Diabolical Danger

Just a year after making one of the greatest crime pictures ever to come out of the United Kingdom – 1971's Get Carter, the film’s three Michaels, producer Michael Klinger, writer/director Mike Hodges, and star Michael Caine reunited for a rather eccentric mishmash of genres and ideas – Pulp. Bringing together an all-star team of creative minds, on top of the above mentioned Michaels, the film is edited by iconic director of five James Bond flicks John Glen (his first, 1981's For Your Eyes Only, his last, 1989's Licence to Kill), cinematographer Ousama Rawi (perhaps best known for his excellent television work on shows like The Tudors and Borgia), while the music was composed by famed Beatles’ producer George Martin (often nicknamed the fifth Beatle).

Let’s face it, some movies don’t age too well, but if they’ve got the three main ingredients – solid writing, visuals, and acting, usually they can stand the test of time. One film that is still as timely today as it was back in 1988 is John Carpenter’s horror tinged sci-fi action film They Live. Welcome to Reagan era America, all trickle down economics, high unemployment rates and rising poverty. Set in ‘any city’ USA, Nada (Roddy Piper) is an out of work drifter looking for a semblance of the American dream. . . a job would be a start. Finally finding some employ on a construction site, fellow hard worker Frank (Keith David) takes him to a sort of shantytown, where the long travelling man can find a warm meal and a night’s rest.

And they say things move pretty fast in the 21st century. . . in 1939's Made for Each Other, directed by John Cromwell, the protagonist couple marry after one short day of courtship – and they weren’t even in Las Vegas (instead, Boston). A bizarre script structure, this David O. Selznick production takes an almost vignette-style look at marriage (the opening credits actually feature the couple signing the marriage certificate – a nice touch) – with no foreshadowing or traditional setup in the first two acts, like in life, things just arise out of nowhere. . . yet, despite this unusual format, there is still enough to catch your interest.

The ‘slasher’ sub-genre of horror is often said to have started with two films, 1974's Black Christmas and 1978's Halloween (while others might also lump 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in with that grouping), and that very much may be true, but some of its roots most definitely grew out of the giallo films of the late sixties and early seventies, case in point, Sergio Martino’s 1973 horror mystery thriller Torso – featuring all of the trimmings (pardon the pun) that would soon litter each and every slasher flick to come. Now, what should one expect to see in a movie like Torso. . . sex-crazed teens (who tend to investigate strange noises instead of finding safety, or wander off alone in unpopulated areas), suspicious looking peeping Tom’s (likely a red herring or two), an unknown psychopathic killer who uses some sort of bladed weapon (the suspense is killing me – as the murderer is masked. . . and not only uses a knife, but an ascot to strangle those unlucky individuals – I doubt it’s Fred from Scooby-Doo) – all these tropes would soon be found in your prototypical slasher film.

To be completely honest, when a producer acquaintance of mine, Noah Lang, who I met at the St. Lawrence International Film Festival several years ago, contacted me and was wondering if I would watch a documentary he was producing on ‘mudding’, I was wholly unaware of the term. Defined in the Urban Dictionary, “To go out in the mud in the back of a truck or jeep or other 4x4 vehicle and spin in the mud until all occupants are covered in mud”, directors Andrei Bowden-Schwartz and Sam B. Jones focus this topic on a family living in Orlando, Florida.

An effective method of telling a dark story is often through the eyes of a child. . . and there is arguably no darker event in human history than the Holocaust. Earning praise from audiences worldwide and criticism by academics who lament its inaccuracies, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), directed by Mark Herman (who also adapted the story for the screen, based upon John Boyne’s novel of the same name), is an emotional, poignant depiction of one of the most horrific blemishes of our collective past. Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is an eight year old boy living in Berlin. With a father (David Thewlis) moving up in the military, a supportive mother (Vera Farmiga), and an older sister, Gretel (Amber Beattie), they are leaving their life in the big city for a cold home in the rural unknown.