31 Horrors: Amer (#11)

Wherein I attempt to watch 31 horror films over the course of October. 31 horror films that I have never seen before, from obscure to acclaimed classics. We'll see how well I go in actually finding the time to watch and then write about them in some way.

You guys, I really hated Amer!

So I sat down to watch this movie on Blu-ray late last night as I was kinda in the mood for something stylish and scary, but a little bit off-centre, too. Turns out Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's giallo homage, Amer, was not the way to go. A rather lifeless, sketchy, snooze of a film that didn't engage me on any level. Even the visuals, arguably the film's raison d'être, weren't all that lush and deep. I was genuinely shocked to discover Amer was filmed on 16mm given the cheap, digital coldness that I found within the imagery. I would have turned it off if I wasn't positive that there was going to be some super icky violence to enliven the final act. I really needn't have bothered as I found the finished product amounted to little more than a pair of directors wanking directly to camera and laughing all the way to critical applause.

Given its giallo connections, it's natural for the mind to drift not only to the classical works of Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and so forth, but also this year's fantastic Italo-horror love-fest, Berberian Sound Studio. My knowledge of the genre is admitted quite limited, but Amer appeared to lack anything beyond the most basic of giallo tropes. Oh, I noticed the colour palate of the opening act, the close-skinned erotic nature of the second act, and the film's obsession with eyeballs and zooms, but they felt like pure superficial elements. The film didn't have the allure or the off-kilter mechanics of a giallo title. At least none of the giallo films that I have seen. It lacked the griminess within it prettiness that I've found so interesting before.

Where was the central murder mystery and the graphic reverberations that come with it? If you're going to make an ode to giallo then where is the poorly looped sound design? Amer, I found, lacked any of the suspense that I've found in titles such as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, nor the mad playfulness of Suspiria. Even the lone bloody sequence of Amer's climax lack the aura of a classic Fulci feature. As I've said, perhaps my knowledge of the giallo genre is just too narrow to truly "get" what Amer was doing, but it struck me as little more than, say, that trailer for Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis' The Canyons. All dressed up in its tarted up genre clothing, but seemingly lacking the inherent soul of the films its trying to cover.

It's certainly a fine line, but I certainly don't think Amer got there. Consider the aforementioned Berberian Sound Studio. I know some were disappointing in it, probably finding the same issues with Peter Strickland's film as I did with Amer, but I ultimately think it succeeded because it told a story as filtered it through the soft focus gauze of a giallo production. It's twists on the traditional Italo-horror narrative built to something - that something being a third act that essentially becomes the giallo horror that the film proposed to be a behind-the-scenes deconstruction of. That title was fabulously sneaky in the way it build suspense and terror in unconventional ways. Amer does its thing in such a flavourless way that the third act's amped up action climax comes off as little more than an obvious attempt at getting the pulse racing and leave audiences on a heartbeat high as a means of forgetting that nothing else in the picture served any purpose whatsoever.

Maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way, but I found nothing in Amer even came close to what some of the best giallo films are capable of. And capable of without the virtues of computer colour tinting. Nothing in either of the three segments appear to have much to do with one another, and if there was then it certainly went way over my head. Maybe I'm still just annoyed at the terrible make-up effects in that opening act? The use of pre-existing music, too, wasn't used in any real effective manner. Unlike this review that states "especially present in the phenomenally tense climax, when the music lets the viewer know that the end is near", I don't need music cues to forecast for me that a movie is nearly over, although I wish this one had finished much sooner than it did. D

A Berberian Ripper

One of the very best films that I saw at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival was Peter Strickland's ode of italo-horror of the 1970s and '80s, Berberian Sound Studio. It was a film that I, nor anybody else it turned out, had really heard all that much about and had chosen purely based on the central premise (which, admittedly, doesn't sound all that exciting). I admit I only chose it for a late evening mid-week slot because I love the art of sound editing - you'll find me at Oscar parties explaining what the difference between "sound effects editing" and "sound mixing" are like a total dweeb - and figured any film that put that process front and centre should be worth a look in. Even if I'm not a fan of Toby Jones.

Berberian Sound Studio is a very peculiar picture, and I sat there for a good chunk of its run time not really knowing what on Earth the whole point was. It was interesting, definitely, but I was waiting for something to happen. I mean, film generally dictates that stuff kinda has to happen. Even if at a film festival the potential is much lower. Still, waited patiently I did and while I was certainly getting a kick out of all the creepy, atmospheric ways that the director was able to utilise the art of sound editing I was eager for something, you know? By the time Strickland's film played out its magic dance around the maypole of looniness in its final act, I was in quiet awe. Not only was the film's final act something that the film needed in order to make its lasting impression, but it was something I personally needed.

I'd longed for a film all festival long that would give me the unnerving sense of the unknown. None of the "Night Shift" titles (essentially those devoted to genre elements, of which Berberian feels like a natural fit, alas...) really did that for me this year. At least none of the ones I saw. My friends and I basically all exited the cinema with a state of perplexed wonder. The rabbit hole of madness that the characters appear to collapse into throughout the second half are so fascinating to watch play out that I ended up having a hoot of a time. You'll never look at British nature documentaries the same! Also, it must be said, it was so great to experience a film and help turn it into one of the must see films of the festival. It's my understanding that people were promptly trying to make subsequent screenings after hearing about the success of the film from us early birds. Berberian Sound Studio is sure to be one of David Lynch's favourite films of the year!

The movie does have a local distributor and I hope for audiences' sake that it gets a theatrical release (those in Sydney will apparently get the chance to see it at the Sydney Underground Film Festival) because - for rather obvious reasons - it is a film that utilises sound design in such a manner that demands a cinema viewing setting. From the crunching of a watermelon with an axe, to the bloody-curling scream of an Italian dubbing actress, Berberian Sound Studio is a film to be enveloped by. It lives and dies on its sound design, and it passes with flying colours. The film itself will prove a confounding wonder for many and a boring mess for others, but its evocation of a very specific time and place had me enraptured. Loved it.

It was completely without coincidence then that some days after the festival I chose to sit down and watch a Blu-ray of Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper. The very sort of Italian horror flick that the aforementioned Berberian demonstrates the making-of process of, this is a nasty little flick albeit one whose power has surely been greatly reduced as a result of the very dated style. The heavy style and dubbed sound of films from this era will never not be confronting - at least initially - but I actually think Sound Studio made me appreciate Fulci's film a little bit more than I otherwise may have. Strickland's film is, I suppose, never not be perfect double feature fodder for a movie of this kind where the lips aren't in sync and the squishy, squashy sound effects are so noticeably over-the-top that you can all but see the chunks of leafy vegetables flying out of the screen.

Initially banned in Australia, New York Ripper follows a city entangled in the vice-like grip of a depraved killer. It certainly takes a more tourist-like look at the city than, say, William Lustig's Maniac - rarely does an establishing shot go by that doesn't feature an NYC landmark or sunny postcard shot, although the majority of the film was clearly not filmed on location ("grindhouse tourism" nails Slant - but that lends it a disconcerting atmosphere that works a treat. Where it doesn't succeed is in Fulci's troubling representation of sex and fetishes, which are treated as more or less demonic, deserving of punishment. There's certainly a filthy leery-eyed old man aesthetic to the whole thing that is rarely comfortable to watch. And then there are scenes where nipples are cut in half by razor blades. Yeah, make up whatever meaning you like for that. Various strands strain for relevance and others have genuine tension. It's a strange movie like that.

I guess it makes sense that I should follow up something like Berberian Sound Studio, itself little more than an expertly crafted technical display, with New York Ripper. Fulci's film is hardly scary, but there's still skill to be found to make it an involving experience. If somewhat limited, obviously.