Duel

"There you are, right back in the jungle again." 

—David Mann (Dennis Weaver)

The Aero Theater in Santa Monica, CA, recently ran a film series entitled "Auspicious Debuts".  This series featured the first flicks of famous filmmakers.  (Say that five times fast!)  Included in the series were David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977), Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981), and Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich (1998) (which was also screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's first movie).

Also a part of the series was what I consider to be one of the best double-features I've ever seen (and I've paid good money to see Pitch Perfect 2 b/w Mad Max: Fury Road at the drive-in!)...

Hey, buddy! Run, don't walk to the box office and get yerself a ticket!

While I am a fan of George Lucas's dystopic science fiction debut, THX 1138 (1971), this particular evening's trip to the movies was all about seeing Steven Spielberg's small screen masterpiece, Duel (1971), on the big screen.  Watching Dennis Weaver twitch and sweat his way through the back roads of California with a crazed truck driver on his tail was pretty intense on my old 9-inch TV.  How twitchy and sweaty would he look when he's 38 feet tall and 18 feet wide? 

Let's find out by taking a closer look...

Twitchy and sweaty.

David Mann (Dennis Weaver) is a white-collar worker who has left the comfy confines of his office in the city and hit the road on a business trip.

Of course as the movie begins, we don't know any of this —  who our protagonist is, what he does for a living, where he is going and why — because for the first five minutes of the film we are only privy to one thing: that we are in motion.  For much of the beginning of Duel, the viewer sees only what our protagonist sees.

In fact, for the first five minutes of the movie, we are the protagonist: we back out of the garage and pull onto the streets of our neighborhood, we drive through the city and dodge traffic and pedestrians while the downtown buildings loom over us, we merge onto the the freeways that take us out of town and into the countryside.  (Unfortunately, I don't think we get our S.A.G. card or even a paycheck for any of this.)

We could even take this a little further and say that our identification at the beginning of the film is not with the driver at all, but with the car itself.  The camera sits rather low, below the eye level of the vehicle's operator.  When we come upon another car, its bumper and license plate is directly ahead of us, not its rear windshield.  Our point-of-view, then, is not with Mann but with his machine.

(Don't worry, folks, I have a Masters Degree in Film Studies.  I am a professional; you are in good hands.)

Slow and low, that is the tempo.

While we move from the city to the country, the movie's soundtrack is morning, "drive time" radio.  The incessant gabble of traffic, weather, sports, commercials, and news that flows from the car's speakers proves one thing: "morning zoo" radio was just as lame in 1971 as it is today.

One of the shows we listen to is a disc jockey who calls the census bureau pretending to have a question about whether or not he should register as the head of the household:

"I lost the position as head of the family...I stay at home. I hate working...So, she works, and I do the housework and take care of the babies and things like that...I'm really not the head of the family, and yet I'm the man of the family. Although there are people who would question that."

As the woman on the other end of the phone tries to help the DJ save his masculinity, the camera moves inside the car, and we get our first glimpse of David Mann in the rearview mirror.

Duel's screenplay was written by Richard Matheson (based on his short story that was published in Playboy magazine in April 1971).  The loss of masculinity's power in the 20th century is a subject that Matheson tackled in several of his stories, most notably in his 1956 novel The Shrinking Man.  Introducing the character of David Mann in conjunction with a male radio show host discussing the lost position of men in the American family, then, is no mistake.  Masculinity and power (and who wields it) is something that Duel will deal with again and again.  Indeed, it is not too long after Mann's introduction that the first test of his manhood occurs.

As the DJ blathers on, Mann comes upon a truck.  It is a gas or oil tanker, and it looks like it has been in use since the days of George Bissell and Edwin Drake.  Emblazoned across its back, not once, but twice, is the word "Flammable."  Mann's shiny, little, red car — a Plymouth Valiant — is dwarfed by the rusty, exhaust-bellowing behemoth as he approaches it.  With the truck spewing greasy, black smoke in his grill the way sand is kicked into the face of the 98-pound weakling in a Charles Atlas ad, Mann puts the pedal to the metal and zips past his tormentor.

If only getting rid of bullies was as easy as doing a few exercises in front of the mirror at home or speeding past them on the road, eh, David Mann?

Thinking that he'd left the smelly ol' truck in his rearview, Mann is very surprised when the truck, in turn, passes him.  Unaware of what lies in wait for him over the rest of the day, Mann attempts a little vehicular oneupmanship and passes the truck again. As Mann speeds away, the truck's horn screams its frustration and anger.  Mann turns to look at the truck, and for the first time (but certainly not the last) he looks a little worried.  "Just what have I gotten myself into here?" he seems to be wondering.

"Chief?..."

It must be pointed out that in Matheson's original script, Mann's car is described as "a low-power, economy model."  In other words, he doesn't drive a gas-guzzling "muscle" car; he drives a fuel-efficient compact.  In a country like America, where conspicuous consumption rules and one's belongings are a sign to others of one's status, Mann's choice of "a low-power, economy model" car is a symbol of his lack of power — physically and economically.  He may try to outrun the big boys, but they'll catch him in the end. And when they do...look out, David Mann.

Mann pulls into a gas station.  As he exchanges some witty repartee with the attendant (Mann: "Just fill it with ethyl."  Gas Jockey: "If Ethyl don't mind!"  Har-har-har.), who should come pulling into the station, but Mann's road buddy.  Mann sits in his car contemplating the truck, perhaps even waiting for the tough guy to climb down out of his cab and give him a hard time.  Instead, the trucker just sits there...waiting...

This is one of the places where Duel really excels: the sense of mystery surrounding this truck and its driver.  Spielberg never shows much more of the driver than a beefy arm or a cowboy-booted foot.  (We catch sight of a face briefly when Mann passes the truck, but this is only fleeting.)  There's never an explanation.  And it's this lack of motivation that really turns the screws on the viewer.  Who is this guy?  Why is he doing this to poor McCloud?  Like trying to find out how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.  And that's where real terror dwells.

I'm sure if this movie were remade for today's audiences, we'd be given the whole backstory of the truck driver.  We'd have to know all the whys and wherefores.  Say, maybe the driver is Gerrit Graham's character from Robert Zemeckis's 1980 picture, Used Cars?  My god, that's it!  He hates red cars so much, he'll force them all off the road!

It's at the gas station that we're given some foreshadowing and another glimpse at the precarious grasp that men had on their masculinity in the early days of the Women's Lib Movement:

Attendant: “Looks like you could use a new radiator hose.” 

Mann: “Where have I heard that before? I'll get one later.” 

Attendant: “You're the boss.” 

Mann: “Not in my house, I'm not.”

Mann asks the attendant to use the phone.  He drops a dime and calls his wife.  As he talks to her, we get fed a little more information. For instance, Mann is taking this particular road trip to get to a hard-to-please client who is leaving for Hawaii the next day.  It is intimated that Mann's success in reaching this client will have some bearing on his status in his office.  He just has to reach his destination or else his position as breadwinner is in jeopardy.

We also learn that Mann's wife is angry at him for not sticking up for her at a dinner party the night before:

Mann: “I'm sorry about last night.” 

Wife: “I don't really want to talk about it.” 

Mann: “Well, don't you think maybe we ought to?” 

Wife: “No, because if we talk about it, we'll fight, and you wouldn't want that, would you?  Of course not.” 

Mann: “What is that supposed to mean?” 

Wife: “Oh, never mind.” 

Mann: “Just a minute.  I know what it's supposed to mean.  It means you think I should go out and call Steve Henderson up and challenge him to a fistfight or something.” 

Wife: “No, of course not.  But you could have at least said something to the man.  I mean, after all, he practically tried to rape me in front of the whole party.” 

Mann: “Oh, come on, honey.” 

Wife: “Just forget it.”

Things ain't looking too good for ol' Davey Mann's manhood, are they?  Not only is his position in the office teetering on the edge of ruin — "If I don't reach him today, I could lose the account." — but his ability to protect his loved ones at home is being called into question, as well.

This entire conversation is taking place in a laundromat attached to the gas station.  Spielberg places his camera in an interesting position: beyond the washers and dryers with Mann framed in the doorway, beyond which sits the truck.  As he talks to his wife, a woman enters the laundromat, walks past Mann, and opens the dryer to remove her clothes.  Shot in this way, Mann is literally caught between a frock and a hard place.

That's right.  I said it.

It's early days yet in Duel, but already, through the superior use of sound, dialogue, editing and camerawork, the viewer knows exactly what is at stake for David Mann.  Steven Spielberg was only 24-years-old when he directed this movie, and for a filmmaker this young to have such control of his craft is quite remarkable.  Of course, it helps to have a stable of thoroughbreds at your service (Richard Matheson writing your screenplay, Dennis Weaver in front of the camera, Jack A. Marta behind it), but it takes a very talented person to hold the reins on those artistic horses and get them to go where he/she wants them.  Mystery writer and ex-jockey Dick Francis once told Kurt Vonnegut (who was surprised that Francis was bigger than he'd imagined him to be) that it took a big man to hold a horse together during a steeplechase.  Duel is a cinematic steeplechase, a grueling race filled with harrowing obstacles.  Only fifteen minutes in, and Spielberg has shown us that he is a big enough man to hold this particular horse together.

Over the next 75 minutes, the stakes keep rising for David Mann (and the viewer).  He is chased up and down mountain roads at speeds close to 100 m.p.h.!  He's forced off the road and laughed at by rednecks!  He has to dodge the truck...and rattlesnakes...while on foot!  Heck, at one point, he has to make a desperate telephone call while some skinny, beardless kid and a camera crew watch him!  I can only imagine what it was like to see Duel on TV on that fateful November night in 1971.  With every commercial break, the viewer had to be asking him/herself, "What on earth is gonna happen to this poor guy next?" 

Yes, I see you out there, Steven, and, no, you can't use the phone!

At the screening I attended at the Aero, the audience shifted in their seats, moaning and groaning uncomfortably, as the truck driver cut Mann off every time he tried to pass.  A woman sitting behind me gasped aloud as the truck driver motioned for Mann to pass him on a twisting mountain road only for an oncoming car, coming around a blind corner, to nearly hit him head-on.  Like Mann, she whispered, "My God!" as she realized that the trucker meant for Mann to hit the other driver.  With every escalation in road rage, the audience became more tense and more focused on seeing what was coming round the corner next.

Editor Frank Moriss deserves a lot of credit for keeping a good rhythm during these sequences.  Without resorting to today's quickie-cut school of editing (where a single shot never seems to stay around longer than a second - no matter what emotion the scene is trying to convey), Moriss uses fast-slow editing patterns to keep the audience, like Mann, off balance.  As Mann's anger builds, as he approaches the truck and is rebuffed, the editing begins to speed up.  In those moments when Mann pulls away from truck, the editing slows down, giving the audience time to breathe, to think, like Mann, it's over.

Apparently, Gregory Peck was originally up for the role of David Mann.  When Universal could not get him, Dennis Weaver was chosen, and the film, instead of being made as a feature film for release to theaters, was given the green light as a made-for-tv movie.  As much as I love Gregory Peck, I don't think anyone plays arrogant, paranoid loser quite like Weaver.  For one thing, his voice is higher-pitched than Peck's, and it breaks whenever he gets emotional or starts whining about something.  Not only does Duel look at the state of men and manhood in the 1970s, it also is a study of the dichotomies between the city vs. the country, white-collar vs. blue-collar, civilization vs. barbarity.  Gregory Peck is Atticus Finch, for crying out loud!  I could see him being able to take quite good care off himself out there on the open road.  Dennis Weaver, on the hand, stinks of panic sweat throughout.  He's losing ground in the office and at home, and now he's got a lunatic wielding a truck like a loaded gun to deal with.  As the movie progresses, Weaver exudes a hysteric desperateness that is perfect for the character of David Mann.

Duel builds to a satisfying crescendo that is both cathartic and bleak.  Like Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) or Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971), we get the gratification of seeing the weak hero become strong for the final stand, but there is a cost for such a victory.  In order to defeat brutality, we sometimes have to become just as brutal, and it is cold comfort to be the last man standing.  Come the end of the film, Mann scampers on the edge of a cliff, as well as the edge of his own sanity and humanity.

It is interesting that both THX 1138 and Duel end with similar shots.  In both, the main characters are framed with the setting sun behind them.  In Lucas's film, the hero has emerged from underground into the open air.  He has escaped a repressive society and taken his first steps in to freedom.  In Duel, Mann sits on the edge of cliff tossing rocks at his defeated enemy.  In both films, the setting sun suggests that hard earned victories are never what we think they will be.  It's a powerful image, one that seems to say that sometimes, when we least expect it, circumstances show us that we aren't as evolved as we like to think we are.  As David Mann says, "There you are, right back in the jungle again."

THX 1138

 

Duel

Revenge

Initially, I was not planning on seeing Revenge (Coralie Fargeat, 2018).

The first I’d heard of the picture was while my wife and I were at Santa Monica, CA’s Aero Theater for a screening of Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981) and The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979). When the trailer for Revenge hit the screen, the crowd got really excited, but I sort of shrugged my shoulders at it. Not because the entire movie seemed to be given away in the trailer (which it is), but because it was framed and, as I discovered later after doing some research, being marketed as the latest and greatest addition to the rape-revenge canon.

I’ve seen a few of the films that are held up as paragons of the rape-revenge genre: Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972), They Call Her One-Eye (Bo Arne Vibenius, 1973), and I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978). I’ve seen such highfalutin examples as Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960) (the film upon which Craven’s Last House was based) and Julie Taymor’s Titus (1999) (based on William Shakespeare’s play, Titus Andronicus). I’ve also seen countless movies — too many to list— that are not strictly rape-revenge, but do feature sexual assault in one form or another. While glad that I saw them, I don’t count them as being among my favorite viewing experiences.

My attitude toward seeing the picture changed soon after, because I was able to attend a pre-release screening at the Aero Theater with the director, Coralie Fargeat, and the star, Mathilda Lutz, in attendance. It was playing as part of a quadruple bill along with The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005), Mad Max: Fury Road - Black & Chrome (George Miller, 2015), and Aliens (James Cameron, 1986). I mean...c’mon!...how could I resist?!

I’m really glad that I went. Revenge was much better than I imagined it would be. (Which, really, is a lesson that I should have learned by now. Books, covers, judging...and all that.) Revenge may be a dish that is best served cold (at least according to the Klingons), but Coralie Fargeat has served up a steaming hot plate fairly overflowing with bloody, meaty retribution.

Let’s take a closer look…

Red Band trailer. You have been warned.

(Note: There was a mix-up with the digital projection when I saw it. Many of the characters speak French throughout the movie, but the subtitles were not turned on for the first 10 minutes or so. I might have missed quite a bit of exposition at the start of the picture, but, in the end, it wasn’t necessary.)

The movie opens with Richard (Kevin Janssens) and Jen (Mathilda Lutz) flying in a helicopter across the desert. They arrive at a secluded, modernistic house. After the lovers disembark from the helicopter, the pilot gives Richard as a gift a small package containing peyote. And to think, whenever I fly I only get a package of pretzels at best!

Richard, it turns out is married, Jen is his mistress, and this trip to the middle of nowhere is an opportunity for them to spend some time together before Richard’s friends show up for their annual hunting trip. Richard and Jen only get the house (and each other) to themselves for a little while, because Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède) arrive a day early, guns in hand. Whoops! Guess someone should have put a sock on the door knob!

The foursome party throughout the night with Jen, wanting to be friendly to Richard’s friends, leading the charge. Mucho boozo is consumed — enough that I was getting a contact buzz just watching the picture! At one point, tackling the peyote is discussed, but Richard claims that it is an extremely potent and dangerous blend. Apparently, a guy Richard knows who partook of it, engaged in a little self-surgery without realizing it until it was too late! (Foreshadowing alert!) Instead of letting Stan and Dimitri gets their mitts on it, Richard asks Jen to hide it so no one can find it. Out of sight of the men, she places it in a locket she is wearing.

The next day, with hangovers in full effect, Jen finds herself alone with Stan and Dimitri. Richard has left in order to get their hunting paperwork in order. Dimitri is floating around in the pool in a post-drunken haze, leaving Stan and Jen to entertain each other, something the young woman is loath to do. She politely gives Stan the brush-off (not in a cold, calculated way, but in a “well, it sure was nice meeting you, but I gotta go pack so I can leave you guys to shoot defenseless animals for fun” kind of way). Stan does not appreciate being told he is not Jen’s type. He follows her and corners her in her room. Enter Dimitri, who, while unwilling to join Stan, is equally unwilling to stop him. Instead, he closes the bedroom door behind him as he walks back to the living room to watch tv and eat chocolate. Jen screams as Stan rapes her (an act that the audience does not witness); Dimitri turns up the volume on the tv to block it all out.

Later, when Richard returns, he finds the men sitting in the living room looking chagrined and Jen holed up in the bedroom. While he is angry at Stan, he doesn’t do himself any favors in Jen’s (or the audience’s) eyes as he offers to pay her off and relocate her from Los Angeles to Canada. (Who needs the City of Angels when you have chance to live in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, am I right?) Jen, of course, refuses the bribe. She tries to run away, but the men chase her down to the edge of a cliff. Trapped, Jen demands that she be allowed to leave. Richard gains Jen’s trust by pretending to call the helicopter pilot. He gets close to her, then shoves her over the cliff’s edge. Jen lands on her back on a tree, impaling herself. Richard, Stan, and Dimitri leave the scene, nonplussed, because...well...there's hunting to go and do. I mean, those defenseless animals aren’t going to hunt themselves.

This is when things take a turn for the weird and the mythic.

Jen doesn’t let being a human shish kabab get in her way. Heck, she doesn’t even let being a human ant farm get in her way. Showing an amount of moxie and ingenuity that makes John Rambo look like Julius Kelp, Jen disengages herself from the tree and makes her escape.

Meanwhile, les trois stooges go back to the cliff to make sure Jen is really dead. (One wonders if this is how the hunting trip would have gone: animals are shot at but only checked on much later to see if they've been hit.) All they find of Jen is a trail of blood leading out into the desert.

And, at that point, the hunt is on.

I’ll stop here with the plot summary. If you’ve seen the trailer, then none of this should be a shock. Past this point, there be tygers. Fargeat really starts turning the thumbscrews on the characters and the audience once the men realize they have to run Jen to ground. And you just know that, at some point, Jen is going to turn the tables on the men. They don’t call the movie Revenge for nothing, after all.

There are some wonderful set pieces throughout the film: Jen’s peyote-induced self-surgery in the cave, Stan’s one-man battle with a piece of glass in his foot (which is queasily played for gut-busting laughs as well as gut-churning screams), and the chase through the house between Jen and Richard (who is chasing whom?!) are all excellent.

The color palette and the setting are what really make Revenge something to see, especially on the big screen. Fargeat’s choice to place the action in the middle of the desert lends a sense of otherworldliness to the proceedings. The vast flatness of the environment makes Revenge feel like a play on the world’s biggest stage. The setting dwarfs the characters while at the same time makes their actions seem larger than life. It’s a fascinating irony. The colors, too, make the action seem strange and heightened. Fargeat chose bright colors that make everything seem as though it were drenched in neon. Like the setting, the colors make the characters and their actions seem utterly fake and all too real at the same time.

Trailer for Revenge that features actual

comments made by men. Hilarious.

There has been a lot of talk in critical circles about how revolutionary and revelatory Revenge is. More experienced filmgoers may wonder what all the hubbub is about. Anyone who has seen any of the rape-revenge movies mentioned above will feel a sense of déja vu when watching Revenge. They may even feel it necessary to ask why Revenge is being considered a feminist classic and a big middle finger to rape culture while pioneering films like Ms. 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981) and I Spit On Your Grave (both much stronger versions of Revenge) were considered exploitative trash when released (and still are now, decades later, for all I know).

The reason that Revenge has been taken to the bosom of modern film audiences is simple: the culture is changing. As I write this, the Los Angeles Times has announced that former Hollywood bigwig, Harvey Weinstein, has been indicted by a grand jury in New York on rape and sexual assault charges. Women who have had to suffer in silence for years — decades even (think on that for a moment...living in fear and silence for DECADES) — no longer have to feel as though they are alone. The culture of #TimesUp and #MeToo is changing the way the topic of sexual assault is discussed and the way that victims feel about themselves. A new culture in which victims of rape — 1 out of every 6 women and 1 out of every 33 men — no longer have to feel afraid is being created right before our eyes. That new culture is going to be the soil out of which new (and hopefully better) art will grow. It will also be the glass through which we will see already existing art anew — for better and for worse.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. I don’t know of anyone who would think of talking about a book, a movie, a poem, a painting without talking about the wider world in which it is a part. A good movie should be in conversation with its generic predecessors and with the cultural upheavals of its time.

For instance, when I saw Jordan Peele’s film Get Out (2017), I couldn’t help but be reminded of other films: Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968), Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966), and The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975) to name only a few. Not all viewers caught the references, but instead saw Get Out as a call-to-arms for the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

If a moviegoer sees Revenge and doesn't recognize the echoes of I Spit On Your Grave, The Virgin Spring, Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991), and a host of other flicks in it, then maybe they'll see it as a feminist call-to-arms and the ultimate film of the #MeToo movement. Either way the movie is doing its job.

Revenge may not be the best or most original (a word I find to be troublesome at the very least, but I'll save that conversation for another blog post) action thriller out there, but what it lacks in cinematic innovation, it more than makes up for in style, chutzpah (that “glass in the foot” scene! AAAAARRRGHHH!!!), and timeliness. Revenge, like Get Out, is the perfect movie for its moment. While not quite as good as Jordan Peele’s movie, Revenge is still a pretty entertaining ride.

Now, where did my steel-bottomed boots get to...

Stan (Vincent Colombe) being a big baby.

The Devil Within Her

This 1975 flick directed by Peter Sasdy goes by a lot of titles - The Devil Within Her, Sharon's Baby, and I Don't Want To Be Born to name a few -  but they all mean one thing: killer baby movie!

You gotta love the “killer baby” sub-genre. Some movies give you a killer kid deformed by chemicals, and some give you murderous munchkins malformed by mutants from outer space. But I bet if you counted them up, then the vast majority would be about diabolical delinquents deformed by the devil!

Yes, Satan hisself! Ol’ Scratch. Lucifer. Hob. Whatever you want to call him, it’s the fellow with the horns, pitchfork, and red hue that’s to blame for kiddies pushing their nannies out of windows and the mothers tossing themselves down stairwells.

And we sorta, kinda, maybe have the devil to blame for the satanic shenanigans and ghastly goings-on in The Devil Within Her. Or…it could be that we have another “D” word to point the finger at: a dwarf!

Or maybe a devilish dwarf? Or a dwarfish devil?

It’s all very confusing. Let’s take a closer look...

The Devil Within Her opens the only way a movie like this should: with Lucy Carlesi (Joan Collins) screaming her bloody head off. Ol’ Lucy is nine months prego and on the table at her local hospital, trying to rid herself of the little parasite...er...I mean little angel. The close-ups and cutting from shot to shot are disturbing: lots of sweaty foreheads and terrified eyes above surgical masks. The li’l monster doesn’t want to come out to play, so the doctor makes with the forceps. Out comes the kid with a POP! — and the look on everyone’s faces lets you know that not everything is hunky-dory.

(Side note: the music playing over the opening credits sounds like a poor man’s WINGS. Which is saying quite a bit…none of which is good.)

Things soon reveal themselves to be out of the ordinary: while nursing and cuddling her newborn son, Lucy is scratched across the face…or rather she is clawed. A shot of her son shows blood dripping from his fingers and lips, so it wasn’t just a defensive maneuver on Junior’s part. Mom wasn’t hugging him too closely, he was hungry…for something a little more tangy than mother’s milk. Blood is thicker than water…or milk…after all.

Proud papa, Gino (Ralph Bates), just thinks little Nicholas (Nicholas? Nicky? Nick…another name for the devil? Hmmm.) is just big boned and randy for his age, but Lucy knows better. She tells her friend, Mandy (Caroline Munro), that something strange happened on her last night dancing professionally (wink, wink…nudge, nudge) at a local club may have had more to do with Nicky’s rambunctiousness.

Lucy tells Mandy that her former dance partner, Hercules (George Claydon), a dwarf dressed in Harlequin gear, came on to her on her final night. Rebuffed by Lucy, Hercules spits a curse in anger at her: “You will have a baby, a monster, an evil monster conceived in your womb. As big as I am small and possessed by the devil himself!"

We can assume Hercules didn’t sign the “Good luck in the future” card for Lucy or chip in on the ice cream cake in the break room.

Of course, Lucy is assured that Hercules the dwarf had nothing to do with Nicky’s birth and the subsequent goofy goings-on. And of course, we the audience know that’s a load of rationalist, spoil-sport hoo-ha!

The Devil Within Her proceeds as planned. Gino’s sister is…care to have a guess?…you got it: a nun! She blesses Nicky upon seeing him for the first time, and the baby throws the biggest temper tantrum this side of the seventh circle of Hell. There are scenes at the baby’s christening (hint: it don’t go well), scenes of Lucy’s pediatrician, Dr. Finch (Donald Pleasance) looking worried and guilty as if he knows something (and has Donald Pleasance ever looked otherwise?), and scenes of escalating mayhem as the baby lashes out more and more and more.

I don’t think What To Expect When You’re Expecting covered baby’s murdering their nannies and knocking off their doctors.

Whatever you care to call this movie, do not call it faint-of-heart. There’s lots to love here. The fashions are steeped in the 70s’ love of earthtones and distressing patterns. (Maybe little Nicky just hates paisley and houndstooth?) The movie also knows how to build things up. The violence escalates nicely as the film proceeds. There are also some nice creepy touches — Gino finding himself on the wrong side of his son’s graces in the backyard at night is just one of them. Since this is the 1970s, the soundtrack is psychedelic and sleazy, and it adds to the weirdness of the images.

Joan Collins was only a few years away from taking on the role that would define her in the minds of yuppies and lovers of conspicuous consumption everywhere, that of Alexis Carrington on the American nighttime soap opera Dynasty. She was also only a few years removed from another role that many genre fans hold dear to their hearts: Edith Keeler on the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.” It might be hard people to reconcile these roles with the many sleazy, creepy ones she played in the 1970s. In addition to this film, Collins also played a part in the horror film classics Tales From the Crypt (Freddie Francis, 1972), Fear In the Night (Jimmy Sangster, 1972), and Dark Places (Don Sharp, 1973). She also starred in two slightly softcore sex pics based on her sister’s, Jackie Collins, novels: The Stud (Quentin Masters, 1978) and The Bitch (Gerry O’Hara, 1979). Seeing her disheveled (and in a state of dishabille) is slightly strange when one is used to her being perfectly coiffed and dressed. I kinda like the down and dirty Joan, truth be told.

The Devil Within Her is a nasty piece of filmmaking, and I mean that in the best way possible. Not sure if you can chalk up the influx of killer baby movies in the 1970s to the feminist movement and the abortion issue, but I’m sure these movies tapped into a deep-seeded fear that folks had of the younger generation…even the youngest generation possible!

C.H.U.D.

“A recent article in a New York newspaper reported that there were large colonies of people living under the city. The paper was incorrect. What is living under the city is not human. C.H.U.D. is under the city."

Great tagline…great movie!

C.H.U.D. (Douglas Cheek, 1984) is a classic of the 1980s. It’s gooey and gory and goofy. But beyond that, like any horror movie worth its salt, it’s got some interesting things to say about what life during the Reagan years was doing to the people who lived then…above and below the streets of our larger cities.

C.H.U.D.: come for the slime, stay for the subtext!

Let’s take a closer look...

It’s 1984. It’s America. Ronnie Raygun has been guest-starring as “The President of the United States” for the past four years. And Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk has yet to be Disneyfied. The buildings are still decrepit, the streets are still mean, and the people are still decrepit and mean. The American urban landscape has never seemed closer to the debauched environs surrounding Castle Dracula.

As our film opens, a woman walks her dog down the rain-soaked streets of the city…although seeing this is NYC in the 80s, they could easily be blood-, urine-, or semen-soaked, as well. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, our dog-walker stops her excursion next to a steaming manhole cover. In an extreme example of New York City’s “Keep Our Streets Clean” campaign, an animal-like arm shoots out from the manhole, grabs ahold of a fashionably clad foot, and pulls the damsel and her doggie into the netherworld.

Self-cleaning streets! Maybe Mayor Ed Koch wasn’t as big a knucklehead as he seemed?

The next day we are introduced to photographer George Copper (John Heard). George is a man caught between two worlds: the lucrative world of fashion and commercial photography and the artistic world of documentary photography. George’s lady friend, Lauren Daniels (Kim Greist), is a model who is counting on him to work with her on her next shoot. George, however, has plans of his own.

George had been working an exposé for a magazine highlighting the lives of the scores of homeless people who live beneath the streets of the city. The article’s deadline is fast approaching, and George’s editor, Derrick, wants his pictures. George is an artiste and will serve no wine until its time, as it were. He is holding back the photos he has in order to find the perfect shot. Unfortunately, enough time has passed that George is unaware of where his original subjects have gotten off to. As luck (or convenient screenwriting) would have it, one of his photographic subjects soon gets in touch with George…people are allowed one phone call when they are arrested for trying to lift a cop’s gun, after all. Relieved to have an excuse to leave, George hightails it from Lauren’s fashion shoot to bail the poor woman out.

Meanwhile, the police are having quite a rash of “missing persons” cases lately. Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) has been keeping a lid on these cases in the Lafayette neighborhood for Police Chief O’Brien (Eddie Jones) long enough. Fed up with the bureaucracy, Bosch takes things into his own hands.

He visits a local soup kitchen run by the “Reverend” A.J. Shepherd (Daniel Stern). The Rev and Bosch have a history together — and it ain’t necessarily the kind that breeds love and trust. The Rev has reported that a lot of the homeless people that visit his shelter have gone missing. And not just the “regular” street people, either. It is specifically the “undergrounders” who have disappeared. Bosch discloses that other people have gone missing, too, including his wife (the woman out walking her dog at the beginning of the movie). Soon, the Rev and the Captain join forces with George Cooper to investigate not only the missing homeless folks, but the reasons for a so-called “routine” inspection of the sewers of NYC by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Committee.

A movie like C.H.U.D. walks a dangerous line. At any moment it could cross into the utterly absurd and become more humorous and ridiculous than it needs be. Thankfully, the acting in this flick is very good. Each of the leads is your typical New York school character actor, and each delivers his/her lines with utter believability. The early scenes with Bosch and the Rev are especially juicy, and they lend credences to the history these characters have together, as well as the grudging respect that grows between them.

But let’s face it: we ain’t watching C.H.U.D. for the acting — no matter how good it may be. This is a monster movie, after all, so bring on the latex, the fake blood, and the glowing goo! The Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers are kept in the background for most of the film. Their presentation in the first half of the movie is made up of off-screen growls and shadows. This reluctance to show the monster isn’t like Steven Spielberg’s choice to hold back the shark’s introduction in Jaws (1975) because the SFX didn’t work. Au contraire! Holding back only makes their eventual appearance more shocking. The CHUDs look creepy and great. A combination of full latex body appliances with some animatronics and puppets thrown in for the really outré stuff (stretchy neck CHUD, fer instance!), the monsters add a high degree of grotesquery and believability to the proceedings. Like any good monster, you’ll want to cover your eyes and look at the same time.

All of the above — the acting and the SFX — are used to good effect to comment on a world in which government on every level is more concerned with covering its ass over the disposal of nuclear waste in a major metropolitan area than with the effects said waste has on the under- and un-privileged homeless. Laugh all you want, but C.H.U.D. is an excellent example of the ways that the genre films of the 1970s and 1980s were better adapted than their more upscale brethren for dealing with the horrors of modern life. Life during the time of the Vietnam War, Watergate, Love Canal, Three Mile Island, the Moral Majority, and the rise of the New Right had to be understood as being a complete fantasy — albeit the darkest and most nightmarish of fantasies. Movies like John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982), and, yes, C.H.U.D. are horror films on one level and political allegories / critiques on another. Understanding the monster in the closet or under the bed is the only way of understanding the monster behind the pulpit or in the Oval Office.

C.H.U.D. was one of those movies that I knew more from pictures in Fangoria magazine than from actually seeing it. Looking obsessively at the film stills and behind-the-scene photos of the monsters in the movie creeped me the hell out as a little kid. The greenish color in all of the photos gave a patina of sordidness to the flick. Thanks to HBO (and parents who let me stay up all hours watching whatever dreck I wanted), I saw the movie about a year after reading about it. At the time, I was more than happy to enjoy it as a straight-up gory monster movie. Time has been kinder to C.H.U.D. than it has to other movies of the time period. Now when I watch it, I see it as the end product of a society searching for a mythology that will help it deal with horrors. Not of the silver screen variety, mind you, but of the all-too-real kind they saw on the evening news.