The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: In the Mouth of Madness (1994), directed by John Carpenter

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "At The Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft

       There has been a common refrain that I’ve seen over the years about how H.P. Lovecraft’s stories are unfilmable. They point to the relative lack of commercial success Lovecraftian films have seen over the years and major studios’ unwillingness to put money into those types of films and rest their case. Or they go the other route and say that a proper Lovecraft film would be impossible as no film could capture the sheer mind-bending horror of these monsters, that only one’s own imagination can do it justice. The former can be dismissed as the anarchy of capitalism; there are plenty of bombs that studios dumped buckets of money on and plenty of good films that didn’t get the recognition they deserve because the people with the money don’t actually care about the art and are just playing a guessing game hoping to get the most money. The latter reeks of purity tests and gatekeeping and is better off discarded. Did Mary Shelley describe word for word how Frankenstein created his Modern Prometheus all those years ago? No, James Whale and Universal took a shot in the dark, and now everybody who knows Frankenstein knows it’s about a guy who sews body parts together and zaps it to life with lightning. H.P. Lovecraft is not some insurmountable, inscrutable thing, he was a dude that wrote good horror stories. All it takes is the right eye behind the camera and the script to get it done.

       For a time, I would say that John Carpenter was that eye. After all, wasn’t The Thing a Lovecraftian story? Sure it’s a remake of another film and an adaptation of a book, but it is a story about people confronting an alien presence which is not only inhuman in form but undermines the very essence of humanity in context. The characters are more competent than your typical Lovecraft protagonist, granted, but their relative effectiveness is there to heighten the feeling of dread and panic as things become increasingly dire and they are repeatedly outmaneuvered. So The Thing certainly qualifies as a Lovecraftian film to me, but then years later I found out that Carpenter had put out a film that was directly inspired by pulp fiction's creepy uncle. Then a couple years after that I finally bit the bullet and decided to review it. Now he we are.   

       Released in 1994, In the Mouth of Madness was directed by John Carpenter, written by Michael De Luca and produced by Sandy King through New Line Cinema. We begin with a man (played by Marathon alum Sam Neill) being committed to a mental institution. A man named Dr. Ren, as played by David Warner (another Marathon alum, arrives at the hospital and believing the man might be playing up his psychosis asks him for his story, which he then provides. The man is John Trent. He was a freelance insurance investigator, and a damn good one at that; He took great pride in uncovering scams and busting con artists. One day, after almost being murdered by an axe-wielding maniac, John is hired by publisher Jack Harglow (Charlton Heston, yet another alum) to find the author Sutter Cane, who has been missing for some time. Sutter Cane is the most popular writer on the planet, a billion dollar cash cow whose novels of monsters, madness and other nameless horrors are so effective that it is driving people toward acts of violence. His latest novel, In the Mouth of Madness, is set to take the world by storm, and so finding Cane is of the utmost importance. Or rather, finding his manuscript.

       Trent was skeptical, believing the whole disappearance was a hoax made up by the publishing company to increase sales, but agreed to help find him. After days of research, Trent finally stumbles upon it: clues hidden within Cane’s previous books which form a map to Hobbs’ End New Hampshire, a town which doesn’t exist. Now convinced even more that it is all an elaborate publicity stunt, Trent and Cane’s editor Linda Styles decide to take a drive to this nonexistent town and find Sutter Cane and his latest book. This would be the worst mistake Trent ever made in his life.

       What is the essence of Lovecraft’s writing? It’s not squid monsters from outer space, it’s outer space itself: the nagging doubt of the conception of man as this special creature which had fueled Manifest Destiny and much of the foundation of the American myth. We can see this expressed, although perhaps not intentionally, in The Thing, where the rational scientific minds are undone by something beyond their comprehension and which preys upon human limitations. So it is again with In the Mouth of Madness, but rather than the characters questioning the nature of life they are now forced to question the nature of reality. The misdirects, the blurring of dream sequences and ‘real’ sequences, the repetition of certain scenes, Carpenter constantly assaults his character's ability to separate fantasy from reality, and by extension the audience. We’ve seen this type of thing before in films, eXistenZ and Jacob’s Ladder and so on, but this is the first time in a while where I’ve seen it done in such an aggressive manner. It’s like a horror movie rollercoaster.

       Which isn’t to say it’s all mind-tricks and modernist subtext, this is a horror movie and Carpenter is here to bring that spooky stuff to the screen. To be honest though while the film is on the whole unsettling when it tries to move into outright scary it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The simpler scenes are effective and even deeply disturbing, but when we turn the corner and start getting into the gorey and Lovecraftian stuff it falters. The makeup on the whole tends to look rather simple, and unfortunately the monsters I feel end up showing their limitations rather quickly. They still look good, Industrial Light & Magic put in good work, and Carpenter does his best not to overexpose them, but once you notice it you can’t unnotice it and overall it’s not as strong in that department as what Carpenter delivered with The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China.

       I also wasn’t a fan of the theme music here, which sounded less like the opening to a Lovecraft movie than it did entrance music ripped from WWF No Mercy. Perhaps by ‘94 the synth-centric soundtrack was considered outdated, but this heavy metal they've chosen to replace to go with isn’t an improvement. I felt the same way with David Lynch throwing Rammstein on Lost Highway’s soundtrack, it’s way too angry and high energy and doesn’t mesh well with the energy of the film at all. 

       Historically though, and by ‘historically’ I mean the films that we’ve reviewed so far Carpenter’s films have succeeded when it comes to casting, and it’s no different here. It’s hard to think of an actor, besides Jeffrey Combs, that so perfectly nails the ideal Lovecraft actor than Sam Neill, even at the beginning at his most composed and charming he has the look of a man who has one foot constantly dangling over the edge. Julia Carmen as the Mulder to Neill’s Scully was also rather good, I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else but she reminds me a bit of Rosario Dawson. Jurgen Prochnow as Sutter Cane is okay but not as much of a presence as the film builds him up to be, seemed like a role you’d write for Udo Kier. Plus you can never go wrong with a bit of David Warner.

       I’ve also praised John Carpenter’s films on a cinematic level for a while now, and In the Mouth of Madness is no different either in that regard. I don’t know quite how to describe the feel of it...Retro-Hollywood? It’s not like they’re filmed in technicolor or cinemascope or anything like that, but the way the shots are composed feels very film-like, or unreal might be the better word. I got much of that same feeling when watching Last Action Hero, where the intent is this sense of heightened reality, that the audience knows that they are watching a film. Which in this case I would say is an ingenious move on Carpenter’s part, but since several of his films since Christine have had this same look I’ll settle for just calling him a good director.

       The story out of pop culture is that after his boom period in the 1980s John Carpenter lost his touch and subsequently faded into relative obscurity. After Village of the Damned I might have seen a touch of truth in that statement, but I think In the Mouth of Madness proves that the man hadn’t lost his touch. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite of his films that I’ve covered but it is his most adventurous, and he takes risks in this film that I’ve rarely seen attempted in contemporary horror cinema. An easy recommendation for Halloween and otherwise; Whenever you decide to bring that pretty young abomination from the outer reaches of space you met at work over for a romantic dinner, pop this in the VCR and see where the night takes you. Make it a double feature with Re-Animator if you want to get saucy…

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Labyrinth (1986), directed by Jim Henson

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "Magic Dance" by David Bowie

       As a cult movie blog owner, I’ve gone on and on about how good the 1980s was, at least in that small, incredibly niche field. I mean I’ve covered plenty of 80s movies over the years, I haven’t counted in a while but I’d say they cover a significant portion of my total reviews, and I still haven’t even scratched the surface. Even discounting those films that I’ve seen but are so ubiquitous that covering them seems unnecessary, like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, there’s still enough there to cover a Marathon on its own. Like shit dude, what about The Neverending Story? What about Wargames? Romancing the Stone? The Breakfast Club? That’s a lot of nonexistent money being left on the table.

       So why not cross one of those 80s also-rans off the list already, before I change my mind and pick some random bullshit instead? Released in 1986, Labyrinth was directed by Muppets master Jim Henson, written by Monty Python member Terry Jones (with assistance by Henson, Laura Phillips, Elaine May and George Lucas), story by Henson and Dennis Lee and produced by Eric Rattray through Henson Associates Inc. and Lucasfilm. Jennifer Connelly plays Sara, a young girl whose dreams of the theater are consistently thwarted by her stepmother and her infant brother Toby. One night, after being saddled with babysitting duty yet again, Sara recalls a line from her favorite story, “The Labyrinth”, and unwittingly wishes for goblins to show up and take Toby away. She immediately regrets that decision when said goblins do show up to take her brother away, and she stands face to face with Jareth, the Goblin King (David Bowie). Jareth offers Sara gifts in exchange for her brother’s life, but when she refuses he transports her into the mystical world of Labyrinth. If she can reach the Goblin King’s castle at the center of the maze in 12 hours then Toby shall be saved, Jareth says, but if she doesn’t then Toby shall be changed into a goblin and be lost forever. Labyrinth is a bizarre place where tricks and traps lie around every corner, so Sara is going to have to rely on her wits and the help of the friends she makes along the way. Yet Jareth is behind every corner, watching and scheming...

While Jim Henson was and still is firmly connected with the concept of children’s entertainment, the man himself considered his work more universal and so capable of handling something darker in tone. We saw it in The Dark Crystal but Labyrinth is arguably a better example of that idea. Labyrinth is not your typical fairy tale world. It is a decaying mess caught between the medieval and the modern, made up of crumbling ruins, stinking bogs and trash-covered landfills and full of creatures that run the gamut from ugly to sleep paralysis demons. Yet in spite of this nightmarish setting Labyrinth is still in the fairy tale mold; There is danger but not necessarily death, there is risk but it is principally in how Sara goes about overcoming these challenges. Not unlike the novel Alice in Wonderland really, which I believe is a direct influence on this film (and right up Terry Jones’ alley), a story which was literally written for a child but which has gained a significant older following since its publication.

I mentioned The Dark Crystal earlier, and I must say it’s wild how the films apparently had around the same budget and yet Labyrinth looks so much better. The cinematography and set design builds Labyrinth into this distorted, almost German Expressionist dreamland so well, it really feels like Henson and his crew were pushing themselves to try new things, and the amount and variety of  puppetry and practical effects are incredible. Which isn’t to knock Dark Crystal, but one of my contensions with that film was that some of the puppets were simple or non-expressive, particularly in regards to the protagonist. In Labyrinth each creature Sara comes across feels like a unique, living thing. Even the goblins, who are the most generic given their numbers still have a degree of variety to them that makes them stand out. Labyrinth is certainly more Muppets-esque than Dark Crystal, so you might give the latter the point for originality, but I believe Labyrinth accomplishes what it’s trying to do much easier than Dark Crystal. That wall of hands alone might have put it over the top.

        Of course you can’t talk about Labyrinth without talking about David Bowie, there’s a good chance that many people if they know anything about Labyrinth at all it’s because of Bowie’s role as Jareth the Goblin King. That Bowie’s appearance as Jareth has improved the film’s longevity doesn’t make it a good performance. As it was with The Man Who Fell to Earth, David Bowie playing some kind of glam rock trickster god who plays with glass balls and turns into an owl seems like a natural fit, but he never seems all that comfortable around a camera and it leads to a rather wooden performance. Something which Jennifer Connelly suffers from a tad in the beginning, but I think she manages to mellow out as the film goes on. Jareth is more entertaining  to watch than Bowie’s character in The Man Who Fell to Earth certainly, as you’d expect from the living answer to the question ‘what if Snow White’s wicked stepmother dressed like Khan from Star Trek II?’, but in a one-dimensional type of way. When they do attempt depth, like with the Sara/Jareth romance angle, it just doesn’t take. Not because it’s creepy, which it is, but because Bowie doesn’t sell it at all. He’s stoic or haughty, and that's about it. To say Labyrinth is Bowie’s best film work would be technically accurate, but that’s about all you could say.

       You get somebody like David Bowie in your film and you expect to get some songs, and so it is here, but my feelings on Bowie’s musical contributions to Labyrinth aren’t that much different than his acting ones: the idea of it is cooler than the reality. As someone who prefers Hunky Dory and Young Americans over 90 percent of the rest of Bowie’s catalog I’m biased, but I didn't get anything out of his overwrought 80s ballads on this soundtrack. ‘Dance Magic’ was the only one that stood out to me, a jaunty pop number with a touch of world music to give it some character, which was likely the opinion of the filmmakers as well considering they used it three times. The ‘voodoo’ call and response part of the song is lame as hell though, even when Bowie is singing it with a Muppet it’s still lame as hell. Thumbs up to Trevor  Jones conversely, who composed the score for this film as well as the score for The Dark Crystal, Dark City and Time Bandits. The man puts in solid work. 

       These are the things one must keep in mind when watching Labyrinth, that’s it’s not really about pathos and it’s not really looking to explain how The Labyrinth exists in the real world or anything like that. The darker tone may lead you to believe that it would be, but no, this is a fairy tale where dogs ride other dogs like horses and rather than being killed, folks are dipped into a swamp that smells really bad. It’s absurd, you’d expect nothing less from Terry Jones working with Muppets, but it doesn't go beyond that.Your ability to accept this will determine whether or not you’ll enjoy this movie.

       Labyrinth was not a commercial success upon its release, only making back around half its budget at the box office, which ironically is the exact opposite of what happened 4 years previously with The Dark Crystal. Still it has persisted, and in spite of all the 80s cheeze and pop stars trying to act there’s a fun movie there. You’re also not likely to see a Hollywood movie with this much puppetry ever again in this age of CGI, which is a point in its favor. Labyrinth gets the recommendation. Whether you’re a parent looking for something to watch with their kids this Halloween or some 20-something looking for something to riff on with friends over discord because parties are extinct in this post-covid world, Labyrinth makes a solid addition to the watchlist. As The World Falls Down, why not turn to cinema?

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), directed by Richard Fleischer

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "Submarine" by L'Imperatrice

       When I was younger, my tastes in literature tended to be a tad more extreme than that of my peers at the time, even at an early age. Comics books and manga sure, and a step above that to pop culture staples like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, but then I would go even further beyond. Malory, Cervantes, Doyle, Swift, Kafka, Kerouac, Burroughs, Farren, and many more besides. I don’t know if it made me a better person or anything so much as it proved that I had too much time on my hands, but it was certainly an enjoyable way to spend some time. Sitting down, getting comfortable and letting yourself sink into the world of a story is an experience unlike any other. Even film cannot compare to the level of sheer immersion a book can provide in the correct circumstances.

       Which leads us into “Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea”, written by French novelist Jules Verne. When it came to science fiction I had always been drawn more to the flashy, allegorical tales of H.G. Wells, with its extraterrestrial war machines and horrific beastmen, but I always had a soft spot for Verne’s famous work. Maybe because my childhood had been full of hi-tech Bat Caves and giant robots, but the idea of this mysterious genius who lived on his own terms in a fantastical machine of his own design really captured my imagination. As it did for many others, the story has popped up again and again over the years, from Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book series to the anime Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. I’ve covered adaptations of Wells’ work in the past so it only seemed right to get to Verne as well, and when it comes to him there seems to be one film that stands out among the rest. Makes things a lot easier, let me tell you.

       Released in 1954, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was written by Earl Felton, directed by Richard Fleischer (who also did Marathon alum Compulsion) and produced by Walt Disney through Walt Disney Productions, based on the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. The year is 1868, and the story that’s on everyone’s mind is that of a mysterious ‘sea monster’ which has been attacking and sinking ships across the South Pacific, destroying cargo and sailor’s lives in the process. So severe is this problem that the U.S. government charters a ship to go on a hunt for the beast, bringing on the respected Professor Pierre Aronnax (Paul Lukas) and his assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre) as a scientific advisor. For several months they travel the seas with no luck, until one day while coming to the aid of a wrecked ship they come across the infamous themselves. They fire at the thing, but it avoids their cannons and rams into the ship full force, crippling it and sending Prof. Aronnax, Conseil, and crewman Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) overboard into the watery depths. The End.

       But not really. As Aronnax and the others drift through the sea, they make an astounding discovery and uncover an even more amazing truth: the so-called ‘sea monster that had been the terror of merchant mariners was not a living creature at all, but a submersible ship -- a technological marvel the likes of which has never been seen before. This submarine, known as the Nautilus , is captained by Nemo (James Mason), a mysterious man whose great intelligence is matched only by his hatred for those warlike savages that inhabit the surface world. Not quite prisoners aboard the Nautilus but not quite guests either, the three men have little choice but to accompany Nemo and his crew in their underwater utopia as they travel twenty thousand leagues under the sea (a league in nautical terms being equivalent to three miles). To Ned Land however, just because you have little choice doesn’t mean you can’t fight.

       While cinema is a combination of aural, verbal and visual storytelling, there are certain films that are made or broken principally on a visual level. If the xenomorph in Ridley Scott’s Alien looked like something off of Star Trek, the film would not have become the franchise it is today. If Star Wars lacked the lightsabers or the Death Star it would be remembered now as some kind of half-baked Buck Rogers ripoff. So it was with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; If you don’t get the Nautilus right, then you don’t get the film right. Fleischer and Disney get it right in my opinion, without going overboard as is so often the case with adaptations of these stories. The Nautilus’ angular design is unlike anything that would have been seen on ships at the time, yet its interior is rooted firmly in the Victorian age. It’s aesthetic is rooted in that Victorian conception of what advanced technology would look like and yet it is recognizable as a submarine to the modern eye, because it is basically a modern submarine. I've always been a fan of Kevin O’Neill’s mollusc-inspired Nautilus, but it’s also a little too steampunk to be believable. This Nautilus however, even though it is clearly fictional it still feels like something that could have actually existed at one point in time, which is what really makes it work.

So there’s money shots aplenty of the Nautilus, footage of it moving underwater through water (they get a lot of mileage out of the five seconds of their model ship slowly chugging through the ocean) and when the film isn’t doing that it’s probably showing some B-roll of ocean life; some dolphins, a whale, the corpse of a sea turtle and so on. Rather simple stuff today, but remember that the 40s and 50s were when deep sea diving was first developed. Two years after this film came out Jacques Cousteau released his landmark marine biology film The Silent World, which up until Fahrenheit 9/11 was the only documentary to ever win the Palme d’Or, so the bits of undersea life we see in this film likely went over huge with movie audiences at the time. Not so much these days perhaps, but there is a simplicity to it that I can’t help but find charming.

       Cramped quarters make for a small cast, but 20,000 Leagues makes the most with what they’ve got. James Mason, who we just saw a while back in The Fall of the Roman Empire is once again a highlight here as Captain Nemo, taking what in other hands might be a one-note antagonist and transforming him into a multifaceted and ultimately tragic character. Peter Lorre as Conseil is the stooge, as he is in every movie where he isn’t the villain, but it works because he’s so damn good at it. Kirk Douglas on the other hand left me wanting. He was clearly cast as the ruggedly handsome, two-fisted action hero of the film (despite this film having little action), which he does, but the rest of the time I found his performance came across as overbearing and tiresome. It seems like the filmmakers were really pushing for the tension between Nemo and Ned Land in the novel to be the primary conflict of the film, but Land is so consistently portrayed as childish, underhanded and obnoxious that Nemo ends up coming across as the more reasonable one, despite being the guy who has been murdering people since the start of the film. I mean if Nemo didn’t chuck this dipshit into the nearest trench after the first five minutes then he can’t be that bad.

        Of course it wouldn't be a Disney adaptation of a public domain without substantial changes to the source material. Turning Ned Land into what amounts to a protagonist is one. The need to ‘Disneyfy’ the story up with musical numbers, comedic gags, a pet sea lion and portraying native peoples as cannibalistic savages who talk only in grunts is another. The primary change however is transforming the Nautilus from a vessel that runs on electricity in the novel to what is clearly implied to be atomic energy in the film, and from that the entire tone of the story changes. The original novel was about a man driven by tragedy towards revenge on mankind, and while that's still present in the film it’s hard to deny that Nemo is probably right to keep the nations away from nuclear power for as long as possible. This being a film made in the 50s however, the moral is ultimately about how good atomic power is and how America is totally ready to use it. Following that thought though, it’s hard to even recognize Nemo as a villainous character after a certain point; Aronnax and the other try to paint Nemo as a hypocrite for decrying the surface world’s violence while using violence himself, but really what it ends up doing is proving that Nemo’s opposition to war isn’t just rhetoric but something that he will take action against. Who he targets seems to trend towards indiscriminate, which is where the moral ambiguity lies, but the film also tries to do it when the target is clear, like ships transporting illegal goods from slave labor camps, which I mean...if the ‘just following orders’ excuse doesn’t work for military officers I don’t know why we’d make an exception for sailors. In trying to blame the black and white morality it is Nemo, for all his brusqueness, that more often than not comes across as noble and the stowaways as hypocrites. Although I’m not sure if that was the intent or just the subtext. You can’t have it both ways Walt.

Modern movie goers will likely struggle with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It’s a two hour long action adventure with very little in the way of action, even though it’s probably got twice as much of it than in the original book. If you were a fan of films like Star Trek: The Motion Picture however, low impact spectacle films, then you’ll probably get something out of this one. Which I was, and while it’s not a 1:1 adaptation of the source material I’m still giving it the recommendation. Break out the seaweed cigars and baby octopus pudding this Halloween and make a night of it

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Gothic (1986), directed by Ken Russell

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "The Devil Is an Englishman" by Thomas Dolby

       In the summer 1816 the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his future wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley traveled with Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont to Lake Geneva in Switzerland to meet with Claire’s lover, poet and novelist Lord Byron. One night after entertaining each other with ghost stories, Byron proposed a friendly contest to see who could write the spookiest story. Byron’s fragment of a story would later be the inspiration for John Polidori’s “The Vampyre”, one of the earliest examples of vampire fiction, and Mary Shelley’s would become known as “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus”, considered one of the originators of the science fiction genre and one of the most important horror novels ever written. I think Mary might have gotten the win here.

The history of this blog is intimately connected with the work of Mary Shelley; We started with a Frankenstein movie god damn it, and Frankenstein-inspired movies have featured in the Marathon for most of its existence. So after years of film based on a book, why not at least one based on the book’s author? Well it just so happens that there was one, and it also just so happens that this was another movie I discovered through the late Harlan Ellison’s film column. He didn’t end up liking this one, so there’s a chance that this might end up film of the year.

Released in 1986, Gothic was written by Stephen Volk, directed by Ken Russell and produced by Penny Corke through Virgin Vision. Natasha Richardson plays the famous Mary not-yet-Shelley, who along with her lover Percy (Julian Sands) and sister Claire (Miriam Cyr) travel to holiday with Claire’s lover, the currently exiled Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) and his friend Dr. Polidori (Timothy Spall). It’s a bit of a rough day, a bit intense for people who don’t work for a living, but things get even weirder that night when Byron breaks out a collection of ghost stories. This proves to be something of an inspiration for the macabre-minded Byron and Percy, who like a couple of 12 year old girls after reading creepypasta convince the others to engage in a ritual to summon up a spirit of fear in order to get into that primal, human mindset. Then things go from weird to advanced weird.

There is a proper story under the surface of Gothic. Mary Shelley and her friends’ lives were indeed marked by tragedy and controversy, and having them confront those anxieties and seeing how it influenced their art is an interesting story, but then there’s all this absurdity shoved haphazardly into things. How about Lord Byron just has a goat? Or life-sized animatronic dolls, including a stripper? Why not throw in a scene where everyone has an orgy? All of which happens before the wild stuff is even supposed to happen, mind you, and some within the first 15 minutes. Movie tickets were a lot cheaper back then but Gothic made sure you got your money’s worth, seems like.

Ken Russell’s biggest virtue as a filmmaker it seems is his sense of daring. He attacks taboos and social mores, especially sex, with a reckless intensity that most of his peers at that time wouldn’t dare attempt, and his adaptation of The Who’s album Tommy was the fountain from which all over-the-top rock operas sprung from. Gothic then is a natural continuation of Russell’s dedication to excess; A fever dream, or rather a nightmare, that flits incessantly through depictions of graphic sex, disturbing violence and horrific surreal imagery (most of which are done with practical effects, which is a plus). One might be tempted to make comparisons with Marathon alum Society, in particular the final act, but Society was generally rather tame; Gothic on the other hand is as disorienting and panic-inducing as a bout of sleep paralysis, uncomfortable on a primal level at times. It’s certainly the primary reason to watch this film, if you chose ro watch it.

Ken Russell’s biggest sin as a director seems to be his lack of restraint. Usually the way it goes is that you establish a baseline, your ‘normal state, and then ramp things up as you move forward. Gothic by contrast has no ‘normal’ -- it starts off in a sprint and just barrels into the plot head first. There are undoubtedly some movies that are able to pull that off, but Gothic is not one of those movies. I ended up feeling burnt out not too long after the movie started to be honest, and so once we got into the meat of the film I viewed the events not with the shock and horror that was Russell’s intent but instead mild annoyance and disconnection. If I can’t determine what is meant to be ‘real’ in this story then what should I care that it’s happening? What are the stakes? Are there stakes, or was Russell more interested in making a 90 minute long music video?

       It also doesn’t help that I hate every character in the movie, who run the gamut from miserable shitheads (Byron) to blood-boilingly obnoxious (Claire, a thousand times Claire), with Mary being the most likable mainly by virtue of being an observer and not an active participant in the plot. History tells us that Lord Byron was certainly not a saint by any means, but he was certainly a more complicated figure than the dour curmudgeon that we see on screen. If I went into this film largely ignorant of the context I would not have any idea who these people even are or why they even matter, which is a disservice to the audience and important figures of English literature. Again it’s a lack of restraint; start these characters off on a high note, show them off as the people they wanted to be, then as pressure mounts let the veneer slip away and let their inner demons out. That slow burn would have cut down on the ‘Byron screwed his sister’ scenes and everyone calling each other a sodomite however, so Russell didn’t bother with it. This is nothing against the actors themselves, Gabriel Byrne is a Marathon mainstay at this point and he put in good regardless of the film’s quality, I think they put in good work, it’s just that the material they were given failed to excite.

       The score also ended up being a disappointment. I wouldn’t consider myself a super fan of Thomas Dolby, but I have enjoyed the songs by him that I’ve heard (really like ‘Hyperactive!’), and given the success of fellow New Wave star Danny Elfman in the world of cinema I was intrigued to see what Dolby would bring to the table. What he ended up bringing was something that sounded like a cross between an orchestral score and the synthwave stuff you’d hear in your bog-standard slasher flick, which as it turns out sounds like an episode of Doctor Who during the lean years. Amadeus had come out two years prior and Marathon alum The Draughtsman’s Contract had come out two years prior to that so going full-on period piece was an option, and it would have been right up Ken Russell’s alley to go the complete opposite route and go completely modern, so we got the worst of both worlds here. I feel bad, because this seems to be the first and last film he scored in his career and I do think he's a talented musician, but you don’t like what you don’t like, and by the very first scene of the film I didn’t like it.

       If you watched Society or Dario Argento’s Phenomena and found yourself desperate for more, then Gothic will likely scratch that itch for you. As I said, it’s a fascinating film in that regard. Shock tactics are certainly good for grabbing someone's interest, however the main thing is to hold onto it, and in the end it felt like Russell had run out of ideas and was retreading old ground (take a shot every time dead kids show up). It does not get the recommendation. Painting your nipples to look like eyeballs however...sounds like a fun Halloween to me.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Love at First Bite (1979), directed by Stan Dragoti

 

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune -- "Vampire" by The Orion Experience

       There are probably many of you out there that may draw a blank when I drop the name Harlan Ellison. A speculative fiction writer since the 50s of such stories like “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” and "The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World", screenwriter and contributor to Babylon 5, The (original) Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek TOS and Marathon alum A Boy and His Dog, and generally known for being an aggressively opinionated and uncompromising person (his self-appointed nickname was ‘The Human Gadfly’). Even fewer people will know that for a couple decades Ellison also wrote a number of essays and movie reviews that appeared sporadically in various publications, wherein he lambasted those he thought were dumbing-down society and critiqued the films of the day in his typical eloquent but irascible style. Star Wars? Unscientific garbage! Back to the Future? Pointless shit! Gremlins? More like child abuse! In fact many of the films that we would consider emblematic of pop culture in that period were dismissed outright as trash by Harlan Ellison at the time, like an anti-James Rolfe, and his reasoning holds up more often than not. Also like an anti-James Rolfe

       Aside from those hot takes though, which are all collected in the e-book Harlan Ellison’s Watching, these articles were beneficial in helping me discover movies I might not have ever heard of otherwise. Case in point: Love at First Bite, which Ellison described as the only other vampire movie worth watching, aside from the Universal Dracula film in 1931. Vampires had been taken as far as they could go seriously in the Lugosi film, Ellison wrote, and with their deconstruction in this film the concept was officially played out and should be retired. Glowing praise for Love at First Bite and a damning indictment of every vampire movie since the 30s, but even if he were being hyperbolic in order to sell a couple more newspapers or magazines it did get interested in seeing what the big deal was with this movie, as it did for several other films that may be featured in future reviews. Also I tend to throw a vampire movie on this list every year anyway, so bob’s your uncle.

       Released in 1979, Love at First Bite was written by Robert Kaufman (a frequent writer on The Bob Newhart Show), directed by Stan Dragoti and produced by Joel Freeman through Melvin Simon Productions. George Hamilton stars as Count Dracula, who with the help of his crony Renfield (Arte Johnson) managed to survive the events of the novel and has since puttered around in his castle in Transylvania, pining over magazine model Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James). That is until the Romanian government comes in and declares that they will be appropriating Castle Dracula and turning it into a boy’s gymnasium and training center. What’s a blood-drinking demon and his verminous lackey to do? Why go to New York of course, where Dracula’s one true love Cindy lives, and make her his immortal bride! What awaits the Count as he makes his way to this land of opportunity, this Big Apple as they call it? Comic shenanigans, perhaps?

I’ve been struggling for a while to put my thoughts into words for this review, and in the end the issue was Ellison. Given that this film was praised so highly I expected that there was something about it that was deep or profound, but there’s not. There was a hint of something there near the beginning, when Dracula really meets Cindy and we find out she’s kind of a neurotic mess with a passion for pharmaceutical cocktails that we were in for a real deconstruction. Dracula, this old world aristocrat who is used to having whatever he wants clashing against this 20th century doesn’t-take-shit kind of woman and realizing that his usual tricks don’t work. Except they do work and it turns into a bog-standard romance where Cindy is ready to completely throw her life away for this guy she met less than a week and also drops a couple IQ points. Dracula has a moment of vulnerability once about all the things he’s missed by being a vampire, and then this is wasted by barely having to struggle to get everything he wants. Not that every movie romance needs to be Annie Hall, but considering the way Ellison roasted films for not living up to his standards of writing it’s surprising he would let that slide.

Which isn’t to say that Love at First Bite is without merit. When it’s in parody mode and messing with tropes from Dracula it’s funny, like the scene with Jeff and Dracula at the restaurant. There’s plenty of great zingers and dialogue exchanges here as well, the opening scene with Dracula at the piano, Cindy and Jeff’s therapy session, as you’d expect from one of the writers on the Bob Newhart Show. Yet at other times it feels like it’s trying way too hard. Hey let’s be wacky but also serious sometimes while also doing meta commentary and George Hamilton was on Roots that time so let’s name drop Roots a couple times because that’ll always be timely and why not do some race jokes too and it’s all just...meh. At it’s best Love at First Bite is the perfect companion piece to the Mel Brooks classic Young Frankenstein, and at its worst it’s like one of the Mel Brooks movies that no one talks about.

The casting was also good. I’m not quite sure about George Hamilton’s hair but he does do a convincing faux-Lugosi accent and he’s able to do comedy while still largely retaining the mystique of Dracula. Susan Saint James also isn’t bad, but a lot of what she does is subordinate to the romance angle which I’ve already stated my issues with. Richard Benjamin as Jeffrey Rosenberg (formerly Van Helsing) has some of the better jokes in the movie but they really needed to reign him in because at some point he just abandons the premise that this character is meant to be a human being and in favor of ‘look at me, I’m crazy now!’ style comedy. Except he’s not high energy like Robin Williams to make that work, he just grins a lot and shouts randomly, like the one weird kid in class you didn’t interact with much. I did like Arte Johnson as Renfield though, dude had the creepy laugh down pat.

I ended up running out of juice on this review right out of the gate, but no, Love at First Bite is not the only other Dracula movie you need to watch, or the only other vampire movie, or the only vampire comedy movie. It wants to be a screwball comedy but lacks the confidence and wants to be a parody but lacks the conviction, so it ends up all over the place. Whether I would have felt this way if I managed to stumble upon this movie on my own and not had Harlan Ellison in the back of my mind, I’m not sure. Either way I’m giving it the recommendation, as there is some funny stuff here and it’ll probably be a lot more enjoyable to those not pushed into scrutinizing it. Pop open a bottle of champagne and light up a joint this Halloween and see where this film takes you.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), directed by Anthony Mann

 

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune - "Empire" by Shakira

     It is said that all empires must one day fall, and the reason it is said is because of Rome. To the untrained eye it might seem inconceivable that the Roman Empire would have collapsed the way it did; They were one of the most dominant military and political entities on the planet at the time, stretching from Europe to Asia, from Britain to Africa, builders of vast networks of roads and aqueducts, writers of poetry and theater. Yet it was exactly that advancement, economically, socially,  and technologically that was the problem, that constant and inevitable clash between progress and regression that led to its slow dissolution and usurpation by the Mongols, the Visigoths, et cetera. A Roman Empire still existed afterwards for a couple centuries afterwards of course, but it was not, indeed could not, be the Rome that had been. Such is the way of life.

     The situation with Rome is not exactly like the one with the movie industry in the 1960s, but there are similarities. As with Rome the movie industry had grown over the years to be a veritable behemoth, and that size allowed it to perform grander and grander feats. Thus we saw the rise of ‘epics’ such as Ben-Hur and Marathon alum Saladin, films with large set pieces, large casts and large budgets. Then we saw them again, and again, until diminishing returns set in and the movie industry found that in their desperate rush to capitalize on this trend that it was difficult to fund any movies at all. Of course the movie industry didn’t collapse and epic films didn’t cease to exist, but for a while the dynamics of filmmaking certainly shifted. It’s doubtful whether the Hollywood New Wave in the 70s, the rise of Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, et al. would have happened if not for the problems the movie industry brought on itself, but surely that’s a thing of the past and has no bearing on the present day.

     Released in 1964, The Fall of the Roman Empire was written by Ben Barzman, Basilio Franchina and Philip Yordan and directed by Anthony Mann (El Cid, The Glenn Miller Story) through Samuel Bronston Productions. The year is 180 A.D. and Caesar Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness) has been overseeing the war effort against the tribal peoples of what is now called Germany. Aurelius has grown old and ill however, and his thoughts turn increasingly not to war but of peace, a Pax Romana that will unite all of the peoples of the Empire as free citizens of Rome. A monumental task worthy of a Caesar, and Aurelius decides that Gaius Metallus Livius (Stephen Boyd), commander of the Northern Army, is a man worthy of the title. Before that decision can be made final though, Aurelius is murdered by those unwilling to let peace damage their pocketbooks, and Aurelius’ son Commodus (Christopher Plummer) becomes Caesar instead. Gone are those lofty goals, gone is the Pax Romana, Commodus is here to Make Rome Great Again and he’s going to do it, no matter what his advisors or reality says otherwise. What does this mean for Livius and his beloved Lucilla (Sophia Loren)? What does this mean for Rome? I’m not sure, but if I had to guess, probably nothing good.

     An event like the collapse of the Roman Empire demands a film that is epic (natch) in scope, and on a visual level The Fall of the Roman Empire succeeds. The film takes place primarily in two locations, a military outpost in Germany and the city of Rome itself, and both look absolutely gorgeous. Huge panaramic shots that really emphasize on a visceral level the film’s scope, which is highlighted when Mann packs a scene with dozens if not hundreds of people. There are a few moments where a green screen or some other film trick is used to place a character where they’re not, but for the most part it seems natural, which for all their faults is really something you only really get with these kinds of films.

     Such stakes also call for some big fights, and The Fall of the Roman Empire has more than its share. These are not orderly affairs where soldiers jauntily march into battle, this is barely controlled chaos. Not a lot of blood, this is the 60s mind you, but there are people getting set on fire, horses falling and landing on people, it’s easy to forget sometimes that you’re watching a film and not a riot at a renaissance fair. While it might be considered to compare the level of Hollywood’s resources when compared to any other country’s film industry, The Fall of the Roman Empire blows Saladin out of the water. Despite both films centering around military conflicts, I don’t know if there’s anything in Saladin aside from Richard III’s invasion and the siege engine scene that compares to even the first battle in this film. Though there’s plenty of Hollywood ‘clanging two blades together over and over’ style sword fighting, there’s also a visceral quality to the combat that is effective even by modern standards.

     Of course it wouldn’t be a movie about Rome if the cast wasn’t made up of mostly white people, and Fall of the Roman Empire refuses to break the mould in that respect. Stephen Boyd is the sore thumb of the bunch, this blonde haired blue eyed guy with the flat American accent who looks more Teutonic than the fucking Germans they’re fighting, but you can tell by that chin dimple why they wanted him and he doesn’t do that bad. Sophia Loren is fine (and the only Roman in the cast who’s actually from Rome), a bit melodramatic but then these are melodramatic roles. Alec Guinness and James Mason (as Timonides) were on-screen veterans for a couple decades by this point so you know they know their way around a script, but the most entertaining performance is Christopher Plummer as the increasingly unhinged Caesar Commodus. The Emperor of Rome being insane is something of a cliche at this point, likely due to stories of Nero and Caligula entering the public consciousness, but Plummer does great work in making Commodus a truly despicable character. A delusional narcissist, bully, and a sniveling cretin, you start to dislike him the moment he gets on screen and by the end you absolutely despise. Which is good! You don’t need to make an antagonist some tragic figure, sometimes it’s enough to just have some piece of shit surrounded by other pieces of shit who wields too much power. Even though we learn a bit of Commodus’ backstory over the course of the film I wouldn’t say that he ever takes that step into becoming sympathetic, and I think Plummer’s performance helps cement that.

     That being said, The Fall of the Roman Empire is not simply a tale of morals, but of politics as well. Commodus and his coterie are certainly villainous in character, reveling in murder and upholding the institution of slavery, and in a grander sense represent the inability of the Roman state (or any state) to resolve the contradictions inherent within its design and thus its use of violence in order to maintain stability. Livius and his side are depicted as the heroes, but it is portrayed quite clearly that their opposition is just as much a political decision as it is an ethical one. Marcus Aurelius’ desire for a Pax Romana is predicated less so on philosophy and more so on building a unified bulwark against the Persians, and one of the major points in Timonides’ speech to the Senate is on the economical viability of free men over slaves (‘free’ in this context meaning peasantry rather than the romanticized American ‘freedom’ that we hear about today, even though conflation of the two was most likely intended by the screenwriter). Not to mention that all of Livius’ actions are made in order to maintain and even expand the hegemony of the Roman Empire, which ultimately makes him no different from Commodus aside from being more capable at it. The abolition of slavery is obviously a worthy cause and so we can support Livius in that way, but in the end they both represent failing attempts at stifling the progress of history, because the slaves would be freed and Rome would fall regardless of the wishes of these men but by the will of the masses. It’s a lot more nuanced of a film than I was expecting, even if it presents itself as some sort of melodrama.

 

     Speaking of Lucilla’s whining, there’s this thing that this movie does where a character has an internal monologue, but then they also just say things out loud sometimes as well. It only happens two times in the film, once with Marcus Aurelius and the other with Lucilla, and both times it doesn’t work. I can see where the scenes might have looked good on paper, but in execution it’s either the narration doesn’t really add anything to the scene or it makes the character in question look like someone with a severe mental illness rambling to himself on a street corner. Either have the character just say that narration out loud, this is the kind of movie where you could get away with that, or just have them stay silent and physically convey their emotions. Less is more and all that.

     One last word of warning to those prospective cinephiles out there, The Fall of the Roman Empire is advanced material if you’re not used to older films. Tops out at just under three hours, and no one talks like a real person. If you read through Shakespeare in high school and hated it then this might not be for you. It doesn’t skimp out on the action scenes though, if that’s what you’re into, and I think Livius and Lucilla’s star crossed romance set against the backdrop of political corruption and societal decay (which I’m sure bares no resemblance to these modern times) is enough to keep one invested. The Fall of the Roman Empire gets the recommendation, crack open a wineskin this Halloween and enjoy.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Brain Donors (1992), directed by Dennis Dugan

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune - "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune", by Johnny Marvin

       Cyclical trends. Every year or so it seems that a generation of people rediscover something that was popular with the previous generation and suddenly society is inundated with the stuff. In the 70’s folks were all about the 50’s; They watched Happy Days on their TV sets, went to see Grease and American Graffitti in theaters and attended Elvis Presley concerts in droves. The 90’s saw two Woodstocks and the revival of both swing and lounge music, for some reason. Even in this day and age it’s not difficult to find a song or a movie that’s lifting the 80’s aesthetic or a video game trying to be the next Earthbound or Final Fantasy 6. A common complaint thrown at Hollywood is its insistence on reboots and remakes, but the fact of the matter is that our society in general has been recursive. We’re constantly looking backwards, recycling, repackaging and deconstructing things we’ve done before, even if we don’t really have anything to say.

       Possibly the weirdest example of recursive pop culture are what I would tentatively call

the vaudeville comedy ‘revival’, in quotes because it has to be marginally successful to be considered a revival. Once in a blue moon someone in Hollywood gets it into their head that what the movie-going public wants is some of that Depression-era cinema, a return to those halcyon days where films were more than Kevin Hart screaming at things for 90 minutes. Rather than going the Oscar bait period drama route however, ala Chaplin, they decide to just make one of those movies. Own the rights to Laurel & Hardy but both men have been dead for decades? Well just grab a fat guy and a skinny guy and have them be Laurel & Hardy! Those 3 Stooges rights burning a hole in your pocket? Call up Will Sasso and have him hang out with the cast of Jersey Shore. It doesn’t matter that these were professional actors and comedians who spent their lives perfecting their characters and their act, just have some folks in cosplay do impressions and it’s basically the same thing right? Why book Paul McCartney for your concert when you can just get a Beatles cover band? Even if they ended up being decent movies, I don’t know what the incentive would be to watch them over an actual Laurel & Hardy or 3 Stooges film. More jokes about smartphones, I guess?

Which brings us to today’s film: Brain Donors, written by Pat Proft and directed by Dennis Dugan through Zucker Brothers Productions, back when the Zuckers were known for things like Airplane! and Police Squad rather than Scary Movie 3. Bob Nelson, Mel Smith and John Turturro star as Jacques (the oddball), Rocco (the streetwise conman) and Roland T. Flakfizer (the silver-tongued lawyer), three men who are brought together when the wealthy husband of wealthy philanthropist Lillian Oglethorpe unexpectedly passes. Mr. Oglethorpe’s will sets aside a significant chunk of change for the creation of a ballet company, and long-time toadie Edmund Lazlo is confident that lucrative chairman position belongs to him, only for his schemes to be dashed when Roland (who had sweet-talked his way into being the widow Oglethorpe’s personal solicitor) catches a whiff of easy money and sweet-talks his way into consideration for the job. The winner will obviously be one who provides the greatest boon for the company though, and Edmund has The Great Volare waiting in the wings. If Roland and the boys want that fat paycheck they’re gonna have to think on their feet, which is probably going to make it hard to stand up, and Edmund isn’t going to take it sitting down, although from the look of him he’s got plenty of experience. Tutu troubles and general chaos abound, which would have arguably been a much better title for this film than Brain Donors.

This is certainly an odd one. To say that Brain Donors takes inspiration from the Marx Brothers is like saying Vanilla Ice took inspiration from David Bowie and Queen. Tuturro, Smith and Nelson are slotted into the same roles that Groucho, Chico and Harpo would have been, doing the exact same things the Marx Brothers would have done, it’s got the rich socialite that in the past would have been played by Margaret Dumont, it’s got the tacked on romance subplot, they even name drop A Night at the Opera in the credits. About the only thing they don’t do is musical interlude where one of the leads plays the piano or the harp, which admittedly might have been a bit difficult to fit into a movie that was ostensibly about dancing, but that wouldn’t have stopped the originals.

What sets Brain Donors apart from those revival films though is that while it is essentially a Marx Brothers movie, the three leads are not pretending to be the Marx Brothers. Mel Smith fills the same role as Chico Marx, but Rocco is played as a working-class Brit, rather than an Italian. Bob Nelson is the Harpo of the film but he’s not just rehashing Harpo, he’s even got dialogue. They’re subtle changes sure, but they serve to establish Brain Donors as a loving homage to the work of the Marx Bros., which is a far more palatable option than the straight up copy and paste job of the Laurel & Hardy and 3 Stooges reboot. Turning an eye to what came before without outright cannibalizing it, a novel concept indeed.

Brain Donors also sets itself apart from its influence in the way it utilizes visual comedy. The Marx Brothers were no stranger to that of course, especially Harpo, but it seems far more prevalent and elaborate in this film than it did in those films. The benefits of several decades of filmmaking techniques, but having David and Jerry Zucker in the producer chair very likely had a part in that as well. The scene where Jacques opens up a laptop computer and it extends out in such a way to eventually become a full-sized desktop PC, complete with a desk and a blowup doll definitely feels like something you would have seen in Naked Gun or The Kentucky Fried Movie. 

Unfortunately as the successor to the Marx Brothers filmography suffers from the same issues that one could place on those films, which feel more and more blatant when removed from their original context. The plot is superfluous, an excuse to tackle the Brothers’ favorite subject (high society dipshits), but paper thin as it is they still seem to struggle to make this ballet concept work. They’ve got the tacked on romance subplot as I said, but they’ve taken it a step farther to the point that it is positively anemic. Zeppo at least got a song or two, he shared the screen with his brothers a couple times, he wasn’t the moneymaker but he was still relevant to some degree. By contrast Alan, this movie’s male romantic lead, is just some guy. He dances a couple times, in a movie about dancers it’s bound to happen sooner or later, but he never really interacts with the leads in any meaningful way and to be honest I can barely recall what he looks like. I remember his fiance Lisa a bit better but she also barely has anything to do in this movie. Maybe like 3 minutes of romantic drama that is instantly resolved by the next scene, and having to fend off a rape attempt, because apparently we can’t have a movie without one of those.

       I also can’t let this review go by without mentioning how much I hate the score. Music in cinema has changed over the years, the orchestral score is not as dominant as it once was, but sometimes a film comes along that makes you think maybe we were better off back when all movies sounded the same. Why a movie paying tribute to films from the 30s sounds like a PC adventure game from the 90s I don’t know, but it’s another one of those things that just feels off. Shouldn’t the score be zanier? Some big band swing with lots of brass? Why does the opening song sound like someone plunking away on a toy xylophone? Combined with the rather long claymation sequence at the beginning you’d think you’d accidentally popped in an episode of some obscure European children’s show.

In an ironic twist though, I think Brain Donors’ biggest problem is the exact thing I was praising it for earlier: These guys aren’t the Marx Brothers. They certainly aren’t bad, but they lack the fire that made the Marx Brothers the comedians that they were. John Tuturro is a great actor, but every time I watched him toss off one-liners as Roland it felt like he was trying to be funny, whereas Groucho was funny without really trying. It’s that effortlessness that really made the Marx Brothers what they were as comedians; They were always two steps ahead of anyone else, and every time they opened their mouths or set their sights on someone they proved it. Sometimes Groucho or Chico would drop a line so quickly that it would take a second or two to register, while here they stop the film entirely so they can push out a gag. The Brain Donors cast has the basic act down, they’ve certainly got some good lines, but without the Marx’s chaotic energy it just doesn’t hit the way it should. Brain Donors is certainly wacky but it’s not always funny, if that makes sense.

When Brain Donors hit theaters in 1992 it was not a great success, grossing under a million dollars, and it doesn’t seem to have gained a significant cult following in the years since, in fact I didn’t even know this movie existed until last year. Which makes sense, having now seen it for myself. Fans of obscure 90s video store fodder or screwball superfans might want to give Brain Donors a watch, but I think everyone else would be okay if they skipped it and went for Duck Soup instead. Then maybe later they could watch a Marx Brothers movie.