Post by lazario on Sept 15, 2007 11:01:48 GMT -5
I have to admit, there's something about this guy I can't help but like. I've never been a fan of classic monster movies but Larry is. After seeing Vincent Price in House of Wax (1953), he waited for the right time in his career to leap from 'legitimate' films to what many of the public felt were "B-pictures." His monsters don't usually look very good, though they do make an impression. But as a director, he makes all his movies horrifically immediate and easy to understand. He's a director who never plays down to the viewer. His tastes in movies don't match my own. But the quality he attaches to his own projects makes me respect him. You can take or leave most of his films, depending on when you grew up and what movies you grew up loving. But it's impossible to deny Cohen his place among the Masters of Horror, with his own distinctive style and humor. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he delivers a cinematically subversive view of authority.
Larry Cohen began his career in cinema as a writer by producing scripts for plays, developing television dramas, and eventually writing screenplays for several psychological thrillers of the early 1960's. He made his leap to directing making blaxploitation crime-thrillers like Bone, Black Caesar, and Hell Up in Harlem. But there was still a side of himself he wasn't expressing. So, he finally directed a vision of one of the greatest middle-class American nightmares with It's Alive (1973).
The movie contains some of Cohen's signature film staples: cops, businessmen, detectives, guns, and drama. But it also was smart, well-acted, and bizarrely creepy, with well-timed scares, and stirred up mixed emotions in the viewer, winning over a surprising amount of sympathy for a monster-baby that would attack totally innocent people while the movie expected "he's just scared" to be a suitable explanation even though the baby clearly was stalking its' victims.
God Told Me To (1976) has even more detectives and cops. I guess since Cohen directs most of his stories about New York City, that's why we're always in some city in his movies. A clearly science-fiction oriented story focusing on the inconsistencies of religious explanations on occurences of random violence, Cohen shows us more social commentary. The film is one of the director's most elegantly acted. The horror of the film comes from the concept of a God with the power of mind-control walking among us, acting out a calm and collected vengeance on innocent, random people. But this can't happen in a movie in our society without showing us a vision of how we choose to live in the city. And that may be the most horrific thing on display in God Told Me To.
Q the Winged Serpent (1982) is another crime-horror film with detectives, probably single-handedly the director's most fun and light-heartedly enjoyable horror movie. This is a very matter-of-fact horror movie, where the horror always seems to come with a "by the way" in front of it. And no, I don't mean characters'll say that first. It seems to be all about a city with a big problem (a huge serpent-bird eating people on rooftops) that nobody notices unless they're victims. Which is to me a real perfect message about society - nobody cares unless they know it's their neck on the line. This leads to governing bodies becoming corrupted, as the one in Q clearly is. The strength of the movie doesn't lie on the shoulders of the movie's claymation-looking monster, but on the excellently written characters, interesting story, Cohen's best and most ambitious camerawork to date, and a fantastic pace. Not to mention Michael Moriarty's show-stopping performance.
And with The Stuff (1985), Cohen finally entered the stylishly surreal 1980's horror cinema. Directing a very Ghostbusters 2 before the makers of said movie ripped him off (just a little) type movie about killer ooze with a great appeal, he makes without exception his creepiest movie to date. The story calls for living-alive human zombies, which are the creepiest kind in my opinion, who become possessed addicts with a hunger to commit violence and eat more of The Stuff. This may have been made when ordinary people were just finding out that fast food / Chinese food / candy / cigarettes / drugs all have chemicals inside them that do damage to the person's body while at the same time filling them with more hunger than nutrition. Hunger for more of 'what ails 'em'. It's a brilliant film in that it also appropriately portrays The Military as a very fascist, opportunistic organization of psychos. And visually / stylistically, it's a terrifying idea: people changing personalities as their blood is actively replaced by thick, white goo, and they eventually assume the form of a full-fledged addict with psychotic eyes and cold, robotic, lifeless voices.
As though part 2 weren't self-righteous and predictable enough, here comes It's Alive III: Island of the Alive. Unlike Cohen's disappointing sequel, Island is a gorgeous little movie with less pointless dialogue, more humor, quite a bit of style (great shots of the tropical-esque, jungle-y island from the monsters' point of view), and an invigoratingly fascinating back-and-forth editing that literally is like watching the movie from a travel agent's office. All the feelings of loose ends from parts 1 and 2 are definitely tied up here with a great ending that doesn't copy most of Cohen's other films.
After Island, Cohen made a fun and completely cheesy supernatural-comedy called Wicked Stepmother. A real product of it's time, it looks so '80s, it might start a chain of "That / Your (INSERT OBJECT HERE) is So '80's... (INSERT PUNCHLINE HERE)." But the writing is so absurd, one can't help but laugh. The music is very exotic, as is Barbara Carrera's beauty and grace. This is not a good-day for Bette Davis, but Carrera is utterly lovable ("FIXED?! Me fixed?! I mean..."), and Richard (Night Court, Steve Miner's House) Moll gets quite a few funny lines. There's also a very amusing take on a game show with Vanna White-knock off (and let's face it, what's with this sacred preciousness about Vanna White? The woman's a glorified Barbie doll / airline stewardess) Laurene Landon.
One could call Cohen's The Ambulance (1990) revenge for how awful John Carpenter's Christine (1983) was. Cohen's suspense-horror film is brooding, intense, and menacing and much deserving of a DVD release. I'm surprised Anchor Bay nor Blue Underground have ever gotten the rights to it.
Which brings us to Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up (2005). I thought it was... everything. Like most of the old-school Masters in this series, their episodes are so full of commentary and story bits, they could burst like a balloon at any given moment. This is worth noting because it's Cohen's first (and probably his last) slasher film. It has it's good points and bad points. The main character, Stacia, is very weak. But on the upside, everything in this episode has 2 sides, she's played by the amazing Fairuza Balk. Who is... amazing here as she always is. One moment, she's flicking her knife at people, telling them to "get fucked!" The next, she's giggling at a coin-operated shaking bed with body-sounds coming from the room next door to hers.
The killers are so enigmatic, they're able to sort of hypnotize their victims into a fall sense of security. I don't really buy it. The performances are serviceable. Warren Kole gives off the vibes of a kid trying to play down his youth with his deep voice. But towards the end, he completely wins the viewer over with his genuinely psychotic and remarkably detailed physical mannerisms. Notice how his tongue moves just like a snake during his "they are not...predictable" line- it slides out and around, then disappears in a flash, so quick you barely notice it leaving. At this same time, his eyes are searching. He's working two body parts completely independently, in character, while performing his part and saying his lines without breaking. That is what I call concentration.
A few of the supporting actors are kind of grating, unfortunately. But they allow you to almost side with the killers, thinking- none of them will be missed. The ending goes way too far into absurdism to make the twist revelation work, but you probably won't care about that if that truck action / fight scene had you either laughing or hooting & hollering (on one of my viewings, the person I was watching this with had a Studium-Arena like reaction to this moment- the decibel level of the room rose several points). Kudos to the idea- it's pure genius. But this is just more an acquired taste for aficionados of the writer, David J. Schow who also wrote equally bizarre screenplays for the unidentifiable Critters 3, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, and The Crow.
Larry Cohen began his career in cinema as a writer by producing scripts for plays, developing television dramas, and eventually writing screenplays for several psychological thrillers of the early 1960's. He made his leap to directing making blaxploitation crime-thrillers like Bone, Black Caesar, and Hell Up in Harlem. But there was still a side of himself he wasn't expressing. So, he finally directed a vision of one of the greatest middle-class American nightmares with It's Alive (1973).
The movie contains some of Cohen's signature film staples: cops, businessmen, detectives, guns, and drama. But it also was smart, well-acted, and bizarrely creepy, with well-timed scares, and stirred up mixed emotions in the viewer, winning over a surprising amount of sympathy for a monster-baby that would attack totally innocent people while the movie expected "he's just scared" to be a suitable explanation even though the baby clearly was stalking its' victims.
God Told Me To (1976) has even more detectives and cops. I guess since Cohen directs most of his stories about New York City, that's why we're always in some city in his movies. A clearly science-fiction oriented story focusing on the inconsistencies of religious explanations on occurences of random violence, Cohen shows us more social commentary. The film is one of the director's most elegantly acted. The horror of the film comes from the concept of a God with the power of mind-control walking among us, acting out a calm and collected vengeance on innocent, random people. But this can't happen in a movie in our society without showing us a vision of how we choose to live in the city. And that may be the most horrific thing on display in God Told Me To.
Q the Winged Serpent (1982) is another crime-horror film with detectives, probably single-handedly the director's most fun and light-heartedly enjoyable horror movie. This is a very matter-of-fact horror movie, where the horror always seems to come with a "by the way" in front of it. And no, I don't mean characters'll say that first. It seems to be all about a city with a big problem (a huge serpent-bird eating people on rooftops) that nobody notices unless they're victims. Which is to me a real perfect message about society - nobody cares unless they know it's their neck on the line. This leads to governing bodies becoming corrupted, as the one in Q clearly is. The strength of the movie doesn't lie on the shoulders of the movie's claymation-looking monster, but on the excellently written characters, interesting story, Cohen's best and most ambitious camerawork to date, and a fantastic pace. Not to mention Michael Moriarty's show-stopping performance.
And with The Stuff (1985), Cohen finally entered the stylishly surreal 1980's horror cinema. Directing a very Ghostbusters 2 before the makers of said movie ripped him off (just a little) type movie about killer ooze with a great appeal, he makes without exception his creepiest movie to date. The story calls for living-alive human zombies, which are the creepiest kind in my opinion, who become possessed addicts with a hunger to commit violence and eat more of The Stuff. This may have been made when ordinary people were just finding out that fast food / Chinese food / candy / cigarettes / drugs all have chemicals inside them that do damage to the person's body while at the same time filling them with more hunger than nutrition. Hunger for more of 'what ails 'em'. It's a brilliant film in that it also appropriately portrays The Military as a very fascist, opportunistic organization of psychos. And visually / stylistically, it's a terrifying idea: people changing personalities as their blood is actively replaced by thick, white goo, and they eventually assume the form of a full-fledged addict with psychotic eyes and cold, robotic, lifeless voices.
As though part 2 weren't self-righteous and predictable enough, here comes It's Alive III: Island of the Alive. Unlike Cohen's disappointing sequel, Island is a gorgeous little movie with less pointless dialogue, more humor, quite a bit of style (great shots of the tropical-esque, jungle-y island from the monsters' point of view), and an invigoratingly fascinating back-and-forth editing that literally is like watching the movie from a travel agent's office. All the feelings of loose ends from parts 1 and 2 are definitely tied up here with a great ending that doesn't copy most of Cohen's other films.
After Island, Cohen made a fun and completely cheesy supernatural-comedy called Wicked Stepmother. A real product of it's time, it looks so '80s, it might start a chain of "That / Your (INSERT OBJECT HERE) is So '80's... (INSERT PUNCHLINE HERE)." But the writing is so absurd, one can't help but laugh. The music is very exotic, as is Barbara Carrera's beauty and grace. This is not a good-day for Bette Davis, but Carrera is utterly lovable ("FIXED?! Me fixed?! I mean..."), and Richard (Night Court, Steve Miner's House) Moll gets quite a few funny lines. There's also a very amusing take on a game show with Vanna White-knock off (and let's face it, what's with this sacred preciousness about Vanna White? The woman's a glorified Barbie doll / airline stewardess) Laurene Landon.
One could call Cohen's The Ambulance (1990) revenge for how awful John Carpenter's Christine (1983) was. Cohen's suspense-horror film is brooding, intense, and menacing and much deserving of a DVD release. I'm surprised Anchor Bay nor Blue Underground have ever gotten the rights to it.
Which brings us to Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up (2005). I thought it was... everything. Like most of the old-school Masters in this series, their episodes are so full of commentary and story bits, they could burst like a balloon at any given moment. This is worth noting because it's Cohen's first (and probably his last) slasher film. It has it's good points and bad points. The main character, Stacia, is very weak. But on the upside, everything in this episode has 2 sides, she's played by the amazing Fairuza Balk. Who is... amazing here as she always is. One moment, she's flicking her knife at people, telling them to "get fucked!" The next, she's giggling at a coin-operated shaking bed with body-sounds coming from the room next door to hers.
The killers are so enigmatic, they're able to sort of hypnotize their victims into a fall sense of security. I don't really buy it. The performances are serviceable. Warren Kole gives off the vibes of a kid trying to play down his youth with his deep voice. But towards the end, he completely wins the viewer over with his genuinely psychotic and remarkably detailed physical mannerisms. Notice how his tongue moves just like a snake during his "they are not...predictable" line- it slides out and around, then disappears in a flash, so quick you barely notice it leaving. At this same time, his eyes are searching. He's working two body parts completely independently, in character, while performing his part and saying his lines without breaking. That is what I call concentration.
A few of the supporting actors are kind of grating, unfortunately. But they allow you to almost side with the killers, thinking- none of them will be missed. The ending goes way too far into absurdism to make the twist revelation work, but you probably won't care about that if that truck action / fight scene had you either laughing or hooting & hollering (on one of my viewings, the person I was watching this with had a Studium-Arena like reaction to this moment- the decibel level of the room rose several points). Kudos to the idea- it's pure genius. But this is just more an acquired taste for aficionados of the writer, David J. Schow who also wrote equally bizarre screenplays for the unidentifiable Critters 3, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, and The Crow.
