COUNTDOWN TO TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2013 (TADFF2013): GREG KLYMKIW and the SOSKA TWINS - INTERVIEW OUT TAKES from my article in the latest issue of Joe ("PHANTOM OF THE MOVIES") Kane's VIDEOSCOPE

COUNTDOWN TO TADFF 2013 WITH OUT TAKES FROM MY PHANTOM OF THE MOVIES' VIDEOSCOPE INTERVIEW WITH THE EVER-SO BRILLIANT SOSKA TWINS (WHO COMPLETELY KNOCKED ME ON MY PROVERBIAL ASS AT LAST YEAR'S TADFF WITH "AMERICAN MARY")

By Greg Klymkiw

PREFACE - A Place to call Our Home, A Place To See the Twisted Twins, The Place that spawned Canada's Icon of Literary Transgression Scott Symons, A Place to Fight Back Against Those Whom Mr. Symons Called "The Smugly Fucklings".

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF) has become one of the most important film festivals to me personally as I'm getting so fucking sick and tired of the pure shit I see on the big screens these days. I don't ask for much - I just want to see cool shit. And I want to go out, leave my home and see movies on a BIG MOTHER FUCKING SCREEN. Am I asking too much, pray tell? Well, thanks to Mr. Visionary himself, Adam Lopez and his yearly TADFF festival (as well as its occasional year-round events), Toronto is finally exploding with cool shit.

With the Raven Banner "Sinister Cinema" series, the fine work of Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada, Colin Geddes holding down the fort at TIFF's Midnight Madness and Vanguard series - cool shit is finally happening in the Centre of the Smugly Fuckling Universe of Toronto. "Smugly Fuckling" is the apt phrase used to describe Toronto and its vast majority of pole-up-the-ass pseuds - coined by and courtesy of the late, great and genuinely subversive Icon of Canadian Literature, Scott Symons. 

The sexist dweeb David Gilmour (the apparent writer and English Literature lecturer at Victoria College) whose recent misogynistic, racist, boneheaded, humourless and horrendously asinine comments about what literature he has no use for make me realize how he and, frankly, so many "Gods" of CanLit and other gatekeepers and practitioners of Canadian Culture would be so lucky to collectively achieve even one pubic hair's worth of the genius that the late Mr. Symons displayed. (He was, unlike so many whining Torontonian artistes of the - ahem - male persuasion, a REAL MAN!)

For those unfamiliar with Symons, he penned the first piece of gay-themed literature in Canada, Place d'Armes. His best friend was the late Charles Taylor (Scott's best man at his wedding before he came out and left his wifey). And yes, this is THE CHARLES TAYLOR of the E.P. TAYLOR family, their mansion and grounds now house the Canadian Film Centre. Taylor wrote the brilliant essay about Symons and his Canadian qualities whilst the mad genius lived and worked in Morocco. Symons's abandonment of Toronto's tony Rosedale world of pole-up-the-ass repression, coupled with his great novel, his public coming out and eventual self-imposed exile inspired by the horrendous article by Robert Fulford in the Toronto Star that dubbed him "The Monster From Toronto" places him at the forefront of Canadian artists tarred and feathered by the establishment. Fulford declared that "The hero of ... Place d’Armes may well be the most repellent single figure in the recent history of Canadian writing ... a monster of snobbishness still wedded to an aesthetic view of life that can be called – depending on the degree of your benevolence – either aristocratic or fascist.” This main character was, of course, a not-so-thinly disguised version of Symons himself - a brilliant, brave and brash artist who gave up everything to come out at a very dangerous time, even in Canada. Let's never forget the notorious "fruit machine" ferreting-out of homosexuals within the Canadian government - still one of the most nasty, insidious, shameful blots on our history.

Years later, Fulford, the Status Quo Lord of Canadian Culture pathetically cowered behind the pseudonym "Marshall Delaney" to write an article in Saturday Night magazine that crapped on David Cronenberg's first film Shivers (recently restored by TIFF who will present it and a myriad of other films and activities during their upcoming celebration of Canada's Master of the Macabre). Shivers received a healthy public investment from the Canadian Film Development Corporation which we now know as Telefilm Canada. The article completely missed the point of Cronenberg's brilliant movie and it was titled: "You Should Know How Bad This Movie Is, You Paid For It." Fulford's article made Cronenberg's attempts to finance further work a major struggle and reportedly inspired his landlord to evict him on a "morals" clause in the rental agreement.

I mention Scott Symons and David Cronenberg and the ignorant literary defamation of their work within the context of this piece, because they're both outstanding Canadian iconoclasts. Some might say "that was then, this is now", but they'd be wrong - Canada's sneaky, ever-so-subtle condemnation of anything that runs counter to the culture of its power brokers has never gone away - the cowardice of our overt, but worst of all, CLOSET FASCISTS remained with the Right, but oozed its way into the Left in the form of the worst Fascism of all - Political Correctness.

For several years now, I've had the pleasure to experience a true renaissance in Canadian Cinema and much of my thanks and accolades in this regard must go to TADFF. When I think of some of the most genuinely exciting, thrilling, artistically challenging cinema in this country, I've discovered it at TADFF. The very notion of a Toronto "After Dark" is no longer an oxymoron. Thanks to Lopez's festival within the heart of Canada's genuine Centre of Excellence (in spite of the annoying repression in its tonier pockets and/or its suburbs), TADFF has been a true leader in promoting and exposing the most outstanding iconoclasts of Canadian Cinema (and, fankly, World Cinema). Years past have seen the discovery of the Foresight Features madmen from Collingwood (Monster Brawl, Exit Humanity and this year's outstanding Septic Man), the asbestos-poisoned-drinkers-of-tap-water in Winnipeg, Astron-6 (Father's Day, MANBORG) and last, but certainly not least, the Queen Bees of Horror - not only in Canada, but the world - Jen and Sylv Soska, those Twisted Twins of American Mary fame who hail from good ole' sleepy, repressed Vancouver.

So here's the deal. I'm one of the Canadian correspondents for Phantom of the Movies' VIDEOSCOPE, a great magazine founded and published by one of my biggest heroes - Joe Kane - who generated his regular column of genre coverage for many years in the New York Daily News. The latest issue of this great magazine is on news stands now (and yes, Chapters/Indigo actually carries it along with a few other cool genre mags). The Fall 2013 issue includes my interview with the Soska Twins and I urge you to grab a copy and/or just fucking subscribe to it. Here's an sample jpg of my article which you can click on to read the stuff I didn't black out as a teaser for you to actually buy the mag. In honour of TADFF, I present out takes from my Soska interview.

Let us then consider this piece here today as my official countdown to a great film festival. I hope to see you all there - it feels, yet again, like it's going to be a great year, especially in TADFF's new home at the Paramount Cinema (I refuse to call it by its current name, the Scotiabank Cinema. Only a corporate pig would name a cinema after a fucking bank.)

Enjoy!

AND NOW OUT TAKES FROM THE INTERVIEW TWIXT GREG KLYMKIW AND THE TWISTED TWINS:

JEN AND SYLVIA SOSKA

On Whistler Walkouts

Klymkiw: When I hear people using the phrase “moral outrage”, my usual response is, “What’s that?”

Jen: Well, you know, I think the worst screening we’ve ever been to of American Mary was at British Columbia’s hottest ski resort during the Whistler Film Festival where most of the people walked out of the screening, and I was shocked. The festival started this really great section of late night horror films – really great horror films – and people either wouldn’t even bother going and those who did were always walking out.

Sylvia: Especially American Mary.

Jen: Yeah, it was weird. The whole point of any film festival is to experience things that are new and different – not to see the same stuff you can see anywhere.

Sylvia: I don’t mind if people don’t like it. That’s okay, but it seemed like a lot of this audience didn’t know what they liked and they certainly didn’t know what they’d be in for in the late-night series.

Jen: That’s fine too, I guess, but this is a film festival, people!


Sylvia: Exactly! It’s about exploration. How do you know what you do or don’t like when you keep walking out?

Klymkiw: The Whistler Film Festival always drives me crazy. It has the potential to be the Sundance of Canada, but I don’t think you can rely upon the locals or even the non-locals who come up there for the skiing. As well, the festival keeps shuffling the deck on their artistic directors and artistic direction. They’ve had one excellent program director after another - people like Bill Evans and Stacey Donen. Paul Gratton, who was the 2012 head honcho of Whistler, is great. The guy is a genius! An A-1 aficionado of cinema and a real lover of genre pictures. Years ago when he was a production executive at a film financing agency [Ontario Film Development Corp], he expressed complete delight that I was the first person to ever walk into his office and extol the virtues of Russ Meyer. God, where are those people now?

Sylvia: Oh, I love Paul. He was the one who was so supportive of our film playing in Whistler, but most of the people who went to the festival – and this pretty much sums up the whole festival, or rather the typical audience for the films at the festival – but so many people were going nuts about this Kokanee Beer movie.

Klymkiw: Oh yeah, The Movie Out Here. That movie stinks in a big way. It’s literally a feature length ad for Kokanee Beer with a lot of really juvenile humour aimed at God knows who – monkeys or something. Actually, that’s an insult to monkeys. It’s just terrible in any event.

Sylvia: The festival had so many great movies – not just the late night horror films, but also that wonderful drama [Still] starring James Cromwell [Babe] and Genevieve Bujold [Coma, Dead Ringers] and all the amazing documentaries – one about feminism, one about Marilyn Monroe. There was so much really cool and often different stuff – just sensational, really, but what were the audiences going for?

Klymkiw: A feature length beer commercial with unfunny dirty jokes?

Sylvia: Yeah, a really stupid beer commercial, too. And it really was so sickening. That awful movie really hits a chord with me because our star, Katharine Isabelle, made that beer movie around the same time that she did American Mary. With us, she’s playing Mary Mason, this really complex starring role and yet here she is in some horrible, stereotypical female role in an awful 90-minute beer commercial. Literally – her role is that of “The Girl” in a beer ad. It was so embarrassing. That movie actually got Canadian government funding and for anyone to try and say it’s not just a fucking commercial, give me a break – it is a commercial.

Klymkiw: A lot of people say they want to see different stuff ...

Sylvia: ... and then, when it is out there, those same people don’t come out and support it. In Vancouver you have to practically drag those people into the theatre to see cool stuff – the stuff they say they want. Well, where are they? There’s cool stuff happening in Vancouver all the time. What’s it like in Toronto?

Klymkiw: Well, because the population base in Toronto is substantially larger, it feels like there are more people into cool genre stuff, however I’d say it’s probably just as bad, but in its own and very different way. There are enough people who want the stuff, but the opportunities to see it are not available on a regular basis. You need to screen much of the product in alternative venues within the context of special events like the Raven Banner Sinister Cinema series, Adam Lopez’s Toronto After Dark Film Festival and, of course the programming from Colin Geddes in his Midnight Madness and Vanguard sections of the Toronto International Film Festival.

On Pulling a Script Out of One's Ass for Eli Roth

Klymkiw: And, uh, forgive me for not remembering which one of you delightful ladies so demurely came up with that erudite description regarding the birth of your creative vision.

Jen: Don’t worry. We both take turns saying that.

Sylvia: It was a terrific life lesson when Eli asked us for a script of our next movie because this was just after Dead Hooker in a Trunk and we should have expected people might want to know what we were working on next.

Jen: We learned that you must always have a variety of things you’re working on. You make sure you have a pile of scripts and concepts and story ideas. That way, if they don’t like one thing, you’ve got another, and another and yet another.

Sylvia: Yeah, here’s this, here’s that, here’s this. Don’t like that? Here’s this!

Jen: Pick one!

On Criticism

Klymkiw: Well, there are a few good film critics and then there are just plain assholes who wouldn’t know a cool, intelligent film if it drilled a hole into their head and discovered there’s nothing there beneath the skull – just a whole lot of empty space,

Sylvia: I want to make cool movies. I never thought there was some sort of a gender problem or that American Mary takes a feminist stance that’s anything but pure empowerment, though within the context of having fun. Then we started to experience this strangely unexpected backlash that was political, but also felt personal.

Jen: Look at how all those journalists misunderstood and took those comments Lars von Trier made at the Cannes Film Festival in such a stupid, closed-minded way.

Klymkiw: It’s twisting and perverting everything we believe has changed in the world. All that ignorance you think we’ve moved so far beyond is back with a vengeance. Either that, or it never really went away.

Jen: You know, if Lars von Trier, or anyone else who says controversial things that are then taken out of context, but said similar things about women – very few would really bat an eye over that.

Sylvia: You know, people like the movie or they don’t, but when their criticisms become personal, when they become anti-feminist and downright anti-female …

Jen: … and from women, yet!

Klymkiw: And here you both are, doing the entire press junket today adorned in gorgeous, colourful 1950s party dresses. You both look like you’ve stepped right off the set of Joshua Logan’s film adaptation of William Inge’s great play Picnic with William Holden and behind this Midwest American Kim Novak facade you're making incredibly sophisticated, wholly modern and totally subversive genre movies while living and working in this weird age that’s far more repressive than even the fucking '50s – here you both are, being modern in a world that’s reverted to a twisted extremist conservatism.

ON KATIE ISABELLE

Klymkiw: Unlike the “slutty victim” in most contemporary horror movies, Mary is someone who embraces her sexuality in far more resonant ways.

Sylvia: Mary is a character who totally embraces her sexuality.

Jen: She’s also aware of the way all the men in the film are looking at her as some sexual object in her professional world, but she sticks to her professional attire until she goes to the party where she allows herself to be gorgeous and sexy.

Sylvia: Exactly, her makeup and that sexy dress becomes her war paint.

Klymkiw: Well, as does the attire she begins donning during her empowerment phase – the entire fetishist quality of her “operating” gear as well as the whole notion of her dominance as a surgeon and the submissive nature of her patients.

Jen: That’s it for sure, but also this '70s connection you’re making comes so much from our star, Katie Isabelle.

Sylvia: That’s why we’re so happy you feel the way you do about her character and performance.

Jen: Katie’s Mom, by the way, is a total '70s gal. She actually worked for years with Led Zeppelin!

Sylvia: Oh yeah, Katie has an amazing “Old Soul” quality that is so much a part of her performance. She’s got this totally cool old rocker spirit like her Mom and she is definitely not some cookie-cutter babe. She’s naturally and effortlessly beautiful.

Jen: Plus, she doesn’t give a fuck about anything superficial. Katie kept winning the Best Actress Award at all the major genre festivals and when Sylvia called her to let her know about one of them ...

Sylvia: ... Katie owns a bunch of horses, right? So when I told her she won Best Actress, she’s like, “That’s great! I’m shovelling horse shit right now.”

Jen: She’s such a committed actress, too. When we first met her, she had three dense pages of notes about the character. She puts so much of herself into her work.

Sylvia: Yeah, we met her at 7:00, closed three different bars and then kept talking passionately until 5:00 A.M. about filmmaking, body modification and radical feminism. And man, she’s seen it all. She’s been acting since childhood and she’s seen and experienced misogyny – especially in the movie business. There are so many fucking pigs that all assume that because she’s an actress she can just be passed around like a party favour. I can’t even imagine the full extent of the assholes that hit on her in the most revolting ways. But here’s the thing – Katie plays cool as a cucumber like nobody else. Mary is a very powerful character, yet so many actresses evoke power with this stereotypical and grating shrillness – they’re so big and loud – but Katie is so controlled and quiet as Mary. It’s like Meryl Streep in The Devil Who Wears Prada – never raising her voice. Katharine’s take on Mary is exactly the same way.

Klymkiw: She’s like the female equivalent of a mensch, right?

Sylvia: Yeah, for sure, she really does have this wonderful down-to-earth quality

Jen: Even when we’ve been out together, we’re having a nice chat and some boob comes over and pathetically starts hitting on her in the most obvious, sexist and disgusting way and Katie takes one look at him and with a totally straight face, she’s so polite, too, she says, so politely it's almost scary, “Fuck off, please” and then continues talking with us as if she hadn‘t just been so rudely and offensively interrupted. This, of course, is perfectly indicative of her power as a human being, but also an actress.

Sylvia: Have you ever met Katie?

Klymkiw: Once, but it’s pathetic. I met her at the premiere of Ginger Snaps.

Sylvia AND Jen: GET OUT!!!!

Klymkiw: It was cool, but I was fucking pathetic. I was so geekily star-struck, I said little more than “Hello, nice to meet you.” My jaw was dragging on the floor and my eyes popped out - inflating like fucking balloons. Nothing was coming out of my mouth. She no doubt thought, “Uh-oh, Psycho!” and she politely moved on.

Jen: You’re coming to our party, right?

Klymkiw: Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Jen: Look, Katie’s going to be there. We’ll re-introduce you.

Klymkiw: Well, hopefully I’m not going to zone into some middle-aged stalker fanboy.

Jen Soska, Greg Klymkiw, Katie Isabelle, Sylvia Soska

On Catholicism

Klymkiw: How things have changed. In my day, we were called altar boys.

Jen: You were an altar boy?

Klymkiw: Yup. I was raised Ukrainian-Catholic.

Jen and Sylvia: Cool!

Klymkiw: Well yeah, we might have the Eastern European and Catholicism things in common, but Ukrainian Catholicism is a lot weirder than Roman Catholicism since it’s essentially a cross between primitive perogy-slurping paganism, Orthodox tradition and a grudging acknowledgment of the Pope.

Jen: You win. That’s sounds super weird!

Klymkiw: Well, the whole religion is based upon Ukrainians cutting a deal with the Roman Catholics because they needed some other way to say “Fuck you!” to their Russian opressors.

Jen: We’re down with that. Sometimes “fuck you” is the only option.

On Conservative "Values"

Klymkiw: What blows me away about Katharine’s performance is how she occasionally conjures up this astonishing blankness – a Buster Keaton deadpan. This not only contributes to the humour of her delivery – God, she made me laugh so hard during the most delightfully wicked stuff in the movie, but as well, I remember thinking about James Toback's The Gsmbler and how she had this ever-mounting quality of obsession that started to become self destructive. Katie comes off like a kind of female James Caan in that movie - he just can't stop gambling and has to keep upping the ante - sort of how Mary keeps upping the ante on her body modification business and the eventual payback upon her primary abuser.

Sylvia: Wow, that’s such a classic performance and you know, I’m so happy you’re making these'70s analogies because Jen and I certainly paid attention to telling as good a story as possible, but we’d never fall back on stock formulas. In the '70s, what made movies so special was that the best of them weren’t following some sort of set equation. They also crossed into really dangerous territory.

Jen: It’s so conservative now. It’s one of the reasons it took so long to get the film out there – especially in the United States. It actually took exposure in the UK to get people in America to take notice of the film. We couldn’t initially get the attention of any American festivals or companies until Universal Pictures overseas backed the picture, did an amazing UK push and even released it in other European territories. In America, there was always this concern about how American audiences would respond. That eventually changed once people and companies in North America got on board, but the real thing that got it out there were all the cool American audiences tired of the same old thing who created such an overwhelming fan base for the film that it became impossible for programmers, critics and distributors to not take notice of the film.

Klymkiw: The problem with the movie industry – more than ever before – is that it’s entirely ruled by middlemen who are out of touch with what people really want and manufacture what they think people want. The middlemen are always the first clowns to say, “I can’t sell this.” Then you respond, “Well, why can’t you sell it? Because you’re too fucking uncool? Because you’re too fucking stupid? Because you’re too fucking lazy to do your job?"

Sylvia: It’s because they’re not fans. We kept saying, “Trust us, the fans are going to get it.” And their response is, “How the fuck do you know?” And our answer is simple, “Because we are the fans.”

Klymkiw: It’s the end-user that counts. They don’t see that.

Jen and Sylvia: Exactly!

Klymkiw: The way I see it is that cinema can only keep evolving. The future of cinema is completely dependent upon learning the rules then not following those set rules - to take what works and build upon it. This is exactly what American Mary does and you’re both, as filmmakers, a perfect example of that.

American Mary is available on BD and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada

LLOYD THE CONQUEROR - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Mike Smith (right, above psycho with pig-like Vulcan ears) is no mere Trailer Park Boy, he's the funniest man in Canada. Brian Posehn (left) is no mere Brian Spukowski on The Sarah Silverman Show, he's just as funny as she is and sexier.  Harland Williams (loser with pig-like Vulcan ears on bottom right) is no mere Sheridan College dropout, he is Dumb and Dumber's pee drinking cop. These three giants of the motion picture industry can now be seen together - inspiring copious gushing geysers of spontaneous urination in all who bear witness to their genius in the otherwise mediocre Canuckian comedy effort Lloyd the Conqueror.

Lloyd the Conqueror (2012) ** + 1 Pubic Hair
dir. Michael Peterson
Starring: Mike Smith, Brian Posehn, Evan Williams,
Jesse Reid, Scott Patey, Tegan Moss, Harland Williams

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Damn, I wanted to like this movie. Who wouldn't? It's got a Holy Fucking Trinity of some of the best funny guys in the business (Mike Smith, Brian Posehn and Harland Williams) portraying 40-something losers (actually, mind-blowingly humungous losers) who devote all their off-time (and much of their "on-time", if you can call it that) to the inexplicably obsessive world of role-playing games.

We're not talking about the losers who stay at home glued to their monitors - pretending to be fairy kings, stout-hearted dwarves and bearded fucking wizards in a virtual world.

Nay, these are losers who don costumes (sort of like those maroons who show up to movie premieres as Vulcans, Wookies and fucking Gandalf) and engage in real-life jousts and tournaments in the great outdoors.

If Lloyd the Conqueror had stuck to THESE guys instead of the utterly unentertaining early 20-something losers who lead the film's narrative charge, then it might have had a hope in Hell of being some kind of comedy classic. (It sometimes feels like the filmmakers might have discovered this in the edit room, too. It's uncanny how the movie soars when Smith, Posehn and Williams are onscreen. It might have been best to snip away as much of the uncharismatic purported leads as possible and use every available frame of this Trio of merry mirth makers. The movie feels about 15 minutes too long anyway, so it wouldn't have hurt at all.)

Alas, the movie is little more than a tedious, overlong and (often) unfunny comedy. I was happy to forgive the perfunctory plot this type of movie usually has. In fact, it doesn't get more perfunctory than this: Focusing upon three online gamers who are threatened with a low GPA and the loss of their student loans at College, get a chance to boost their academic standing by participating in actual role play battle in the flesh with their nasty, prissy, grade-lowering Medieval Literature professor (Mike Smith in a nice rival to his role as "Bubbles" on Trailer Park Boys).

SIDENOTE: I also learned something new here. I had no idea colleges offered courses requiring anything resembling reading as I always assumed these institutions were a last resort for the academically challenged on both the student and faculty end of things. Yeah, yeah. So sue me. I'm a fucking snob.

What I was not able to forgive was the woefully dull and virtually interchangeable characters who are forced into this predicament, as well, sadly, as the screen-presence-bereft young actors who played these roles. (In fairness, I'm sure all three of these young thespians are imbued with talent, but I must reiterate that the writing of the characters they play does neither them nor the film any favours.) What films like this need are vibrant characters played by bigger-than-life talents - think "Bill and Ted" (Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter), Wayne's World (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) or "Harold and Kumar" (John Cho and Kal Penn).

Canada is certainly not without any number of great young actors with the comic chops of the above (Hell, a couple of the above-named ARE Canadian), BUT, the roles themselves in Lloyd the Conqueror needed to be written with the same panache that co-writers Andrew Herman and Michael Peterson invested in the roles played by Mike Smith, Brian Posehn and Harland (I wanna keep changing his surname to "Sanders") Williams. Stalwart supporting performers need lead performers who can blow them off the screen or at least hold their own. (Jesus Christ, think Max "fucking" Von Sydow going head to head with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in Strange Brew and you know what I'm talking about here.)

My dream cast for this movie would have been Canadian funny guys who are a bit long-in-tooth for the roles of the three young losers - imagine Jacob Tierney, Dov Tiefenbach, Jay Baruchel or hell, maybe even Don McKellar as a perennial student who just keeps taking college courses to get student loans. That's not only closer to what the film needed, but even thinking about first-rate talent like that might have inspired better writing for the three roles of the youthful "heroes".

Some might say, oh, but this is a low-budget Canadian film. Don't be so mean, Greg. Don't be so picky. It's Canadian. It's low budget. They tried really hard.

So fucking what?

Being Canadian and low-budget means the movie has to reach for the stratosphere, not the tip of the old landfill site in Winnipeg (which is the highest topographical point in that flat, godforsaken city of my youth).

All this said, I can still guarantee you the pleasure of soiling yourself whenever Mike Smith, Brian Posehn and Harland Sanders (Williams) are on screen.

These guys are the real thing and, good goddamn (!) they are funny.

"Lloyd the Conqueror" is in limited theatrical release across Canada. In Toronto it's playing at one of my favourite venues, The Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas (they have the best cheap Tuesday prices in town, so I suggest you see the movie then). Thanks to Smith, Posehn and Williams you'll be afforded a delectable Walmart Rollback admission price to soil your panties.

CITADEL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Brilliant, Terrifying First Feature Opens Theatrically in Canada via Mongrel Media

CITADEL: The fears of the disenfranchised (which indeed could be all our fears) drive this creepy and terrifying dystopian shocker .

Citadel (2012) ****
dir. Ciaran Foy
Starring: Aneurin Barnard, Wunmi Mosaku, James Cosmo, Jake Wilson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I always wondered if I would be able to offer safety and protection to those I love if confronted with the need to choose physical violence. Being an ex-cop/ex-athlete's son, I received plenty of dirty pugilistic tactics in those halcyon days when folks didn't bat an eye over playground scuffles. I eventually put Dad's counsel to use on a particularly vile bully. It worked so well that my opponent's face was exquisitely rearranged and from that point on, nobody, I mean NOBODY, ever bothered me again. I knew I was able to employ similar techniques if it ever happened again and went through life with no worries. But that's ME. What could/would happen if I needed to protect someone else? Could/would I be able to do it again? Would it be different? Worse yet, what if I was not able to deliver the goods? That's very scary. That, I can assure you.

This is a key element permeating Ciaran Foy's stunning feature film Citadel.

READ MY FULL REVIEW PUBLISHED DURING THE TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2012 HERE

3 SUPERB SHORT FILMS at the TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL (2012) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - THE CAPTURED BIRD, FROST and CHILDREN OF THE DARK

Children of the Dark, one of 3 SUPERB SHORT FILMS at THE TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2012Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw

The Captured Bird (2012) ***
dir. Jovanka Vuckovic

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This high profile short,the directorial debut of “Rue Morgue” magazine’s former kick-butt editor Jovanka Vuckovic, features magnificent special effects from ace animatronics effects designer/supervisor Paul Jones (Silent Hill, INVASION [AKA Top of the Food Chain], Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Afterlife and Retribution) and brilliant cinematography by Karim Hussein (Subconscious Cruelty, Hobo With A Shotgun and Antiviral), Vuckovic delivers a delicious bonbon du cinema in spades. This grotesque taste-treat wherein a little girl's chalk drawing opens a door into a world of horrifying creatures suggests we can look forward to more chilling work from the clearly talented Vuckovic ("Rue Morgue's" loss, but in an odd way, their gain, since they'll have plenty of output from their former editor to actually write about over the next few decades.)

Frost (2012) ***
dir. Jeremy Ball

Review By Greg Klymkiw

A fine Canadian short drama directed by Jeremy Ball that expertly tells a haunting, mysterious tale against the backdrop of Canada's northern aboriginal peoples. This story of a young woman confronting a terrifying spiritual presence linked to her ancestry is blessed with a subtle apocalyptic subtext as well as narrative elements dealing with both quest and familial acceptance. It's super creepy AND it's actually ABOUT something - both of which go a long way to remove the ever-so faint whiff of "calling card" that wafts gently from it.

Children of the Dark (2012) ****
dir. Scott Belyea

Review By Greg Klymkiw

WOW! This is a deeply moving post-apocalyptic thriller with superb production value, gorgeous photography and the most impressive mise-en-scene I've encountered in a genre short in some time. Programmed at Toronto After Dark to precede the feature film Citadel, I somehow repressed the idea I was watching a short film and actually thought I was seeing Ciaran Foy's film. When Children of the Dark drew to its haunting, breathtaking close I was gobsmacked. I was so into the emotional layers of this movie - it's genuinely more mature than many genre shorts (and features for that matter) - that I was mildly disappointed it had to end. Exploring a world gone awry through the eyes of children can so easily fall into cliche. Belyea's film doesn't at all. It's mixture of that which is horrifying, sad and deeply truthful. It even suggests we might eventually see a feature from this filmmaker that is imbued with the qualities of Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, Rene Clement's Forbidden Games or Louis Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants. A tall order, but this short is THAT terrific. Whether in wartime or a dystopian near-future, the role of children is one that requires taste, delicacy and an unerring eye for human behaviour. If children are our hope amidst a world without any shred of it, then their stories must retain humanism without sliding into soap opera. In fact, their desire for hope and connection, as exemplified in Belyea's work, does that astounding double duty of being as profoundly moving as it is deeply, disturbingly dark. By the way, though disappointed it was over when it was, I must stress that the short has a perfect ending. It's certainly not the filmmaker's fault that his movie was so good I forgot where I was while watching it. Happily, Citadel proved to be a contemporary masterpiece. Belyea's short, in retrospect and within the context of Citadel, also provided a great evening at the movies - a great appetizer to the main course.(And dessert, available, at the TAD pub night afterwards.) Perfect short. Perfect feature. Perfect programming. Perfect festival. Bravo all round!

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012)

WTF!!! Is it possible - even remotely - for a movie called "UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING" to actually be… uh, well, uh… good? Maybe even, like, a bit… uh, better ? Than good? Another WTF: Dolph Lundgren is, uh, great in this picture! No, really. Genuinely great! Yeah. Dolph Lundgren. No kidding. He's WTF-ing amazing!

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012)  *** + 1 Pubic Hair
dir. John Hyams
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Scott Adkins, Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovski

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Let's imagine a slightly different career trajectory for David Lynch. Supposing Lynch, after making Eraserhead, was NOT approached by Mel Brooks to make the moving and harrowing The Elephant Man. Let's imagine he was instead approached by Golan-Globus to direct an action picture. If this had happened, I suspect it might have been a lot like Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning.

As directed by John Hyams (son of stalwart hack Peter Hyams, director of a crapload of super-entertaining movies like Outland, Capricorn One and my personal favourite, The Relic), this fourth official instalment in the action early 90s franchise is completely and utterly insane. First unleashed in 1992 by Roland (he of little brain, but occasional filmmaking chutzpah like Independence Day) Emmerich, Universal Soldier was an idiotic, but supremely well made and entertaining SF action thriller featuring an army of killing machines who died in battle, but were revived almost Frankenstein-like to kick mega-butt. I can only vaguely remember the picture other than the fact that I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it.

Watching this John Hyams reboot, I have to admit my memories of Emmerich's original film became even more vague. This is the reboot to end all reboots. It's that good! (And don't ask me about the sequels, because I can't even remember if I saw them or not and I'm too lazy to check my archives.)

Here, Hyams introduces a fresh Universal Soldier played by Scott Adkins. Forced to witness the execution of his wife and child he's beaten so severely that he spends several weeks in a coma. When he comes to, all he can remember is the tragic occurrence and believe you me, he is hell bent on revenge.

Continually haunted and taunted by the face of his family's killer, Adkins embarks upon an odyssey of payback. He's pursued by the killer and pretty much everyone else who has a speaking part in the movie.

A parallel story, involving Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren deals with the fascistic efforts of the universal soldiers to create their own self-ruled para-military elite. Lundgren, now craggy faced and lined with age, is an especially zealous orator and we're blessed with a few moments where Hyams shoots him a la Riefenstahl's cinematic deification of Hitler in Triumph of the Will (and which Roger Corman aped brilliantly when he focused upon William Shatner's white supremacist in 1962's The Intruder).

We're murkily, but mysteriously yanked in and out of scenarios that may or may not be dreams and all throughout, we are treated to one magnificent action set piece after another.

Hyams breathlessly directs the action with the assured hand of a master - no mere competent hack, Hyams seems poised to become a huge international talent. The choreography, the fine sense of geography, his faith in nicely composed shots that hold long enough to deliver vital story information (as each shot is a genuine dramatic beat) and to allow full, clear exploitation of the carnage all contribute to the impression that he's the real thing and then some.

The movie keeps slipping in and out of the brain damage suffered by Adkins character and at times we're plunged into a crazed borderline nightmare-scape reminiscent of the kind Lynch crafted in so many films from Blue Velvet to Mulholland Drive. As well, Hyams's application of a vaguely Bunuelian mise-en-scene is what aims this instalment of Universal Soldier into a whole new and exciting direction.

The bottom line is this - Hyams has crafted one of the most bravura action pictures of the year and if the narrative is ultimately less complex and/or even clear than it should be, Hyams's directorial aplomb covers all that up very nicely.

Most of all, though, with this picture and his work in the new Expendables action franchise, Dolph Lundgren seems to have come nicely into his own after so many roles in so many ho-hum action pictures. There's a lot to be said for getting old in all the right ways. Somehow, the hard miles etched onto his mug and a renewed spark in his line delivery makes Lundgren an exciting NEW force to be reckoned with.

"Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning" was unleashed at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2012. Visit the website HERE.

CITADEL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012)

CITADEL: The fears of the disenfranchised (which indeed could be all our fears) drive this creepy and terrifying dystopian shocker .

Citadel (2012) ****
dir. Ciaran Foy
Starring: Aneurin Barnard, Wunmi Mosaku, James Cosmo, Jake Wilson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I always wondered if I would be able to offer safety and protection to those I love if confronted with the need to choose physical violence. Being an ex-cop/ex-athlete's son, I received plenty of dirty pugilistic tactics in those halcyon days when folks didn't bat an eye over playground scuffles. I eventually put Dad's counsel to use on a particularly vile bully. It worked so well that my opponent's face was exquisitely rearranged and from that point on, nobody, I mean NOBODY, ever bothered me again. I knew I was able to employ similar techniques if it ever happened again and went through life with no worries. But that's ME. What could/would happen if I needed to protect someone else? Could/would I be able to do it again? Would it be different? Worse yet, what if I was not able to deliver the goods? That's very scary. That, I can assure you.

This is a key element permeating Ciaran Foy's stunning feature film Citadel.

As an adult, I encountered an especially dangerous situation. Some time ago, after an extended sojourn across the Atlantic, I returned to discover my apartment had been burgled. It was an easy place to burgle, but unexpected since my beloved and I lived in a "protected" building. Bikers and dealers lived there and as such, was one of the safest places for anyone to live (save for the potential of being caught in crossfire which, thankfully, never happened).

But, burgled we most certainly were. The immediate concern was twofold. Whoever did it wasn't especially concerned about the "protected" aspect of the building and might well have been completely insane (we lived round the corner from an outpatient clinic specializing in emotionally-challenged mental defectives) or worse, the perp was a junkie (most of whom wouldn't be desperate enough to hit a "protected" domicile). This was someone who simply didn't give a rat's ass. They must be feared at all costs. One must be prepared to do whatever it takes to stop them in their tracks.

Secondly, I was sure the psycho would return.

Each night I'd rest easy with a baseball bat beside me and sure enough, soon after the burglary and in the pitch of black, I heard a huge crashing sound. Lo and behold, a dark figure stood at the foot of the bed. Springing into action, I grabbed the bat and threatened to crush the whacko's noggin like a watermelon. As quickly as he appeared, he disappeared.

A funny thing happened after this incident. My initial exhilaration immediately transformed into complete and total terror when thoughts of what could have happened had I remained asleep or if, God forbid I tussled with the fucker and screwed up. And here's the rub - my fear had nothing to do with what could have happened to me. It had everything to do with what might have happened to my wife. Scenarios danced through my brain and I became so paralyzed with fear that I insisted we move in with friends until we could pack up and move as pronto as possible.

The worry and fear I experienced over this has only multiplied exponentially now that I'm a father. Could I? Would I? Damn straight! I'd be a take-no-prisoners pit bull if either my wife or daughter needed my protection. No fear in that at all. It's the other fear, the one that cuts deep. That's the fear none of us want to feel.

The greatest fear, they say, is fear itself and now, my fear boils down to this: What if I failed to protect? What would the consequences be? Not to me, per se - I don't give a shit about ME, I care only about protecting those I love.

How would this fear transform itself in the aftermath of FAILURE to deliver protection?

These are very real things we all, to varying degrees, must deal with.

They also happen to be the very things that drive Citadel, one of the best films of the year.

Cinema, and in particular those films which are rooted in genre can actually work as first-rate entertainment or top-drawer roller coaster rides, but are magnified a thousandfold when they're rooted in themes and actions that come from very real places. This is something that Val Lewton knew very well. He was the first person within Hollywood's mainstream studio system to tell real stories, about real people with real fears - all against the backdrop of genre pictures designed to bring much-needed returns into a near-bankrupt studio.

This bold move on Lewton's part changed genre films forever. He was the great 40s producer who ran RKO's horror division in the wake of two debilitating financial disasters (surprisingly, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Andersons), but he did it in ways that his bosses and the rest of the industry would have been appalled by - if they actually realized what he was doing and if his gamble did NOT pay off as handsomely as it did with films like The Cat People (marital strife), The Curse of the Cat People (loneliness and introversion amongst children), The 7th Victim (the danger of cults and those most susceptible to them) and, among others, I Walked With a Zombie (mental illness).

Lewton believed that what really scared people were those things they had to deal with everyday. He believed in doing this above all - setting wheels of reality in motion against a fantastical backdrop which yielded a much better chance of scoring at the box office. Without Lewton, one wonders if we'd have ever seen similar approaches to storytelling on the screen that have all become classics of both genre and cinema as a whole.

In The Exorcist, Demon Pazuzu's shenanigans (which included grotesque head-spinning, crucifix-as-dildo-masturbatory-action and green pea vomit expulsion), were preceded by an hour of screen time devoted to the creepy and increasingly painful poking and prodding of a 12-year-old girl by members of the medical profession. As realized by director William Friedkin, the cold and clinical approach to healing by inflicting the extremes of scientific exploration turn out to be equally harrowing as the grotesqueries of the Devil.

Robert Wise's The Haunting and Jack Clayton's The Innocents followed in Lewton's footsteps to explore mental illness within the context of seemingly straight-up ghost stories and, lest we forget, Nicholas Roeg's extraordinary Don't Look Now which begins with a child's accidental death, moves through to parental grief and eventually into territory of the most horrific kind.

With the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the increased likelihood of apocalypse as America ramps up its greedy desire to control oil in the name of fighting terrorism and the obvious New World Order desire to cull the world's population, we are living in dangerous times. So much so that writer/director Ciaran Foy wisely places Citadel, his dystopian tale of horror in the same footsteps forged by Lewton.

Foy's picture is, first and foremost, a film about crashing, numbing, unrelenting fear. It is a palpable fear that's brought on when the film's young protagonist watches - not once, but twice - as those he loves are brutalized and/or snatched away from him. His fear intensifies so unremittingly, with such grim realism, that we're placed directly in the eye of the storm that is his constant state of terror.

Contributing greatly here is lead actor Aneurin Barnard as the young father Tommy. He delivers a performance so haunting, it's unlikely audiences will ever shake the full impact of what he achieves. Off the top of my head, I can think of very few (if any) scenes he is not in. We follow his story solely from his sphere and given that the character is almost always in a state of intense apprehension, the whole affair could have been utterly unbearable. Thankfully, he breathes such humanity into the role that we not only side with him, but I frankly defy anyone to NOT see themselves (or at least aspects of who they are and what they feel) within this indelibly wrought character.

As the film progresses, Tommy lives alone in a desolate housing project - a single father alone with his baby. On the few occasions he must leave the house and enter a world of emptiness, squalor, constantly grey skies and interiors lit under harsh fluorescents, his head is down, his eyes only occasionally looking around for potential danger and/or to literally see where he is walking (or rather, scurrying to). Just as Tommy is constantly in a state of terror - so, stunningly, are we.

There are seldom any points in the proceedings when we feel "safe" and when an occasional moment of warmth creeps into Tommy's existence, the effect is like finding an oasis in the Sahara. Unfortunately (and brilliantly), Foy's screenplay doesn't allow safe harbour for too long. Dramatically, we're almost constantly assaulted with natural story beats that yank us from our (and Tommy's) ever-so brief moments of repose.

Tranquility is a luxury and Foy fashions a living hell plunges both the audience and Tommy into the here and now as opposed to a very near future. Citadel sadly reflects a reality that pretty much exists on many streets in every city of the world. This is an increasing reality of contemporary existence and like all great science fiction, the film's dystopian vision acts as a wakeup call that hopefully will touch many beyond the converted.

Things must change, or this is what more and more of us will be experiencing. We can, like Tommy does for a good part of the film, shove our heads, ostrich-like into the false safety offered under the sand, but sooner or later we/he will be ripped out of the temporary "safety" of darkness to face two distinct realities: the horror of the world and even worse, the horror of his/our own fear and cowardice. Neither are happy prospects to be emblazoned upon anyone's hearts and minds when the meeting of one's maker is not far behind.

Tommy will have to make the right decision. He'll need to become proactive in finding his inner strength to fight for what is right. The options are black and white. Fight and die trying or, just die.

Now, before you think I'm completely suggesting the film is more starkly depressing than Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, first remember that this is, indeed a horror film and Foy jangles our nerves with the panache of a master. Have no doubts going in - this movie will scare the living bejesus out of you. It is, on that level, one hell of a ride.

The other happy element at play is a character Foy creates that is rendered by the phenomenal actor James Cosmo. Now if you thought Gene Hackman was suitably two-fisted as the stalwart man of the cloth in Ronald Neame's The Poseidon Adventure, he is, in the parlance of louts the world over, a "pussy" compared to Cosmo. Cosmo plays the most mentally unbalanced, kick-ass, foul-mouthed priest I've seen on film in some time - possibly of ALL time.

The Good Father knows the score, and then some. To paraphrase the tagline from the delightfully ludicrous Stallone cop picture Cobra: Fear's a disease. The Good Father is the CURE!!! The few people left of good character in this world of empty, battle torn housing projects rife with crime, all believe Father Cosmo is completely off his rocker. The Good Father's unnamed in the film, but in honour of Cosmo's stellar performance, I'm naming him - at least for the purposes of this written response to Foy's remarkable film.

Father Cosmo adds one extremely salient detail to Foy's film - humour. Great genre pictures always have some element of humour - not of the tongue and cheek variety, but the kind that's rooted in the central dramatic action of the narrative.

The other great thing about Father Cosmo is his Faith - and believe me, it's not necessarily residing in honour of the God of Abraham.

Father Cosmo really only has faith in one thing amidst the dark dystopian days - survival. At first, Tommy is intimidated by the curmudgeonly bonkers priest, but over time, it becomes obvious this slightly fallen Man o' God is the only one who makes sense. Something is rotten to the core and Father Cosmo has a plan to root out the pestilence.

You see, there is an infection.

Have I mentioned the infection yet?

No?

Good.

I'll let you discover it yourself.

As my regular readers are aware, I do everything in my power to know as little about a movie before I see it. I was so happy to know NOTHING about this movie prior to seeing it save for the title. The fact that I saw it at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival was also, by osmosis, a bit of a giveaway since this stellar event's programmers are delectably twisted sick puppies.

That said, I knew nothing - just as I hope YOU will keep things before seeing Citadel. The script, as well written as it is, hit a few (perfectly acceptable) marks that telegraphed a handful of items to me (and no doubt to a select few others), so there is little gained in pointing in their direction. In spite of this, I was quite unprepared for the full, heart-stopping, scream-inducing (yes, I screamed like some old grandmother), vomit-inspiring, drawer-filling (with, of course, your excretion of choice - I demurely keep mine to myself) and a flat-out dizzying, jack-hammeringly appalling climax of pure, sickening, unadulterated terror.

This is one mighty mo-fo of a scary-ass picture. The mise-en-scene is dazzling and the tale is rooted in both a humanity and reality that will wallop close to home for so many. There's nary a misstep in any of the performances and as the movie inches, like Col. Walter E. Kurtz's "snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor", Foy plunges us into an abyss at the top of the stairs.

In Apocalypse Now, Kurtz summed up the image of the snail on the straight razor thusly: "That's my dream!"

Frankly, Citadel is MY dream of one great horror movie.

Fuck it! It's no dream.

Citadel is a bloody nightmare!

"Citadel" was recently unleashed at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012). Visit the festival website HERE. "Citadel" is currently slated for theatrical release in Canada on November 16 via the best distributor in the country, Mongrel Media. If you missed it at TADFF 2012, you have no excuse to miss it now. It must be seen on a big screen with an audience. Though certain, shall we say, odours, will be palpable in the auditorium, it will be well worth it.

COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES -Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012)

Is that really Pussy Galore holding an automatic weapon? Indeed it is. Honor Blackman makes this  dull, derivative zombie comedy ALMOST watchable. 

Cockneys VS. Zombies (2012) *½
dir. Matthias Hoene
Starring: Alan Ford, Honor Blackman, Harry Treadaway, Rasmus Hardiker, Michelle Ryan

Review By Greg Klymkiw

God knows I love a good horror picture, but I'm getting so tired of zombie movies that when something like Cockneys VS. Zombies comes along, I almost never want to see a zombie movie ever again. The title was almost enough to tell me what I'd be in for, though, as a lover of genre fare, I filed away my preconceptions and prostrated myself before it, waiting to see if the picture's celluloid schwance would connect with my prostate gland in a pleasing manner.

Alas, the picture missed its target altogether. Sitting through the movie created nasty fissures requiring healthy applications of Anusol. So slight, so lacking in the laughs it promised (save for an overabundance of hoary gags and lines not even worthy of a "Carry On" picture) and finally, a horror-comedy so ludicrously replete with carnage, but nary a single decent scare, I scratched my noggin, gouging gaping holes in my scalp to ascertain why the audience I saw it with were guffawing and slapping their collective knees so heartily.

Cockneys VS. Zombies is little more than Shaun of the Dead, but dwelling in a sewer several notches below.

A handful of bumbling bank robbers (wanh-waaannnhhh) in the East End of London, score a humungous sum of cash to help their Grandfather relocate to a decent retirement home since mega-development will be swallowing up his beloved domicile. The old fart is to be placed in some squalid public digs out in the middle of nowhere - hardly suitable quarters for a crusty, curmudgeonly war veteran.

Of course, the bumblers are not hardened criminals. They're doing a good deed, so we're supposed to empathize with them. When some bonehead construction workers release a whole army of the living dead upon the east end of London (a symbol, no doubt, of what havoc gentrification can wreak), our heroes manage to get away sans police interference, but instead must kick zombie ass to keep the money and their otherwise worthless lives.

Eventually, they band together with the seniors who turn out to be amazing zombie whackers. The sight of a Geritol-imbibing Honor Blackman blasting the heads off zombies with an automatic assault rifle is not without merit. And yes, it is indeed THAT Honor Blackman - "Pussy Galore" from Goldfinger.

There was probably a good picture buried in here somewhere, but everything is played out so clumsily and at such a high pitch, that the whole experience is merely exhausting. The proceedings clod-hop about by rote with an annoyingly jaunty manner that nothing ever manages to surprise us at any turn.

It's great seeing Honor Blackman on a big screen again. She not only kills zombies, but turns on the old "Pussy Galore" charm to elevate her to maximum GMILF levels. Alan Ford as Grandad also delivers a solid piss and vinegar performance and there are moments of mild entertainment when he puts his war-mongering prowess to good use.

These are, however, meagre delights. They make one wish for a better movie to see both of these great actors strut their stuff in. For now, though, all those with crushes on Honor Blackman who possess a GMILF fetish, please lineup for Cockneys VS. Zombies at your earliest opportunity.

"Cockneys VS. Zombies" played at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012). For further info, please visit the festival website HERE.

DOOMSDAY BOOK - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012)

DOOMSDAY BOOK

3 Apocalyptic SF visions

2 of Korea's finest directors

Doomsday Book (2012) ***
dir. Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung

“A Brave New World” ***
“Heavenly Creature” ****
“Happy Birthday” **

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The omnibus film, the portmanteau if you will, or, if you're not fond of a cool monicker for this interesting genre, the anthology film, can be a mixed blessing as it's comprised of several short stories linked by theme and for a variety of reasons, not all of them are going to be as good as some, while others can be downright dreadful.

Seeing short films - one after another - can often be downright exhausting. This is always a problem at film festivals that present short film programs or, for that matter, short film festivals period. You watch a film. Let's say it's terrific. It runs an intense 15 or so minutes. As soon as it ends, no matter how thematically linked the overall program is, you need to reboot yourself and get into a whole new headspace for a whole new story. Sometimes, you see a short and it's so damn good that anything that follows it is, even if it's genuinely good also, can actually pale in comparison. It's the tough-act-to-follow syndrome. Shorts worked in the old days of film exhibition because there was always a variety of programming - two feature films, a short "drama", a short "musical", a cartoon, a newsreel and, of course, previews of coming attraction. These days, a perfect place for one short is just before a feature and ideally, shorts - in and of themselves - are best viewed with breaks between theml

Watching shorts within the context of a feature is just as difficult, if not more so. When you watch a feature, there's the expectation of following one set of characters through one primary narrative thread, but within an omnibus feature, its makers have to construct an overall arc with several separate stories.

The best features of this variety tend to be linked with a wraparound story. A simple example is the 70s Amicus production of Asylum. Directed by the famous cinematographer Roy Ward Baker, the story begins with a young psychiatrist being interviewed for a job in an asylum. He's given a test - interview several inmates and render a series of diagnoses. He visits each inmate and they each have a horrific story to tell. Through the film, we follow the psychiatrist. What will he discover? Will he get the job? Or, will this job interview unexpectedly culminate in something as horrific as the tales told to him. Along with several films made during this period, it's a corker of a tale and one fine example of how an omnibus film should work.

One of the best omnibus items is the classic 1945 Dead of Night. The whole picture is wonderful, BUT, one story involving a ventriloquist and his dummy is so brilliant, so expertly performed by Michael Redgrave, one leaves the theatre thinking only about the one story. Everything else, admittedly fine, falls by the wayside.

Thematic omnibus films are much trickier to pull off and frankly, I don't think any of them work perfectly. Cristian Mungiu's Tales from the Golden Age works best in recent memory as it's tied into a specific historical period and we get to experience a number of recurring incidents and character types within the context of the whole. Mungiu also crafts the tales to provide an overall arc.

The new Korean film Doomsday Book is a thematic omnibus film in the science fiction genre. Focusing upon apocalyptic visions, it's a very mixed bag since it begins with a solid story, dovetails into a genuinely great story and ends with a mildly engaging, but in comparison to the middle story, the feature's crowning glory is anything but.

All this said, the film is worth seeing. The first story, “A Brave New World”, is a darkly humorous and terrifying tale of a zombie epidemic. We follow a central character, a sort of nebbish type who's browbeaten by his domineering mother and his search for love. He unwittingly is responsible for a deadly virus and we chart its growth along with his own tale of emancipation and finding love. It's an entertaining bauble and it sets us up for what we believe will be a terrific overall experience.

The second tale, “Heavenly Creature”, is so powerful, so emotional and so profoundly moving, that the first film is almost erased from our memory banks. It's a simple evocative tale of a robot that develops feelings. We chart the robot's journey to a high form of spiritual enlightenment and the eventual distrust amongst extremists that such a "machine" will be a threat to humanity.

The final tale, “Happy Birthday” is a chaotic, stylistic mess about a family sniping at each other in a fallout shelter during armageddon. It's overwrought and not especially funny. Most of all, it's positioning at the end of the portmanteau is a big disappointment as it comes close to tainting the sublime qualities of the middle tale.

I suspect, on the whole, Doomsday Book might - even with this disappointing final story - have worked so much better with a solid wraparound story instead of placing so much faith in theme to tie it together.

Once the film hits DVD, I highly suggest turning the player off just after the middle tale. Better yet, though the first story is not without merit, you might be better off making use of the menu screen to select the first two stories and watch them, if possible, as separate entities.

Speaking of shorts, Doomsday Book during its TADFF 2012 presentation was preceded by Frost, a fine Canadian short drama directed by Jeremy Ball that expertly told a haunting, mysterious tale against the backdrop of Canada's northern aboriginal peoples. This story of a young woman confronting a terrifying spiritual presence linked to her ancestry had enough of a subtle apocalyptic subtext as well as narrative elements dealing with both quest and familial acceptance that made it fit perfectly into the Doomsday Book omnibus. I should have left after “Heavenly Creature”. In retrospect, Ball's short and the first two shorts in Doomsday Book made for an excellent feature film.

"Doomsday Book" screened as part of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012). For further info, feel free to visit the festival's website HERE.

AMERICAN MARY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012)

The Soska Twins present the Canadian Premiere of their creepy, stunningly directed and viciously dark-humoured psychological thriller AMERICAN MARY at Toronto After Dark (TADFF 2012).

American Mary **** (2012)
dir. Soska Twins: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
Starring: Katharine Isabelle, Tristan Risk, Antonio Cupo, David Lovgren

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The scalpel enters a full, fleshy breast and delicately, almost sensually circles the areola's entirety whilst blood oozes out, the surgeon's fingers gently tracing her handiwork.

Both nipples are eventually removed.

The next procedure involves surgically removing all physical receptors of pubic ecstasy and stitching shut the vagina of the aforementioned nipple-bereft body, save, of course, for the smallest allowable opening for the expulsion of urine.

The surgeon is spent, stunned, but satisfied - secure in the knowledge that her first stab (so to speak) at body modification is a success. The client eventually expresses sheer joy over her all-new sexually adhedonic state; how perfectly she's been able to fulfil her own personal essence of womanhood via the excision of those physical extremities which alternately offer enticement and pleasure. Whatever you say, babe. In the words of Marlo Thomas: "Free to be you and me."

Can movies possibly get any better than this?

Well yes, they most certainly can and do, but it doesn't change the fact that American Mary is a dazzlingly audacious sophomore effort from the Vancouver-based twisted twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska (who made a promising debut with their micro-budgeted 2009 effort Dead Hooker in a Trunk).

With this new picture, the sisters are on (at least for some, if not many) shaky moral ground (and/or crack), but happily, they maintain the courage of their convictions and do not tread lightly upon it. There are no half-measures here to even attempt making the picture palatable to the gatekeepers of political correctness (those purported knot-headed pseudo-lefty Great Pretenders who reside just to the right of Mussolini, Stevie Harper or Mitt Romney - take your pick). I'd even vigorously argue that non-fascist PC-types will, in fact, find the picture more than palatable. The rest of us will get it, groove on it and celebrate its excellence.

This movie is some mighty nasty stuff - replete with elements of slashing satire that hack away and eventually tear open "normally" accepted versions of right and wrong whilst grasping the exposed nerve endings of morality, holding them taught and playing the jangling buggers like violin strings. The picture will provoke, anger, disgust and scandalize a multitude of audiences, though chances are good that the most offended will be those "smugly fuckling" (phrase courtesy of the late, great CanLit genius Scott Symons) aforementioned poseurs who claim to be outside the mainstream, but have their noses deeper up the rectal canals of fascists than the bloody Tea Party.

Strange as this might seem, the picture comes from a place deep in the heart, so deep that the twins don't bother ripping the pulsating muscle out, but rather, invoke the spirit that lies dormant within to deliver a surprising level of humanity to the proceedings. As far as the picture's carnage takes us we're allowed, in more than one instance to even be moved by the plight of some of the characters.

The screenplay, written by the Soska twins, is - on its surface only - a rape-revenge fantasy, but it goes so much further than that. It's a vital examination of subcultures representing people disenfranchised from the aforementioned accepted standards of human existence. In a world increasingly aspiring to the living death of homogeneity (this includes those who purport to be untouched by homogeneity), the characters will never fit any mould that represents "normalcy", no matter how hard they try.

Within the world of the film, those who refuse to conform (not because it's "cool" to do so, but because they simply cannot conform) seek avenues that will fulfil their basic needs as human beings, no matter how strange or repellent a majority finds them.

The tale told involves Mary (Katharine Isabelle), a med student struggling under the crushing weight of ever-mounting debt and the constant psychological abuse from her mentor Dr. Grant (David Lovgren), the chief professor of surgery - a field of practice she longs to serve in. In desperation, Mary scours the "adult services" want ads and is drawn to one with keen interest. Under the cloak of night she arrives at a nondescript warehouse in an industrial park that emits the thumping bass of dance music, a neon sign promising sensual delights and a burly doorman who immediately allows her entrance - as he clearly does to any babe seeking admittance.

Mary meets with the charmingly sleazy proprietor Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo) who scoffs a bit when she hands him her resume. The only pre-requisites to work in his club are a good overall "package" (which he discovers after telling her to strip to her undies and show-off her gorgeous body), an ability to deliver a fine massage (as she ably proves with her nimble surgeon's fingers) and a willingness to suck him off with skill and abandon (which, she sadly never gets to do). The job interview is interrupted with news that all is not well in another part of the club. Knowing Mary is a med student specializing in surgery, Billy asks her to join him.

In a dank, dungeon-like room within the club's bowels, Mary's eyes widen at a gruesome sight - nothing to phase a surgeon, but the context would be, at least initially, pretty bizarre to anyone - even her. Whatever goes on in this room, has gone seriously awry and as luck would have it, Mary is just what the, shall we say, doctor, has ordered.

For a wad of pure, hard, cold cash - the likes of which she's never held in her hands, Mary agrees to perform some illicit surgical magic which will not only make a wrong right, but provide a much needed service beyond simple lifesaving. The subject, twitching and bleeding on the filthy table, will most definitely require saving, but the painful manner in which he will be saved will provide him with added ecstasy.

Soon Mary is in demand amongst the body modification subculture who troll about the same underbelly as those who work and patronize the club (in addition to the genuine underground activities involving extreme masochistic indulgence - no healthy, mutually consenting BDSM here - this is a place where people go to be maimed, hurt and tortured).

The other subculture portrayed is that of the surgeons themselves. The Soskas create a creepy old boys club where the power of slicing into live human beings has engendered a world of ritual abuse. In the worlds of body modification and masochistic gymnatics, the subjects are ASKING for it. Not so within the perverse world of the surgeons. They use psychological abuse to break down their victims, then administer kindness and fellowship to lure them, then once their quarry is in their clutches, they use deception of the most cowardly, heinous variety to fulfil their desire to inflict sexual domination.

The body modifiers and masochists are pussycats compared to the surgeons who are portrayed as little more than pure exploiters. Their air of respectability as healers and academia is the weapon they use to commit violence and perpetrate subjugation.

Someone's gonna pay. Bigtime.

So, I'm sure you've already gathered that American Mary is not (Thank Christ!) Forrest Gump. We're bathing in the cinematic blood spilled into the tub that is this movie by the insanely imaginative Soska Twins - clearly the spawn of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Elizabeth Bathory with, perhaps, some errant seed from Alfred Hitchcock or William Friedkin.

One of the extraordinary things about American Mary is that it dives headlong into a number of subcultures, which, even if they've been completely and utterly pulled out of the Soska Sisters' respective Autoroutes de Hershey, they feel like genuinely real worlds. The locations, production design, art direction, set dressing and costume design for the various interior and exterior settings look lived in and completely appropriate to the scenes in which they appear.

Even the curse of most lower-budgeted Canadian films - that notorious lack-of-dollars underpopulation - is not especially egregious as some Canuck pictures since many of the settings demand it, while others are appropriately framed (most of the time) to mask it. As well, the Soska Sisters generally have a good eye for composing shots that provide maximum dramatic impact and the lighting and cutting is always appropriate to the dramatic action rather than calling attention to itself.

The performances are generally first rate and the background performers always look 100% right for the scenes. The fine acting, coupled with a script packed with dialogue that's always in keeping with both character and milieu rather than going out of its way to be overtly clever, also contributes to the overall sense that we're wandering through very real, albeit completely, utterly insane worlds. This is also not to say the film is bereft of stylish visual touches, but they're again used for dramatic effect rather than the annoying curse so many younger filmmakers suffer when they abandon narrative (or even dream) logic to say, "Look Ma, I can use a dolly." And believe me, when a shot and/or cut NEEDS to knock the wind out of us, it happens with considerable aplomb.

What sells the film is the world the Soska Sisters create. It's seldom obvious and more often than not we believe it - or at least want to. In many ways, the film is similar to the great early work of Walter Hill (pretty much anything from The Warriors to Streets of Fire) wherein he created worlds that probably could ONLY exist on film, but within the context of the respective pictures, seldom felt less than "real". (That said, Hill was ALWAYS showy, but he knew how to make it intrinsic to the dramatic action.) This makes a lot of sense, since it always feels like the Soska Twins are making movies wherein those worlds that exist realistically on-screen, but furthermore evoke a feeling that the film has been wrought in a much different (and probably better) age than ours.

Dead Hooker in a Trunk and especially American Mary, seem to exist on a parallel plane to those halcyon days of 70s/80s edginess reflected in the Amos Poe New York "No Wave" - not to mention other counter culture types who straddled the underground and the mainstream - filmmakers like Scorsese, Rafelson, Waters, Jarmusch, et al who exploded well beyond the Jim Hoberman-coined "No Wave". Their work even approaches a bit of the 80s cult sensibilities of Repo Man, Liquid Sky or even such generational crossover titles as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet) and the deranged work of more contemporary directors like Eli Roth, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino - all of whom "steal", to varying degrees, from earlier periods of film history, but use the work of previous Masters as a springboard to make the pictures all their own. (By the way, I'm not necessarily suggesting American Mary is culled from any of the aforementioned but rather, that the Soska Twins are clearly working in the same sort of exciting territory. It's especially dazzling when it's within a burgeoning stage of their development as film artists.)

A number of the cast members are truly first-rate. Katharine Isabelle as Dr. Mary has come long and far from her groundbreaking performance in the classic John Fawcett-Karen Walton werewolf picture Ginger Snaps. Here she delivers a courageous performance on a par with her turn as the cursed teen werewolf back in 2000. It's 12 years later and Isabelle has blossomed into a tremendously engaging screen personality. The camera might actually love her even more now that she's gained considerable physical maturity (and the Soska Twins have definitely used their four great eyes to work with their cinematographer Brian Pearson's additional two eyes to add to her stunning, real-woman looks). Isabelle's 12 years of toil in mainly television has given her a myriad of roles and experience, but in American Mary, her brave, deadpan (and often very funny) delivery blended with moments where the character is clearly repressing anything resembling emotion is the kind of thesping that demands more roles as terrific as this one. Please, get this woman out of Television Hell and put her on the big screen where she belongs.

Antonio Cupo as the sort-of male love interest is both sleazy and endearing (a pretty amazing double whammy). David Lovgren is suitably creepy and reptilian. Paula Lindberg as the nipple-extracted bombshell who also gets her vagina sewn shut and Tristan Risk as the body modified dancer who promotes Mary's talents far and wide, both transcend the expert makeup effects to bring their respective characters' spirits beyond the almost freakish intensity of their body modifications. And finally, no review of American Mary would be complete without a special nod to Nelson Wong who wins the alltime accolade for the scariest, creepiest, sickest, funniest rendering of a surgeon you hope NEVER to meet - even in your dreams.

American Mary is a true original. I recently had the pleasure to personally express to William Friedkin that his new film Killer Joe - in spite of how violent, scary, horrific, darkly funny, nasty and just plain vile it was - sent me out of the theatre in a state of sheer, unadulterated bouyancy. This pleased the Master, greatly. Somewhere out there in Canuckville's Lotus Land, I hope the Soska Twins realize just how utterly bouyant there own crazed, brilliant film is. And someday, I expect them to deliver one kick-ass devil-may-care Friedkin-like rollercoaster ride through hell after another.

I'm sure they'll do it.

"American Mary" had its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF 2012) and will be released in Canada via Anchor Bay. For further info, feel free to visit the TADFF website HERE.