Shloggs Speaks!

I recently had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Axl and Jscott of my favorite movie podcast Profondo Cinema about life, film and No Country for Old Men on their most recent episode. Please do me a favor and give my ramblings a listen and do yourself a favor by checking out their extensive back catalog. These guys are the best in the business and make every Wednesday one to look forward to.

You Know What's Great?: The Night Flier

All right Goddammit. Enough is enough. I can not and will not sit idly by and allow this travesty to remain unaddressed. Mark Pavia's 1997 The Night Flier is an undeniable masterpiece and in my opinion the 3rd best horror film of the 90's behind Seven and Candyman. Never has the trashy, propulsive tone and unpretentious, working man dynamic of Stephen King source material been so faithfully translated apart from perhaps Mary Lambert's Pet Semetery (which I also consider a damn near perfect film). It comes across like a really great Tales From The Crypt installment or Creepshow vignette given room to breathe and subsequently blossoming into dark parable programmer perfection. In all honesty, it's a film that I always am in the mood to and would gladly watch. That, my dear friends, puts it in rarefied company with the immortal likes of Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Goodfellas and Fulci's top 3 (The Beyond, City of the Living Dead and Zombie).

What's that you say? You've never bothered to give it a look? You saw it on the video store shelves and thought it looked lame? Shame and woe upon your household fellow home theater traveler, cause The Night Flier has everything good horror requires. It boasts impeccable atmosphere made all the more commendable by it's readily apparent low budget. It swims in some strange production ether betwixt made for cable and direct to DVD, yet triumphantly succeeds thanks to Pavia's clever direction and blocking which subtly serve to amp up the pulpy proceedings. Even the horrendous late 90's fashions defy conventional logic and against all odds bolster the films already ample charm.

It features uniformly solid performances with several stand outs, namely Miguel Ferrer as Rick Dees, the most lovable asshole ever committed to film. He's a tabloid reporter introduced to us storming into his editor's office, throwing down the latest issue and bellowing "Where's my goddamn dead baby?!?!" in reference to an absent front page picture he worked so hard to acquire. I can think of no more forceful and off putting a line with which to introduce our lead character, but all be damned if Ferrer's authoritatively honeyed voice doesn't pull it of with effortless aplomb. Seriously, Miguel Ferrer has one of cinema's greatest voices and it belongs in the pantheon next to other gravelly greats like Lance Henricksen and Michael Wincott. Miguel Ferrer's agitated presence and explosive charisma go a hell of a long way toward elevating The Night Flier from passable Tuesday night time waster to grand melodrama. A Faustian tragedy laced with cutting, incisive commentary on the parasitic nature of the media and the dark heart beating beneath humanity's morbid curiosity concerning suffering and the unknowable. Shit yeah, it's that fucking deep and I'm serious as a heart attack.

Gore, you ask? Hells yes there's gore. It's not gratuitous nonsense inserted for cheap laughs and a Fangoria spread. It eloquently supports the tragic elements of the story and reinforces the dangerous dimensions of the narrative's inherent nastiness. KNB does some truly unsettling work here and every last shred of it is necessary and perfectly photographed to maximize its impact. Brian Keane contributes an elegant, lilting little piano melody for a score and it suits the material perfectly, coloring the tone with mystery and sadness. Every time I watch the film I have it stuck in my head for days. And you know what? It's so damn good that doesn't even bother me.

It might seem like I'm being hyperbolic for the sake of comedy, but I legitimately feel this way about The Night Flier. I can not fathom why it is not frequently feted and righteously revered along with other more well known King adaptations such as The Mist, Pet Semetery, The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption. Budgetary limitations aside, I consider it to be every bit those films equal and a damn sight better than the middling garbage most horror nerds espouse as greatness. It is, in my humble opinion, THE most under rated horror film of all time and future generations will no doubt erect monuments to its towering brilliance and ethereal grandiloquence.

A World of Unending Horror

I just finished reading The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror by David J. Skal and was so captivated, I decided to flip back to the beginning and start plowing through it again. Anybody who knows me at least reasonably well knows these 2 things. 1. I love the Universal Monsters in particular and classic era (1921-1941) horror in general to a degree most reasonable people would deem unhealthy and 2. I have no hobby more cherished than sussing out, assigning (I suppose in some cases outright inventing) and endlessly pontificating on the social and political origins, subtext and relevance of the horror genre. Therefore, it's a no brainer that this tome should have so thoroughly enraptured me. In essence, the book lays bare the gnarled roots of the horror genre, tracing them like dessicated veins back to the polluted wellspring of the first World War. The ghastly, ghost like mutilated veterans of that conflagration served as shameful, phantasmagoric reminders while the resultant global economic collapse deepened the still fresh wound and fostered a thick atmosphere of malaise, distrust and hopelessness. These unceasing stressors needed to be addressed, sigilized and therapeutically exorcised. Thus began the first great horror cycle proper and the proletariat's love affair with transforming their unspoken nightmares into dark cinematic iconography so as to safely comprehend, then symbolically dispel them.

Most folks I interact with, be it in the flesh or through technological screen, seem to think I place too much stock in my strained, crackpot theories concerning the monumental relevance of films as dubious and disparate as Tetsuo: the iron man, The Night Flier and (heaven forbid!) Rob Zombie's Halloween 2. I suppose it's no shocking revelation to admit that I walk through life with a heavy heart. Thinking too much, seeing that which might not be there and struggling with staring into the abyss of fathomless, unknowable eternity that awaits my unavoidable expiration. People often tell me to lighten up, but that strikes me as silly considering I've always been drawn to and fascinated by darkness. My first truly potent reaction to a film was James Whale's Frankenstein on Count Dracula Presents, an earnest, low budget horror host show on a local station. My father would haul the household television into my room on Saturday nights so I could cower under the covers and drift off to sleep while Frankenstein lumbered, The Mummy shambled and Colin Clive launched into histrionics. There was no way I could possibly intuit the subtext of these depression era shockers, I simply fell in love with the look and feel of them. The wafting fog and stilted melodrama. The sparse staging and chiaroscuro cadence of their aesthetic presentation captivated me. I wanted to live in ruined castles with gargantuan fireplaces illuminating cobwebbed corridors. I even asked my father if I could sleep in a coffin, a request he gently disparaged and wisely denied.

I strongly urge anyone with even a passing interest in the genesis of horror films to give Mr. Skal's book a shot. It's beautifully and passionately written, containing surprisingly florid and poetic insights concerning this dark carnival of human experience we all gain admittance to at birth. It has rekindled my burning passion for analytical film appreciation and instilled a cultural awareness whose significance extends beyond tabloid celebrities and fleeting teen sensations. Most people (especially film critics) are ignorantly dismissive of the genre and choose to bestow windy kudos on dramas that are dry, leaden and cloying, not to mention entirely forgotten once the Oscar dust settles. It's the monsters that are forever.

Rondo shock!

Apparently, my misanthropic tendencies and blowhard reverie style has been noticed by the illustrious folks at the Rondo Awards and I have been honored with a nomination for the Best Blog of 2010! It is beyond humbling to have my work recognized by the organization and to be alongside such fantastic writers! I would greatly appreciate any votes, my category is #16 and the instructions to vote and ballot can be located at RondoAward.com. Thanks again to all my readers!