Takashi Shimizu's Ju-on 1 & 2 (2000)

The origin of Ju-on began with a couple of shorts, directed by Takashi Shimizu in 1998. In 2000, Shimizu would shoot Ju-on: The Curse 1 & 2 for the V-cinema market (e.g. direct-to-video) in Japan. With a larger budget and a more linear storyline, Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) was released theatrically in Japan, followed a year later by Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (2003). Hollywood smelled blood and asked Shimizu to remake Ju-on: The Grudge for an American audience as simply The Grudge (2004). That film was so "ka-ching"-alicious that Hollywood asked for another from Shimizu, The Grudge 2 (2006), a true abomination of cinema, in which Amber Tamblyn and Edison Chen compete for the film's worst performance, surrounded by total unenthusiasm from all, including Shimizu. The Grudge suffers from the linear storytelling of Ju-on: The Grudge, but as Saturday afternoon matinees, neither really disappoints. Ju-on: The Grudge 2 is standout and a lot of fun: Shimizu presents the tale of a paranormal team investigation, which is a combination of old school "haunted house" scares and Scooby Doo. While Shimizu may be done helming the Ju-on flicks, the American market is not, as Toby Wilkins's The Grudge 3 was released straight to dvd this year. Japan is also seemingly far from putting the Ju-on series to bed, as well. But back to the beginning, beyond the short, to the original Ju-on: The Curse 1 & 2. Virtually no money is seen anywhere in this production nor is there any high-gloss (shot on video) nor is there a lot of sweeping visual flourishes (lots of still shots). In fact, there's no traditional narrative--no three-act structure nor a real protagonist. Ju-on has some pretty bad acting, at times, to boot. The film(s) does have, however, a talented director, who would show a lot of that talent further in Marebito (2004), his J-horror comedy tv show, The Great Horror Family (2004), and Reincarnation (2005). Most surprisingly, perhaps, is that Ju-on is scary creepy. Modern Tokyo has never seemed so familiar, like any other modern city, and while its population gets on and off the subway, goes to work and comes home to dinner or to go shopping or watch t.v., a real anger and resentment flows quietly through a few unfortunate folks in the form of a supernatural entity. Shimizu captures these emotions through a series of short and connected episodes across Ju-on 1 & 2.

Ju-on begins with a title sequence which explains the phenomenon--one who dies in anger and resentment creates a curse and plagues the living by perpetuating the curse (as it seemingly never ends). Gary Ashiya's fantastic and low-key score follows an unknown woman descending the stairs from the subway platform. The woman passes a house while walking in an alleyway and she stops abruptly. A sense of dread is seen in her face upon viewing the house. "Toshio" begins as the first episode. A young man in a suit arrives at his apartment home to his pregnant wife. After dinner, he opens his files and makes a telephone call and receives no answer. It's revealed in dialogue with his wife that the young man is a teacher named Kobayashi. The file he has open in front of him is for student, Toshio Saeki, whose mother, Kayako, Kobayashi knew in college. Kobayashi is going to have to visit the home to see where his student has been the last couple of days.

Kobayashi arrives at Toshio's house and is greeted by the eeriest of images, two young toddler arms hanging loosely out of a window. Kobayashi greets Toshio at the window, and the boy's face is covered with cuts and bruises. Toshio topples over from the window, and his teacher decides to enter the house to check on the boy. The living room is a distressing sight, littered with trash, and Toshio is in no better shape. An open first-aid kit lays on the floor, as Toshio has been bandaging the wounds on his knees and elbows, presumably from other falls. Kobayashi asks where his parents are and gets an innocently evasive answer from the child. With the condition of the house, Kobayashi senses neglect and decides to wait for the parents to arrive.

In a harsh transition, "Yuki" is introduced as the second episode, and she's the tutor for Kanna Murakami, the daughter of the family now occcupying the same home, where Toshio and Kobayashi were seen previously. Yuki doesn't like cats and she keeps hearing them and something else around, but Kanna doesn't, so they resume their teaching session. Soon the members of the Murakami family begin leaving the home: Kanna's mother goes out shopping, Kanna quickly remembers a task that she has to do at school, and Tsuyoshi, Kanna's brother, leaves with his bike in his school uniform. Yuki is all alone. She pulls her CD player from her satchel but is unable to listen, because the CD begins skipping. Pulling her headphones away from her ears, she hears a low gutteral sound coming from Kanna's closet. In fear, Yuki gathers her belongings and rushes into the hallway. The house is unusually dark on a bright sunny day and a black cat appears scaring her. Back in Kanna's room, Yuki investigates the sound in the closet.

"Mizuho" is the third episode, and with another harsh transition, Chiaki Kuriyama, as Mizuho, is seen out front of a school, where she is looking for her boyfriend, Tsuyoshi Murakami. His bicycle is parked out front, but Tsuyoshi is nowhere to be found. A supervisor, walking the halls of the school, tells her to go home, since school's over; however Mizuho is sure that Tsuyoshi is still in the building. The supervisor becomes suspicious over her behavior and commands her into the office while the supervisor sweeps the halls one more time for Tsuyoshi. While alone in the teacher's lounge, Mizuho makes a call on her cell phone and asks for Tsuyoshi. The lights go out in the office and her cell phone begins ringing, with the numbers "4444444" (an allusion to the original Shimizu short). Mizuho gets a ghostly visit, and then cut to the next episode, "Kanna," where Kanna and Tsuyoshi's mother arrives home from shopping. She answers the phone, which is presumably Mizuho from the previous episode and asking for Tsuyoshi.

Prior to the phone call in the "Kanna" episode, two police officers are talking to a doctor who found a ravaged corpse at the school. The corpse cannot be identified. On a small tray, the cops ask the doctor what is that? "It's a jaw bone," says the doctor. "It doesn't belong to the corpse that we found." As Kanna's mother is speaking on the phone, in the background a tattered and bloody figure shuffles up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood. The mother investigates and the person is Kanna in her school uniform. She turns around and reveals her new face to her mother.

The next two episodes of Ju-on are pivotal episodes: "Kayako," which wraps up the storyline with Kobayashi, the teacher, and Toshio, the student whom he visited and reveals the origins of the curse, and "Kyoko," a psychic character who goes and visits her realtor brother, who is selling the house previously occupied by the Saeki (Toshio and Kayako) and Murakami (Kanna and Tsuyoshi) families. The final two episodes of Ju-on 1 are repeated in Ju-0n 2 with a slight expansion of the "Kyoko" episode and different credit sequence. The transition between the two films is seamless, and since there is no real narrative arc, this is how I believe that both are arguably one film. The details of the "Kayako" episode should remain hidden, because it is one of the most satisfying in terms of story revelation and creepy visuals. I'm a fairly jaded viewer and have lived in some violent, crime-ridden cities, but I don't remember my heart pounding as quickly as the first time that I saw the "Kayako" episode.

In "Kyoko," Kyoko goes to visit her brother, Tatsuya, presumably a recent widow, at his office. He's purchased a house to sell but is unable to do so, because of the recent deaths and disappearances which have taken place there. Tatsuya asks Kyoko to visit the home with him and give her opinion. It's really a well-located and quiet home, and if it's haunted or something, then maybe Kyoko could help him. The two visit the home, and Kyoko immediately encounters the ghostly spectre in the house (very creepy). She tells her brother not to sell the home to anyone who might be sensitive to the evil that resides in the home. Kyoko believes that distilled liquor can reflect one's sensitivity to the paranormal (an in-joke on "spirits"), and anyone that drinks the liquor and it tastes sour, should not reside in the home. Tatsuya takes a drink and he's okay. Kyoko has later learned that her brother has sold the house to a couple, the Kitadas. Kyoko passes the house once more, and the woman standing at the window is the new owner, but she looks eerily like Kayako.

Tatsuya asks Kyoko to come and see her nephew, Tatysuya's son, Nobuyuki, who he says is acting strange. Tatsuya and Nobuyuki have moved into a new apartment, and it is the same apartment where Kobayashi and his pregnant wife resided in the very first episode. In the "Kayako" episode some extremely violent events took place in that apartment, and the evil which visited the apartment on that night, still very much lingers. Kyoko visits Nobuyuki who's scared out his wits. Kyoko and Nobuyuki see a vision from the recent past within the apartment closet and it traumatizes the two, never to be the same again.

The "Tatsuya" episode follows, as Ms. Kitada walks out to her mailbox in her new home and receives a package from a courier. Inside, someone(thing) delivered a freaky-looking portrait done by Toshio and Kayako's diary. Ms. Kitada's eyes glaze over as if she's been possessed. She goes into the home, and her husband, over breakfast, complains about the eggs. Before her husband can even take a bite, Ms. Kitada kills him with her skillet, as quickly as she can sit and enjoy her own breakfast. Out in the countryside at Tatsuya's childhood home, Nobuyuki stares blankly out at the fields. There is no emotion in his face, and Tatsuya's sister rocks back and forth holding a baby doll. Her complexion has changed as Kyoko is much paler and her eyes have grown darker. Kyoko's father believes his daughter is possessed and tells Tatsuya to go remove the evil in his apartment or Tatsuya will eventually die, also. Before Tatsuya can go back to Tokyo, he receives a call from his secretary, telling him that Kyoko is waiting in his office. Tatsuya knows that that is impossible, and finally convinced that something truly evil might be happening, he decides to visit the Kitadas and see how they're getting along.

Ms. Kitada is affable and amiable and offers Tatsuya a cup of coffee upon his visit. Nothing seems amiss to Tatsuya until he sees Toshio's drawing on a table and Kayako's diary. Ms. Kitada draws her head down and covers her face with her hair. She says that the picture was drawn by her boy and that is her diary that Tatsuya is holding. Under a low hum in the soundtrack, Ms. Kitada confronts Tatsuya, showing him a literal and figuratively new face. The final three episodes are "Kamio," a police officer investigating the deaths and disappearances, "Nobuyuki," the final survivor of the original events, and "Saori," an unseen character, presumably a teenager who has broken into the cursed house, who will encounter the curse anew (shot with one still shot). The final three episodes draw the curse and the film to a conclusion, which is, in some ways, exhaustive and mysterious. Like a chain letter, the curse has affected many disparate and connected people, all of whom, save a few, are innocent victims. Hence, the curse: the resentful dead who hate the living.Shimizu really takes a cue from quiet horror maestros, Hideo Nakata and Kiyoshi Kurosawa. As opposed to the visceral, torture-laden horror era, Shimizu examines an unidentifiable evil, which exists solely in the supernatural. However, Shimizu is able to make it extremely natural, as if it was just another current of electricity flowing through a home or a small gust of wind blowing through the park. The use of still shots in medium close-ups of the action makes the creepy goings on appear like the opposite side of the mirror of a Rockwell painting. Shimizu really captured a vibe that few have been able to capture. If you have made it this far in reading, I say thank you and give a belated warning: seeing Ju-on: The Curse 1 & 2 for the first time, well after its later incarnations, might take the sting out of a viewing. However, keeping in mind that Ju-on is fueled on imagination and talent, then it might possibly disturb a few of the willing, alone in their home on a dark, quiet night.

Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden (1993)

In a house that looks like a cement box, surrounded by weeds and rubble for as many miles as the eye can see, Jack, Julie, Sue, and Tom's father receives multiple bags of cement, tossed and thudded into the basement, for work on his garden. Their father sits at the head of the dinner table, while girlish-looking Jack doesn't want to eat meat, the mother quietly changing subjects so dinner is pleasant, boyish-looking, svelte Julie saying nothing, and Tom fidgeting, because he's a small child. Oh, and sweet Sue's there, too. The father commands Jack home early from school tomorrow, because there's work to be done on the garden; however, Jack diverts to his resting place, a nook in the wall with a dirty mattress and a rusty locker which holds cigarettes, a porn magazine, and a roll of tissues. Jack comes home and begins to help his father mix the concrete for the garden; while Jack's in the bathroom and masturbating to his image in the mirror, his father collapses into wet concrete and dies.
Not a whole lot of tears are shed for the father by the children, but their mother is certainly feeling the toll of his loss. One morning, she gently confronts Jack in his bedroom and tells him to kindly to refocus his energy, because every time that he does "it," Jack "loses two pints of blood." The words of caution go unheeded by Jack, and increasingly, the object of his sexual fantasies become his sister, Julie. Jack's stealing glances of his sister's long legs in her mini-skirt and taking the opportunity to play and tickle with her. Julie's not unaware of her brother's longing glances and she, sometimes, encourages his fantasies with a look of her own. On Jack's birthday, she gives him quite a bit to think about, as the children lay around with their mother in her bed. Their mother is suffering from a serious bout of melancholy and possibly a genuine physical disorder. One day Jack's mother tells him that they've been taken care of financially, and she asks him to watch over the house while she's in the hospital. Their mother doesn't make it that far--on a final morning, Jack, Julie, and Sue find their mother dead. The trio are unable to hide their dead mother from their baby brother, Tom, and decide to put their mother's corpse in a metal locker, covered with concrete in the basement.
Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden (1993) had its origin in the novel by Ian McEwan, one of the finest English-speaking writers today. The initial imagery of the film, also captured by the title of the novel and film, of the titular cement garden and the surrounding area is a striking one: truly man-made structures, like the house and skyscrapers and large metal structures off in the distance, and ruins and piles of concrete debris littered everywhere juxtaposed with overgrown patches of weeds and grass, growing up through the concrete. The question that I immediately asked and also believe the theme of the film is whether any of this is natural. The theme is really developed throughout The Cement Garden. The end result is a very rich film, intellectually and visually, and the ideas developed are very unsettling yet captivating. The Cement Garden feels like a fantasy or a fable, but there's enough realism to the film to make it not completely so. This quality, perhaps, is the most unsettling.Watching the children live day to day, neglecting household duties, such as washing the dishes, around which flies are accumulating, and eating poorly directly out of half-open tin cans feels so real and was affecting to me. The idea of neglected children always strikes me as heart-breaking. The children's behavior also changes dramatically. All of the children, presumably, stop going to school. Jack stops bathing and finds solace in a science-fiction novel, about an astronaut and explorer, who is also a loner. Sue becomes completely introverted and basically communicates through only her diary. Young Tom begins dressing like a little girl with a long-haired wig and skirts and playing house with his young friend (in a debris-ridden building). Julie seems like the catalyst for a lot of these changes. She dresses Tom like a girl and chides Jack about his dislike towards it: deep down most boys want to know what it's like to be a girl, but few boys will ever say anything about it, she tells him. Julie begins to date a much older man, which instills much jealousy in Jack. The sexual tension grows between Jack and Julie, and during a lot of the sequences, they appear like a young newlywed couple (who are way over their head). Charlotte Gainsbourg (niece of director, Birkin) appears in a very early role as Julie, and her performance involves a serious level of maturity in scenes sensuous, endearing, and affecting. Bright-eyed Andrew Robertson as Jack delivers a lot of the film's innocence and curiosity, and he, too, gives an affecting performance. Birkin's imagery is always interesting and The Cement Garden is a beautiful-looking film. Beyond the imagery, a lot of the behavior by the children is polarized, as everyday rituals and cultural taboos are called into question, as to which is really which. Birkin also co-wrote the screenplay for Tom Tykwer's excellent Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), where a lot of similar themes are explored. The Cement Garden is a well-written, contemplative, and quiet film, worth seeing for the curious.

Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Mike looks more like a gas station attendant, with a "Bob" patch on his breast, than a hitchhiker, standing alone on a road, out in the middle of nowhere; but it's an identifiable road, because with his fingers, Mike looks through them and can make out the "fucked-up face" of two bushes as eyes and a road as its mouth. This is Idaho, because the colored title-card preceding the sequence said so and later to be revealed Mike's childhood home. Right now the imagery of Idaho is blazing under his eyelids in a dream, with clouds moving quickly with time-lapse photography, more than likely from a narcoleptic episode, where an older woman has Mike's head in his lap, comforting him. It's the image of his mother, who Mike will go looking for later, but as he awakens to his orgasm and a couple of tens thrown on his stomach, Mike's back in Seattle, because Mike's a hustler.

Later on, as Mike hits the streets to work, he gets picked up by a wealthy lady driving a Mercedes. She takes Mike home and he's stunned, because he never gets picked up by ladies. In fact, this lady needs more than one guy to get her worked up, so she has three guys waiting. The other two, Mike knows. Mike goes first, but listening to the sound of the ocean and the sight of an older woman, similar to the woman in Mike's Idaho visions, makes Mike pass out again. His friends, one to whom Mike is very close, Scott, let him sleep in the cozy rich neighborhood. The next morning Mike meets a German, named Hans, driving a Mercedes, also, and offers to give Mike a lift to where ever he wants to go. Mike thinks Hans wants to do whatever he wants to Mike, so he refuses and passes out. Mike wakes up in Portland, his head nestled in the arms of Scott.Scott's a rich kid, and he's working the streets as a calculated plan, as he tells the viewer from the cover of a porn magazine. Scott is the planned aimless youth: at twenty-one, he inherits his father's fortune, but before that day (in one week), Scott reveals in a soliloquy that he wants to be the Prodigal Son. His father will love him more, Scott believes, if he comes back reformed. Scott is loved by Bob (and loves Mike), who is a older chap and spiritual guru to the street kids. Bob's verbose and Falstaff-witty and silly. With Bob's merry band, Scott and Mike pull a playful heist with the old geezer. Nonetheless, Scott and Mike take a break on a motorcycle to Idaho, and Mike recognizes the road with "the fucked-up face." Over a campfire, Mike reveals his love for Scott, but it's not returned. Mike and Scott look for Mike's mother, but run into Mike's brother. It's pretty painful for Mike, but he learns his mother's whereabouts. Scott and Mike go to a hotel, where they believe she works, but she doesn't. She left a forwarding address in Italy. Scott and Mike run into Hans, who gives them a performance in his hotel room, while they earn some travel money from Hans (shot in still shots).In Italy, Mike's sleeping on the streets of Rome with the other street kids. Scott gets a cab and they head to the villa where, supposedly Mike's mom lives. She's not there, but Scott meets a beautiful Italian girl named Carmella. Carmella falls in love with Scott, and these two leave Mike alone in the villa. Mike tries to work the streets of Rome but goes a little crazy. He flies back to Portland and goes a little crazier. He spends the night on the street, while Scott's seen in a slick, expensive suit. His father's died, and Scott's inherited. Bob recognizes Scott, but Scott turns his back on him. Soon, Bob dies and while Scott sits with Carmella at his father's funeral, Scott glances over down the hill, where the street kids, including Mike, are mourning Bob's death. Back to Idaho, and Mike's all alone on the same road. He has a fit of narcolepsy and passes out, his shoes get stolen and then someone picks him up in a car. "Have a nice day."I'd previously seen Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and was impressed with his blend of tragedy and comedy. Showing the life of drug addicts with slightly rose-colored sunglasses, but not completely romantic, was an alluring and captivating aspect of the film. I was sixteen and in the UK at the time, and was fortunate to see Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) on the big screen. It's use of time-lapse photography, and especially the Idaho and Italy sequences, were amazingly beautiful on the big screen. Its stars, River Phoenix, as Mike, and Keanu Reeves, as Scott, were well-known to me. Virtually no twelve year-old boy could say that he hadn't seen Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986) nor could he say that he didn't love it. Fewer folks, however, had seen Phoenix in William Richert's A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988), based on Richert's novel, but those who'd seen it liked it. Jimmy Reardon has a cult following today, and Richert played Bob in My Own Private Idaho (where he was very good). Phoenix gave an excellent performance in Sidney Lumet's terrific Running on Empty (1988). I'd seen Reeves, previously, in underrated Tim Hunter's River's Edge (1986) and as airhead Ted in Stephen Herek's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989).Reeves is an interesting actor, who is highly successful today, but never known for his great dramatic range nor depth. Reeves's Scott is by far the most artificial and cosmetic character in My Own Private Idaho: extremely good-looking, charismatic, funny, and cold. Scott doesn't want to get close to anyone; and he runs into worlds where anonymity is the key: the streets, where he gets lost for months from his father, who has to send his mayoral troops to find him; and yuppie elite world, where virtually everyone looks alike, speaks the same way, and tries to buy the same things. If there was any connection to anyone for Scott, then it was with Mike. Instead, Scott doesn't explore those feelings and settles for a girl from another culture who speaks another language. Then again, Scott's not really from any particular culture nor does he really speak anyone's language. Perhaps Van Sant's casting of Reeves was ideal, because it works.While Phoenix gave an Oscar-nominated performance in Running on Empty, it is arguable that he gave his best performance in My Own Private Idaho, as Mike. When Phoenix died in 1993, the film sequence that I remember seeing shown over and over, by the media, was the campfire sequence in My Own Private Idaho. The campfire sequence is the film's pivotal scene, where the themes of unrequited love and alienation are polarized, and Phoenix becomes really, really vulnerable. Scott's character is complex, but Phoenix performs brilliantly. From his quiet moments to his emotional moments and to the surreal and beautiful sequences alone in Idaho and in Italy, Phoenix shines. Van Sant was certainly the king of the indie-movie hill in 1991, after Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. His next film, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) was a popular and critical failure, but Van Sant has gone on to become a very successful director, today. Even with all of his subsequent successes, I don't know if Van Sant ever recaptured the magic that he delivered in My Own Private Idaho. Its photography looks like beautiful animated still frames, and there's a current of energy running through the whole film that only wavers in tone but not intensity. When the film ended at the theatre where I originally saw the film, there was silence, except for one person giving an uncomfortable laugh when the end credits began. I suppose that that image sums up the film for me.

Jose Larraz's Vampyres (1974)

There's a light on in the castle, and behind the curtains, two young women lay on the bed, kissing and caressing. The door squeaks open and a tall, sinister shadow, donning a hat, points a revolver at the two and shoots. The viewer is next treated to a colony of bats flying, while the uber-cool, progressive title theme by James Kenelm Clarke plays in Jose Larraz's Vampyres (1974).

A gentleman arrives at a hotel and requests a room. The old clerk behind the desk says that he recognizes the gentleman from a previous visit. He's mistaken.

A young couple is driving in the countryside with their trailer camper in tow. The man driving sees a brown-haired woman, wrapped in a black cloak, standing at the side of the road. She is the same brown-haired woman from the opening scene of the film. The woman passenger sees also the brown-haired woman but also sees, hiding behind a tree, a blonde woman, also in a black cloak. The blonde woman is also from the initial scene of Vampyres.

So what's up? Within a few minutes of the film, Larraz introduces the five main characters and draws them all together at the film's main location, a large, castle-like house in the country. The young couple, John (Brian Deacon) and Harriet (Sally Faulkner), pull their trailer into the shadow of the large house and make camp for the night. John believes the house is abandoned, but it, nonetheless, frightens Harriet. She cannot get the two women, whom she saw earlier, off of her mind. What were they doing?

A passing car picks up the young woman with the brown hair, later revealed to be Fran (Marianne Morris), who leads him to the large house. Harriet notices a light on in the house and hears a scream. She awakens, believing someone is outside of the camper, but John believes that she's just having a bad dream. The following morning, with ambulance sirens wailing, the same car that picked up Fran is shown turned over and its driver dead. Fran is again waiting at the side of the road and is picked up by the room-renting gentleman named Ted (Murray Brown). Ted drives Fran to the large house and she invites him in. Harriet watches as the two enter the house. Fran leads Ted through the interior of the house, which is decrepit and dirty, to a cozy chamber within. Ted whines a little bit, but Fran puts him at ease with a little wine from her cellar. She gives Ted a serious rogering, and the two fall asleep. Ted awakens in the middle of the night, hearing voices and a little woozy from the wine, and looks over at Fran. She is staring at him with her eyes wide open, yet Fran does not bat an eye when he waves his hand in front of her face. The next morning, Ted awakens, looking a little pale. He checks his wallet (cash still there) and looks at his arm, where there is a nasty gash. Fran is nowhere to be found.Jose Ramon Larraz is truly a unique film maker and no one makes films quite like him. Larraz, like Jean Rollin, loves the traditional Gothic settings and its appropriate characters, like vampires, and mixing them with his own sensibilities and atmosphere. Larraz also doesn't mind getting nasty in his movies. For example, completely sensible Ted gets his wounds treated by John and Harriet and decides to wait in his car for Fran to arrive. Fran arrives with the blonde woman, Miriam (Anulka), and a new fellow who picked them up, Rupert (Karl Lanchbury). The four go up stairs and drink a little wine. Fran gives Ted another serious shagging and while Ted's sleeping, Fran licks and drinks from Ted's arm wound. Fran hears a noise out in the hall and investigates where she finds Miriam, who's a little wobbly and with her face covered in blood. In Miriam's bedroom, Rupert's drenched in blood and the two attack him like sharks in a frenzy. While the scene isn't gut-munching, zombie-gory, it is extremely brutal and unsettling. The final fifteen minutes or so of Vampyres gets pretty nasty, also, in terms of violence.Larraz also shows quite a bit of flesh from Fran and Miriam in Vampyres's numerous sex scenes. While Marianne Morris and Anulka are gorgeous women, neither appears comfortable nude on screen and most scenes come off as artificial. After the Rupert bloodletting, the two bathe together under a slow shower. Miriam warns Fran to be careful in regards to Ted--don't let herself get too close to him. Miriam and Fran kiss and caress, but unfortunately there is nothing sexy about it. These two actresses are not comfortable and are going through the motions. Special notice goes to Murray Brown's Ted, because he is truly one of the most disgusting on-screen lovers that I have ever seen. Ted's not a bad-looking chap, but his moves are totally repellent. When he kisses beautiful Morris, Brown looks like he is slobbering all over her. Brown jumps around in the bed, almost like its a trampoline, and I wouldn't have been surprised if Morris's Fran told him to get the eff out of her bedroom, pronto.

Save the bizarre nasty bits of sex and violence, Larraz really shines with his unique atmosphere and vision in Vampyres. A lot of the initial set-up and mystery could be attributed to incompetence, but Larraz is creating a disorienting, surreal tale. He has a real eye for capturing the eyes of his characters. Morris and Anulka, who both give good performances, really are hypnotizing when Larraz lets the camera linger on their faces. With subtle looks and glances, both are able to convey sensuality and menace. Some of the more surreal touches of Vampyres, for example, like the images of the black-cloaked pair running through the cemetery at dawn to find solace at their crypt are captivating. Harriet, who spends the film with a growing obsession towards the pair, has the most bizarre first meeting with the two. As Harriet is painting a portrait of the house, Fran approaches her and becomes angry at seeing the painting. Fran mumbles some esoteric words and seemingly gives her a "blessing."

In a lot of ways, it is difficult for me to describe the attraction of Vampyres, beyond the sex and violence. Larraz's unique film making is the only source to which I can cite and which is also akin to Jess Franco and Jean Rollin's dreamy, freaky, and hypnotizing films. If you're a fan of films of a more poetic rather than rational film logic, like me, then Vampyres is a film very much worth seeing.

Brad Anderson's Session 9 (2001)

Poor Gordon (Peter Mullan). He's tired. Sitting in his work truck in a truly universal pose, he sips his coffee, because his newborn baby, Emma, is not sleeping well. Compounding problems is his job: his hazmat crew needs one desperately; so a successful bid, at all costs, to remove the asbestos from Danvers Mental Hospital is of the highest priority. Of course, Phil (David Caruso), his crew captain, is going to remind him of that in his passive-aggressive, "if I were running things, things would be different" way. Danvers is old and looms large with an older history, but that's really not on Gordon's mind. However, Danvers is certainly thinking about Gordon's mind, as an ominous voice greets Gordon, while walking the halls of the old psycho ward. The supernatural meets the psychological in Brad Anderson's Session 9 (2001).

With a story that is at least as old as Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) and a look and atmosphere influenced by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), Session 9 is a film that is both elegantly simple and simply elegant. Gordon's crew does get the gig to clean up Danvers, only after he seriously underbids to do the work in one week (and gives a slight sympathy plea) to the organizer. The one-week time frame creates the framework of the narrative, as each day increasingly becomes darker in both tone and visuals. After a short yet integral scene of Gordon arriving home to his baby girl and wife with flowers to celebrate, the film cuts to the first day, with the hum of the generator, as the crew begins work. Mike (Stephen Gevedon; also co-writer) is a law-school dropout, who secretly has an obsession with Danvers's dark past. Hank (Josh Lucas) is a lazy, smart-assed, wannabe gambler, who has stolen away Phil's girlfriend. Finally, there's young Jeff (Brendan Sexton III), sporting a serious mullet and not knowing a damn thing. After Phil tells the crew at lunch that the gig will last a week with a cash bonus for its on-time completion, Mike tells a story about some of the real "horrors" that went on in Danvers during its heyday. As the crew goes back to work, Danvers begins to work its spell upon them. Mike finds in the basement a box of old recordings of a patient's, Mary Hobbes, psychiatric sessions. Hobbes had a multiple-personality disorder, which manifests itself in three other personalities, beyond her own. Mike begins listening to the first session and over the course of the week, he takes every opportunity he gets to avoid working and listen to them. The sessions end with the titular tape: they are genuinely horrifying and engrossing, because the sessions come off as real. Hearing only the quiet and rational doctor attempt to counsel his patient, as he works through each session to get Mary to talk about, presumably, a childhood murder, is unnervingly creepy. Each of the personalities are revealed, and by the end of the film, the final personality not only draws the film together but kind of explains the goings on. The session tapes are a second story within Session 9 that drives the main narrative, seamlessly.Hank finds an old coin while roaming the basement catacombs, spraying the ducts with the "red slime." In fact, Hank finds several of them, coming from a endless fountain out of the wall (which is shown cleverly to have its origin in the morgue). One evening, in the film's only night scene, Hank returns to Danvers to loot his find. In Session 9's most traditional "haunted house" sequence, Anderson creates real tension and the film's few jump scares, as Hank is chased (?) through the corridors by a shadowy figure. Hank doesn't show up to work the following day, and Phil is not surprised. Phil and Hank do not like each other, but Gordon thinks something else is going on. The work at Danvers is becoming more stressful over the week, and Gordon is acting stranger. On Thursday, clueless Jeff climbs the stairs to find Hank, standing at the top, and the film perfectly escalates to its conclusion.Session 9 is a character-driven film, and no character stands out more than the location, the Danvers Mental Institution. Like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, the location has its own personality, and Anderson devotes the film's initial exposition to a long tour of the facility. Danvers is a genuinely real location, and it's authenticity is essential to Session 9's success. Anderson shoots his film wide, a la The Shining, with panning shots gliding from room to room or down a corridor. Anderson also makes good use of his montage imagery, filling them with random shots, which are all the more creepier, perhaps, because of their randomness. Peter Mullan as Gordon paints quite the portrait of his character: over the course of the film, Gordon's character shifts between sinister intensity and pathetic and crying, like a lost child. David Caruso's Phil is totally over-the-top, almost like a parody, but I can't imagine Caruso's acting in any other way. In any regard, Caruso's performance works as the whining Phil. Josh Lucas, as Hank, is perfectly annoying at times, but also his dialogue is often quite funny. Brendan Sexton's Jeff is just plain funny-looking. His character has a genuine fear of the dark, and in one of the film's best visual sequences, Jeff is literally being chased by the dark. Kudos, also to Sexton for his performance.

Finally, Brad Anderson did a splendid job directing Session 9, which he also co-wrote and edited. He shows a real artistic visual eye, which he's developed further with little-seen and wrongfully ignored The Machinist (2004) and Transsiberian (2008). He makes great use of audio with music by Climax Golden Twins, which is kind-of experimental and eccentric combined with traditional music, while odd screeches and humming tones fill the transitional sequences. Perhaps his best achievement in Session 9 are the session tapes: it really says something in a visual medium, when the artist is able to capture dread, through only the sound of characters' voices.

If I were to list the best horror films of this decade, today, then Session 9 would be a serious contender for number one. On that note, if you haven't seen this film, then make seeing Session 9 priority one.

Pupi Avati's The House of The Laughing Windows (1976)

A giallo in sheep's clothing, Pupi Avati's The House of the Laughing Windows was released in 1976 and presumably set during that year; however, Avati gives the viewer very few cues that this is the case. The titular house is from an earlier era, and its mysterious occupants generated quite a few secrets, which are plaguing the living, today."My colors, my colors...they run hot in my veins" are the opening lines by an unknown narrator, spoken over a blurry, brown-hued opening sequence, where a bound man is being stabbed by two, dressed in white. The film cuts to the view from a ferry, where young Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) is literally and figuratively crossing into a unknown world. His eye catches beautiful Francesca (Francesca Marciano) aboard the vessel, and she's the new school teacher. Stefano, greeted by the mayor, Solmi (Bob Tonelli), and his driver, Coppola (Gianni Cavina), arrives at the small Italian village to restore a painting in the local church, which has either been recovered or recently ruined by someone. The painting's artist was a local resident, no longer living, named Legnani. Upon first glimpse of the painting, Stefano is captivated, as what is shown is horrifying: a pale man in extreme agony, his torso filled with knives, while at his side debris covers the rest of the fresco, hiding possibly the portrait's assailants.The village is quiet, as are the residents. Stefano goes to the local hotel, where he receives a strange and threatening phone call telling him to leave. Stefano meets an old friend, Antonio (Giulio Pizzirani), at the town's only restaurant. Antonio has discovered "the strangest story ever" about a "house with laughing windows." Antonio promises to tell Stefano all that he has learned, but he never gets the chance. One evening, frantically Antonio calls Stefano and asks to meet him in Stefano's hotel room. As Stefano arrives, Antonio is seen falling from the window, where behind the curtains, the shadow of someone lingers. With his friend's death and the mysterious circumstances around the church's fresco and its artist, Stefano is finally motivated to uncover the mystery at all costs.Pupi Avati is by no means an Italian genre director, but The House of the Laughing Windows has quite a cult following by genre fans. Also with Zeder (1983) and Arcane Sorcerer (1996), Avati proves himself to be an extremely adept film maker in regards to creating an engrossing and intriguing mystery; an atmosphere of dread and foreboding; and visuals, both beautiful and horrifyingly mesmerizing. For example, subsequent to Antonio's death, Stefano must leave the hotel, because an important guest is arriving and that guest takes Stefano's room (which is revealed later to be untrue). Stefano is gratefully housed somewhere else, a villa in the countryside, where a decrepit, dying woman resides alone. Avati treats the viewer to a brilliant tracking sequence from Stefano's P.O.V. through an overgrown trail, and as the leaves scrape of the side of the camera, the villa is revealed in the daylight tinged in darkness and decay. The villa is also covered with bizarre and haunting frescoes, and at night, shadows make noises and unwelcome visitors come and go. The details of the remaining mystery should remain hidden, although I will say that it does end unpredictably and is quite satisfying.Avati also proves himself to be quite adept at creating drama. The blossoming romance between Francesca and Stefano is a welcome addition, and the scenes between the two actors seem real and natural. One of the best characters to develop throughout The House of the Laughing Windows is Coppola, the driver for the mayor. At the onset of the film, I thought that he would be another peripheral character in the village; however, his character becomes increasingly important to the plot and to the drama. Gianni Cavina gives an excellent performance as Coppola (he also co-wrote the screenplay). Cavina conveys a lot of the sadness and emotion in the film, especially in an interesting scene, where he tells Stefano about his initial meeting with Legnani. Lino Capolicchio carries The House of the Laughing Windows very well, as he is able to perform with both a youthful innocence and a reckless, impulsive abandon. Francesca Marciano, as Francesca, is always captivating on screen. She is absolutely beautiful and her performance is pitch-perfect.Pupi Avati's The House of the Laughing Windows, in my opinion, is equal to the best work of Mario Bava and Dario Argento in terms of cinematography (by Pasquale Rachini) and in atmosphere. The film has the framework of a giallo (a mystery investigated by an obsessive amateur sleuth) without all of the flourishes (no black gloves, not a lot of sexuality, nor overtly bloody violence). The House of the Laughing Windows is a captivating and rare film: an old school mystery that actually delivers. See it.

Michele Massimo Tarantini's The Hard Way (1987)

If I were to have discovered Michele Massimo Tarantini's The Hard Way (1987) when I was ten, then I would have traded my red Rambo headband for a bottle of Vitalis hair tonic and played as Miles O'Keeffe's Bull on the playground. One of the best 80s Italian action movies sees Henry Silva and Miles O'Keeffe square off in the battle of the square jaws and stiff acting, while over ten thousand bullets are spent in under ninety minutes in Tarantini's lean action film. The Hard Way opens after the credit sequence and Luigi Ceccarelli's excellent movie theme to reveal an army squad creeping up to an open road in the jungle to intercept the "cocaine pick up." Enter Henry Silva as Captain Wesson and his crew of mercenaries to quickly dispatch the awaiting army. Wesson, cold as ice, wounds the awaiting army captain and shuffles him into his helicopter. A convoy of trucks, carrying enslaved locals and bushels of coca plants, head to a large, guarded compound. The compound is the drug plantation for Cartel overlord, Pinero (Philip Wagner), and Wesson brings the wounded army captain as a gift. After making the poor bastard eat about seven hundred bullets in a vulgar display of power, Pinero and Wesson have ended any opposition by the local government. Only the U.S. stands in the way now but Wesson has a mole inside the D.E.A., who keeps them informed about any secret operations.

The D.E.A. has their own mole inside Pinero's organization and they know the whereabouts of his plantation. While sending in U.S. troops is "politically impossible," the D.E.A. decides to send in a small elite group of soldiers, led by Colonel Bacall: three soldiers from three nations, Brazil, Germany, and its leader from the U.S., John Barrymore aka "The Bull" (Miles O'Keeffe). The D.E.A wastes about as little time as Tarantini does in The Hard Way to dispatch the trio from a plane over the jungle. As soon as their feet touch the ground, Bull cautions the other two: "If you get your ass shot off, you're on your own." The trio meet up with the mole from the D.E.A., who lays dead in his dapper white suit. Wesson has set a trap for the three and the bullets fly. Grenades are thrown and soldiers go bouncing everywhere. The only way to slow down The Hard Way is to put the disc on pause.

In a phenomenal sequence, Silva's Wesson lets the dogs loose to track the trio, while Wesson flies over head in his helicopter. The trio splits temporarily to divert the troops' attention. O'Keeffe's Bull reveals himself to be as sharp as his survival knife: with the said blade, Bull cuts a nasty gash in his own arm and bleeds himself a trail across a rope bridge, where the alligators are congregating in the swamp below. The troops and the dogs are diverted across the bridge, while Bull lays in ambush. Bull goes to cut the bridge but he's discovered! A knife toss and a high kick takes out two soldiers, while a full clip from his machine gun takes care of the twenty across the bridge. I think Bull missed the dogs (Tarantini's presumably a dog lover), and the alligators get nothing. What a set-up!

The trio reunite to meet Colonel Bacall with reinforcement troops, banded together in patrol boats coming down the river. Oh no, it's Wesson! In his helicopter! A few grenades and missiles later and get out the jam and jelly, because Bacall and company are toast! Okay, enough exclamation points. Bull tells his compatriots that they must complete the mission. Tarantini follows this litany of explosions with one of his best sequences: Bull stands at the edge of an open field and attracts the attention of an enemy helicopter. He runs full speed through the open field while bullets rain down around him. Bull alerts his buddies, and the two spring into action and pull their trap, a homemade clothesline which brings down the chopper with a bang.

Needless to say, I had an absolute blast watching The Hard Way. Michele Massimo Tarantini penned the screenplay, which probably looked more like a sketchbook of orchestrated action scenes, because the film is very lite on dialogue. Henry Silva throughout the film normally just barks into his walkie-talkie, but he delivers some of the best lines in the few minutes of the film when bullets aren't flying. With a tumbler of two fingers of Scotch in his hand, Wesson tells Pinero, "Let me tell you something...I love killing people. It gives me great satisfaction." The final third of the film is an assault on the plantation by O'Keeffe and crew, culminating in an escalating battle between O'Keeffe and Silva (which ends perfectly).

Tarantini spent the 70s directing crime flicks ( 7 Hours of Violence (1973)) and sex comedies (The Teasers (1975)). He moved into the 80s and put his hand into just about everything: sex comedies (A Policewoman in New York (1981)), sword-n-sandal (Barbarian Master (1982)), jungle/action/cannibal comedy (Massacre in Dinosaur Valley (1985)), and women in prison (Women in Fury (1985)). Tarantini is a terrific director, who has really never gotten his due. He's helmed quite a few good films, but he's often overshadowed by his contemporaries. However, with The Hard Way, he delivers one of the best Italian 80s action flicks, a literal visual assault on the viewer. The numerous action sequences are brilliantly shot and edited, and the film as a whole is well-paced. The Hard Way is always exciting, as Tarantini shows an incredible amount of enthusiasm. I wished he would have helmed more action films. Henry Silva is no stranger to Italian cinema nor to playing a bad mofo on screen. Silva goes from stoic to intensely animated in a split-second. He's a fantastic villain with other notable like roles in Fernando di Leo's Manhunt (1972), Umberto Lenzi's Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976), and Fabrizio de Angelis's Man Hunt (1984), for example. Handsome Miles O'Keeffe began as Tarzan in John Derek's Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981). No stranger to Italian cinema, like Silva, O'Keeffe appeared as Ator in the fantasy films, Joe D'Amato's Ator the Invincible (1982) and Ator the Invincible 2 (1984) and Alfonso Brescia's Iron Warrior (1987). He also appeared in Ruggero Deodato's post-apocalyptic The Lone Runner (1986) and Stelvio Massi's actioner, Hell's Heroes (1987), alongside Fred Williamson. O'Keeffe's true talent is also his career hindrance: his uncanny likeness to a young Clint Eastwood, from his look to his demeanor to his delivery. This likeness was okay for the Italian 80s films, but when he plays Count Dracula, for example, in Anthony Hickox's Waxwork (1988), his limited range is really shown. Nonetheless, O'Keeffe is a perfect hero in The Hard Way with one of his best performances.

Anyone who loves the ridiculous and excessive frisson that only 80s action can deliver, then The Hard Way is the film for you. It is truly one of the best Italian action films, standing tall with Ruggero Deodato's Raiders of Atlantis (1983) and Bruno Mattei's Strike Commando (1987). See it.