52 Pick-Up # 18 – Desperate Living (1977)

 This MIGHT have the most quoted line in all of John Waters' filmography, even if not everyone knows they're quoting it.

With that as the opener, welcome to 52 Pick-Up, my ongoing year-long experiment in cutting down my cinematic to do list and keeping myself consistent with writing.

The last couple of weeks were a little erratic – that was on me due to a mix of life in general and a busy rehearsal schedule, but things will be getting back on track for the foreseeable future.

Now that the housekeeping notice is out of the way, let's get into this week's movie. As April turns to May, the chance shuffling of titles means I'll be staying in Uncharted Waters for just a little bit longer. Going from last week's correspondence from the front lines of the Cinema Wars, I'm taking things a bit further back into John Waters's filmography, this time closing out his Trash Trilogy with 1977's Desperate Living.

I'm trying not to make this a theme, but this is the third time in a row I've had a John Waters movie that I find myself looking at particularly in light of when it came out. In this case, like Multiple Maniacs, this is going into where this falls specifically in Waters's own body of work. Alongside being the final chapter in the Trash Trilogy (the previous two parts being Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble), this also feels like a turning point in Waters's movies in general. While his subsequent movies maintain a lot of his gleefully subversive elements, such as following this up with his gleefully warped take on melodramas in Polyester, this marks him taking a step back from the more overtly shocking. As though to signal this, we start seeing the cast of some of his movies shifting as well: David Lochary is not present due to issues he had been having with drugs (and his subsequent death meant Female Trouble would be his final Waters appearance), while Divine would return, a prior commitment meant she had to reluctantly bow out from this, and this would be the second to last appearance by Edith Massey. I can't quite call it a full 'end of an era' picture, as many of Waters's regulars did continue with him from here, but looking at where his work went after the 70s, this movie definitely feels like something of a turning point.

So how did Waters close out that wilder era of the 70s? Starting in a vision of archetypal American suburbia, we're introduced to Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole, opening this movie in top form) a, to put it mildly, high strung housewife coming off of a nervous breakdown. After a crash out involving yelling at the neighborhood children, she gets into an altercation that leaves her with a dead husband. Wasting no time, she finds herself on the lam with her maid, Grizelda (Jean Hill.) Eventually, the two make their way to the shantytown of Mortville, an ostensibly lawless burg ruled over by the iron-fisted Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey.) From there, they become caught up in the lives of many of Mortville's regulars, such as wrestler Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe), her lover Muffy (Liz Renay) and Carlotta's daughter, Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce.)

Told ya. Easily one of his most quoted lines.

There's something fitting about the fact Divine had to back out of her commitment to this due to being involved in the play Women Behind Bars. While it's not expressly giving off the same vibe, the very woman-focused (and yes, very gay) nature of the characters in Desperate Living evokes feelings of the exploitative prison genre that the play is similarly poking fun at. In particular, some of the character dynamics and the power structure, right down to Queen Carlotta serving as the archetypal corrupt warden figure all feel a hop, skip, and a popper-fueled jump from the more traditional tropes of the genre.

Having said that, I do feel a little bit torn on this movie. It has its charms, and when it's funny, it can be very funny. In fact, like I said above, the opening to this may be one of the most quoted moments in Waters's cinematic body of work, and it is a genuinely hilarious sequence in its own right as well as one of the career highs for Mink Stole. Unfortunately, it also sets a high note that the rest of the movie never quite manages to match. There are still elements of what follows that are fun (Massey is clearly having fun with the over the top villainy of Carlotta, and Lowe is a scene stealer as Mole for two big examples) but the movie feels like once it gets to Mortville it goes from the bonkers charge it starts with to a more meandering pace that causes the movie to feel like it loses some steam. I'm also not sure how to feel about the fact the movie seems to pivot its focus with the arrival of Mole and Muffy. Like I said before, Susan Lowe is a lot of fun in the role, and she is an enjoyable character to follow, but it also makes it feel like the movie lays on a heavy dash of Peggy and then she gets sidelined out of what is initially framed as her story.

This MIGHT be my favorite Edith Massey performance.

All in all, I still enjoyed this even with those flaws factored in. Yes, it makes it feel uneven, but the highs are still enjoyable and more than balance out the lows (which aren't even as much lows as just not quite landing as strong as they could.) As to its role in the concluding the Trash Trilogy? Maybe my opinion will change with time, but as it is now, it feels like it's probably the one I'd put at the bottom in ranking the three, though that is also just a matter of the fact the other two movies are Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble. What can I say? They set a high bar. Beyond the quality, like I said above, it also feels fitting as the final offering from the younger, more overtly shocking era of Waters as he transitioned into a different brand of subversive.

Two titles left to go before the final rankings. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty intrigued to see where the last of his filmography goes.

But, that is for another month. In the meantime, the rest of May has been rolled and next week marks a shift to another notable filmmaker (or filmmakers) whose body of work I have gaps to fill. So, next week I mark the first of a few gaps in the work of the Coen Brothers that have been on the to do list with Hail, Caesar!

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 2 – Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

Welcome back for the second round of 52 Pick-Up.

Wow, last week was a real chipper start to this whole project, huh?

In my defense, I did say these were going to be chosen at random, so there was always the chance I could start with a downer. It's part of the fun (if you will) of leaving this up to chance. You reduce the likelihood of getting into a rut where you're favoring certain titles or genres over others.

I will be doing some slight modifications to the formula going forward – more to come on that next month as I've already slotted out January – but I'm still going to do my best to keep that level of sheer chance at play.

Speaking of which, I did promise you guys lighter last week, and I'd like to think I've delivered this time around. Perhaps not a happy, lively romp, but at least far less emotionally heavy.

So, without further ado, here's Death Bed: The Bed That Eats.

I have to start by asking this – and this is normally something I am loathe to do cause it kind of feels like a cheap way to farm engagement, but here we go. For those of you already familiar with this movie before this article or it being brought up last week – how many of you first learned this movie existed from the Patton Oswalt stand-up album Werewolves and Lollipops?

No real reason for asking beyond being curious to see how much that helped boost this movie to people by making them aware it existed. I'll admit I am part of that camp, and in a way, Patton's not wrong – there is something truly impressive about the fact a movie like this exists in the form that it does.

First, there's the premise – this movie is exactly what it advertises on the tin. No, really. The movie is literally about a bed that eats. Food, objects, people. The bed just absorbs them and eats them. Yes, there's a backstory of the film involving a demon that fell in love with a human and how the bed is a byproduct of their cursed union, but really – odds are if you're seeking this out, that's taking a backseat to the fact you're watching a horror movie about people being eaten by a bed.

Our monster, ladies and gentlemen.

Which you do see happen. Quite a few times within the trim 70~ minute run time.

Part of why this is so impressive to see and realize someone made happen? It takes itself completely seriously. This isn't presented as a comedy or a spoof of shlocky monster movies. It takes its premise dead serious (which, granted, one could choose to take for comedy depending how they define camp) and that adds to its charm, in a weird way. At no point does anyone stop to reflect on how goofy the idea of a killer bed is. No one snarks about how silly this all is. Everyone is invested and, if they think it's ridiculous, they're leaving it behind the scenes.

Which goes to one of the other reasons this movie is memorable (I'd feel weird saying it works, because this is a VERY 'your mileage may vary' experience.) It's a term that feels like it gets overused to describe movies, but Death Bed is one I would say can be described as 'dreamlike' in its execution. The structure (and I promise, there is one) is told over three vignettes, largely only linked by a voiceover narration from the spirit of one of the bed's victims. The narration, as well as the people involved, all played into this feeling – probably best embodied in the case of one man (played by William Russ – incidentally, I should also note that, strictly speaking, this movie doesn't have a protagonist per se, but his character is the brother of the two characters who arguably comes closest) who survives an attack by the bed. Said attack leaves his hands stripped of flesh and reduced just to the bones. There is no excessive blood or writhing pain, instead he watches as his skeletonized hands slowly fall apart before finally asking his sister to break them off rather than let them finish decaying on their own. It's presented as so matter of fact by the man that it feels like dream logic perfectly in tone with the rest of the movie.

"I know I say it every year, but I think this should be
the last time we go to Spirit Halloween."

The same can be said for the actual eating as it's presented. To hear the title, one would not be surprised to envision a bed with a mouth and teeth, actively chomping its victims in a gory display. Not so here – instead the bed is seen to absorb things, usually matched by a visual of foam rising up from the mattress into which the object of its consumption is absorbed or pulled in. From there, the movie cuts to scenes of the object (or person) floating around in the bed's digestive fluids – often just a person submerged in yellow liquid that occasionally gets tinted with blood.

Exhibits A and B

Everything about this is conducted not with an instinct to shock, but with a slow, careful manner that makes the whole thing feel like a weird dream to watch unfold. So much so that a part of me almost wants to dock it some points for the voiceover narration. Taken on its own, it's not bad – it's not like, say, the infamous Blade Runner narration where you can tell just from watching that it was put in at a producer's insistence. In this case, the narration feels like it's part of the intended arc, especially as it plays into the ending. I recognize why it's here and it doesn't feel out of step with the movie. At the same time, a part of me would be interested in seeing an alternate cut where the narration isn't there and the audience is just left to parse out this strange pastiche of dreamlike actions, as in the dark to the past and motives of the bed as its victims are.

Of course, even if such a cut did exist, I'd still know the backstory from having seen the first, so the whole thought exercise is kind of meaningless until someone figures out a way to selectively wipe memory.

Ah well.

In any case, this was a fun one to check off the list. I'm not going to say everyone should see this, because it is definitely NOT a movie everyone's gonna gel with. That said, it's also a movie where you'll probably figure out in the first ten minutes if this is working for you or not. If I had to sum it up in a single phrase, it's 'seeing is believing.' Even beyond its elevator pitch, this is a movie that, if you're curious, I would recommend experiencing at least once just to see how genuinely strange it is in what it is and what it does.

So, one well made, if bleak movie and one enjoyably strange oddity. Not a bad start.

I hope you guys are liking the European start to things, cause we're staying abroad next week. In fact, we're going back to Italy next week (and again, I promise, less bleak) for one that has been on my to do list for years. Hope to see you back here next time for Dario Argento's seminal giallo, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage.

Till then.

Hausu (1977)

 Hello and welcome back to another round of the Criterion Challenge.

And let me start by saying - oof.

It's been a rough summer here. Technical issues. The heat. The weirdly dark turn last month's entries took.

Oh, and just about the entirety of the world at large right now. But, that's a talk for another time.

As we come into the dog days of summer, I decided there was only one way to end this summer - vacations! So, for the next couple of entries, we'll be looking at films about packing up and getting away from it all.

So what better place to start this trip than one of the most batshit haunted houses in cinema?

This isn't my first time seeing, or writing about, Nobuhiko Obayashi's cult classic Hausu (officially House, but the other pronunciation has been adopted to help avoid confusion with the 1986 haunted house movie with the same name.) At first, I wasn't sure what would be a good new perspective here.

Then it hit me - lean in to the vacation. Yes, this is a movie about a group of schoolgirls who take a fateful trip to a friend's aunt's haunted house. But it's also a movie that is its own miniature ninety-minute vacation.

This is a refreshing movie to watch for how weird it is, and how unapologetic it is about that, from start to finish.  This is a movie where, among other things - someone is eaten by a piano, people are turned into produce on multiple occasions, and someone is killed by being attacked by futons.

No, I don't feel bad about telling you this up front, because reading it is one thing, seeing it is something else.

For Hausu, it's all in seeing the weirdness unfold. It sounds pretentious to say, but this really is an experience. There's a lot of great haunted house movies out there (I can't recommend the likes of The Innocents and The Changeling enough come October) but I'd be hard pressed to think of another quite like Hausu.

A large part of this is thanks to Obayashi's direction. From the start, this was going to be a wild, imaginative movie, thanks to his decision to make his creative partner his young daughter Chigumi. That helped give the movie a lot of its more imaginative touches (Obayashi has been quoted as saying he felt like adult thoughts would cause the film to stay "on a boring, human level.")

From there, Obayashi's direction adds to the stylish strangeness. Between the animated tangents, the stop-motion style of some scenes, and the musical numbers (did I forget to mention this movie is also kind of a musical?) Obayashi keeps the movie lively. Even at the one serious beat, exploring protagonist Gorgeous's aunt's tragic backstory, is presented in a visually striking way that keeps it from snapping the tone in a way it can't recover from.

Seriously. Did I forget to mention the musical thing?

Cause it sort of goes there. This little dance number also
involves a cat.

I admit I haven't seen much of Obayashi's other work (though having seen his earlier short, Emotion, I can definitely see that his bold directorial streak wasn't an isolated aspect) but this has me wanting to see more. There's a lot of great haunted house movies out there, but not many (if any) others like this - it's a movie that captures the feel of being a kid on a well made haunted house ride. Once you're on, it's a blast from start to finish.

To pivot on this theme - it's a movie about a vacation that also doubles as a short trip all on its own.

Ahhh. I needed this.

One more trip to come this month before it's time to be moving on with fall, and coming into the big project for year one.

But that can come later. For now, still on vacation and enjoying it.

Till next time.