Corpses (USA, 2004)

Many years ago there was a wall that divided the city of Berlin, but it eventually fell.
What’s that got to do with Corpses, Rolfe Kanefsky's shot-on-video, direct-to-DVD movie from 2004? Not much, actually, but for some reason this flick sent me down memory lane to my life here in Berlin shortly after Germany reunified.
Directly after the West finally swallowed the East, three guys I knew opened a bar in the former East on Oranienburgerstrasse in an old fruits and vegetable shop, the first "hip" bar on that side of the city opened by "Wessies." Called "Obst & Gemuse" — after the shop's old back-lit glass signage that still was installed above the storefront — the place was a huge hit, and for a long time it really brought in the bucks for the owners. I worked there for many a year and probably have never earned as well anywhere else since then.
As a way of building employee morale, once a year the bosses would organize a joint holiday for all the bar employees, usually to some obscure East German location where we would all drink and take drugs for a week to ten days. Once, an old school pal of one of the bosses tagged along and brought an early HD Super 8 video camera with him. And I, in a moment of stoned brilliance, suggested we film a home-made horror film, a trashy incoherent little mess in which every employee bit the dust one after the other, the murderer being revealed at the end as one of the bosses. A fun time-waster that only those involved ever enjoys sitting through, our special effects consisted of ketchup and pieces of grill meat.
At the next year's vacation, I repeated the event, only this time the plot concerned how almost everyone got fucked to death by one of the female bartenders until the bar's Don Juan screwed her to death and then flew off to heaven. (Some of the staff also died in other ways: I pulled my cock off while jerking off in the shower and bled to death, my best bud fell down the stairs while sleepwalking and John Denver's Country Roads drove the bar stoner to kill himself.) Again, another film that is fun to watch only if you were in it.
So, what's all this got to do with Corpses? Well, Corpses sort of feels like a group of actors and their neighbors got together one weekend, smoked a lot of pot and then suddenly decided to make a horror film just for the hell of it. OK, they obviously also decided to spend both a bit more time on the plot and filming as well as more money on the props, effects and locations, but then, as actors (of sorts) they should have higher expectations when doing this sort of thing than bartenders.
The final result, I am happy to say, is that as stupid and infantile the film might be, the film is at least also relatively fun to watch even for those people who were not involved in the multi-weekend project. Which is not to say that Corpses is a good film, for it really isn't, but it is a fun film and is particularly well-suited for a pot-heavy DVD night with the undiscerning and non-demanding boys. But, damn it, even the boys will probably bitch about those annoying computer-generated swipes used to change scenes and the fact that scream-queen Tiffany Shepis didn't show more tit (for a woman that supposedly has "no problems with nudity" she sure keeps her bra on waaaaaay too much). And, maybe, if the minds aren't heavily fogged by Mary Jane, the guys might also slag off about what a lousy actor Jeff Fahey is… man, the depths that man has fallen since Psycho III (1986). Really, just when you think you've seen his worst acting yet, he comes out with another film that even tops the level of incompetence he showed in the prior film. But maybe we shouldn't judge too hard here: not only is he at least better than he was in Lawnmower Man (1992), but Corpses is, after all, a just-for-fun weekend project. Or at least I hope it was.
Corpses takes some basic plot lines found in any given suburban soap opera (money grubbing woman leaves man for man with more money who, blinded by his love for the bitch, plays along in destroying the livelihood of the ex-husband who, in turn, although still hot for his ex-wife, now plots revenge against her even as she sets out to both get all her ex's money and also get rid of the bothersome daughter of her new man who happens to have a relationship with the deadhead helper of the wronged man, etc etc) and crosses it with the basic plot device (and serum colour) of Re-Animator (1985) and its sequels. The final result is a hit-and-miss comedy with a few truly inspirationally humorous gore sequences and a lot of so-so chuckles. The acting is broad and on occasion truly abysmal, but Robert Donovan is appropriately cheesy as the wronged mortician Fred, Tifany Shepis is, well, fuckably hot as Rhonda, the daughter of the local police chief Capt. Winston (Jeff Fahey), and Lorielle New as Bas, the hooker zombie, walks away with the film every time she's on screen: a junkie while alive, Bas is a junkie for the serum while undead. Her best scene is that in which she kills another hooker and a john while… well, hell, go rent the DVD yourself.
The junkie aspect, actually, is a running joke and catalyst of the film: Fred's magical revival serum only remains effective for an hour, so come 60 minutes the given zombie is scratching its arm for the next fix. But when the last of the serum gets dropped, the zombies go on a rampage...
In any event, Corpses is a tackily cute, cheaply gory, and professionally made cheesy little home video that manages to get enough laughs to make up for its numerous flaws. If you like movies like Dead & Breakfast (2004), you'll probably find this one OK, too. But still, to borrow that great banned radio tag-line from Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke (1978): "Don't go straight to see this movie."

Tokyo Drifter/Tokyo nagaremono (Japan, 1966)

A Pop Art masterpiece amongst Japanese gangster films. Director Suzuki Seijun was a studio director who assembly-lined some 40 productions between 1956 and 1967 before finally getting sacked by studio bigwigs who found his style becoming too extreme. (As a result, he spent the next ten years working in television before finally returning to the cinema with Hishu Monogatari in 1977.) Tokyo Drifter is relatively bloodless, more so by standards present than past, but by the standards of any given generation it is an aesthetically bizarre and fascinating film indeed. The film tells the story of Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari), a Yakuza gangster — you know, those Japanese gangsters that like to implant pearls under the skin of their pricks — who, to help his beloved boss, decides to drift off around Japan, whistling or singing the film’s theme song and pondering about life until the end finally comes. Leaving his sweetheart behind, the nattily dressed Tetsu wanders through snow covered landscapes and western saloons without any real destination in mind, followed by "Viper" Tatsu (Tamio Kawaji), an enemy hitman out for blood. Whenever the end seems near, though, Tetsu whips out his guns and either shoots or fights his way to freedom. At times melancholic and often rather funny, the film is a violent contemplation about love, trust, honor and betrayal. However, the inane locations, total lack of any logic and continuity, extreme colors, stylized violence and overall inanity remove any vestiges of reality from the film. Tokyo Drifter is actually more a surreal, visual presentation of a gangster’s multicolored acid inspired nightmare than a normal crime film. The first five minutes alone, filmed in a greyless black and white and ending with the remnants of a neon orange gun lying on the ground, let the viewer know that they are in for one strange narrative roller coaster ride. Sixties Pop Inspired Avante-Garde Style-Conscious Japanese Gangster Cinema—what more can you ask for? (Tits, maybe, but back then you didn't find stuff like that in Japanese films.)

Good Times (USA, 1967)

This is a stinker from the past, but starring Sonny and Cher, what else could be expected? The first film of William Friedkin, Good Times makes it hard to believe that he went on to direct The Boys from the Band (1970) or The Exorcist (1973). The film features one of George Sanders' last performances, and though he manages to shine as an actor in this piece of celluloid dubiousity, the film must be an embarrassment to everyone who took part in it. Although some people nowadays seem to think that Good Times manages to cross over into the realm of "Guilt Pleasures," I for one find this untrue. Good Times is little more than a feature-length presentation of everything horrible that Sonny & Cher were in their later television variety show and lacks any and all of the self-referential insight that might have raised the film to a higher level. Thus, even the occasional creative idea or rare visual surprise gets suffocated by the pervading middleclass attitude. All in all, Good Times remains agonizingly embarrassing from beginning to end. (Rather unlike another pop music film of that time, the Monkees' fab film Head (1968), which is less a "Guilty Pleasure" than an actual pop masterpiece.)
Sonny and Cher play themselves as two successful middleclass hippie musicians who spend their time happily shopping, singing and dancing when they aren't busy looking deeply into each other's eyes or exchanging unfunny bon mots. The young Cher, pre-plastic surgery and without tattoos, does wear some absolutely fantastic outfits, but Sonny looks likes a chubby fool no matter what he wears. The negligible plot involves the sleazily well played bigwig producer Mr. Mordicus (Sanders) talking Sonny into signing on to make a film, a would-be turkey about Hillbilly Singers in love with their shack. After a few daydreams revolving around Sonny's own ideas on what the film could instead be about, Sonny slowly but surely realizes that he's too inept to make a film and, despite Mr. Mordicus' threats to destroy the singing duo with lawsuits, Sonny bows out. Upon which, of course, Mr. Mordicus, a man who forecloses loans on kingdoms and likes to watch people get the shit beaten out of them, decides to do nothing and Sonny and Cher go dancing off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Gag me. It's a shame that Sonny hadn't also realized in real life that he shouldn't make a film.
Sonny's daydreams — featuring take-offs of High Noon (1952), Tarzan films and detective films — are used as starting points for the two singers to break into a variety of really bad songs, as are the various scenes of the two singers day-to-day life. In fact, everything is used as an excuse for them to start singing. It is this lack of any real story and the haphazard manner in which everything is pasted together that continually makes one feel one is watching a rerun of their variety show from the 1970's instead of a real film. Though the sets, often rather good examples of 1960's Pop, might be a bit better than those of the television show, the jokes are staler and the acting just bad. Good Times is a film best left forgotten. It does feature a three second appearance of Russ Meyer's ex-wife Edy Williams, but, regrettably, she keeps her clothing on.

Creep (England, 2004)

Franka Potente must have been having a bad-script day when she decided to take the lead in this flick. Which is not to say Creep is the worst horror film to hit the screen lately — it is just that the film comes across more like the type of film someone makes at the beginning of their career and not after already establishing a successful one. In this sense, Creep fits perfectly in the career of the Christopher Smith: being his first feature film, he handles his derivative and predictable script with enough verve and professionalism that even if the flick leaves the viewer dissatisfied, it also leaves the viewer thinking that the director might have a bigger and better load to shoot some day in the future. (Indeed, going by the buzz that his last and second horror film Severance (2006) has gotten, it seems Smith might have been popping large amounts of L-Argininel HCL and zinc.)
The basic plot device of Creep is cribbed directly from another film: Raw Meat (aka Death Line), Gary Sherman's misclassified "classic" English horror film from 1972. In their most fundamental forms, both films are about a bloodthirsty killer haunting the London Underground. The background and actual narrative of the films, however, vary greatly. In Raw Meat, the drooling leprous-looking killer is in search of both a new mate as well as fresh meat; in Creep, the malformed albino apparently kills just for the fun of it. (And, in doing so, he sometimes goes to violently gruesome extremes that have seldom been seen since Lucio Fulci lost his touch.) And, whereas the events in Raw Meat span an extended period of time, Creep narrates the nightmarish experiences of the flick's sole survivor over a single night. Furthermore, whereas the origin of Raw Meat's hunter has a plausible ring to it (he is the last in lineage of a mixed-sex group of lowly and disenfranchised workers trapped underground when the entrances of the subways tunnels they were digging caved in and no one thought them worth digging out), the implied origin of Creep's stalker carries more shock effect than plausibility (the function of the improbable underground clinic discovered midway through the film (a gynecologist clinic in the subway — a place that seldom even has a public toilet) implies his origin could be similar to that of the killer kid in Milo (1998)... and, in truth, observant viewers will likewise discover an opening for a possible but hopefully never-to-be-made sequel in that discovery scene).
Creep opens with two sewage workers splashing through the underground sewers of London clearing clogged drainages when low and behold they stumble upon a passage the senior of the two never saw before during his twenty years on the job. Needless to say, they don't make it to the pub that evening. Once the credits role, the film moves on to an after-work party and introduces Kate (Franka Potente), a less-than-likeable wannabe star-fucker who plans to go to some hot party where she hopes to meet and screw George Clooney. (One wonders why the script called for Kate to be such a dislikable bimbo.) But her gal-pal with the invite splits without her, so she heads off to catch up with her via the underground but nods off after one-too-many nips of a bottle. When she awakens, not only is she alone on the platform, but the station is locked up for the night as well. Suddenly a subway car pulls up and she jumps on, followed by someone unknown... further down the line, the car comes to a stop (the driver still in his locked compartment sporting a toothless smile under his chin that spans ear-to-ear), and her unknown stalker turns out to be — George Clooney!
Naw, just kidding, there. Actually, it's Guy (Jeremy Sheffield), a coke-snorting asshole co-worker of hers who promptly tries to do what every male always tries to do when they snort too much coke: rape the bitch. He hardly gets his pecker out of his trousers when he gets pulled out of the subway car and is sliced and diced. The race is on, and for the rest of the film Kate runs here and there and everywhere in an attempt to escape the malformed albino slasher (Sean Harris). Somewhere along the way two homeless junkies — oddly enough, also the two most likeable characters in the film — buy the dust, as does a night watchman in a closed monitoring room and, eventually, the last surviving sewage worker (named George, played by Vas Blackwood). Kate teams up with George after the albino catches her and, instead of going for her guts, stores her in a half-submerged sewage cage next to the cage containing the sewage worker. With the help of high-heels they manage to escape and then they run around together for a bit before Kate finally grows some balls and decides it really is better to kill than be killed...
OK, the film does not lack in viscera. And, in fact, the gynecologist-visit-inspired death of the female junkie Mandy (Kelly Scott) at the hands of the "Creep" is pure torture porn — so those who love the blood are definitely not left disappointed. But other than that, all that Creep offers is a dislikeable lead, one or two passable jolts, a lot of screaming, non-stop running and more plot-holes than London has potholes.
But, really: Wouldn't the unexpected disappearance of two sewage workers that have been assigned underground detail (an acknowledgably dangerous job) result in an immediate search? A subway driver parking a train disappears and no one goes to look for him? (And, being parked at the wrong location as it probably is, no bells go off at the central logistics office?) The subway tunnels not only have entrances to some forgotten underground clinic, but also have access both to sewage and water treatment tunnels as well as immense filing storage rooms? A killer grows up down there for twenty-odd years but is never even suspected? And if he has been killing before, even for any time all, no one notices? (OK, to give credit to where credit is due, the script does refer to "disappearing" homeless and how no one cares about them anyway.) And what is a clinic doing connected to the subway, anyways? Are there no fire alarms anywhere that might be pulled? Would morning cleaning crews clean away all the blood splatters — including one very long trail down a Tube walkway — without saying anything to anyone? An animalistic killer so far removed from "humanity" that it prudishly insists on wearing shorts? (Hmm, must be an American.) A night watchman gets killed in his monitoring room and no one thinks it strange at the shift-change when his room is empty but for a lot of blood? And why do rats always follow the killer around to announce his presence? Worst of all: Kate has the chance twice (!) to kill a monster that she has seen kill others and is also obviously out to kill her and SHE DOESN'T DO IT?!?!!! (But then, they do in these kinds of film, do they?)
If that sounds like your type of film, then go for it. Otherwise, save your DVD rental money for something worth watching.