DEEP RED (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*                                                                                                                       The above lobby card for Dario Argento's fourth giallo, directly following FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET, is most appropriate to to describe the director/co-writer's approach to the mystery genre. As I've noted in other reviews of Argento-films, the rational type of detective pulls together a variety of disparate phenomena that lead to a rational understanding of a mystery. The irrational type, however, may solve a particular mystery, but often he does so just by bringing various phenomena into juxtaposition, but not creating a rational worldview at all. In the lobby cardm the glass-shards-- rent asunder when the first murder-victim collides with a window-- were part of a distinct whole. But now the broken pieces reflect murders-to-come, all elements of a greater enigma that resists rational explication.                                                                                 

  Technically the murder-victim mentioned above is only the first the audience sees slain in the film's 1970s era. A brief prelude depicts a knife-slaying, one adult slaying another adult, both seen only as shadows on a wall. Someone drops a bloodied knife on the floor and a small boy picks it up, while nearby a Christmas tree testifies to the festive time of year. Then the film shuttles to the current era, in modern Rome. In a lecture-hall two scholars introduce a famous psyshic, Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril). Helga gives the audience a small taste of her ability to read minds, which she says can even extend to impressions of things done years ago. She then announces that someone in the audience is harboring murderous thoughts, as well as thinking about an old house and a children's song. That night, when Helga returns to her apartment, she's murdered with a hatchet (hence the film's subtitle "The Hatchet Murders," which isn't accurate since the psycho does use other methods). Helga, BTW, is the only consistently "marvelous" phenomenon in the story, everything else being confined to the uncanny phenomenality. Helga functions only to uncover a guilty secret, not unlike the quasi-scientific device in FOUR FLIES, able to read images from the corneas of dead people.                                                                                                      

By chance professional pianist Marcus (David Hemmings) lives in the same building as Helga, and he's possibly on his way home when he comes across a colleague, Carlo, who's in the middle of a drunken binge. They're at least friendly enough that Marcus doesn't take offense when the sardonic Carlo accuses Marcus of being "bourgeoise" while Carlo is "proletariat." They both hear a scream, and Marcus looks up to see Helga being slain in her apartment window. He rushes up too late to apprehend the killer, so he dutifully calls the cops.                                                                                                           

Most solid citizens would leave things at that, but Marcus catches the detective bug. His main motivation is that the murder challenges his own confidence in his perceptions, because when Marcus first entered Helga's apartment seeking to render help, he glimpsed a painting in her apartment-- and yet, that painting seems to have gone missing by the time the cops arrive. A lady reporter named Gianna (Daria Nicolodi) gloms on to Marcus's private investigation in the hope of landing a big scoop. The two have a fractious relationship-- when Marcus gives the girl reporter static about feminism, she challenges him to an arm-wrestling match-- so they only work together on-and-off. Marcus interviews the two psychic scholars, and they just happen to guide the amateur sleuth toward the mysterious house of Helga's vision-- which most audience-members will assume has something to do with the murder committed in the prelude.                                                                                                     

Meanwhile, the mystery killer does what most mystery-killers do in these situations: after making few if any attempts on the sleuth's life, they content themselves with cutting off loose ends in the form of potential witnesses to the crimes. The killer's methods are fairly basic, though I'll give points for the use of a mechanized doll to distract a victim and set up the target for elimination. In his quest for clarity, Marcus keeps turning up more and more evidence of the world's enigmatic nature-- a little girl whom her father accuses of being a witch, Carlo's eccentric mother, who keeps calling Marcus an "engineer," and Carlo himself, who has a secret relationship with an epicene young fellow wearing (possibly) rouge. (To Argento's credit, the gay relationship is treated with some sensitivity, in marked contrast to many giallos of the period.) Further links in the chain of clues seem to lead Marcus and Gianna to Marcus's friend Carlo as the killer-- but all is not as it seems. The true killer is identified and slain in the act of trying to finish off Marcus, and the pianist even gets an answer to the question of the missing "painting." Still, the world has been rendered as more irrational than it was before Helga had the vision that cost her life, and the lives of many others.          

THE CASE OFTHE BLOODY IRIS (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                              *SPOILERS*

In one respect, I'm not really surprised IRIS isn't one of the great giallos. Director Giuliano Carnimeo uses most of the familiar visual tropes of the genre-- beautiful women getting killed, sometimes with copious nudity, a mysterious killer unseen by the audience, and a host of oddball suspects. But IRIS was Carnimeo's only such thriller, and he's better known for his westerns, like the above-average HIS NAME WAS HOLY GHOST. In another respect, I am surprised that IRIS wasn't better, because the sole credited writer on IMDB was Ernesto Gastaldi. HOWEVER (once again), IRIS is a bit of a transition for Gastaldi. Before IRIS (also going by IMDB), I found all of the author's giallos just okay: STRANGE CASE OF MRS. WARDH (which many fans like better than I do), CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL, and DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS. Yet after IRIS, IMDB lists three of the most myth-intensive giallos of Gastaldi or anyone: YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT, and TORSO. IRIS isn't a good as the latter three, but it sports some innovative sequences, suggesting that Gastaldi was warming to his work.                                                       

 The story follows the travails of two models, Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) and Marilyn (Paola Quattrini), as they take on new lodgings at a ritzy high-rise constructed by rising young architect Andrea (George Hilton). They're not aware when they move in that two beautiful female residents have been murdered there. After they've moved in, Andea starts cozying up to Jennifer, and in a short time she reciprocates. But Andrea has an odd, intense inversion to blood, which references the Italian title of the movie, WHAT ARE THESE STRANGE DROPS OF BLOOD ON THE BODY OF JENNIFER? So could he be the mystery maniac, or is it one of several eccentric residents of the high-rise? Of course, it could be the most high-profile suspect (yeah. right): Jennifer's ex-husband Adam, who despite having been divorced from the gorgeous model, still follows her around trying to force her to his will. Adam is the source of the American title, for he ran a small-time sex-cult and wanted Jennifer to participate in the orgies. Adam symbolized the unity of the cult with an iris, asserting that the joined petals of the flower represent the unity of the membership-- though the audience never sees any members in "movie time," suggesting that the organization may be falling apart. Adam hassles Jennifer on the street, trying to browbeat her into coming back to him, because he "owns her." Since this is a spoiler-review, I have no hesitation in stating that neither Andrea nor Adam is anything but a red herring. Perhaps that makes IRIS the first giallo with two titles, each of which references a blind alley.     

 IRIS's main problem is far too many suspects, all of whom have rather arbitrary eccentricities: a lesbian who hits on Jennifer, her violin-playing father, an old woman who reads horror novels and hides an even bigger secret. Because the police suspect that one of the tenants is the killer, the cops ask Jennifer and Marilyn to continue residing at the complex. Neither model has any reason to do so, but they agree, so that the script will work out. Marilyn dies to show the audience that, yes, it is one of the tenants. The cops are also boring eccentrics in their own way, and the killer's murder-methods are violent but not uncanny. He is crazy, though, and the revelation of his ID justifies my category of "clansgression" here, though for all the buildup we've been given, almost anyone could have been revealed as the serial psycho. 

IRIS is distinguished by one great scene in this so-so movie. One of the early victims is a beautiful Black woman named Mizar, and she performs for an Italian casino a unique act: challenging individual men in the audience to a wrestling-match. If Mizar can't counter a challenger's attacks with her judo, she promises to become the victor's "slave"-- by which I presume she means "sex slave." This is a fine juxtaposition of a female performer using her sexuality to entice challengers, only to embarrass them with her superior skills. Once or twice, there are remarks that highlight other examples of male chauvinism, but Gastaldi didn't organize these tropes into anything coherent, and all that results is a competent giallo with one kickass scene.

             

LUPIN III: PURSUIT OF HARIMAO'S TREASURE (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*

MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                  This LUPIN III TV special is, as the title suggests, a treasure-hunt story. In fact, in keeping with several callbacks to the James Bond franchise, there's not much of the marvelous phenomena common to many other LUPIN-tales of the period. Even Goemon confines himself to one quasi-marvelous feat, that of using his sword to cut slabs of street-concrete out from under a fleet of cop-cars. The period in the history of things Lupin-esque seems dubious too, for though Lupin and Jigen are working together, Goemon doesn't seem a regular part of the team, and continually makes remarks about being a "part-timer" who expects to be remunerated on an hourly basis. The Lupin Gang's status with respect to Fujiko seems standard though, and Lupin even remarks that Fujiko dealt herself in to get the others' help in finding the booty, in contrast to the more frequent situation where Lupin calls on the seductive siren for special reconnaissance.                                                                                       

  The desired treasure is a cache of gold and precious metals hidden by a Malaysian bandit, Harimao, who during WWII ripped off the English and the Japanese alike. Two competitors for the prize are the British lord Sir Archer-- strongly implied to have been a real agent on whom the fictional stories of James Bond were based-- and his super-competent granddaughter Diana. The treasure's location is hidden in three separate statues, and when Archer gets one of the statues, Lupin consents to work with Archer and Diana to find the trove. One of the special's best moments is the revelation of how Harimao forged the valuables into a vehicle of sorts, suggesting that he might have anticipated a not dissimilar episode of the SPEED RACER teleseries.                                                                                       

 Of course it wouldn't be a Lupin adventure if there weren't "bad thieves" to play off the "noble thieves." In this case, there's a gang of Neo-Nazis who also want Harimao's riches, and the foremost henchman is a brute named Goering, who stomps the usually athletic Lupin in each of their altercations. Strangely, though the original Nazis were not precisely welcoming of alternative sexualities, these goose-steppers are led by a rouge-wearing cross-dresser whose punny name, at least in his mastermind identity, is "Herr Maffrodite." Given that he hates women but plays up a feminine appearance, Maffrodite might have been a major Lupin antagonist had the script built him up better. However, he comes off as little more than a cartoon of a cross-dresser and so proves no more than a curiosity. The script devotes much more attention to Lupin's constant attempts to grope and/or or court Diana. She usually kicks his ass in response, and while Fujiko shows mild jealousy of Diana in just one scene, most of her time in the movie is taken up being ogled by Dirty Old Sir Archer. So I can just barely label this item as participating in the "fighting femmes" category. TREASURE is a mildly entertaining romp with more naughty jokes that one would ever find in an American heist film, nothing more. Oh, and Zenigata's in the story, but is only used for occasional comedy relief.                                                                     

WAGON TRAIN: "THE WAGON TRAIN MUTINY" (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                               It could be safely argued that because the teleseries WAGON TRAIN endured for eight seasons, the show must have tapped some of the audience's beliefs about the Manifest Destiny of all the settlers who traveled west by wagon trains, thus ensuring that the United States became a country "from sea to shining sea." However, of all the episodes I've seen, most are a little too rationally thought-out to allow for the imaginative flights of high mythicity. "The Wagon Train Mutiny," the first episode of the sixth season, is a rare exception.                                                                                                

On the surface of the script, the main concern seems to be one of a challenge to the masculine powers guiding the wagon train. The main representative of this power is wagonmaster Chris Hale (John McIntire), who for once finds himself at odds with some of his subordinates. In the course of a particular overland voyage, Hale's scouts find the remnants of a settlement wiped out by Comanchero raiders. A little later, the scouts receive intel as to the presence of a Comanchero camp. Hale makes the command decision to attack the camp, even though some of his aides-- and a troublemaking passenger (Dan Duryea) -- argue that this action will simply bring the wrath of other Comancheros down upon the wagons. These challenges to Hale's command occupy much of the episode's running-time, but since Hale is a main protagonist, there's no serious doubt that his decision will be proven to be the correct one. Toward the episode's end, the cavalry even shows up to announce that Hale's decision to attack the camp made it possible for the soldiers to chase down the other bandits. Thus, the sacrifice of Leland (and some non-entities) is justified as serving the Greater Good-- a message that might have resonated with American audiences in the early years of American involvement in Vietnam.                                                                           

   The episode's mythic resonance, however, gathers around the figures of two passengers and one intruder to the wagon train. The scouts find out about the hostile camp because they come across a wounded young Mexican, Renaldo (Jose de Vega). Several members of the wagon train think that Renaldo is a Judas goat who's supposed to lead them into peril. Among them is widow Hannah Barber (Jane Wyman), who's traveling with her twenty-something son Leland (Peter Helm). Despite one of the other cowboy's remarks that the Comancheros are a mixture of whites, Indians and Mexicans, Hannah immediately believes the worst of Renaldo because he's Mexican. And yet, because she's a woman and therefore a nurturing presence, she does give assistance in caring for the wounded young man. Renaldo later tells a sympathetic male that he's been a slave of the Comancheros for years after they slew his family, and that he was wounded while escaping the bandits.                                                   

 Hannah's already been through some ordeal in which she lost her husband in some unspecified violent conflict, and therefore she's overly protective of her son. Leland, of course, yearns to prove himself a man and escape Hannah's apron strings, so he volunteers to join the force attacking the Comanchero camp. Before anyone knows the outcome of the attack, Hannah seems to psychically sense her son's demise-- which is my only reason for tagging this story with the naturalistic "superlative skills" trope-- and sure enough, when the attack-party returns to the train, Leland is one of three killed in the assault. The myth-question then becomes, "will this frontier incarnation of maternality become a bloody-handed avenger? Will she kill the helpless Renaldo, whom she equates with her son's killers, as payback for her son's sacrifice?" Hannah does venture to the edge of that chasm, for she does intend to play Medea to the orphaned youth. But in the end, her mythic identity as a mother takes over, and the story ends with the implication that she will put aside her prejudices and become some sort of adoptive parent to the rootless young man. Renaldo, I'll note, played by an actor with a handsome face, which reinforces my impression that it's always easier to do nice things for put-upon people when the latter just happen to be good-looking.      

CURSED (2005)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*                                                                                                                        *SPOILERS*                                                                                                                                                                                             CURSED might have reunited director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson of the SCREAM series, but from the beginning it took on the aura of a "cursed" film. Producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein repeatedly required changes to the script and to the FX team, in the latter case firing the famous Rick Baker in favor of using more CGI animation for the film's monsters. Craven later bemoaned that the film took roughly two years to complete, and the film flopped at the theaters. I re-watched an uncut version of the movie, which was two minutes longer than the theatrical release. Yet I'm not sure that had the film featured more of the violent R-level effects Craven had wanted, it would have been much better than what resulted: a slick, mildly engaging drama about a couple of young adults turning into werewolves.                                                                                             

  In many monster-movies, the narrative emphasis focuses upon the monster, particularly when the monster's identity is the center of a mystery, as was the case with the SCREAM series. Here, though, the narrative focus is upon TV-production assistant Ellie Myers (Christina Ricci) and her high-school-aged brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg). A chance encounter with an unidentified animal out in the Los Angeles countryside leaves them with bite-wounds. When both of them begin manifesting strange symptoms, including greater aggression, enhanced strength and a lust for blood, they are forced to consult folklore books for a cure. The only cure is to kill the "alpha wolf" who either bit them or who created the creature that bit them-- which means that the siblings must play detective to find their lupine progenitor-- and to bring an end to a new cycle of werewolf killings in Los Angeles.                                                                                             

  And now comes the spoiler-ific part of the review: the beast that bit the siblings in the woods is one of Ellie's co-workers, one Joanna (Judy Greer), and her other victims are mostly young women whom Joanna perceived as competition for the alpha wolf who created her, Jake (Joshua Jackson). The story culminates in two violent but subcombative battles: one in which the siblings manage to get Joanna killed by police gunfire, and another in which the two of them manage to employ various werewolf-weaknesses against Jake, so that he dies and removes the beast-curse from the two of them.     

 Despite the movie's focus upon Ellie and Jimmy, they're not very interesting characters, and neither Ryder nor Eisenberg can do much with them-- possibly because they as actors were flummoxed by the assorted script-changes. Joshua Jackson also wasn't able to put much feeling into his underwritten alpha-wolf character, but Judy Greer benefits from being able to play Joanna as a power-crazed bitch, enjoying her ability to slam her "children" around because they've not yet attained full werewolf status. However, the climax probably would have been more powerful had the script gone in the direction of WOLF's conclusion, with "good werewolves" fighting "bad werewolves." I have to say that even though it would have been interesting to see what Rick Baker would have concocted had he not been discharged, the CGI werewolves look pretty good and are the best thing about CURSED.

DESPICABLE ME 4 (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                              I'd like to imagine Universal and Illumination allowing this fourth Gru-venture to be the last installment with the characters. However, the box office on Four was almost as impressive as the one for Three (despite Three's fall-off in quality), so it's likely that there will be more Despicable Movies down the road. But at least this one went back to the original template from the first film: imagining the origins of super-villainy as stemming purely from childhood frustrations.                                                                                                               

In contrast to the mediocrity of Three's Balthazar Bratt, this time Gru (Steve Carell), his wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), and their three girls must combat a villain with connections to Gru's own history. In Gru's high school years, he attended an institution devoted to turning out super-villains, Lycee Pas Bon ("High School of Evil" by one translation), and Young Gru formed a one-upmanship antagonism with fellow student Maxime Le Mal. As an adult working for the Anti-Villain League, Gru uses his status to infiltrate an alumnus party for the Lycee, intending to capture the adult Maxime (Will Farrell) for the AVL. With the help of Lucy, Gru succeeds, though the action here is less amusing than the concatenation of evildoers standing around doing the high school reunion thing. However, almost as soon as Maxime's captured, he escapes, issuing dire threats against Gru and his whole family-- which, by the bye, now includes the infant son of Gru and Lucy. The AVL can't find Maxime, so Gru's family must seek the security of a witness protection program, transferring them to a new community, under contrived new names. This situation at least allowed for some varied comical situations, though as other critics observed, the script stuffed the story with too many minor characters of little consequence-- probably to instill suspense as to who was eventually going to "out" Gru's family and betray them to Maxime.                                                                         

       
  Without question, the worst schtick is that of the baby, Gru Junior. Gru Jr. loves his mother Lucy without reserve but seems to hate Gru no matter what the reformed villain does. This remains a lame schtick because as soon as I saw it begin, I knew that no feel-good cartoon movie was going to end with a baby despising his father, and as I predicted, at the eleventh hour Gru Junior overcomes his personal animus. Ho hum. Slightly more promising is a plot-thread in which a middle-school neighbor girl identifies her new neighbor as the former supervillain Felonious Gru. She then blackmails Gru into helping her commit a silly petty crime. But this contrivance worked better for me because it shows that the creators knew they needed to force the main character back into his criminal mode to keep his basic appeal, no matter how thoroughly he converted to the side of the angels. Again, DESPICABLE #4 would make a great conclusion for a pleasant if lightweight cartoon-series, but I don't imagine things will work out that way.                                

DESPICABLE ME 3 (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                               While I thought DESPICABLE ME 2 was funny, the decision to make Felonious Gru a full-time family man and an agent of the Anti-Villain League didn't play to the strengths of the original character. Possibly the writers of #3 sensed that on some level, since the film begins with Gru (Steve Carell) and his new wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) acting as agents for the AVL and getting fired when they fail to capture the latest new super-villain, former child actor Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker). Unfortunately, after the former super-villain and his wife get fired, the whole story becomes mostly about their trying to redeem themselves with the ungrateful agency and become super-villain fighters once more. I think this was short-sightedness on the part of the writers, since Gru and Lucy could just as easily gone into private consultation on the prevention of super-villainy or something.                                                                                               

  The writers, though, weren't terribly interested in originality, since for #3 they resurrected one of the moldiest of moldy-oldie plotlines: the guy who finds out he's got a secret twin brother he's never known about: a twin who's opposed to the original in some way. In Gru's case, he learns that when his parents split, the father (who I guess is deceased in the story) took with him a twin named Dru, while the mother kept Gru. Gru became a famous super-villain in reaction to his mother's negligence, but Dru's father wanted Dru to become a villain. Unfortunately for the dad, Dru was a light-hearted schmuck with no talent for villainy. When circumstances bring about the reunion of Gru and Dru, what Dru wants most is for his twin to school him in the art of the skillful super-heist artist. Gru obliges, but only as a means of catching up with Balthazar and nailing him so that Gru and Lucy can get their jobs back.                                             

The interactions of Gru and Dru are pretty hokey, but the notion behind Balthazar Bratt is leaden to the point of distraction. The concept is that as a child he had a successful TV show about a naughty kid super-villain. When the show was cancelled, Bratt decided to become a real malefactor, complete with all sorts of kid-themed super-weapons. I suppose the kid-audience #3 was aimed at might have enjoyed the spectacle of a forty-something man sprinting around like a juvenile, but none of that alleged humor worked for me. There's a subplot about Lucy trying to learn how to be a mother to Gru's three adoptees, but that too proved forgettable.