reviews – Bifocals and Barbells

I enjoy doing random things. This sometimes leads me to scour social media “coming events” pages.

My little town doesn’t generally have too many items on the calendar, so when I saw that a slasher movie was being presented at the militia clubhouse, I was all-in before I even knew the international director of said film would be present.

I don’t typically go out of my way to see gore, but it was Halloween week, on a school night, and the event simply checked too many boxes for me to pass on.

The event did not disappoint in the slightest.

It was off to a great start just seeing inside the clubhouse. I would say that I will go there in the event of the zombie apacolypse, but much like techno clubs in Berlin, I’m not sure I’d be accepted. However I am 100% sure that anyone who tries to get in there without express invite has not considered their decision well.

The ambiance continued with the greeters; teens with hockey masks and weapons, “bloody” faces and ninja garb. The group was not large, 11 people. Turns out the event was a late entrant to the Facebook schedule which is suspected to have impacted the turnout.

There was a horror film trivia game that I honestly should not have played. I felt an unmeasurable degree of asshole-ery when I vehemently blurted out answers. I assure you, I tried very hard to 1) not be that guy and 2) when I was that guy, not take all the major awards. But c’mon, man….! Who can sit quietly when the question is “what is the name of the daughter of the actress in the shower scene in Psycho?”?!

Before the movie started there was small talk including some other folks who decided their Wednesday night plans based on Facebook. They were curious about the clubhouse’s activities on other nights. Thanks to the host and my eavesdropping, I learned that there are a lot of classes that happen there such as natural uses for dandelion, medical training, survival skills. There were a lot of others but I probably couldn’t hear them over the crunching of my buffet of tootsie pops.

“Do they do any gun classes here too?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Can you come if you don’ t have a gun?”
“Everyone else does sooooo….”

There was an announcement before the movie started. The director is about to begin work on another film and a portion of the proceeds will go to the Cottonwood Education Foundation. There was a brief exchange in which an attendee asked what the film will be about. The director declined to reveal trade secrets and instead vaguely stated what it’s not about.

“It’s no woke shit.”

And with that, the lights went down and the TV volume went up. Literally, TV.

I don’t want to spoil this 3rd in the 4 film series Playing with Dolls for anyone hoping to start their journey, so stop reading now if that’s you.
“Playing with Dolls: Havoc” is something like the 38th out of 42 ish films by the writer, director, cinematographer and possible Cottonwood-ian.
The movie entertained as expected. Having the creator sitting at the Costco folding table next to you in the bunker really made me think about all that goes into making movies. Writing, choosing people, choosing body parts for the Asset to lob off or tear out, knowing when to have the first topless scene to develop plot (within the first 4 minutes), creating the right pace so people (me) will squeal at the jump scares. There’s a lot to it. I’m sure the scale is exponentially more challenging than my productions from my own “15 Second Films” studio.

The production quality was solid and nostalgic. It reminded me of Fall Saturday afternoons in my kid-dom when the landscape of limited viewing choices wildly expanded with the Friday the 13th series started on whichever of the 3 channels we had. I also felt reminders of the soap operas of all the grandmas I ever knew when the melodic piano established mood one singular key at a time. The acting was certainly better than I could ever do, though I’m working on my impression of “Mia’s” encounter with The Asset. I doubt I could replicate her eastern block sounding accent though. Based on their level of expertise, I’d be willing to bet that Mia and the other female lead have been on a casting couch or two.

The script entertained me. The Asset escaped from captivity to cause mayhem. But he kind of seems like sometimes he doesn’t want to kill. At one point, his handlers catch up to him. A damsel in distress calls out, “He’s killing people!” The handler replies along the lines of “That’s what he does. That’s why the boss paid big money to have him released from the insane asylum.” The Asset has barbed wire wrapped around his face, a very interestingly shaped weapon that looks cool, but doesn’t seem like it’d be a very efficient killing device IRL.

I was curious about him. I wondered if I could see an earlier chapter in the series to explain why he wheezes like he does or what is the genesis for his proclivity for pulling out veins.

Rarely do you get to see a movie with the writer present so upon conclusion I asked him, “Does the Asset have a back story?” “Not really. The boss paid big money to have him released from the insane asylum.”
Yup. That’s what he’d said in the script. Silly me for thinking I’d get info to write Asset’s biopsychosocial assessment.

And with that, a Wednesday night adventure was over.

It was super fun and I’m very thankful for people who create things and make opportunities for interesting experiences. What you got next, Facebook?

Thanks for reading!

Video stores were a primary source of my institutional learning.

In the VHS heyday, Cottonwood had a total of two (count them, TWO) video stores.

The emotions of visiting these places was palpable. The highs and lows of seeing what movies there were and what was actually available was a veritable roller coaster. These weren’t your fancy Blockbusters that had rows of the newest releases. There were a few shelves that held the portals to new worlds. Your fate was decided by whether or not there was a poker chip hanging by a finishing nail in front of the movie box. And much like with restaurants in Redding today, everybody competed for the newest product, neglecting what was new just a few weeks before. Those poker chips determined if your family Saturday night would be filled with the hilarity of Stripes, or all the drama of On Golden Pond. No child wanted to see multi-generational Fondas emoting, but it was movie! In your HOUSE! You’d sidle up with the giant yellow Tupperware bowl full of air popped popcorn and live your best life Fondas or not.

If you’re of the vintage of VHS glory days, you may also recall that there were some films that didn’t show on the general population shelves. It wasn’t just naked people movies that lived beyond that chain with the sign “must be 18 to enter!” though. It was also things that were determined to be too dark for children.

I’m not sure how I got my hands of a copy of Faces of Death. It could be that another friend rented it and maybe it had the distinction of being a multi-day rental where we could “stick it to the man” by all sharing the video that only one of us paid for. Or maybe the merchant knew that it was okay to just let me have the video because she knew us. Or since this was a time when 10 year olds were sent into stores to get their mother’s Merit Ultra Light 100’s with nary an eyebrow being raised, maybe no shits were given.

Watching Faces of Death was a much a rite of passage as piercing your own ears, first kisses and crank calls to random people out of the phone book. No one was sure how it would be to watch it though. It was of the level of saying bloody Mary 3 times in the mirror. We didn’t believe we’d be visited by the dead, but no point in risking it by trying.

Knowing my extensive bravery, I’m moderately certain I watched it in daylight. Probably though hands held up to my eyes and the corded “remote” at the immediate ready to do the only job it can; pause and un-pause. I can almost smell the perm solution when I think of it all.

I don’t remember much of the film aside from the monkey brains. I do remember the chatter about it all. “It’s totally real” and maybe “Tubular” or something. I also recall remember what essentially equates to quizzing, kids asking each other about certain parts of the movie basically to see if they had been tough enough to watch the whole thing.

Pity the kids that said they watched it, but couldn’t tell you what happened. Posers.

Those that did watch obtained street cred. It was tough to determine if it was worth it. It was a big ask. This was real death! And the faces of it!

This movie came along at time when docu-fiction wasn’t even heard of. We had no reason to suspect that the alligator attack wasn’t real. We just wrangled with the weight of life lessons about mortality delivered by somber (and I’m sure completely legitimate) presenter, Dr. Francis B. Gross.

That movie changed lives. Ultimately it gets credit for why I drove more safely and why I never ordered monkey brains as a meal.

Thanks for modern algorithms for sending me the trip down dysfunctional memory lane today with the YouTube gem, “Beyond Belief: The Story of the Most Infamous Film Franchise of All Time.” I gave you 15 minutes, you gave me a window into why I’m who I am.

You also solved a decades old mystery; as it turns out, a lot of this movie isn’t real.

We live in a time where there are many more tools to trick us and so much access to real horror. It’s also a time when anyone can be a filmmaker, take for example my own imaginary studio, 15 Second Films. But this celluloid gem took effort to earn it’s way into being a cannon moment for a generation. And for that, and for the whomever the person was that connected me to the film, I’m grateful.

Thanks for reading!