DAY 20, with a twist!
Within the Woods: Hey, haven't I sorta seen this before?! A few years before scraping together the cash for a more evil dead than what we see here, then-unknowns Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss made their first trip to the woods that wound up with similar results. This is undoubtedly a less polished film than the landmark they would make later, a fact not helped out by the fact that the quality of the print is close to abysmal, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to see just how many trademarks were already in place for the soon-to-be series. Especially impressive is the pittance of a budget this was made on, making the approximation of Raimi's patented camera techniques and the surprisingly gooey gore effects quite remarkable indeed. I think the thing I liked the most was how this was able to flip the table on what an Evil Dead fan might have expected this to play out, as Bruce Campbell was certainly no Ash (though I got a big laugh out of his character telling his girlfriend not to violate graves, which he then immediately does himself in the most obvious touchstone for Ash), as well as a genuinely funny bit involving the closest character to Ash getting a most indignant end with all the physical abuse he receives. This is a genesis, but one that has a lot of value even if it's not anywhere near the heights we'd soon see.
Fisheye: A way better version of Humanoids from the Deep! Joking aside, though not really, this Croatian animation (Croanimation?) gets top marks for its distinct art style and ambitious visual touches, incorporating some impressive 3D pans through the environments, all from the hand of a single animator. While not crazy graphic, one might be taken aback by just how violent this one gets, as the fish here have had enough of the village that continues to come after them, resulting in a bloody rampage to set the villagers straight once and for all. The jangling score only adds to the intensity of the massacre, and the fish themselves are an impressively creepy creation, especially with their eyes resemble globes that have attracted a swarm of gnats to their pupils. Very good stuff all around and a nice reminder that in the right hands, monster movies can be rather stern stuff.
Living Dolls: Alternate title: Maniac Begins! The similarity in a lonely man surrounded by mannequins being in two films from 1980 is a heck of a coincidence, though instead of a slasher sleaze-fest, we have a simple tale of a put-upon handyman at a department store who gets a bit more than he's bargaining for when he vents his frustrations with the staff and customers upon the seemingly lifeless mannequins on the floor few venture to. The feminist angle is undeniable here, lending the film a nice flavor as it will not put up with indignities upon even the image of women, and it does have a killer climax that makes good use of the rapid cuts to get around the production limitations of not having that many mannequins and a human stand-in for another. Its only fault is that it is pretty much as advertised with no real surprises in store, so even with the feminist angle, it can feel a bit sleight. Nevertheless, it is well executed all the same, and at 9 minutes, it's as long as it needed to be. A very solid performer!
B-B-B-B-B-B-BONUS FILM!!!
Alligator: SURPRISE! Not content with a day of nothing but short films, I decided to track down a glaring hole in my marathon scheduling this year with a good ol' fashioned "when animals attack" feature. And as it turns out, I chose very wisely with this wildly entertaining update on 50s sci-fi B-movie tropes paired with more graphic horror elements. Thanks to the capable pen of John Sayles, a sometimes unsung hero of genre films of the late 70s and 80s, we wind up with a story that is smart about how to deploy the humor without losing sight of the central focus on alligator rampages and the hunt that ensues, and keeping the timeframe to a short period makes for a zippy story that never loses its step. It's wickedly funny throughout, with endearing characters that get some game character actors to deliver the zingers, anchored by a committed performance from the great Robert Forster that gives the film the leading man it deserves with his dry wit balancing out his understated anxiety over the cards life has dealt to him. Director Lewis Teague does well by all of the actors, but when you have a giant alligator on the loose, you had better get that part right, which is most certainly the case here. Ramon is a fun little creation, mixing both actual alligator footage on miniaturized sets to give him the proper scale as well as scaled special effects creations during the actual attack scenes to give the film the necessary level of giddy violence that you want from it, culminating in a wild wedding party massacre that features so much chomping and tail whipping that you won't know what to do with yourself afterward. The climax is a bit on the rushed side when compared to what came just before it, but that's hardly a surprise when we're dealing with such a well-worn framework that has the benefit this time around of having the proper amount of care and craft put into the preceding 80 minutes for quite the rollicking good time. And how many films of this kind manage to pull off the expected THE END? twist while sneaking in a reference to The Third Man? Just this one, I'd have to think! All in all, this isn't deep stuff, but this does exactly what it needs to do with way more love than you would expect from the era of endless Jaws ripoffs, and that counts for a lot in this monster lover's book.
The Ravishing of Frank N. Stein: A peerless experimental animation short, this one is smart to sell you on the hand drawn imagery from The Bride of Frankenstein, as that is not quite the road you'll be taking. Told almost entirely from a first person perspective, we start walking down a hall, slowly and with some difficulty, suggesting we might be seeing this from the perspective of our favorite reanimated man. But then the animation of walking through the room begins to repeat, seemingly covering up a lack of funds, and that's when you start noticing the differences. Subtle at first, each new room we enter starts to feel more and more unfamiliar with each new object added, until... well, you'll have to see for yourself, but if I could give this a ringing endorsement, I feel like that a VR version of this experience would easily be the scariest VR thing ever. As it is as a plain old 2D experience, though, this is still a mind-blowing application of the medium to unsettle you through subtlety that takes familiarity and perverts it so incrementally that you'll wish for more traditional scares just to have something less grueling and disturbing to witness. This is a stunner and one that I won't be soon forgetting.
45 films to go, but now there's more!
So, as you can tell, my marathon just got even more interesting. I've now realized that I'm well ahead of where I thought I was going to be with the marathon, so I'm taking the opportunity to make some "pit stops" along the way. How many there will ultimately be, I cannot say, but it's safe to say that I found a way to make my biggest endeavor ever even bigger.
