01.18.08: The Making of Cloverfield” takes a look at how the film came together amid a shroud of secrecy. The use of hand-held cameras is examined including how it gave the film an authenticity. The on-the-set footage shows how it was filmed, mostly on a soundstage which is amazing because it doesn’t look it in the film. We see several scenes being shot and it is fascinating to see how they pulled it off.

“Cloverfield Visual Effects” examines how they virtually destroyed Manhattan with CGI effects. The fore and middle ground of scenes were real with practical sets while the background was a mix of CGI and good ol’ Matte paintings. This featurette takes us through the major SFX set pieces and shows us how they did them.

“I saw it! It’s alive! It’s huge!” J.J. Abrams was inspired by Godzilla and its iconic status in Japan and he wanted to do that for America. This featurette takes a look at how the creature was designed and why it looks the way it does.

“Clover Fun” are outtakes and bloopers as the cast blow their lines and goof around.

Also included are four deleted scenes with optional commentary by Reeves. There is more footage from Rob’s farewell party and more of him and his friends in the subway tunnels including more from the aftermath of the attack there.

There are two alternate endings with optional commentary by Reeves. Both tweak some of the pre-recorded footage of Rob and Beth during happier days.

In the Mouth of Madness

I’ve always considered In the Mouth of Madness (1994) to be John Carpenter’s truly last great film. It came out at a time when horror films were becoming more self-flexive in nature with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), a fictionalized account of actual key cast and crew members from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise making the latest entry; and the Scream trilogy filled with genre savvy characters who delight in quoting from other slasher films while also identifying the rules that many of these films follow. Mouth of Madness has elements from both of these examples. Like New Nightmare, it blurs the lines between reality and fantasy and, like the Scream films, it is conscious of itself within the horror genre.

The film doesn’t exactly get off to a good start with sub-par Metallica-esque music playing over the opening credits. Fortunately, once this music mercifully ends proper suspenseful music that we’ve come to expect from Carpenter’s films kicks in and we are tantalized with a teaser set in the present. Much like the opening scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), In the Mouth of Madness’ protagonist is brought into the authorities looking visibly distraught and ranting about the end of the world. John Trent (Sam Neill) is forcibly admitted to a mental institution (by none other than John Glover). He’s wild-eyed and frantic, claiming that he’s not insane despite the straitjacket that says otherwise. In a nice, cheeky touch, the administration drowns out the patients’ ravings with a Muzak cover of The Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun” and Trent groans, “Oh no, not The Carpenters too.” And then we are hit with the film’s first jolt as Trent is menaced by a mysterious figure who speaks cryptically to him.

A doctor (genre veteran David Warner) soon visits Trent to figure out what he’s on about and discovers that his patient has decorated his padded cell (and himself) with all sorts of black crosses of various shapes and sizes in black crayon. Trent appears to be crazy or, as we find out later on, is he the only sane person in an insane world? He no longer wants to escape because he feels that it’s the only safe place and tells the good doctor his story. Trent was an insurance investigator and we see him expertly plying his trade as he grills a man (played with wonderfully sweaty desperation by Carpenter regular Peter Jason) trying to pull a fast one on the insurance company. This scene evokes a similar one in the classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944) where Edward G. Robinson trips up a hapless man trying to cash in a phony claim. Sam Neill is fantastic in this scene as he confidently talks the man into a corner, presenting damning evidence until it is painfully obvious that he’s guilty.

Soon after, we get the first indication that something is amiss when a deranged-looking man uses an axe to smash a window of the restaurant Trent is dining in. The man asks him, “Do you read Sutter Cane?” before being gunned down by the police. The way Carpenter shoots this scene is excellent. He keeps the deranged man in focus in the background so that we can watch what he’s doing while also observing Trent being praised by his employer (Bernie Casey), oblivious to the approaching nutjob with an axe until he comes crashing through the window.

As luck would have it (or is it?), Trent’s next assignment is for a publishing house. They represent popular horror writer Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow) who disappeared two months ago. No one has been able to contact him, including his agent who just happened to be the lunatic with the axe. The publisher (Charlton Heston) is eager to get his hands on Cane’s new manuscript but the reclusive author has only given him part of it. So, Trent is assigned the task of finding Cane and getting the rest of the book. The cynical Trent thinks that this is all a public relations stunt to promote sales of Cane’s new book. However, the deeper he delves into the investigation, the more his strange nightmares bleed into his waking life. Also added into the mix is the increasing chaos of the outside world as reading Cane’s books causes his more impressionable readers to lose touch with reality and news reports tell of riots occurring at book stores in several major cities in the United States.

Along for the ride is Linda Stiles (Julie Carmen), Cane’s editor, and the film really takes off when she and Trent arrive in the town where Cane resides. It is like they’ve entered H.P. Lovecraft country or, more accurately, the world as depicted in Cane’s books. At first glance, it seems like any small town in America but there is an unnerving lack of activity. Where is everybody? Stiles and Trent stay at the Pickman Inn (a reference to the Lovecraft short story “Pickman’s Model”) and are greeted by a seemingly kind old lady (David Lynch alumni Frances Bay). Stiles begins to spot details right out of Cane’s novels as if they’ve been transported into his fictional world. For example, there’s a painting in the lobby of the inn that ominously changes its appearance when she looks at it.

Sam Neill is excellent as the jaded insurance investigator who thinks he’s seen it all. Trent sums up his philosophy rather succinctly when he tells Stiles, “Lady, nothing surprises me. We’ve fucked up the air, the water, we’ve fucked up each other. Why don’t we finish the job by just flushing our brains down the toilet?” Trent is also a bit of a smart-ass. He’s a little too cocky, a little too confident for his own good and deserving of a lesson in humility which the Cane case will provide. Trent’s not the most likable protagonist but Neill’s natural charm keeps you invested in his character. He is fascinating to watch as a skeptic who is finally presented with a challenging case that will truly test his abilities and his resolve. Neill does a wonderful job of showing how the increasing madness that surrounds him gradually affects his character. Carpenter had remained friends with Neill after they made Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) and he was the director’s first and only choice to play Trent, but Bob Shaye, head of New Line Pictures, wanted someone else. After the massive commercial success of Jurassic Park (1993), Carpenter convinced Shaye that Neill should be in the film.

Movie executive Michael De Luca wrote the screenplay for In the Mouth of Madness based on his experiences in the streets of New York City and his love for H.P. Lovecraft’s stories about the Cthulhu mythology. He would walk to the Port Authority transit terminal each night to take the subway home from his job at New Line Cinema. He became fascinated with the homeless people that populated the terminal. De Luca remembers, “Late at night it got pretty scary and I started to think, what if everyone wandering around me is part of an otherworldly conspiracy to replace the human race?”

De Luca combined this idea with Lovecraft’s mythos about a race of ancient creatures that controlled the Earth, were banished and are now trying to return. The final component was the notion of a writer who was a combination of Stephen King and L. Ron Hubbard – in other words, a popular author with a rabid fanbase that bordered on a religion. He also referenced horror films that influenced him, including Equinox (1970), The Exorcist (1973), and The Shining (1980). De Luca also wanted to evoke Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Cane’s books being like the pods and “turning you into something else, as opposed to saying these people were screwed up before hand.”

In 1988, De Luca showed John Carpenter a draft of the script. Also being a fan of Lovecraft, Carpenter appreciated the homage to the author as well as the elements of the detective and western genres. He was unsure if he could pull it off but over the years he thought about it and finally in 1993, felt confident enough to tackle it. Carpenter and De Luca met to talk about the project. De Luca had brought in another writer to work on the script with Mary Lambert to direct. Carpenter and De Luca went over the script line by line and ended up going back to the original version. Carpenter worked with De Luca on the final drafts and made it his own, including enriching the characters by making them more three dimensional and putting in more good ol’ fashion jolts. Lambert dropped out and Carpenter agreed to direct with a budget of $7 million.

In the Mouth of Madness received mixed critical reaction. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, “the movie does what no horror movie can afford to do, which is to play tennis without a net. Stories like this need rules; it's not enough to send the beleaguered hero on a roller-coaster ride through shocking images.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “this is a film with the temerity to think big, if only for the magnitude of the wickedness it invokes. Nothing less than ‘an evil older than mankind and wider than the known universe’ must be reckoned with before this cautionary tale is over.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas praised the film as “a thinking person's horror picture that dares to be as cerebral as it is visceral.” However, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe called it, “a bewildering, boring assembly of rock-video-surreal nightmare sequences with more repetitive episodes than Groundhog Day. I said, with more repetitive episodes than – oh never mind. Just consider yourself warned.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum described it as an “only spottily successful homage from director John Carpenter (Halloween) to novelist H.P. Lovecraft's kooky-wooky Who-really-rules-the-universe philosophies, the computerized capabilities of Industrial Light & Magic, and Carpenter's own, greater thriller-movie successes.” In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle wrote, “In the end the most interesting thing about In the Mouth of Madness is its weird relationship with itself – its cheesy horror celebrating the power of cheesy horror, while pretending to be appalled.”

While Prince of Darkness (1987) only scratched the surface of the blurring of reality and fantasy, In the Mouth of Madness takes it to the next level by constantly questioning what is real and what isn’t. Stiles and Trent discuss this notion while searching for Cane. They start off talking about the scary nature of Cane’s books and Trent says, “What’s to be scared about? It’s not like it’s real or anything,” to which she replies, “It’s not real from your point of view and right now reality shares your point of view. What scares me about Cane’s work is what might happen if reality shared his point of view.” Trent says, “We’re not talking about reality, here. We’re talking about fiction. That’s different,” and she counters, “Reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places if the insane were to become the majority.” These will turn out to be very prophetic words indeed. This conversation is the key to understanding Carpenter’s intentions with this film – that reality is what you perceive it to be, but what happens when you can no longer trust your own perception?

In the Mouth of Madness cleverly comments on itself as it plays around with notions of what is real and what is fiction, often blurring the line that separates the two. Carpenter is obviously having fun with the notion that conservative watchdog groups would have you believe that certain horror films and books are evil, promote wicked behavior and have a corrupting influence on their audience. They also believe that some of the artists that work in the genre must also be bad or how else could they conjure up such horrors? It would be so easy for them if there were more artists that acted like the deliciously evil Cane. Fortunately, it’s not that easy and good horror holds up a mirror to our society. It shows us its dark, primal side, albeit from a safe distance.

After the career low of Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Carpenter bounced back with In the Mouth of Madness and demonstrated that with the right material, he could still deliver a smart and entertaining horror film. Since this one, none of the scripts he’s worked with have been as good but fans of his still hold out hope that he’s got at least one great film left in him. As it stands, Mouth of Madness is a fitting conclusion to his informal Apocalypse trilogy that also includes The Thing (1982) and Prince of Darkness. These films all feature protagonists that must prevent the end of the world with varying degrees of success and at considerable cost to themselves. Mouth of Madness is no different as we are left with Trent laughing crazily at a film version of the misadventures he’s just been through while the world outside has gone to hell in a hand basket.

Nightbreed

“Someone at Morgan Creek said to me, ‘You know, Clive, if you’re not careful some people are going to like the monsters.’ Talk about completely missing the point! Even the company I was making the film for couldn’t comprehend what I was trying to achieve!” – Clive Barker

As children we are scared of the things that go bump in the night or the monster that lurks under the bed. When we grow up we are taught to no longer fear these things but this didn’t seem to happen to novelist Clive Barker. He went on fearing and even identifying with the monsters, celebrating them in his art. After the success of Hellraiser (1987), his directorial debut, anticipation was high for his follow-up Nightbreed (1990), based on his novella Cabal about a secret society of monsters and the troubled young man who seeks them out. While his first film was made independently, this one was backed by a major Hollywood studio – 20th Century Fox – but made under its chairman’s production company Morgan Creek. The end result is a fascinatingly flawed film botched by indifferent handlers with little to no respect for or understanding of Barker’s vision. Despite the studio interference and compromises that he was forced to make, there is a sense that a good film is fighting to get out. Over the years, Nightbreed has developed a small but dedicated following who continue to speculate about the film that could have been and might still be if Barker can ever wrestle the excised footage away from Fox and assemble the film he originally envisioned.

Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) is a young man plagued by troubling dreams of a nightmarish place called Midian populated by monsters but that he believes is where all of his sins will be forgiven. He’s seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg), who, in his spare time, moonlights as a serial killer that slaughters entire families. He proceeds to pin these murders on Boone and convinces his patient that he is the killer. Decker drugs Boone who leaves his office and gets into an accident. In the hospital, Boone meets a fellow patient who speaks of Midian as a place “where the monsters go.” He tells Boone where it is in exchange for accompanying him there. However, the guy also happens to be as crazy as a loon and proceeds to scalp himself in Barker’s first show-stopping gore effect.

Boone finds Midian and meets its denizens and this is where the film really takes off as Barker introduces all kinds of fantastic looking monsters, chief among them Peloquin (Oliver Parker), a fiend that looks like he just came out of the Cantina in Star Wars (1977), only much more evil-looking than anything in George Lucas’ film. Peloquin is Boone’s introduction to Midian and he also gets to speak most of the film’s memorable lines with that great deep voice and cocky attitude that is reminiscent of Bill Paxton’s scene-stealing vampire in Near Dark (1987). In pursuit of Boone are his girlfriend Lori (Anne Bobby) and Decker – she out of love and the good doctor – well, he wants to find the Nightbreed and kill them all because they are freakish aberrations that must be completely wiped out.

The most fascinating bits of Nightbreed are Boone’s initiation into the Breed and the glimpses that Barker gives us of life in Midian, an underworld populated by all kinds of creatures. They used computer-controlled animatronics but only where necessary. Bob Keen and his crew had two months to play around with ideas before doing any modeling work. There are all kinds of levels to Midian, complete with nooks and cranies – places where these creatures live. At one point, Lori looks for Boone in Midian and we are introduced to various members of the Breed. The deeper she goes, the more interesting looking the creatures are that she encounters.

It goes without saying that David Cronenberg is perfectly cast as Decker. It was Barker’s idea to cast him in the role after seeing the Canadian filmmaker in a documentary. There has always been something slightly ominous about the man, even in interviews. He looks like a psychiatrist as opposed to a legendary filmmaker and Barker taps into that, creating a truly unsettling psychopath who is a more horrific monster than anything that lives in Midian. Cronenberg brings just the right mix of mundane creepiness and subtle menace to the role. Decker is the pure incarnation of evil, driven by his own trivial power fantasies, or, as he puts it at one point, “I’m death, plain and simple.”

When I first saw Nightbreed I can remember not being too thrilled with Craig Sheffer’s performance. I found him to be stiff and miscast in the role of Boone. He wasn’t how I pictured the character when I read Barker’s novella. Many years later and his performance has grown on me. He seems credible as a confused young man who puts his trust in a psychiatrist that is clearly bad news from get-go. Maybe it is because of the footage that the studio removed, but his motivation for wanting to seek out Midian and join the Breed is not established very well. All we get is him dreaming of the place and his desire to seek it out when he meets with Decker. I get that Boone’s desire is to find refuge in a place where all of what he perceives to be his sins will be absolved. The cruel irony is that he’s an innocent only to be brought over to the other side by one of the Breed. But this is not really the strongest foundation for him to go to the lengths that he does in the film.

Sadly, the weakest performance in the film is Anne Bobby as Lori, Boone’s girlfriend. She does little in the film but act as a damsel in distress and I don’t know if it is the script or Bobby’s performance but she comes across as quite bland. One wonders why Boone goes to lengths that he does to save her from Decker. Maybe it is Bobby as she gave a bland performance in Beautiful Girls (1996) as well. Of course, up against a formidable ensemble cast like the one in that film, it’s no wonder, but in Nightbreed she adds little to the film except serve as a plot device.

As Barker finished writing Cabal, he realized that it would make a good film that he would direct himself. He always loved monsters and felt that “there’s a corner of all of us that envies their powers and would love to live forever, or to fly, or to change shape at will. So, when I came to make a movie about monsters, I wanted to create a world we’d feel strangely at home in.” He was interested in creating a “horror mythology from the ground up” and developing characters that would live on in sequels. His goal was to make the Star Wars of horror films. The monsters in the novel are represented impressionistically over two or three paragraphs and Barker had to visualize them in much greater detail for the film.

Nightbreed was the first of a planned three-picture deal with Morgan Creek that included an adaptation of Son of Celluloid and a sequel to Nightbreed. Hellraiser had a budget of $2 million while Nightbreed had one of $11 million, a considerable difference which allowed Barker to realize his ambitious project. The first compromise Barker made was to change the title to Nightbreed because Morgan Creek insisted on a more commercial title and told the filmmaker that they thought Cabal didn’t mean anything. He used three soundstages at Pinewood Studios and shot on location in Canada. For example, the final confrontation between Eigerman’s (Charles Haid) troops and the Breed was shot over a two-and-a-half week period at Pinewood. Towards the end of principal photography, Barker brought Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie into paint mattes for the Necropolis sequences and to design the history of the Breed in a symbolic way painted on an enormous mural across a 60-foot space on the set at Pinewood, which was subsequently used in the opening credits.

In late July 1989, the studio announced that the release date for Nightbreed was being pushed back from its original autumn 1989 date to early February 1990 instead. The press release cited “the complex demands of the film’s ground-breaking post-production optical effects,” but also included McQuarrie’s mural and matte paintings, and a week of additional shooting in late August that would see key parts of the narrative re-shot. Barker shot extra scenes over three days in Los Angeles in late 1989 which included additional scenes with Cronenberg that expanded and clarified his character. Barker was also contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated picture and couldn’t make it as a gory as he had done with Hellraiser. Doug Bradley (Pinhead in Hellraiser) was cast as Lylesberg, the Breed's self-elected lawmaker, but in post-production they dubbed over his voice with someone sporting a German accent, much to his chagrin.

Barker previewed his first cut with a temporary soundtrack that did not go well because people were confused by the characters’ motives. He made some changes and a second test screening took place. According to Barker, it was much more successful. However, the ending with Decker’s death was not well-received and Barker changed it. The final director’s cut ran two-and-a-half hours and Fox asked for almost an hour to be cut, prompting editor Richard Marden to resign in protest. The film was cut to two hours and then to a 102 minutes.

The head of marketing at Morgan Creek never watched Nightbreed all the way through because it “disgusted and distressed” him, according to Barker. The studio didn’t understand it, because it had no movie stars, it was violent, and played around with genre conventions too much for their liking. The marketing department found the film difficult to classify because it had elements of both fantasy and horror which they saw as a weakness but which Barker, of course, saw as a strength. So, the studio marketed Nightbreed as a slasher film with television teaser trailers that were confused and did represent it well. It didn’t help that the T.V. trailer that was sent to the MPAA was rejected 12 times. They forbid any monster footage and so it was cut down to someone being terrorized by a razor – representing only five minutes of Barker’s film. They did not promote it well with posters that misinterpreted the content. When Barker saw the way they were selling the film, he “freaked out and said, ‘What are you doing? This isn’t the movie,’ and was given all kinds of excuses... ‘Well, there isn’t time to change it, we have to release it now.’” Looking back, Barker realized that the studio was better at promoting films like White Men Can’t Jump (1992) but “not so good at selling the quirky stuff.” Barker should commiserate with Mike Judge who ran into all kinds of interference with two of his films, Office Space (1999) and Idiocracy (2006) that the same studio had no idea how to sell it and also treated indifferently.

According to Barker, the studio argued that there was no point in showing Nightbreed to film critics because the people who see horror films don’t read reviews. Therefore, the film had to be sold to the lowest common denominator. The studio refused to preview it for critics which only angered them. They were not kind to Barker’s film to say the least. In his review for the Washington Post, Richard Harrington wrote, “Unfortunately, Cronenberg is in front of the camera, leaving Barker in the director's chair. And though Barker is one of the genre's great talents, he lacks the tools to translate his stories from print to celluloid.” In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “But surrounded by Mr. Barker's visual clutter and lack of narrative energy, Mr. Cronenberg's presence only highlights the difference between a gruesome but first-rate psychological horror story like Dead Ringers and a mediocrity like Nightbreed.”

The Toronto Star’s Henry Mietkiewicz wrote, “Nightbreed might have been a monster movie milestone, if Clive Barker's directorial abilities had kept pace with his skill as a master of British horror fiction. Unfortunately, Nightbreed probably will be remembered as much for its haphazard plotting and underdeveloped characters as its delightfully daring concept.” The Guardian’s Derek Malcolm wrote, “It is neither direct nor subtle enough as a piece of film-making. It is difficult to suggest that evil is human and monsters have souls within the context of a mountain of special effects. The result is patchy in the extreme and not always capable of transcending a genre that has become less and less intriguing as less and less is left to the imagination.” Entertainment Weekly magazine’s Owen Gleiberman gave the film a “C+” rating and wrote, “Barker spins grisly fantasy out of sexual obsession, yet his style here couldn't be less obsessive. It's cluttered and rather incoherent, as though the trailers to four different horror movies had been spliced together.”

What’s interesting about Nightbreed is how Barker reverses the stereotype perpetuated by many horror films. In this one, it is the monsters who are the sympathetic protagonists that we root for and it is the priests, police and analysts – what Barker calls “the three forces of authority” – that represent the film’s antagonists. In this respect, Nightbreed harkens back to classic horror films of the 1930s, like King Kong (1933), Frankenstein (1931), and its sequel, Bride of Frankenstein (1935), that all feature sympathetic monsters we end up caring about. With Nightbreed, Barker tried to “get at something which I think is the subtext of an awful lot of horror and fantasy movies – that the forces of darkness, the things that are supposedly morally repugnant – are the things we really like.” His film is successful in the sense that we root for the monsters and hope that their society survives while we want to see Decker destroyed.

NOTE: For years, fans assumed that the footage cut out of Nightbreed was lost forever but a fan has recently discovered that the footage does in fact exist but the studio feels that there is little interest in the film to cover the costs to restore the film back to Barker's original vision. The folks that run Barker's official site have a petition going and need your support to hopefully convince the studio that there is a real demand and interest for this film. Go to this link for more info.

DVD of the Week: The Mist: 2-Disc Collector's Edition

Filmmaker Frank Darabont has a real affinity for Stephen King’s stories, having previously adapted two of the author’s non-horror tales (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) and with his latest film he tackles another King story, The Mist (2007), which comes from The Skeleton Crew collection of short stories. Darabont’s film thankfully flies in the face of the two prevailing trends of gruesome torture porn horror films and lame J-horror remakes to deliver old school scares for a truly satisfying horror film.

After a violent storm knocks out their power and puts a tree through one of their windows, David (Thomas Jane) and his son Billy (Nathan Gamble) go into town for supplies with their next-door neighbor Brent (Andre Braugher) along for the ride. They are in the supermarket for only a few minutes when they hear the chilling sound of air raid sirens followed by a frantic man (Jeffrey DeMunn) who rushes in yelling about how the mist took a man away. No sooner does he say this then a fast-moving mist envelopes the entire area forcing everyone in the store to hold up until they can figure out what to do.

Everyone has a theory as to its source: fallout from a possible chemical explosion at the local mill, some freaky weather system or maybe it has something to do with the nearby top secret military base? However, when David and a few others go to check out the back-up generator in the recesses of the store, one of them is attacked by multiple tentacles coming out of the mist, suggesting something more supernatural is lurking in the mist. They go back to the rest of the people and try to explain what they saw and what happened.

Naturally, some are skeptical, but the longer everyone stays cooped up and are eventually assaulted by all sorts of horrific creatures that come in waves, like Biblical plagues, the more tempers get frayed. A line is drawn between those who believe that this threat is some form of religious retribution, led by Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), and those who believe that there is some kind of malevolent force out there but use logic and reason to figure things out.

Darabont does an excellent job establishing the characters, the dilemma they all face, and then pitting them against each other. Some critics had problems with the shrill, Bible-thumping character of Mrs. Carmody as being an easy caricature; however, by the end of the film, all of the things she has said come true. As anyone who has read any of Stephen King’s fiction or seen one of his adaptations knows, a recurring motif is how the internal squabbling of a large group of people is as much of a threat as the horror that threatens them. King shows how fragile the trappings of society are and how it only takes one thing to trigger its collapse.

What is so refreshing about The Mist is how flawed the characters are as represented by David, a movie poster artist and the film’s hero. He gets scared and makes mistakes but rises to the occasion when needed. Is he any less of a hero for doing what he does in the film? Darabont raises some fascinating questions about the notion of heroics and this is masterfully realized by Thomas Jane’s wonderfully layered performance. The filmmaker has created a clever, tension-filled apocalyptic monster movie that has the balls to go out on such a daring sucker-punch of an ending that really pissed off some fans of the original novella. Darabont’s film remains true to the spirit and vibe of King’s story despite the radical reworking of the ending.

Special Features:

The first disc features an audio commentary by writer/director Frank Darabont. He spends the bulk of the track pointing out how he cut costs on this modestly budgeted film and gives credit to the crew members who helped him make it, in particular, the effects people. Darabont goes into the nuts and bolts of filmmaking but the highlight is his explanation/justification of the film’s controversial ending. As always, he delivers thoughtful observations and imparts loads of information.

Also included are eight deleted scenes with optional commentary by Darabont. One scene provides an interesting bit of insight into Brent’s character. There is more of David and Ollie trying to convince the others early on about the outside threat. Also included are more of Mrs. Carmody’s religious ramblings.

“Drew Struzan: An Appreciation of an Artist” is a profile of this prolific movie poster artist. He has done some of the most memorable posters of all time, including ones for the Star Wars films, E.T. (1982), Blade Runner (1982), and the Indiana Jones films to name but a few. Darabont points out that the introduction of David working in his studio in the film is a tribute to Struzan.

There are three Webisodes hosted by Darabont that provide a behind-the-scenes look at three scenes in the film and show what it looks like on the set juxtaposed with final product. We get to see how they did various practical effects in these scenes.

Also included are three trailers.

The second disc features a black and white version of the film that Darabont claims, in his introduction to it, is his preferred version because it was intended as an homage to classic horror films of the mid-1960s.

“When Darkness Came: The Making of The Mist” takes a look at the origins of the film. Darabont had always wanted to make a horror film and after making two non-horror Stephen King films, he decided to do The Mist. King sings Darabont’s praises and talks about how he trusted the filmmaker with the material. There is plenty of on the set footage where we see the cast and crew in action. None of the major studios wanted to do it but Bob Weinstein gave it the greenlight so long as Darabont agreed to do it cheaply and in very little time. This is an excellent look at how this film came together.

“Taming the Beast: Shooting Scene 35” takes a look at the scene where the mutant bugs and birds invade the supermarket. It’s the most action-packed scene in the film and was a challenge to shoot and coordinate because it involved a tricky combination practical and digital effects, lots of extras, and stunts.

“Monsters Among Us: A Look at the Creature FX” examines the designs for the various creatures in the film. He employed effects legend Greg Nicotero and illustrator extraordinaire Bernie Wrightson to design them and make them exotic-looking yet realistic enough so it seemed like they could really exist. It was a mix of CGI and practical mechanical creatures and puppetry.

Finally, there is “The Horror of It All: The Visual FX of The Mist” which takes a look at Café FX’s work on the film’s visual effects. Their main guy used to do prosthetic effects and so he had an idea of what would be practical and what would be CGI. His company had very little time and we see the various stages of the effects. We also see how various effects shots in the film were achieved.