The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2022: The War of the Roses (1989), directed by Danny Devito

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: 'Come Alive (War of the Roses)' by Janelle Monae

       Danny Devito: America’s Favorite Short Angry Man. Whether it’s his stint as Frank Reynolds in the long-running comedy show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, his stint in the other long-running comedy show Taxi, his partnership with Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’s easily one of Hollywood’s most recognizable comedic actors. As popular as he is in front of the camera however, it feels like not many people know that he also has had a career behind it as well. Not a huge career mind you, the dude isn’t secretly Alfred Hitchcock or anything but he’s made a handful of films, and he’s got a flair for gallows humor that helps those films stand out. Not always in the most profitable way, if you remember Death to Smoochy, but if you’re visiting this blog you’re probably more interested in unique flops than by-the-numbers hits anyway. So let’s try one out.

       Released in 1989, The War of the Roses was written by Michael J. Leeson, directed by Danny Devito and produced by James L. Brooks and Arnon Milchan through Gracie Films, based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Warren Adler. Danny Devito plays Gavin D’Amato, a divorce lawyer who is telling his potential client (and by extension the audience) a story about Oliver (Michael Douglas) and Barbara (Kathleen Turner) Rose. A couple who were once very much in love, and very much living that vaunted ‘American Dream’, but after 18 years of marriage the cream has curdled. Barb wants a divorce, and she wants the house along with it. Oliver doesn’t necessarily want a divorce, but he definitely doesn’t want to give up the house, and he quickly learns of a legal loophole that allows him to keep living inside the house as the divorce proceeds. With neither side willing to budge, what was once simply the unfortunate ending of a relationship quickly turns toxic as the two go to greater and greater lengths in order to force the other out. With the fate of this petit-bourgeois estate at stake, who will prevail in this war of the Roses? Probably not Richard of York. 

       It’s rather funny to consider that the screenwriter for this film, Michael J. Leeson was mostly known for TV shows like The Partridge Family and The Cosby Show, as it’s hard to imagine a more perfect antithesis to that ideal than War of the Roses. Oliver goes from a somewhat neglectful dickhead to a petty, vindictive lunatic, and while the film generally gears us toward sympathizing with Barb, it isn't long before she becomes as much of a degenerate as her husband. Naturally, coming from the Trash Man himself, but interestingly Devito’s cinematic worldview isn’t as bleak as his work on It’s Always Sunny would imply. The world of War of the Roses isn’t a miserable place, people aren’t naturally horrible (despite what Gavin says), but it isn’t a fairy tale either, and the way this couple tortures each other borders on the cartoonishly absurd. The immediate comparison would be to Terry Gilliam, but even his more lighthearted films have moments of random cruelty (the ending to Time Bandits comes to mind). To Devito when someone succumbs to their greed, they fall hard, but as unhinged as our couple gets they never fall so far as to completely lose their humanity, and their toxicity is aimed largely at each other rather than their friends and family. One of whom is a teenage Sean Astin, by the way.

       Speaking of Terry Gilliam, there’s something visually about War of the Roses that brings to mind the former Python, or perhaps Tim Burton. The almost storybook way that certain scenes are set up, the choice of colors, you half expect Beetlejuice to walk around the corner. I felt the same way about Death to Smoochy, although that film might actually be closer to Gilliam than this one was. The cinematographer, Stephen H. Burum would later go on to greater acclaim with Devito on his film Hoffa as well as a long partnership with Brian de Palma, but he didn’t work on Smoochy, which leads me to believe that War of the Roses is chiefly Devito’s vision. It’s a shame then that he has so rarely gotten behind the camera, as I think he has the eye for it. Give him one of these properties like Umbrella Academy or Series of Unfortunate Events and I think he would have hit it out of the park.

       Here’s a fact that I just learned as I was writing this: this was not the first time that Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny Devito had shared the silver screen together. They had actually collaborated together 5 years earlier on Romancing the Stone, Indiana Jones’ romcom cousin, and I guess Devito thought they had good chemistry together. They do, although watching this film it’s hard to imagine them actually being romantic with each other, which I imagine was part of the joke to the audience for whom Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile was still a relatively fresh memory . They fit into these roles perfectly too -- Douglas plays the condescending dickhead with a natural ease, but he doesn’t have the intensity of a Jack Nicholson so his viciousness lacks teeth. Kathleen Turner has the look of strained beauty down pat but she’s definitely not a waif, so even during Oliver’s’ more psycho scenes he comes across as more of a pompous ass when compared to the more capable and violent Barbara, helping to keep things from feeling too ‘real’, which was the true balancing act of this film. They knew how to pretend to love each other, so of course they’d know how to pretend to hate each other.

. . 

       The biggest con for me is probably the length. War of the Roses is almost two hours long, and while that’s definitely not uncommon for movies these days, I do think it took a little too long to start ramping things up and so lost some steam around the middle of the film. It’s also seems like a bit of a waste of Sean Astin, given how little the Rose children factor into the story, but I guess we can take solace in the fact that thet don’t seem as fucked up as their parents.

       The War of the Roses gets the recommendation. As I said it takes its time to ramp up, but when it does Devito’s blend of whimsy and bluntly macabre humor makes for a thoroughly entertaining watch. As a perpetually single blogger I have no idea what effect this will have on someone who is married or recently been married, so if you fit into those criteria put this in the queue at your own risk. And avoid the fish soup.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989), directed by Kazuki Omori

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "Bio Wars" by Koichi Sugiyama

       Now this is truly a blast from the past. We haven’t seen hide nor hair from the King of the Monsters since Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, the sixth ever writeup on this blog. Despite making it a priority to cover foreign films, despite the direction of this blog being geared towards genre films (especially horror and science-fiction), despite the fact that I’ve been a fan of the thing since I was a child, the last time the big green lizard’s name appeared on this section of the internet was almost a decade ago. It’s not like we had a good excuse either, I mean if Monkeybone or Cool World of all movies could get an entry then Big G definitely should have been four or five films deep at this point. Yet every year when the list was compiled Godzilla was, like so many others, a bridesmaid but never the bride.

       Well this year I’ve decided to use the Global Top Ten to take care of some films that have been on my watch queue. We’ve already seen one, Once Upon a Time in the West, and now it’s time to return to Japan and see how they filter important social and political issues through the lens of people in rubber suits smashing miniature models of Tokyo. The only proper way to do it, really.

       Released in 1989, Godzilla vs. Biollante was written and directed by Kazuki Omori, story by Shinichiro Kobayashi, and produced by Shogo Tomiyama and Tomoyuki Tanaka through Toho, the grand central station of kaiju pictures. After falling into a volcano in the ending of the previous film, Japan has been freed from the menace known as Godilla, the atomic lizard has left behind something other than destroyed homes and families: his DNA in the form of sin cells. So useful are these cells that other nations are trying to get their hands on them, including the country of Saradia, an oil-producing country in the middle east that is totally not a stand-in for any other country. That’s bad news for botanist and geneticist Professor Shiragami, as it’s not five minutes after Saradia acquires those G-cells that someone bombs the research lab they were in, killing his daughter in the process. 

        Five years later and it looks like Godzilla is getting ready to leave his lava bath, so Japan has cooked up a way to kill him off for good: Anti Nuclear Energy Bacteria, a biological weapon designed to to consume radiation, derived from those G-cells. Of course the existence of such a weapon is an even bigger gamechanger than the G-cells, and so you have espionage agents and spies gunning for that secret formula. Also Shiragami, who was put on the ANEB project, decided to take the G-cells and combine them with plant cells for whatever reason, he’s a fucking moron I guess, and obviously that ends up creating a giant monster named Biollante. Now normally when two giant monsters are in the same general area they just leave each other alone and don’t interact, but I think this just might be the exception.

       Let’s start with the good: the special effects. Not much has changed from the Showa to the Heisei era films on a technical level, it’s still people in suits walking around miniature cities with little smoke bombs going off every now and then, but what has changed is the presentation. Godzilla is no longer the goofy joke he was in the 70s but a brutish engine of destruction, and Biollante wouldn’t look out of place in a John Carpenter film, in fact I’d say it looks better than the creatures in In the Mouth of Madness. The miniature cities have similarly increased in size and complexity, Godzilla appearing almost dwarfed by these giant skyscrapers, which explode and crumble with exquisite precision. There’s a surreality to it for sure, the lighting on those skyscrapers almost emphasize how much they’re not actual buildings, but to me films like Godzilla vs. Biollante and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah was when kaiju movies finally looked like kaiju movies rather than Rifftrax fodder. A bit like how some people say that superhero films weren’t good until the MCU started, if I cared about Marvel.

       Unfortunately just about everything else in Godzilla vs. Biollante isn’t as good. There’s a good premise of governments and corporations trying to exploit Godzilla for their own ends, some ‘you thought of whether you could rather than if you should’ before Ian Malcolm put it out there for taste, but that premise is reduced to a simple ‘find the McGuffin’ thread with people trying to steal/recover the bacteria, and the whole anti-genetic engineering message kinda goes out the window when both things created through meddling with nature ultimately saved the day in the end. Then there’s this angle involving psychics, because psychics exist I guess, and one teenage girl apparently can project the same level of power as Godzilla, which begs the question of why we need bioweapons when a bunch of 9th graders could take care of it in five minutes. Also ghosts exist and inhabit plants? Apparently the Godzilla filmography takes place in the Undertale universe. It’s an aggressively muddled movie.

       That’s not a foreign concept when it comes to Godzilla movies, so you then have to look at the action layout. It’s a cold hard truth of the kaiju subgenre that despite it being predicated on giant monsters destroying stuff or fighting each other, most of the film will be dedicated to things that are not kaiju related, so keeping the audience engaged with the human aspect of the film is key. Godzilla vs. Destoroyah managed to do that decently well with it’s faux Aliens, but Godilla vs. Biollante is the polar opposite. I could not bring myself to care about any of these characters, besides the idiot who says a witty one-liner to Godzilla after shooting him with a rocket and is immediately crushed to death,  and because most of the film is built around waiting for Godzilla to do something and then sending other people to do it, the film can’t figure out a way to make them interesting either. I can’t even remember any of their names besides Shiragami, Kuroshima the Ian Malcolm wannabe and Asuka the forgettable female lead. Even Shiragami barely exists in this film, the character who should be the most emotionally nuanced in the film given his backstory and him literally being responsible for creating a giant monster, and it doesn’t help that the actor is more wooden than Pinnocchio’s taint. It’s hard to believe that a movie with giant monsters, super science and psychics could be so damn dull, but Godzilla vs. Biollante will make you a believer.

       Even calling it Godzilla vs. Biollante seems like a touch of false advertising. Yes the two monsters do meet each other, but the total amount of time that the two kaiju are on screen together is probably less time than it would take to eat a Happy Meal, and their fight is less active than your average episode of Power Rangers. In fact Godzilla spends the majority of the movie, when he actually shows up, fighting with the JSDF and their state of the art ship that looks like a bloated horseshoe crab, and those fights are actually way more dynamic than the one with the giant monster plant. Biollante, despite being second-billed, doesn't really do all that much, and honestly could have been completely written out of the story and barely anything would change. 

       I also can’t let this write-up go without giving a big middle finger to the score. While you do get the iconic theme whenever Godzilla is on screen, most of the time you get this Sousa-like booming orchestral stuff which sort of makes sense in the scenes with the horseshoe crab ship but is totally dissonant with the other scenes. A giant nuclear monster just ran through a major metropolitan area, tearing it to the ground and killing hundreds if not thousands of people, it probably shouldn’t sound like the ending of Star Wars.

       Ultimately I just don’t see myself giving Godzilla vs. Biollante. I’m as big a fan of the atomic lizard as anyone, and it’s nice to see him again after all this time, but the film surrounding him is a mess, and not in a funny way like the Showa movies. If you want to see some badass Gojira action, the best bet in this blog’s opinion is still Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. There’s still plenty of Godzilla movies to choose from though, and hopefully it won’t take almost a decade for us to see another one.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2020: Santa Sangre (1989), directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", by Black Sabbath

      In the pantheon of weird directors, your Monte Hellmans, your David Lynchs, perhaps no other director has so consistently struggled with motives that outstripped his means than Alejandro Jodorowsky. The most famous example is of course his ill-fated attempt to adapt Dune -- a 24 hour long film featuring the likes of Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali (before he outed himself as a fascist) and a young H.R. Giger, but even when we covered El Topo one could see him doing his best to not make just another western film. Perhaps I’ve said this before, but it makes sense that he eventually branched off from cinema in order to do graphic novels, where he was just as successful, if not more. Whereas films always deal heavily in compromise, the studio, the producer, the actors, the crew, in the world of comics Jodorowsky was unshackled from the chains of reality, free to tackle any idea that crossed his mind. All he really needed was someone to illustrate those ideas, which he did to great effect with his collaboration with Moebius. If you ever get a chance, you should try out The Incal or the Metabarons, it’s crazy stuff. 

We’re not here to talk about comic books though, we’re here for films. So if El Topo was Jodorowsky’s spin on a western movie, why not see how he tackles a thriller?

Released in 1989 though Mainline Pictures, Santa Sangre was written by Roberto Leoni, Claudio Argento (relative of Dario) and Alejandro Jodorowsky, one of the last films he would direct until his return to filmmaking in 2013. Alex Jodorowsky (one of several Jodorowskys who show up in this film) stars as Fenix, a young man living an animalistic existence in a mental hospital. Fenix lived a troubled life, as we soon learn: A boy magician in an traveling circus, his father was a drunk abusive philanderer and his mother a religious zealot who had a shrine built to a raped and murdered schoolgirl who ended up murdering each other as graphically as they could. Certainly traumatic for a young child, and of course since this is a movie that means Fenix ends up becoming a Norman Bates-style murderer. No woman in the whole of Mexico is safe from this dangerously oedipal killer, except perhaps for Alma (Sabrina Denison), Fenix’s childhood friend who was spirited away after the inciting incident. What are the chances that they would be in the exact same place at the same time though?

I’ve perhaps buried the lead somewhat, committed the faux-pas of spoilers but there’s not that much suspense and mystery in Santa Sangre when you get right down to it. Even the strange obscurantist symbolism is a little bit too on the nose for someone who has made it through most of David Lynch’s filmography. A woman passes by and an actual snake slides out of Fenix’s pants, Fenix feels remorse for what he’s done so he literally dresses up like Claude Rains from the Universal film while also directly referencing the film and its reason for inclusion. It feels so belabored, and drags down what is already a plodding, 2 hour plus film. Calling it a ‘thriller’ is ascribing to it a bit too much vitality.

What about ‘horror’ then? This is a movie about a mentally ill serial killer after all, and Fenix does get to some serialized killing throughout the film, but this being Jodorowsky it can’t just be murder, it’s gotta be weird. In fact I’m reminded of Italy’s giallo pictures, with its cartoonish depictions of violence, but is even less realistic. Like the very first murder involves using knives to slice a woman’s arms off in one clean motion, despite them only being sharp to stick maybe a quarter of inch into a wood board. Same goes for the second murder, where the victim is spraying blood like a water hose yet the actual stabbing seems barely more visceral than your average Doctor Who episode. We’ve seen from El Topo that Jodorowsky isn’t afraid of dealing in genres that deal in violence, so it seems like he’s trying to do less with more for whatever reason.

Speaking of doing less with more, what is the deal with Jodorowsky and women in this movie? Seems like if you’re a woman in Santa Sangre you’re either insane or a prostitute, and if you’re sexually active then there’s a good chance you’re gonna be murdered. The only one to escape that binary characterization is our female lead, Alma, and even she has to deal with an attempted rape and an attempted murder, and she just so happens to be a deaf mute who doesn’t have a single word of dialogue who ultimately helps Fenix out. So in the world of Santa Sangre, women exist only for the benefit of men, either to help out of problems or to take out oedipal-induced frustrations, and if we were supposed to be seeing things from Fenix’s perspective then Jodorowsky doesn’t convey it well. Both cis and transgender women get it though, in case you were worried about inclusivity. 

Acting wise I suppose Axel Jodorowsky isn’t bad, of all the Jodorowsky spawn in this movie he’s the best actor of the bunch. Blanca Guerra plays Concha, Fenix’s insane armless mom, and she plays an insane ghoul pretty well. Everyone else was everyone else, although I must admit I had no patience for the kid who played child Fenix. Lots of shots which emphasized his crying face and his big buck teeth, I kinda got sick of looking at him.

Music was done by Simon Boswell, and while I thought the score was good it seemed like there was a problem in how it was utilized. A suspenseful moment would have the appropriate synth noodling, but it would only last for like 5 seconds before an abrupt shift to a Latin folk song. A better use of that might be when a pimp takes some of the mental patients to the equivalent of skid row, where there’s colors and dancing and a saucy mambo number, and then we reach the corner and the fun stops. Not much else comes to mind about it.

      When I first placed Santa Sangre on this list I was excited to see Jodorowsky’s take on a horror movie, memories of his comics and films flooding into my mind and building expectations, but it was ultimately more mundane and less enthralling than I was expecting. Perhaps this year has just put me off the mood for movies. Still there’s certainly enough weird here to entice the casual horror fan, so I’ll let it pass with a mild recommendation. Pour yourself a nice glass of paint/blood this Halloween and see if you can’t have a nice evening.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Moon Child, or El niño de la luna (1989), directed by Agustí Villaronga

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "The Host of Seraphim", by Dead Can Dance

       If there’s one thing people love to talk about, christian and nonchristian alike, it’s the Antichrist. The normal Christ was fine, sure, raising the dead and feeding the hungry and all that jazz, but we already know his deal. The Antichrist, however, could be anybody, and indeed when you bring it up it seems like everybody will have their own opinion on who it is. Popular politicians are the Antichrist, homosexual people are the Antichrist, Muslims are the Antichrist, and so on and on in that fashion. Someone once said that if Jesus himself were to actually reappear on Earth, then even he would be derided as the Antichrist, and I don’t know if that’s too far off from reality. I mean it’s a way to push blind hatred onto the world while avoiding the actual confrontation with the root issues of the world’s problems, so no wonder you see it so often, but at this point I have to wonder if there’s anyone on Earth that isn’t some kind of demon or Antichrist. Joe Pera maybe, but everyone else is to be determined.

       With how popular the Antichrist witch hunt is in real life, it is no wonder that we’ve seen more than a fair share of books, comics, music albums, and of course movies on the subject. Richard Donner’s The Omen, Marathon alum Rosemary’s Baby, and our film today, Moon Child, from Spain’s Agustí Villaronga. Based on the 1923 novel by the famous occultist Aleister Crowley, the film stars Enrique Saldana as David, an orphan boy who possesses not only telekinetic powers, but the belief that he is the legendary Moon Child, which is apparently a big deal although it’s never exactly clear what that even means. It is those abilities that brought him to the attention of a mysterious cult, who are not only collecting psychic children, but are also getting ready to bring about the birth of the Moon Child, with the ultimate intent of ruling the world or whatever. As David is the Moon Child, or at least thinks he is, he develops a relationship with the chosen progenitors, Edgar and Georgina, and decides to help them escape. It’s a cross-continental race against time as David travels toward his ultimate destiny, which is probably important.

        The first thing that came to mind while watching Moon Child was that of Dario Argento’s work, like Phenomena or Suspiria. The Center where is cult is headquartered,  its large opulent architecture adorned almost saturated white in places, emblazoned with this hexagonal logo, feels in line with Argento’s aesthetic, although that’s probably the closest Moon Child ever gets to that level of hyper-stylization. Beyond that though VIllaronga just has a great eye in general, from the crumbling ruins in a North Africa desert to an old woman’s shack it all looks great, period-appropriate (I assume the movie takes place in 1923 as well) but with some wear and tear to it. Something which you don’t often see in more modern period pieces, which like to assume everything from the 20s was dry-cleaned, waxed, and covered in gold leaf.

       Villaronga also takes a cue from Argento in bringing in a band to compose the score for his film, in this case goth rock/darkwave/tribal ambient band Dead Can Dance, even going a step further and casting DCD vocalist Lisa Gerrard as the Moon Child’s mother Georgina. If I’m being honest I never took much notice of the music; Not because it was bad, just that it blended into the scenes to the extent that it became ‘invisible’, so to speak. Which is arguably what you want in a score, music which doesn’t separate itself from the film in your mind, but maybe I just wasn’t paying much attention. A good rule of thumb in these reviews is that if I don’t specifically mention the music, it’s probably okay.

       As you might have guessed from the film summary though, the film is a little obtuse. What is a Moon Child? Who is this cult and why do they want to ‘create’ a Moon Child in the first place? Since when did psychic powers exist, and why is the cult buying up psychic kids if they’re already gunning for the Moon Child? How is David a ten year old boy but is also trying to ensure his own birth like some kind of Back to the Future scenario? All those questions and more will not be answered during the film’s runtime. Yeah, you’re likely pointing an accusing finger at me and say ‘you love to name drop David Lynch and you’re complaining about things being obscure?’, but with Lynch films the intent never seems to be on telling so much as it is attempting to evoke emotions or ideas. Moon Child is more concrete, and thus these questions become more relevant. Why should I care if David succeeds in his quest or not if I don’t know what the quest is, or why it needs to be done? Even if it’s a fairy tale you know why Red Riding Hood does what she does and why the wolf does what it does, and if Moon Child is trying to work the fairy tale vibe like it looks to be doing, then the foundation needs to be built.

       It also doesn’t help that I never found myself caring about the characters. In a two hour movie it feels like the main characters barely interact with each other, and when they do it feels off, like the tone is off. It’s especially bad with David, who is supposed to be having this grand adventure and people are so attached to him or whatever and yet never changes in a tangible way once in the movie. If two hours of looking at some kid’s slack-jawed, wide-eyed stare sounds good to you than this is your Godfather, but honestly I got sick of him early on the movie and nothing ever challenged that opinion. If you want to usher in a new age for mankind you might want to pick someone with a little more charisma, is all I’m saying.

        Moon Child isn’t a bad movie, but for a two hour picture it takes a while to really get going, and even then it stays under the speed limit the whole way through. If you’re into occult stuff, Crowley and tarot cards, shit like that then I would recommend it as an experience, but folks who like a little flash and thrills are probably better off with something like Suspiria or The Omen. If you need your Antichrist fix this Halloween, there’s plenty of options.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Society (1989), directed by Brian Yuzna

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Sex and Dying in High Society", by X

       Of all the people that I name drop on this blog, Brian Yunza is not one one of them. From the longest article I’ve written to the shortest, the appearance of his name could probably be counted on one hand, and yet this blog probably exist without him. After all, he was the producer on Stuart Gordon’s 80s cult classic Re-Animator, one of the films I covered in the very first Halloween-based thing I ever did for the blog, which has become my trademark, for better or worse. He also directed its sequel, Bride of Re-Animator, which I covered in the first proper Marathon, which was one of my favorite movies of that year. He also directed Beyond Re-Animator, one of my least favorite films of the year that it was featured, but then not every ball you hit can be home run after all. So in recognition of his contributions to Marathon history, I figured there could be no greater honor than covering yet another one of his films. Not only that, but a complete Yuzna original this time around; No Stuart Gordon or H.P. Lovecraft to steal the spotlight. From 1989, it’s Society.

       Bill Whitney (as played by Billy Warlock, who Obscurus Lupa fans might recognize as Baywatch’s Eddie Krama) lives a pretty charmed life. He’s Beverly Hills Academy’s star jock, he’s on his way to becoming class president, he’s got a cheerleader girlfriend, oh and his parents are filthy stinking rich. Yet all is not well in this modern day Xanadu. Aside from the fact that his parents are always fawning over his sister Jenny, there’s just something...off. Something not quite right, and it’s left him in a state of paranoia, at least according to his psychiatrist. Billy’s fears are completely legitimate however, at least according to Billy, and they are completely justified when David Blanchard, Jenny’s ex-boyfriend, provides him with a secret recording that paints the Whitney family in a damnable light. The smoking gun? More like a key to hell, as this tape will lead Billy to discover that what he thought the Whitney family was, and what he thinks Whitney family is now, pales in comparison to the truth.

       Society is the kind of movie that, like many horror movies of the time tries to spin a lot of different plates at once. At first it seems like it’s aiming for a psychological thriller, in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby or The Believers. Then it takes a straight turn right into body horror territory courtesy of Screaming Mad George (who you might recall from The Guyver), concurrently with some social commentary that comes out of the blue. Very ambitious, bringing to mind not only Yuzna’s previous work on Bride of Re-Animator, but films like The Stuff and Night of the Creeps as well. Although this is right on the edge of the decade, this feels like prime 80s splatterhouse territory, and at this stage of the game we’re all well aware of my feelings for that sort of cinema.

       Society is a film that implies a complex narrative and a subtle build to suspense however, and having seen two other Brian Yuzna movies at this point, complex and subtle are not in his wheelhouse. There’s nothing wrong with going over the top, especially when it comes to cult horror movies, but for that to be effective you have to establish where the top is, the reality from which surreality springs. While those Screaming Mad George special effects are certainly a treat,its effect in the story is equivalent to downing a shot of espresso after inhaling a line of cocaine. It’s too much, and in hindsight not only is nothing ever properly explained, there’s no real justification for why the plot of the movie even happens at all. Even Yuzna seems to recognize that at some point, as it feels like he originally forgot to write an ending to his movie and what we see on screen is what he hastily wrote in the margins when the crew called him out on it. Again, if it were just about the horror it wouldn’t be a problem, but because it seems like there’s an attempt at saying something bigger here, there needs to be a few moments of respite.

       What we also see in Society is an internal struggle on tone. Yuzna seems conflicted on what he wants his film to be like, The Thing or The Ruling Class, so he decided to compromise by shoving comedy haphazardly into the most intense moments. Now horror and comedy aren’t strangers, from Get Out to Fright Night we’ve seen it done, but in Society it seems out of place and flat out stupid at worst. Not stupid in the good way either, as in the slapstick of Evil Dead II. Bad stupid, the kind of stupid that makes you wonder if the director really thought it was a good idea. So it was with Beyond Re-Animator, so it was with Screaming Mad George’s The Guyver, so at this point you can’t deny it’s not a conscious choice, I just dunno. I can see the argument of the last act being some kind of Bosch-like vision of hell, with our protagonist being tortured with bizarre and horrible sights, but I end up rolling my eyes and wondering if the director is actively insulting my intelligence. I don’t like that feeling, and I don’t think that’s Yuzna’s intention, but when I see someone literally pretending to be an asshole and farting on people it raises some red flags. Makes me wonder if I really did like Bride of Re-Animator all those years ago, or if I’m being blinded by less than a decade old nostalgia.

       I’m probably being a bit too harsh on Mr. Yuzna though, as well as Society. I know there’s people out there that are going to be super into the 80s gore, and there’s a Dark City defense there of being not entirely unlike its peers that gives it a certain feeling of originality and mystery, so despite it not quite hitting the right switch for me I’ll give it the recommendation in case it does it for you. Fair warning though, you might want to avoid any pasta for at least 24 hours. Trust me, you’ll be better off.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), directed by William Shatner

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by William Shatner

In the years since the Marathon first set its eyes to the heavens, the humble crew of the USS Enterprise has been on quite a number of wild adventures. They managed to reunite after almost a decade and meet a godlike being made out of a satellite, managed to stop a genetically altered superman from unleashing a doomsday weapon on the Earth, Spock died and managed to come back, the Enterprise blew up and came back, Kirk found out he had a son and then managed to ditch that potential story avenue pretty damn quick, and of course there was that time the Enterprise altered the fabric of time and space in order to steal some whales. For a crew that was assigned to a five year mission and only managed to complete three, it’s managed to have quite the staying power, thanks in large part to a loyal and dedicated fanbase. Now, 10 years after the first Star Trek film, 23 years after the premiere of the original series, and two years after the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there came another; A fifth film to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. Or something like that, I mean science fiction and fantasy are basically the same thing anyway. 

       Set, as you would expect, after the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier sees the intrepid crew of the updated Federation starship Enterprise enjoying a bit of shore leave. Captain James T. Kirk, Spock, and Leonard McCoy are enjoying some camping and renditions of children’s song in Yosemite National Park, Scotty is attempting to get the ship up and running, Sulu and Chekov are lost in the woods, it’s just one big party. Their revelry is cut short however when an urgent command comes in from Starfleet about some business in the Neutral Zone. Apparently a group calling itself the Galactic Army of Light, headed by a mysterious Vulcan by the name of Sybok, has taken over the lone settlement of a planet named Nimbus III, a failed attempt at cooperation between the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Empire which is otherwise unremarkable aside from the fact that an ambassador of each faction is located there. Starfleet sends the Enterprise to investigate, and because the Klingons are very much into the idea of Kirk’s head on a pike they follow suit, but it seems that everyone is playing right into Sybok’s hands You see Sybok has a plan, the fulfillment of which could have life-changing effects for every sapient being in the galaxy, and to do that he’s going to need one Enterprise-shaped ship to do it. What could that plan be, and how does he recognize Spock?

        The Final Frontier was made on a significantly lower budget than the filmmakers had originally intended, which is quite obvious on a technical level. While the continuity is consistent enough, it looks and sounds like Star Trek, there are several bad camera angles, poor cinematography decisions and outright mistakes that a couple more reshoots and run throughs in the editing room might have corrected. This is quite evident in the depictions Klingons, who seem to be comprised of a mishmash of their now iconic cinematic redesigns and something that looks like it was ripped off of an episode of Blake’s 7. Oddly though this seems to be compensated for by plenty of shots of their ship, the Bird of Prey, and even some stop-motion work. In fact you get a more detailed look of the Bird of Prey than you do of the Enterprise, which exists more as a series of rooms than it does a starship. Rooms that accurately represent the aesthetic of Star Trek, but rooms nevertheless.

       The problem, then, must be with the story itself. Star Trek V sees Leonard Nimoy, who directed the previous two films, step down in favor of William Shatner, who also co-wrote the story. One wonders how Shatner, a man who has had a hand in creating several novels, Star Trek books and his very own science fiction series, TekWar, and who presumably has something to prove in this, his directorial debut, could create a film that renders him and his cast completely impotent. I don’t believe I’m exaggerating either, the majority of the crew doesn’t really do anything aside from Kirk and Spock, and they don’t really accomplish anything of significance. Not that there haven’t been episodes of the original Star Trek where the Enterprise was held hostage, but it’s never felt quite so...simple before. I mean this is a machine capable of moving faster than light crewed by a seasoned team of officers, and they’re rendered completely useless by some crusty dudes with guns. Not phasers mind you, but straight up guns. Hell, Sybok has a better claim to being protagonist of this story than the actual protagonists.

       This is no more evident than the way Star Trek V handles tone, or mishandles it as the case may be. What few moments of genuine characters moments there are, primarily the friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, as well as a couple moments of unearned drama that are pulled out of the writer’s ass and tossed here and there across the script, is undercut by some truly abysmal attempts at comedy. Apparently Shatner saw how successful The Voyage Home was and decided that his film would have comedy in it too, without understanding why it was that the comedy in that film worked. It was silly seeing the Enterprise doing the Back to the Future culture shock thing yes, but it made sense in the context of the film and it was never so ridiculous that it felt like the filmmakers were insulting your intelligence. Not so with The Final Frontier. Case in point: There’s a scene where Scotty has just broken Kirk, Spock and McCoy out of the brig (which was also painfully unfunny but whatever), and they’re walking through some service tunnels. Kirk and the guys go one way, Scotty goes another, and almost immediately smacks his head on an overhang and knocks himself the fuck out, 3 Stooges style. Does this add anything to the plot, is Scotty being unconscious a major plot point that affects the outcome of the story? No, it’s a random bit of slapstick that only really serves to make Scotty look like a fucking idiot and to feel like Shatner attempting to haphazardly film around plot holes in his script rather than just writing a new one.

This ties into what I said a paragraph or so ago, but I don’t think William Shatner really understands what Star Trek is, or what made it great at all. I’m not the biggest fan of TOS, more of a TNG and DS9 guy personally, but as campy as that series could be it was understandable how and why James Kirk was such a popular character. He wasn’t just some space swashbuckler or strong-jawed cowboy, he was a man of intelligence, conviction and compassion who respected those who worked with him and was in turn respected by them. It was easy to understand how this man became a captain, and ultimately an admiral. In Star Trek V Kirk comes across mostly as a wise-cracking buffoon who is nonetheless treated to sycophantic comments like ‘failing you was worse (than endangering the safety of the Enterprise)’, and one who always manages to turn everyone’s focus towards himself. That is not James T. Kirk to me, that is William Shatner wanting the spotlight without having to work for it. Also, and this might seem extremely nerdy to some people, I don’t the Federation would allow a situation like Nimbus III to happen, with people living in abject poverty. Yeah it’s not exactly a perfect organization, and I could believe a joint diplomatic experiment between them, the Klingons and the Romulans (who never show up once in this entire movie for whatever reason) could fall apart, especially with Scotty’s overtly racist ‘Klingon devils’ comment at one point in the movie, but I cannot see them just dumping a bunch of people on a barren wasteland and leaving them to suffer. In the real world sure, but then the Star Trek world is better than ours in just about every way, so you expect them to act better..

       If you’ve ever heard that thing about the even numbered Star Trek films being better than the odd numbered ones, this is the one who invented it. Star Trek: The Motion Picture might not have been great, but at least it hit that classic science fiction beat of the universe being a mysterious place full of unknown wonders. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock might not have been great, but at least it tied up the loose ends from Wrath of Khan in a suitably dramatic way. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, on the other hand, seems to be a toxic jambalaya of everything we’ve seen before, the cosmic wonder of TMP, the comedic nature of TVH, etc., a tone-deaf mess of sudden backstory and ill-timed attempts at levity that falls flat for Trekkers and non-Trekkers alike. It’s not Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi bad, if you’re one of those morbidly curious types, but if you’re going to skip any of the TOS Star Trek movies, then make it this one. You won’t be missing out on much, trust me.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

     

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Megatron", by Chu Ishikawa

     We’ve seen movies from several countries so far over the course of this list. The U.S. of course, Italy and Sweden, but so far the Asian side of horror (specifically films from Korea, Japan or China) has been conspicuously absent. I’m not intentionally avoiding those types of movies, but Asian horror (and we’ll be focusing on Japanese horror here) is a strange beast. Most modern movie audiences will remember Ringu or Ju-On: The Grudge (at least their anglicized adaptations) and their freaky-ass ghost children, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone who's seen House or the underworld scenes in Jigoku can attest that Japanese horror, like the rest of Japanese pop culture, is made of pure-grade insanity, and I wasn’t sure that said insanity would necessarily translate into an enjoyable movie. But I rolled the dice, and what I ended up with is Tetsuo: The Iron Man

      I’m not sure whether it’s actually worth trying to describe the plot, because the plot doesn’t make any fucking sense, but I’ll give the bare minimum. One day, after inserting steel rod into his leg, a metal fetishist (director Shinya Tsukamoto) is struck and killed by a car. We then cut to a salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi), who lives with his cat in a cramped apartment and occasionally has hot sex with his girlfriend. One other day, when the salaryman is waiting for the train, he is attacked by a strange woman who seems to have been mutated into some kind of metal zombie. Though he eventually escapes, the salaryman eventually discovers that he has become infected by this metallic sickness as well, slowly becoming more and more metallized as time goes on. A punishment from some angry god, or perhaps something much more sinister? Watch and find out…

      So what is this industrial art house movie about? I couldn’t really say, something about sex and art or some other crap. It does feature some of the freakiest body horror this side of Cronenberg though, perhaps even freakier, and Tsukamoto’s visual design is physically disturbing and in stark contrast to what we know of as human. Like Häxan, this is a film that feels more like you’re experiencing a nightmare, something that is fearful precisely because it refuses logic and order. It’s also something you probably shouldn’t watch while high, much like Häxan. If you’re planning to have a sober Halloween for some reason, and you’ve been looking for some crazy cyberpunk bullshit, then come no further than Tetsuo: The Iron Man. And if that’s not enough, there’s two more Tetsuo films, so you can get freaky all night long.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: Heathers (1989), directed by Michael Lehmann

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Que Sera Que Sera (Whatever Will Be Will Be", by Sly & The Family Stone

     I don’t know how it is in other countries, but here in America we spend a lot of time acting surprised by things, despite the causes being blatantly obvious. We act surprised that there’s there a opioid epidemic, despite the fact that our healthcare system is run by corporations. We act surprised about rampant undocumented immigration, despite our government’s history of destabilizing foreign governments and our economy’s lust for cheap labor. We act surprised when teenagers kill themselves or shoot up schools, despite taking no steps to stop it or building them up for a future that’s worth living. Acting surprised is easy, pretending to care takes little to no effort at all, that’s why it’s peddled around so much. Attaching a human face to rampant inhumanity.

     Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) knows a bit about inhumanity as well. In a bid for popularity she became friends with the Heathers, the local mean girl high school clique, run by the meanest mean girl of them all, Heather Chandler. Heather is the iron-fisted dictator of this school, the girl everyone either wants to befriend or fuck, and she knows it. Verbal abuse, emotional abuse, domineering behavior, if you’re in Heather’s immediate vicinity than you are in her control. A single word from her and your high school life, your college life, your very future can become an absolute living hell. Life with Heather is so bad that Veronica sometimes wishes, pleads to the heavens above, that she would just drop dead. Keel over, and let Veronica get on with her life in peace.

     So what if, new student Jason Dean (Christian Slater) posits, we just kill her?

     Heathers is another one of those movies that I’ve had kicking around the old Marathon watch queue for ages, but it took me until now to finally watch it. There was always another movie that came along I suppose, and since I didn’t know anything about the movie beyond a netflix blurb, it made for an easy substitute. It’s the sort of thinking that led to me watching shitfests like Forbidden Zone, so it’s probably something that you’ll want to avoid.

     Having finally watched Heathers, I’ve got to say that it definitely deserved a place on the list sooner. From the outset it appears like we’re heading into familiar territory when it comes to 80’s movies, high school, irreverent comedy, we’ve seen it all before. However, while the movie does start off in this wacky Revenge of the Nerds/Fast Times at Ridgemont High kind of landscape, around the halfway mark the tone takes an interesting turn towards the serious and morbid. Everyone remembers the ‘dead gay son’ line, but it’s not too long after that that the film takes a step back and says that maybe people’s actions have consequences. Maybe the guy with the trenchcoat and the gun fetish isn’t a cool rebel, he’s a potential murderer who should probably be in therapy. That maybe teenagers display toxic behaviour because that is the natural result of being consistently ignored and marginalized by the society in which they live. I wouldn’t say it’s done flawlessly, the movie seems to forget what it’s trying to go for sometimes, but it’s a level of depth that I honestly wasn’t expecting going in. As I wrote before, I was expecting an Airplane! or Blues Brothers, not a movie that actually made me think about stuff. 

   

     Acting-wise, this movie came out a year after Beetlejuice and yet Winona Ryder basically feels like her Stranger Things self to me for some reason. As for Christian Slater, the criticism you always hear about him is that he’s trying to copy Jack Nicholson, and in Heathers...he sounds like a guy trying to do a Jack Nicholson impression. Not to disparage the guy, but he’s got one speed in this movie and he sticks to it the whole way through. Both fine actors, but for whatever reason I’m not feeling their chemistry together onscreen. They talk to each other, they make out, but it feels more like they’re doing it at each other rather than with each other. Not quite Natural Born Killers, but then maybe that was intentional, I dunno. The rest of the cast, including a young Shannen Doherty as Heather 3/Duke, is fine.

     Speaking of Natural Born Killers, there’s actually a couple similarities between that film and this one. Both films are about a young couple who, feeling outcast from society, resort to acts of murder. Both films also deal with society’s detachment from the reality of violence, whether it’s turning the couple into pop culture icons in the case of NBK or meaningless ‘love-in’ sessions watched by narcoleptic parents. In NBK is treated as a means to an end, instant gratification, while in Heathers it is meant as a social statement. Heather’s death is meant to address two issues in the film, to protect Veronica’s future and to free the school from a tyrant. This plan backfires; Heather gains a level of nuance in death that she never seemed to have in life, and because the underlying problems were never addressed surrounding what Heather represented, the students are simply reorganized into a new hierarchy. Even worse, suddenly suicide becomes chic, something for the privileged to indulge in rather than the serious issue that it is. Ultimately it is up to Veronica to reject both Heather’s and Jason’s route, the sadistic rat race and antisocial attacks, and define her character on her own terms. Without the consent of the governed, what power does the system have?

     Anyway, Heathers is a pretty good movie, with a humor that lies more in the morbidity of the situation rather than any of the jokes. Or maybe it was a lot less or a problem back in ‘89. It gets a recommendation, and a reminder that unless it’s part of a grander Blade or Neo setup, a black trench coat does not a great Halloween costume make, so I don’t want to see any Jason Deans running around come the 31st. Unless you’re going to do your own version of Christian Slater’s Jack Nicholson impression of course, then you can do whatever.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: The Burbs (1989), directed by Joe Dante

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Suburbia", by Pet Shop Boys

     Isn’t it weird how, as time has progressed, our civilization has seen a decrease in violent crime inversely proportional to its paranoia towards other people? I mean sure, we as a country seem determined to have a mass shooting every month, but every time a big report crime comes out, it turns out that we’re actually a lot better off than we were in the past and there isn’t a murderer lurking on every street corner. So why are we more afraid of other people despite having no basis for it? Is it the fault of terrorism? The nature of media coverage these days? The anonymity of the internet age dissolving traditional forms of human contact and conversation? Or are we just animals, and animals are inherently fearful of potential threats to their territory and and resources? Take your pick.

     Such is the basis for The Burbs, directed by Joe Dante, who is perhaps better known for Gremlins, Gremlins 2 and the infamous cult classic Small Soldiers. Tom Hanks plays Ray Peterson, your average suburbanite living the average American dream in Hinkley Hills. Ray’s got it all: a wife (Carrie Fisher), a kid, a dog, a collection of wacky neighbors that do wacky things to each other, everything except peace of mind. You see, about a month ago a new family moved right next door to Ray, going by the name of Klopek. No one has ever really seen Klopeks, never really talked to them, but what Ray and the people of Hinkley Hills do know is what they’ve seen. Strange lights coming from the basement, mysterious noises late at night, and a whole bunch of other stuff that seems really sketchy. Normal social etiquette would recommend not giving a shit and leaving people to their own affairs, but that’s not how they do it in this neighborhood folks. These Klopeks are up to something, and it’s up to Ray Peterson and his motley crew of husbands with too much time on their hands to figure out what it is and stop it once and for all. You don’t mess with the ‘burbs, baby.

     The Burbs has a certain charm to it, a bit like Tim Burton if he focused on comedy rather than The Cure, and Joe Dante is a man familiar with comedy (He directed two episodes of the original Police Squad! after all, and the Gremlins series is no stranger to Looney Tunes-style gags), but it’s not funny in the same sense that The Naked Gun or Caddyshack are funny films. Rather it projects this aura of absurdity that you get caught up in, this atmosphere of buffoonery and coincidence that has been connected with your ‘typical American family’ since the days of Ralph Kramden and Lucille Ball. It’s not so much the jokes they tell as it is to watch things they try to accomplish snowball out of control. Hell, ‘character A jumps to conclusions and thinks neighbor is a murderer’ was already a pretty well-worn formula by the time Dante decided to play around with it, which only solidifies the sitcom comparison.

     Like I said though, it’s never quite reached the point of being laugh-out-loud funny to me like other comedies of the era, and beyond that it never really captured my imagination like those comedies as well. So unfortunately my mind is blanking on anything to actually say about it. Cast is pretty good I guess, Tom Hanks puts in some fine work and Rick Ducommun’s Art Weingartner treads the fine line between comedic sidekick and arrogant prick pretty well. I’ll recommend it on the basis of being a decent bit of entertainment, but it’s not something I’d go out of my way to see again. Besides, I think I’ve had enough of Neighborhood Watch people to last me a lifetime.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Erik the Viking (1989), directed by Terry Jones

This piece was written a couple months ago, so it's only recently that the news about Terry has become known. As a fan of Monty Python, both as a source of comedy and as a creative collective, it's incrdibly depressing to see one of the architects of the troupe - and Jones was, if not as immensely poopular as John Cleese or Eric Idle, just as vital to the magic that was Monty Python than any of the other members - fall victim the ravages of time. He's all responsible for directing all those Python movies you love to quote so much, so maybe after you read this piece, you can watch this movie, and maybe even life itself, with a bit of a different perspective. Which was the mission of Monty Python from the very beginning, I believe.

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Lightning Strikes Again", by Thor

     I’m having trouble starting this one off, so I’ll try this out: Whenever I watch Monty Python, whether the Flying Circus or the four feature-length films, I don’t really enjoy them for the humor. They are very funny of course, but what draws me to the work of Python is the high degree of craftsmanship when it comes to the material. There is something about the way they put their sketches together, so simple, so direct and yet so openly absurd, that I find just fascinating to watch. I mean, what is the ‘Cheese Shop’ sketch but a guy trying and failing to buy some cheese? That’s all it is, and yet the way it’s presented, the way Cleese and Palin take their lines, the slow, confusing build-up to an anti-punchline, it’s like seeing a visual model of how the human body functions in some strange way. Of course, being comedians, I’m sure the men behind Monty Python would rather people laugh at their jokes than study them, so maybe I’m doing it wrong.

     Anyway, over the years I’ve steadily decreased the amount of Python-related media in my watch queue, whether it was directly done by the comedy troupe or just the individual members. Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and Meaning of Life? Done. Fawlty Towers and Do Not Adjust Your Set? Done. The filmography of Terry Gilliam? Brazil and 12 Monkeys are fantastic films, and I’ve done write ups on both Jabberwocky and Time Bandits in this past, Time Bandits even making an appearance in a previous Marathon. Given that Python respect and the Python precedence in previous lists, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that I would do a piece on a film on yet another Python alum, in this case the esteemed Terry Jones. So here’s Erik the Viking, and you better bloody well like it.

     In the gray, bitter land of Norse, centuries before the English set foot on the soil of the New World, the viking known as Erik (played by Tim Robbins, whom you might recall from Jacob’s Ladder) is troubled. The world of the viking is a dull and dreary one it seems, a continuous cycle of raping and pillaging that only serves to fuel more raping and pillaging, and his own attempts at raping and pillaging left him with a deep emptiness in his soul. Seeking counsel from the wise women Freya, Erik is told that the great wolf Fenrir has chased the sun from the sky, the gods lie sleeping in Asgard, and the world of man is currently in the Age of Ragnarok. If Erik wishes to keep men from hating and killing one another he must journey to Asgard and awaken the gods, and to do that he must journey to the land of High Brazil and find the mystic Horn of Resounding. So he decides to get himself a team of stalwart vikings and just do that. Of course, it wouldn’t be an odyssey if there weren’t some dangerous trials to overcome, and there are some people who actually prefer living in the Age of Ragnarok, thank you very much. Well, no one said epic quests were going to be easy.

     If you’re familiar with Monty Python formula, or the Blackadder and Discworld and occasionally Mel Brooks formula too I guess, then you’re probably not going to be too put off with Erik the Viking. Take one setting in the past which may or may not include elements of high fantasy and have people who haven’t invented toilet paper behave like normal modern day folk, and the just watch the satirical anachronisms pile up. A dad nagging his son for not being a proper berserker, the antagonist (a white-collar war chief) who decides to stop Erik’s journey because an age of peace would negatively affect the blacksmithing industry, about what you might expect. Only two Pythons this time around, Terry Jones and John Cleese in relatively minor roles, but you get people like Mickey Rooney, Eartha Kitt and Tim McInnerny (of Blackadder fame), which I think is a pretty good trade-off. Funny is funny not matter who it is.

     Although, much like in Time Bandits, I wouldn’t say Erik the Viking is strictly a comedy, and I wouldn’t say it’s strictly comedic in nature. In this film people die in goofy ways, they die in somber ways, and sometimes they just die and there’s not really any emotion that feels right. The Vikings set out for glory and to see the fabled halls of Asgard, but when they finally get there the great mead halls of Valhalla aren’t exactly all that great, and the gods aren’t exactly how the legends described them. Is the message that shit happens, no matter whether you’re good or bad, and the only thing you can do is try to deal with it? Or that the world is a neutral, uncaring place, and that if mankind wants a better life for itself then it needs to take responsibility for its actions? Could be both, could be it’s just a movie and you should maybe just relax. It’s up to you.

     The thing is, the fact that it feels so familiar also means that there isn’t really that much that sets it apart. If you’ve seen Holy Grail or Jabberwocky or the first series of Blackadder then you already have some idea of how the jokes are going to be framed, how the setting is going to be used, and so on and so forth. Which doesn’t make it bad, I can name a good number of funny scenes here, but there really isn’t anything about Erik the Viking that I would recommend over more well-known, more well-regarded films. I don’t really believe in numerical scores for films, or at the very least I don’t try to base whether or not I recommend a movie solely on a number, but at this moment I can’t think of a movie more well-suited to a 7/10 than Erik the Viking. Not a movie that you’ll see a lot of praise for, but if you do end up going for it you’ll still have a fun time.

     For the sake of reference, The Usual Suspects also got a 7 on my internal judgement scale (maybe I wanted to start off on a high-note). In that case, I phrased my recommendation of the fact that it’s a movie that gets a lot of praise, but might not be as enjoyable as you might be lead to believe. The yang to Erik the Viking’s yin I suppose, but personally I’ve always preferred to be underrated than overrated. Both sides end up causing obnoxious arguments on the internet but at least you could argue the former comes from a place of positivity, at least until the death threats and comparisons to Nazis start. Coming from a guy who’s spent a majority of his life with the internet, I feel like ‘positive before Godwin’s Law showed up’ is about the best you’re going to get.