Despite the film’s title, something bad can happen, and boy, does it ever.

The debut feature from writer/director Katrin Gebbe premiered at the Cannes Film Market last week and promptly sold to Austin-based Drafthouse Films for North American release. There is a motif that runs through many of the Drafthouse acquisitions to date – I won’t say what it is for fear of spoilers, but let’s just say that NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN will be right at home in the Drafthouse family of films.

Tore  (stunning newcomer Julius Feldmeier) is a pale, gangly adherent to Christian punk collective ‘The Jesus Freaks’ who ends up moving in with a white trash family after helping them with a broken-down car. But what at first seems like a means of stability for the transient teen becomes a test of his faith as the family starts using him as a scapegoat for all their inherent resentments toward each other. The erratically-tempered (step)father Benno (Sascha Alexander Gersak) is increasingly threatened by Tore’s gentleness and composure, which serve to emphasize Benno’s own flawed, violent character. Framing the boy as some kind of ‘competition’ as a role model for his family, Benno responds by attempting to strip Tore first of his privileges, but then of his faith and humanity. But as the abuse progresses, Tore’s refusal to react only raises Benno’s ire further.

The film is a startling study of self-deception, of the need to dissociate and blame rather than accept our own complicity in situations of domestic violence. Tore practically walks into this situation carrying his own head on a platter, like a messianic figure delivering them all from their own hateful hearts. It’s full of squirm-inducing moments of psychological and physical cruelty that I don’t want to give away here, but suffice it to say that the family goes further into their own darkness than you would expect given the film’s subtle and somewhat dreamy tone, calling up comparisons to films as varied as SNOWTOWN and MARTYRS. An audible gasp could be heard from the Cannes audience when the film’s end credits scrolled up the sentence “Based on True Events”.

The film is very deliberately paced, and its ties to genre cinema are tenuous, but those who’ve been following and enjoying Drafthouse’s slate of releases know what they’re in for, and certainly won’t want to miss this riveting example of transcendent horror.

The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies has been offering weekly courses throughout the regular school calendar since 2010. See below for a link to all the courses we’ve offered thus far, from Universal and Hammer films to giallo and rape-revenge!

www.miskatonicinstitute.com/course-archives/

Stay tuned for curriculum and registration info (as we go into our fourth year of operation!), to be posted on the Miskatonic Website in August, as well as a possible summer one-off. Make sure you join the Miskatonic Facebook page to get updates!

Barney and his mercenaries are seeking revenge in hostile territory after the murder of one of their brothers. Join the expendables in their latest explosive adventure! Starring the bad ass pantheon of action cinema including Stallone, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Be among the first 20 mercenaries who submit their names and code name to contest@fantasiafestival.com and they shall receive a pass for 2 to the Montreal premiere on Wednesday 15 at 19:30. Only winners will be notified. Please note, enemies of the Expendables are NOT allowed to enter the contest.

More information can be declassified at

www.expendables2film.com

www.facebook.com/alliancefilms

BULLET TIME

The Viral Factor by current action director Dante Lam ended this year’s edition of the Fantasia Film Festival as the final film the Hall theater, effectively bringing the festival to a close with a loud, explosive bang that surely could have been heard across continents; a film packed with the intense kineticism one has come to expect from the best in Hong Kong action cinema as well as a highly budgeted action thriller spanning continents and languages — the film being in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Malay . Lam’s richly woven and relentless international action film  is a sharp and impressive journey into the world of bio-terrorism and paramilitary operations starry Jay Chou in action role that would have any James Bond incarnation green with envy.

Below, Ariel Esteban Cayer asks the director a few questions about The Viral Factor.

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Can you discuss the symbolism of being adrift at sea – as seen in the beginning of the film and occurring in shared dreams? The way you use these images is quite beautifully tied together in the end.

The symbolism is the blood and spiritual connection of the two brothers of Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse.  Jay was saved by his elder brother Nicholas from drowning when he was still an infant.  Traces of this image sometimes reappear in his mind without Jay knowing what has happened.  At the end, when Jay’s physical body demises in this world, he is reconnected with his brother in spirit and he finally understands what those images mean to him.

What are the real life events, organizations or films that inspired this story of bioterrorism and paramilitary intervention and espionage?

I believe most of Jay’s previous roles in movies have been younger and less heavy-hearted.  So, we wanted to create a breakthrough character and a brand-new image for him in this movie. We had come up with this story to portray Jay into a more masculine, mature and serious character than anything the audience had ever seen before!

The international, James Bond-styled scope of the film is truly impressive. Did you get to shoot on location?

Yes, at least 80% was shot on location in either Jordan or in Malaysia. In Jordan, it was relatively easier to obtain the military facilities that we needed for our shoot but it was also relatively more dangerous for the crew due to its political situation.  Whereas in Malaysia, it was safer to shoot but they did not have too much experience to do big scale action scenes.  So, it took more work to get what we wanted done in Malaysia.  As for green studio shooting, I would say it only took no more than 5% of the whole shoot, and it was mainly for the enhancement of some of the visual effects only.

Jay Chou is a great action hero. Can you talk about working with him?

As we all know, Jay Chou is a great musician.  He does not come from a martial arts background.  However, we were all very impressed by how hard-working and committed he was in doing all the action scenes!  We also appreciated the trust that he and his manager had in us on our ability to produce stunting action shots and yet keeping Jay safe!  I believe it was a mutual happy experience for us to work together!

I like that family is a big part of what drives Jay Chou’s character Jon Man (as well as many characters). Was that important to you in crafting a relatable action hero?

Yes!  I’ve always wanted to tell a story with ‘family’ as the theme.  When I was trying to create a relationship between the two great cast of Nicholas Tse and Jay Chou, I knew it was a wonderful opportunity for me to build upon this theme and yet creating conflicts among their respective characters.  This would make the film more intense, as the love for family is something that the universal audience can easily associate with!

What were the biggest challenges amidst orchestrating the big action set pieces of THE VIRAL FACTOR?

The whole movie was a big challenge due to shooting in those overseas locations as mentioned earlier.  With the big scale action set pieces, we had to pre-plan everything more accurately.  For example, we needed to have more precise storyboarding.  And all the different departments needed to know their respective parts and each others’ parts before the shoot because there was no room to fix mistakes!  Overall, the shooting of this movie has been much more demanding on me and on my entire crew!

The final set piece at the docks has a classic action film, maze-like quality to it. Can you discuss shooting that?

Ha! That was actually another challenge! We were trying to explore other locations to do this scene but there was no better option.  So, eventually, we finalized with the option that you see now.  But by then we only had one week left before the actual shoot!  And the cargo ship was empty when it arrived!  You won’t believe how much work we had to do, for example to arrange for all the containers to be stacked up there, before we could shoot!

In so many aspects, this is an incredibly ambitious action film where you seem to push yourself to the limits. What is next for you?

My next movie is about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), but it will be more than the action.  It is going to be a drama on relationship.

Can you actually live with a bullet lodged in your brain?

Yes, as far as I know, it is possible!!

*BREAKING NEWS: SLEEP TIGHT has just been awarded the Best Screenplay Award (screenwriter: Alberto Marini)  for Fantasia 2012, by a jury consisting of Jay Baruchel, Maggie Lee, Gabriel Pelletier and Sylvain Krief.

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SLEEP TIGHT: Jaume Balaguero’s Newest Night Terror
By Melissa Howard

It could be said that Spanish director Jaume Balaguero is obsessed with things that go bump in the night.  While this isn’t uncharted terrain for a horror filmmaker, it’s evident that Balaguero has a penchant and particular knack for revealing nocturnal doings and un-doings.  His latest film, Sleep Tight (2011) (written by Alberto Marini), directs attention to the nighttime actions of an unassuming and exceedingly affable concierge, Cesar (played with taut precision by Luis Tosar).  It seems that this man was born with no capacity for contentment – he tells the audience this from the edge of a rooftop in the opening sequence: “Happy…the problem is, I can’t be happy”.  As a result of this lonesome affliction, Cesar’s primal undertaking is to remove all the joy from the lives of those around him (including his ailing mother), a tall order for a concierge whose daily life consists of plastering ceilings, filling mailboxes and unclogging toilets.  Cesar torments those tenants who exhibit any semblance of joy – Clara (Marta Etura) being the special object of his disaffection, thanks to her unshakable mirth.  Subsequently, the film revolves around Cesar’s sick attempts to rattle Clara’s unbelievable good cheer.

Balaguero builds tension slowly in Sleep Tight, but the torturous camera eye lets the viewer in, just enough to understand how sinister Cesar really is.  At night, he sneaks into Clara’s room and waits beneath her bed until she falls asleep.  He drugs her while she sleeps, then casually slips between the sheets.  This transgression seems awful enough, but it’s his reason for lying beside her – his long-term malevolence – that will rattle the viewer by story’s end.

Balaguero’s filmmaking is effective in Sleep Tight as the tension rises and the scenes close in on Cesar and the unsuspecting tenants.  The building itself feels like an aspiring body double, since much of the action takes place in the many closed-off rooms and hallways.  It’s also worth noting how stairwells and elevators play an interesting role yet again in Balaguero’s latest, reminiscent of his previous effort, REC (2007), a film fans will remember played out like a found footage documentary, to great effect.  In REC as in Sleep Tight, Baleguero keeps a tight focus on his subjects and the confines of each location, adding to the claustrophobic aura he builds and exploits in the Spanish apartment blocks he’s known for filming in.  Though Balaguero alone cannot take credit for REC’s shaky cam success (the film was co-written and co-directed with Paco Plaza), there is certainly a running theme in the director’s work – the supernatural.

A Native Barcelonan, Balaguero began his filmmaking career as many do – with short films.  He began by shooting video in the early 1990’s then moved to 35mm film a few years into his career.  It was his first feature length film, The Nameless (1999), based on the Ramsey Campbell novel, which brought him to the attention of North American audiences (in fact, The Nameless won best film at Fantasia that same year). The Nameless was one of the first, but by no means the last, of Balaguero’s films to deal with the occult.  It centers on the story of a couple whose daughter is found murdered in a well, identifiable by her bracelet and shorter leg.  Five years later, the mother Claudia hears from her daughter and decides to re-open the case.  What follows is the discovery of a nefarious cult, “Los Sin Nombre”, who are in pursuit of the nature and origins of evil.

Balaguero’s paranormal bedtime stories have set the pace in the director’s world, all the way through to his recent resurrection of the REC series to include REC Genesis and REC Apocalypse (set for release in 2013), making Sleep Tight something of an anomaly.  There’s an externalized panic in REC that’s more internalized in Sleep Tight, by way of the emotional disturbances of Balaguero’s Cesar.  In REC, the story centers on a local late night TV show called “While You’re Sleeping”. A keen television presenter, Angela (Manuela Velasco) and unseen cameraman, Pablo (played by the actual cinematographer Pablo Rosso) visit a fire station to follow a group of firemen on their nightly rounds.  After Angela’s long introduction of the crew, the firehouse finally receives a call about a woman trapped inside her apartment.  What happens in this creepy little apartment block (while Barcelona “sleeps”) is an infection manifested as demonic possession, claiming the lives of those both on and off-screen.  Balaguero and Plaza invent a visceral and observable fear of what lurks in the shadows.  Sleep Tight does no such thing.  No one is brimming with fear in this story.  Instead fear exists on the periphery of those mundane troubles that make up the human condition – loneliness, isolation and loss.  Nonetheless, in true Balaguero fashion, the director dumps the abnormality (his nighttime monster – Cesar) in plain view… and what could be scarier than this?

THE STUNNING LYRICISM OF AN ORDINARY MAN

By Marybel Gervais
Translated into English by Adam Abouaccar

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Life is rich in emotional experiences and each person goes about it in one’s own way, deciding whether or not to make use of the opportunities that cross one’s path. This is the very essence of every story renowned South Korean writer/director Kim Ki-duk has put to film. He does not limit himself to improbable walks of life, but attempts to analyse human feelings through avenues more representative of his own reality. Korea’s divided states make for a unique national identity almost incomprehensible to non-residents. Kim Ki-duk imbues his latest script for Juhn Jaihong’s Poongsan with his usual lyrical touches and conveys real emotions as only an artist who has mastered his craft can.

Inside this society torn by Korea’s division, families live separately on either side of the most heavily guarded border in the world. Nothing and nobody is supposed to get in or out. One man, blessed with amazing survival skills, decides to put his skills to use. In exchange for money, he delivers messages or personal packages across the border. To keep out of trouble, he conducts all of his transactions in silence. No one knows his name, but certain locals have given him the name “Poongsan” after the brand of his cigarettes he smokes (“Poongsan” also refers to a rare hunting dog breed specific to North Korea). At the special request of a man protected by the authorities of South Korea, Poongsan agrees to bring over In-ok, the man’s wife. Separated for two years since his escape to more forgiving terrain, the man has not stopped thinking about his beloved or the bitter fate that awaits her north of the 38^th parallel. In three hours, Poongsan manages to bring In-ok safely to her husband despite a few setbacks. Yet, in their short time together, the two fugitives fall in love, much to the dismay of In-ok’s husband. Despite the fact that Poongsan was under contract with the government on his mission to bring In-ok back, he is blacklisted on his return for conducting trades across the forbidden zone as punishment.

To understand what’s at stake in this story, it is absolutely imperative to understand the immeasurable crisis that has divided Korea for more than 60 years. Though it may be dubbed “the land of the morning calm,” a soundtrack of resonant shouting, gunshots and explosions always greets the sunrise. The views of both sides’ leaders radically differed (and still do). In the North, we find the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Upholding a communist approach within a totalitarian regime, they maintain political, economic and military independence while making up a third of Korea’s total population. South of the border, we find what’s commonly referred to as the “demilitarized zone” (DMZ). The remaining two thirds of Korea’s inhabitants live in the Republic of Korea, a place relatively open to Western culture with a democratic regime geared toward capitalism.

After their formal separation in the late 1940s and the War of 1950-1953 that followed, several families are forced to live separated from their loved ones, a terrible blow to many. Furthermore, the lives of northerners are difficult as they live for the most part in poverty. Little can be done about their situation. This is not the case in the South where education is still accessible and general conditions are better. The characters created by Kim Ki-duk in Poongsan are representative of this harsh reality and focus is never put on divulging how the main character acquired his unique skills. His past also remains unaddressed. As a whole, citizens of the north demonstrate an astonishing adaptability and capacity to survive, due in no small part to the newfound aridity of life in North Korea. Lack of money pushes one to resort to one’s strengths without excess. In-ok’s difficulty to forget her old life and to enjoy luxury and attention from her husband is a demonstration of a different sort. Together with the main character’s own story, we observe through his missions other examples of Korea’s social reality. An example of this is an old man on his deathbed who cannot believe that he can see his wife via video before he dies. An explosively poignant moment.

This story could have been written only by a Korean who lived this particular reality. In 1960, Kim Ki-duk was born into a country where the confrontations were already in full swing. He was fortunate to be born in the south where he had access to greater opportunities. Taking full advantage of his fortune, he tried his hand at many different careers, going from farming to the military, to a brief stint in the priesthood before becoming a painter and filmmaker.

His passions and wide range of experiences deeply enrich his scripts. Gracefully, he produces profound emotions in the viewer, aided by images without dialogue. His characters are precious to us not because they represent an ideal we would like to reach in vain, but because they are genuine, touching and unconventional. The mystery revolving around the Poongsan character’s history resembles that of Hee-jin in Kim’s earlier Seom (The Isle, 2000); Kim characterizes both characters with a heavy silence, creating an air about both characters that is all their own. His cinematic universe always involves a love story as a catalyst. It is never black and white and allows the viewer to question moral and social principles. Kim frequently touches upon taboo subjects such as adultery, prostitution (Samaria, 2004) and even incest (Hwal, 2005), but despite the compromising situations in which the protagonists find themselves, they exude sincerity and only instil a sense of fraternal understanding in the viewer. Poongsan recalls Kim’s 2004 film 3-Iron with respect to its dark themes, however pure. Both films’ main characters, in their rare reliance on verbal commentary, commendable lines of work and complex histories with love, seem cut from the same cloth.

The auteur’s signature refines and redefines itself with each particular work he or she produces. Kim Ki-duk always walks the same path, set for a destination that is invisible to the rest of us. He has a formula that pleases him and excites his viewers here in the West. Sadly, he is not as revered in his native country of South Korea. As the saying goes: “No man is a prophet in his own country.” Conversely, it is perhaps because we are Westerners that we are allowed to cherish Kim Ki-duk’s work as much as we do.

GERRIE’S KIDS
An interview with Dutch actor Tim Haars from NEW KIDS TURBO and NEW KIDS NITRO
Kier-La Janisse

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Tim Haars

While only now being discovered by North American audiences, the New Kids series – which started as a web show in 2007 and hit notoriety after being picked up by Comedy Central in 2009 – is Holland’s closest export to a South Park/Apatow/Jackass hybrid.  It focuses on 5 obnoxious characters – Richard, Barrie, Robbie, Gerrie and Rikkert – who drive like maniacs, scarf down junk food, call women whores and drink beer constantly. Most importantly, they have mulleted coifs that clearly place them in the backwaters of 90s culture.

In the New Kids universe, the schlubby, accident-prone character Gerrie is brought to life by Tim Haars, brother of Steffen Haars (Robbbie), who co-writes and directs the series with Flip Van der Kuil (Barrie). After a few mishaps involving miscalculated time zone differences and wrong phone numbers, I was able to chat briefly on the phone with Tim, where I was hit with a few surprises about his life before and after New Kids.

Just for context, how many Dutch films or TV shows are in production in any given year?

Maybe 50 or 60? But I’m not sure about those numbers, because a lot of movies I’m not really interested in. I don’t like a lot of movies.

A lot of the movies from Holland, or a lot of movies period?

Well, period. I mean I watch a lot of movies, but I only like a couple. My tastes are very specific.

So how did the New Kids form, in the beginning?

Well we were not really a group that was brought together;  we knew each other already for a long time. Wesley van Gaalen (Rikkert) is my best friend, Flip Van der Kuil (Barrie) is the best friend of Steffen Haars (Robbie), and Huub Smit (Richard) I knew from back in the day – I used to be a pro skater and he was as well.

A pro skater, like skateboarder? Or ice skater?

Hardcore aggressive inline skating. Yeah, we were really good; I was the best in Holland a couple of times . So we all knew eachother already for a long time. And when we finished skating we didn’t know what to do, so we just started to make small sketches and road trips and we filmed them. And then Steffen Haars went to the film academy,  he went to school to become a director and a cameraman. And Huub Smit went to acting school, me as well. So then we actually continued to make small sketches for an internet site called Flabber.nl, and we noticed a lot of hits, we had like 10 million hits in a really short period, so we were like ‘hmm!’ And after that success we continued at Comedy Central, and then it really became a national hit here in Holland, and also in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. And then a big producer in Eyeworks came and actually gave us money to make a movie. And we were not used to making movies because we were making small sketches, and we asked if we could make the movie without making any concessions, because our ideas are pretty controversial, but we didn’t want to have any restrictions. So they gave us all responsibility and all freedom to make it. And it became a big hit.

Inline skating champs Tim Haars and Sven Boekhorst as kids

And where are you guys based?

Almost everybody lives in Amsterdam.

OK. I don’t know how much of an in-joke the characters are regionally – are they hitting on stereotypes about people who live in the south of Holland or are these character types totally fictionalized?

Well we were raised in Maaskantje ourselves, and during our childhood we say a lot of people doing nothing and complaining and destroying our skate ramps and actually fucking up the neighbourhood. And they more or less inspired us to make this kind of work. Because they were already different, they were like – how do you say it – white trash? Like the European version of white trash. There are people like that everywhere in Europe, in Germany there are a lot of them, so I think everybody recognizes the characters.

But they’re kind of like the protagonists. I mean even though they’re really destructive and dumb, they’re still kind of the heroes of the movies.

That’s true, yeah. They’re like anti-heroes.

I would guess just from watching the movies that you like these characters.

Well with characters like this you can do anything, because the logic in how they think is so completely stupid. We made them bigger than life. We exaggerated them.

Gerrie

I heard that a lot of fans of the show really identified with these characters a lot.

It’s true, a lot of people recognize themselves in these characters. In the beginning everybody thought we were real. And for the original show we did choose to shoot it in a way that it looks like someone took a camera and filmed themselves. So in a way they felt like they could do this themselves. And lot of people when they would see me on the street would say ‘Hey man, what happened to your moustache and your haircut?’ and would have to explain that I was playing a character. And also we don’t speak like that at all. It’s a dialect that is very specific to a small area in the south of Holland. But everyone thought we were real until they brought us on a television show as ourselves; it was a really funny way for people to find out it was all fake.

So the guy who plays Barrie doesn’t look as scary in real life?

No, actually he does. His face is really good; he’s not a really good actor, because he’s one of the directors, so that’s why he doesn’t say much. He’s sort of like a Silent Bob. Actually all the characters are a bit like we are in real life.

So if that’s true are you really clumsy in real life? Your character is really accident-prone.

Well, he’s a guy who wants to be a part of the group and look good in front of his friends, but it never works out. I’m a physical guy, that’s true, but I’m not that clumsy. It’s a great character to play – you don’t even think about yourself anymore, you just go and be a complete ass.

So tell me about the Gabber music in the soundtrack. I had never heard this term before.

It’s one of the biggest musical influences in the 80s and 90s in Holland.

So is it just specific to Holland?

It used to be, it was an underground scene and then it got really big in Holland. And again it’s for people who use drugs and go completely insane and they’re really aggressive. But nowadays it’s not popular anymore, and so the movie really feels like the 80s or 90s, with the cars and the way they dress. The music really fits the movie.

What’s happening with the New Kids now?

We quit doing it, so that it remains what it was, instead of continuing until everybody is fed up with you. So now we’re writing some new stuff.

So you guys are still going to work together but just doing different characters, but still doing comedy?

Yeah, yeah, I think so. We’re an ensemble so we work together. And instead of casting roles we just look around at the people around us and get them involved.

Do you do the writing together?

Back in the day when we did sketches we all wrote stuff, but now it’s all Steffen and Flip, who are the directors. They write, direct and act in the movies, so they do everything.

And are you doing other projects on your own aside from New Kids?

Yeah I’m doing other movies and I’m also a television host for children, and I do TV shows on other networks for adults.

That’s funny because over here if you did a movie like New Kids Turbo and Nitro they would never let you near children.

Yeah, but Holland is very open-minded. I also was a little but afraid of it, but it never became a problem. In Holland there are commercial networks and the national networks, and I work for the national network which is very open minded, so I can just be myself. I’m not one of those hosts who says ‘Welcome everybody to the show…’ I’m just being myself .

But with little kids around you?

No. I don’t like to work with children, they’re annoying. Because with children it’s the most important day to them, but then after four hours rolling they’re, like, done.  They get all excited but then they just collapse because they didn’t sleep the night before or whatever. But the working day is longer. So it’s not nice to work with children but it’s really cool to make something for children.

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See Tim Haars in a decidedly non-kid-friendly role in a double header of NEW KIDS TURBO and NEW KIDS NITRO tonight at the Hall Theatre at 5:45pm and 7:40pm.

See an earlier article on the New Kids phenomenon in Spectacular Optical HERE.

Surprising meta-film The Woman in the Septic Tank follows Rainier, Bingbong and Jocelyn, a group of well off, well intentioned, yet ill-advised filmmakers fresh out of film school as they try to get their first feature film in motion. With delusions of Oscar-worthiness, they craft together “With Nothing”, an exploitative look at the hardships of a single and poor mother of seven children living in the Payatas slums who has no other course of action but to sell off one of her children to a rich white man…The viewer follows their pre-production process as they go through multiple script revisions (all hilariously put in images on screen, ranging from the musical as daydreamed by Jocelyn to the neorealist and alternatively more formalist approaches), some location scouting and casting. Rivera mocks various aspects of Filipino (indie, but not exclusively) cinema by making an exploitation film himself (or rather multiple exploitation films embedded one into the other) and while that is somewhat of a double standard in Rivera’s filmmaking (again, I would look back at Mondomanila for the extreme end of that spectrum) that cannot be ignored[1], the comedy mostly shines through The Woman in the Septic Tank’s main lady (and secret weapon) Eugene Domingo.  Following considering TV actress Cherry Pie Picache and bombshell Mercedes Cabral (both making brief appearances as themselves), the filmmakers settle for Eugene Domingo, a real-life legend better known for her role in the The Only Mother (Ang Tanging Ina) series. She proves, in this, to be a delightful comedic actress that is not afraid of self-derision – even if appearing somewhat late in the film, yet ultimately carrying it to its punch line conclusion.

Furthermore (and perhaps most interestingly),  Marlon Rivera’s comedy can be easily connected to other meta-fictional works in Filipino cinema, perhaps most strongly as the antithesis of the 2012 film Kamera Obskura by Raymond Red, which – much like Guy Maddin’s repertoire, who has repeatedly been featured within the Spectacular Optical pages – recreates the look of older Filipino cinema in order to pay homage to its heritage (and simultaneously inviting comparisons to the more recent and critically lauded film The Artist). While one is camped in the past and the other is pressingly concerned with subverting the present, both showcase new Filipino cinema as somewhat innovate, but most importantly, willing to take risks.

(Ariel Esteban Cayer)

The Woman in the Septic Tank plays August 8^th in the J.A. de Seve theatre at 19h00.

THE CAT(S)
South Korea contributes their take to a long history of monstrous felines on screen
by Ariel Esteban Cayer

There’s something about the ambivalence of cats that make them perfect cultural objects. In many ways the epitome of cuteness, cats are also known to be majestically independent, said to be notoriously less affectionate (or perhaps less co-dependent) than other pets such as dogs, all the while having the privilege of outmost respect and reverence from many, if not all, cultures. Cats have evolved alongside men since the dawn of time and their inscrutable behavior and thought process, both familiar and completely foreign to the human mind, have led them to embody a cornucopia of cultural significance; an otherness that is, thankfully for all of us that revel in the dark corners of pop culture, most often associated with the forces of darkness. Sure, we like to lovingly observe cats and their ridiculous actions (for the non-initiated, I would recommend a look into this beauteous thing called the Internet meme) but when cats gaze back, the tables often turn. Horror cinema, particularly Asian horror and its long folkloric tradition of ghosts, spirits and animalistic demons onto the screen, have embraced this uncanny potential and exploited it many times in the past…and the present.

The Cat

Last year saw the  release (overseas) of Seung-wook Byeon’s summer horror blockbuster The Cat, a return to K-horror form that not only aptly resuscitated the sub-genre, but also adapted (and considerably modernized) the Japanese tradition of the bakeneko (or “werecat”, “monster-cat” to be exact) for modern South Korean audiences. Claustrophobic cat groomer So-Yeon (television actress Park Min-Young in her feature film debut), while still dealing with her condition, has visions of a half-feline, half-human little girl (child actress Kim Ye-ron’s only role to date) and when people around her start dying from feline attacks, she begins linking the murders – and the cat she just recently adopted – together. Building on backdrop of animal cruelty, The Cat is an assured rollercoaster for thrill-savvy audiences that will recall Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water (2002) and Kaneto Shindo’s classic Kuroneko (1968) in equal measures. Proving that the J-horror trope of the vengeful ghost-child can still be enjoyably and intelligently exploited on screen past the plethora of Ringu similes, The Cat goes further than most of the K-horror (or J-horror, for that matter) output concerned with modernizing the figure of the Japanese onryo (vengeful female spirit) and arks back to the classic kaibyo eiga sub-genre of Japan’s cinematic Golden Age; a sub-genre of the supernatural ghost film (kaidan-eiga) dedicated solely to ghost cats, werecats and other similar evil felines. Before getting further into its elusive history (of which very few films are widely available, let alone in North America), I shall specify that, because K-horror (from its name to its specific tropes) is so indebted to J-horror (and by extension, to the vastly documented links it has with Japanese folklore), I will address both Japanese films and South Korean films together, as I consider both to be intrinsically linked in this context, especially when discussing vengeful spirits that operate essentially the same way in both cultures. Shall that be clear, brace yourself as we enter the weird world of Asian feline horror…

Kuroneko

As with many folkloric tales and ensuing film incarnations, the “werecat” film finds its roots in kabuki theater plays, more specifically in Segawa Joko III’s 1853 Cat Monster of Fair Saga (Hana Saga neko mata zoshi), based on the actual execution of two lovers in 1590 by Lord Naoshige Nabeshima (1538-1618). Hugely popular, it set the basic narrative structure for many films to follow: a loyal cat, upon drinking the blood of his unjustly deceased master(s) comes back as a vengeful hybrid creature; soul linked to its master’s and bound to avenge whatever wrongs were brought upon him. In the play (see illustration below), Segawa Joko III drew his inspiration from Nabeshima’s conquest of Saga Castle to create his supernatural tale: following his loss of a game of chess against young samurai Matahichiro Ryuzoji, Nabeshima slayed his opponent. Unable to withstand the humiliation of her son’s death, the young samurai’s mother slashed her own throat and bled to death…not without her favorite cat getting a few licks of her supernaturally scorn-charged blood.

Ghost Cat of Nabeshima

Adapted numerous – some say upwards to a hundred – times, the ghost-cat of Fair Saga initially made its screen debut in 1910 with The Night Cherry Blossoms of Saga and was adapted again by Kunio Watanabe with Ghost Cat of Nabeshima (1949) by Ryohei Arai with Ghost of Saga Mansion (1953), to name but two. Another narrative variation – that found itself integrated seamlessly in both J-horror and K-horror films perhaps because of its sheer simplicity (and can be observed in The Cat) – is said to have been initiated by Kiyohiko Ushihara’s The Ghost Cat and the Mysterious Shamisen (1938), in which a shamisen (traditional stringed instrument that was for a long time made in part of cat’s skin) luthier is, quite simply, haunted by the cat he slaughtered. Historically important for truly launching a series of ghost-cat films that lasted almost uninterruptedly until the mid-50s, Ushihara’s film also starred Sumiko Suzuki (1904-1985), noted to be the first female actress to portray a vengeful ghost on screen. Following her 1930 performance in a Broadway adaptation of the same Fair Saga play, her on-screen performances in the genre (starting in 1937 with, you guessed it, The Legend of the Monster Cat of Saga and ending in 1958 with Kinnosuke Fukuda’s Ghost Cat of the Clockwork Ceiling) paved the way for actresses such as Takako Irie (1911-1995), the true queen of kaibyo films, who, unsurprisingly enough, is still mainly known for her roles in Akira Kurosawa’s films, namely his sole propaganda project The Most Beautiful (1944) and his genre-defining swordplay masterpiece Sanjuro (1963), alongside a powerhouse Toshiro Mifune. Starting her career in 1927, she got her first role in the genre with Ryohei Arai’s aforementioned The Ghost of Saga Mansion in 1953, shot back-to-back with Ghost Cat of Arima Palace – only two of the 160 (and plus) films in her incredibly prolific and mostly lost filmography. Interestingly enough, one of her last roles was under the direction of iconoclast Nobuhiko Obayashi (known mainly for the demented and very cat-related 1977 film Hausu) for his 1983 adaptation of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s highly popular novel The Girl That Lept Through Time (1967). The most famous adaptation of the novel about a time-travelling schoolgirl should be well known to Fantasia audiences considering it is the 2006 anime of the same name, produced by the legendary anime studio Madhouse under the direction of Mamoru Hosoda (Summer Wars)…But I digress.

Above: “Lord Nabeshima Naoshige (1538-1618), the military governor (daimyo) of Hizen Province, is being threatened by the Cat Monster of Saga, which is seeking revenge for the deaths of Ryuzoji Matahichiro and his mother.” in this ukiyo-e woodblock print from Yōshū Chikanobu (1880-09)

Ghost Cat Cursed Wall

Prefiguring the sealed-in wells, walls, water tanks and rooms of Hideo Nakata’s films (which The Cat blatantly and playfully borrows from), Kazuo Mori’s Ghost Cat & The Red Wall (also 1938; also starring Sumiko Suzuki) tells the story of Shino, a beautiful woman who comes back to haunt her aggressors after being cruelly dispatched and sealed into a wall with her black cat. Murdered in the process of a complex court case in which she was wrongly accused of entertaining an illicit affair with a lord’s retainer, Ghost Cat & The Red Wall mixed courthouse drama and supernatural horror, adapted from a now-lost 1918 film and remade in 1958 by Kenji Misumi as The Ghost-Cat Cursed Wall, or Ghost-Cat Wall of Hatred, sometimes abbreviated simply to Cursed Wall (1958). Another kaibyo artisan worth remembering is director Bin Kado, who dedicated most of the 1950s to ghost cat films, the more accessible of which are Ghost Cat of the Okazaki Upheaval aka Terrible Ghost Cat of Okazaki (1954), Ghost Cat of Ouma Crossing (1954) and Ghost-Cat of Gojusan-Tsugi (1956); similar stories with interchangeable characters and settings. If anything, this goes to show that the problems of repetition that enrages so many genre fans when confronted with J-horror copycats, torture porn derivatives or uninspired slasher sequels isn’t exactly a new thing…Should you embark on a quest for kaibyo films to sink your teeth in, I would recommend two highly stylized efforts from horror and exploitation masters Yoshihiro Ishikawa (the first Female Poisonous Seductress film, Female Demon Ohyaku) and Nobuo Nakagawa (The Ghost Story of Yotsuya, Jigoku, as well as the remainder of the Female Poisonous Seductress trilogy), who both directed many supernatural films, but closed the 1950s with the visually striking and memorable following entries: The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond (1960) and Black Cat Mansion a.k.a Ghost Cat Mansion(1958), respectively.

Ghost Cat of Ouma Crossing

Ghost Cat of Otama Pond

Ishikawa would go on to direct Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit in 1968, a great year for the sub-genre that also saw master filmmaker Kaneto Shindo who, following the success of his seminal kaidan-eiga Onibaba (1964; interestingly released the same year as Masaki Kobayashi’s equally important Kwaidan), released his own and now-classic kaibyo-eiga, Kuroneko. A haunting and innovative film that creates a gripping moral dilemma around the conventional narrative and reinvigorates it with incredible imagery, it tells the story of young samurai Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura) who is assigned to kill two ghost-cats that happen to be his wife and mother (Kiwako Taichi and Shindo-regular Nobuko Otowa, respectively), which launches him in morally ambiguous odyssey that will have him decide between status and love, life and death – a most excellent dilemma at the center of which both female ghosts are judge, jury and executioners.

Kuroneko

By this point, it is quite evident to you that I could keep tracing (or rather name-dropping for the most part) the highlights of this sub-genre for a long time without touching upon Korean cinema – which was, after all, the initiator of this entire article. Rather late to the game, instance of ghost cats in Korean cinema are fewer but nonetheless fascinating: in 1970, prolific director Shin Sang-ok releases Ghost of Chosun a.k.a. Ghost Story of the Joseon Dynasty, a period piece in which a wrongly murdered royalty couple comes back to seek revenge, their souls joined to that of their cat. If familiar, the film has been noted to be particularly engrossing as a period drama and somewhat historically important, as the two ghosts are eventually revealed to inhabit – get ready – a well, outside of the city. And if the name Shin Sang-ok rings a bell, it is because he is the same infamous director, believe it or not, that was kidnapped by Kim Jong-il in 1978 and coerced, until his escape in 1986, to make films for the twisted cinephile and soon-to-be ruling dictator as part of his plan to establish a film industry in North Korea; an union most famous for producing the 1985 Godzilla rip-off Pulgasari. In the late 80s, Shin seeked political asylum in the United States and kept working as a director throughout the 1990s – a period during which he directed and produced the highly arguable classic that is 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up (1995) under the quickly uncovered name of Simon S. Sheen…It has no cats in it, so I digress again.

Ghost of Chosun

Remodeled Beauty

On the lighter side of things, Jang Il-ho’s rare Remodeled Beauty (1975) tells the tale of obstetrician Jeon Dong-Kuk whose wife gives birth to a cat(!) baby. He quickly abandons the kitten and replaces it by a real baby girl – which I can only assume he steals at the hospital. Nineteen years later, as Jeon is developing a new form of plastic surgery, his biological cat-daughter seeks help and in an inevitable twist of events, asks for a new face – the first step in her master plan of revenge. The doctor accepts but his biological daughter’s new face is not without a price: the more human she gets, the more Jeon’s stolen daughter develops cat features. As expected, both women are linked and the cat-daughter, in what looks like an incredible feline body horror film I would give anything to get my hands on – and welcome escape from the period ghost fare most of the ghost-cat subgenre is built on.

Remodeled Beauty VHS cover

Finally, A Devilish Homicide a.k.a. A Bloodthirsty Killer (1965), considerably less difficult to locate and directed by Lee Yong-min, is a weird and offbeat thrill-ride that will not fail to recall the earlier immurement scenarios of Kazuo Mori and Kenji Misumi’s Cursed Wall films, while simultaneously obeying its own twisted logic. First recorded instance of a ghost cats in South Korean cinema, A Devilish Homicide, under its bland and uninspired title, is in fact the true – and final – gem of this little retrospective; unique, occasionally expressionistic and completely delirious of a film, it shows us spirits roam a completely deserted scenery as early as the opening scene, which effectively sets the tone for the feline homicidal frenzy to quickly follow. As Ae-ja, a young woman once killed and bricked behind a wall with her cat, comes back to haunt her husband and relatives with her vampire-like abilities (think cat rather than bat), things get weirder and weirder in a B-movie worth a watch, if only to realize the wacky kind of horror films South Korea – which is now considered one of the top producers of serious, brainy horror – was once producing.

A Devilish Homicide

Despite the few recorded Korean entries in the peculiar world of feline horror films, Seung-wook Byeon’s The Cat inscribes itself in a long tradition of ghostly cats and vengeful spirits in Pan-Asian horror, taking many tropes of last decade’s cycle of Japanese and Korean supernatural horror (the young and Toshio-esque black-haired girl; enclosed spaces such as wells or water tanks; the investigative structure) and adding the ghost-cat twist to them. Exploring actual concerns around animal cruelty and South Korean’s seemingly creepy fixation with beautifying their household pets, it also one that will captivate, thrill and delight (or perhaps enrage?) animal lovers; its scenes of animal cruelty occasionally quite hard to stomach in their realism, yet its revenge agenda entirely satisfying. Stay tuned for more information on the North American premiere of The Cat, but in the meantime, dig for some of these films… you’ll think twice next time your cat rubs its head around your ankle.