Who's going to believe a talking head? Get a job at a sideshow.

Oh, Herbert.

That's pretty much the best way to sum up my reaction the first time I saw Re-Animator. Though I've since come to appreciate the rest of the film (except maybe Barbara Crampton's shrieky victim, but we'll come to that later), my first, oh, half-dozen viewings were pretty much motivated by the fact that Herbert West is basically my ideal man.

I mean, he's aggressive, handsome, brilliant, arrogant, rocks a skinny tie, and is really short.* That pretty much covers all my requirements. Unfortunately, yeah, he's kind of a sociopath with zero interest in women. But nobody's perfect.

Which all may help to explain why I'm single, actually.

ANYWAY. My romantic issues aside, he's really an incredible character. Neither villain nor hero, victim nor savior, Frankenstein nor Pretorius, Herbert is one of the great mad scientist characters, truly an inheritor of the great classical tradition of over-reachers -- Dr. Faustus with a pocket protector.

And that's one of the reasons he's become such a cult figure, too -- Herbert is a hopeless nerd. He's like the patron saint of hopeless nerds, because despite being as square as they come, he's supremely confident (and completely justified in his confidence, unlike most real people). He absolutely does not care that people think he's weird and dislike being around him, and he doesn't envy their normalcy or ability to connect with one another in the slightest. And his work, his obsession actually is grand enough and important enough to justify his divorce from the rest of humanity. Unlike most [of us] hopeless nerds, his alternative to human connection actually is a fair tradeoff.

There's a deleted scene on the two-disc DVD in which Dan finds Herbert injecting himself with his own re-agent, clearly addicted to it as a stimulant; it's a nicely played scene by both actors, and the moment of vulnerability for Herbert is quite touching. I do kind of wish they'd kept it, though it's clear why they didn't: it's an ambiguous and human side to Herbert that complicates his character considerably, bringing him too close to the fragile side of madness: in the film as released, Herbert is so larger-than-life that this kind of moment would seem out of place. It only really works if you're inhabiting the film's world so entirely that you're already looking for that humanity -- which I am, of course, but that's what I do.

Anyway. Enough about my horror-movie boyfriend. There's a whole movie here, and it's a good one, though it took me a while to come around to that view. The writing is a little stilted -- Jeffrey Combs basically says as much when he admits on the film commentary that he railed against having to say the line "Terrible, terrible, terrible!" when Herbert finds his work stolen. Because, seriously, not only has nobody in the twentieth century ever talked like that, I doubt anybody has ever talked like that outside the confines of an H.P. Lovecraft story. On the other hand, there are a few lines, like "trysting with a bubble-headed co-ed," (more on that later, obviously) that almost make up for it.

The deaths, though, are fantastic. Awesome effects, enough blood and gore and mayhem to totally satisfy -- apparently the crew decided Stuart Gordon's motto was "More is not enough," and that's evident onscreen.

But then there's Meg. Oh, Meg. Well, wait, first there's Dan, and I gotta defend Dan, because it took me a long time to join Team Dan. It's a totally thankless role and I think Bruce Abbott really does an awesome job with it and is subtler than he's given credit. The dynamic between Dan and Herbert is tricky, and he largely has to carry it because Jeff Combs is otherwise occupied devouring the scenery. (Said with love!)

All right. Meg. She just -- she gets on my last nerve, she really does. She's a victim in every sense, but that needn't necessarily be a deal-breaker -- so is Cheryl in The Evil Dead and I'm always prepared to defend her. Meg's just so blonde and... blonde. I mean, she doesn't really have any defining characteristics to speak of, besides being helpless and blonde, and being an amazing screamer, which -- again, so irritating. And I don't blame Barbara Crampton, I really don't, because she rocked it in From Beyond. But, nasty as Herbert is about her, he's kind of right that she's mostly just in the way of people getting stuff done ("bubble-headed co-ed" is the kind of meanness that I completely love him for. What's that Liz Phair line -- "everything you say is so obnoxious, funny, true and mean"?) And it's such a small central cast, and Meg is the only woman, which is fatal in a horror film. Not only is she guaranteed to die, she's guaranteed to be annoying getting there, because the "good girl" always is and if you can only have one female stereotype in your horror movie, that's what you're going to get.

But that brings me to another point about women in horror movies that I think often gets glossed over: "good girl" is often popularly translated as "virgin," and that's obviously not applicable here -- or, I think, in a lot of genre fiction. I like to bring up The Stand: the "bad girl" is a virgin, and the "good girl" obviously isn't, but that's not really how you tell the difference. The "bad girl" doesn't give Our (male) Heroes what they want, and the "good girl" does. When the author is taking a paternal stance towards a female character, "good" means virginal, but when he regards her as a potential mate, "good" means available. Teenaged girls, for example, are almost always "supposed" to be virgins (Halloween, Sleepaway Camp), while girls in college are "supposed" to be available (see also April Fool's Day) -- though not too available, and Meg's loyalty to Dan is central to her supposed likability. And I'm not saying that it's not a positive trait or even an unrealistic one, but it defines her exclusively in relation to him in a way that makes her essentially impossible to like. Basically, here's a litmus test: turn Character A into a straight man. Is there still a reason for him to be in the movie? In Meg's case, nope. Then, given my relative lack of interest in seeing her naked, why should I like her?

Again, Barbara Crampton kills in From Beyond, and it's in large part because she's not paired off: her character stands on her own, and as such there's little they can do to render her helpless (for all that Stuart Gordon tries, bless his pointed little head).

I have this personal connection to Stuart Gordon. I was active in a theater in Madison, Wisconsin that he actually started back in the 60s. Every time our managing director gave the first-rehearsal speech about the theater's origins, he'd point out that Stuart Gordon was the writer of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and inevitably forget the title of Re-Animator. I think he did it just to bug me. So I can't hold too much against Stuart, because he's like my theatrical great-godfather or something.

That said: wow. Yeah. The "head giving head" scene. It's a joke, and a truly, desperately unpleasant one. I know it's the movie's most famous moment, and like the tree rape in Evil Dead, it's famous because no one can believe they went there. And in the end, I'm pretty staunchly of the opinion that they probably shouldn't have. If it were a moment of horror, like the tree rape, it would at least earn some marginal respect for making violence against women unpleasant, but: it's a joke. When I re-watch the movie -- and I do, a lot -- I always get queasy there, because unlike the rest of the movie, it's not gross in a fun way. It's gross in a Reservoir Dogs ear-cutting scene way, and I think we can agree that that's actually not funny at all. You could certainly argue that the circumstances are so bizarre and ridiculous and improbable that it's too removed from reality to take personally, and I think that's a valid argument -- maybe especially if you don't consider the world of horror movies, where shit like this happens, to be your world, so it's utter fantasy rather than just another story about the world. But it just doesn't work for me, and I think that's the movie's shortcoming, not mine.

*(I've also been known to posit that Hellboy may be my perfect man: tough, cocky, loyal, loves cats and junk food, brings beer to a date and has a prehensile tail.)

Do you feel something? Anything?

So the movie I wanted to post about shows no signs of magically appearing at my house. I probably ought to try actually buying it, or at least renting it, before I despair at that state of affairs. But I also ought to go ahead and post this wordy-as-hell review, sadly image-free. I'll embed the trailer at the end, anyway -- the quality is crap, which is a shame because the original looks surprisingly good for something so low-budget -- but it's something.

The Wizard of Gore. No, not that one. The 2007 remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis classic (or "classic," if you prefer): directed by Jeremy Kasten of The Attic Expeditions, who wants very much to be horror's answer to John Waters. He's... not.

The film also stars Brad Dourif, Jeffrey Combs, Crispin Glover and former child actor Josh Miller (of Near Dark and River's Edge, making a return to the screen after many years' hiatus).

It seemed like a sure thing. And as the opening credits rolled, I started to warm up to that glow of cinematic satisfaction that I was expecting. Under the title, rich retro textures and some gorgeous music accompanied the printing of a newspaper on a manual press by a man drenched from head to foot in blood. Cue me and a bowl of popcorn planning to have a lovely night.

And then cue the "wah-wah"s of disappointment kick in as the actual movie starts, and the happy glow begins fading almost immediately.

It doesn't help that the film's second scene is set at a trying-too-hard L.A. underground Halloween party, which the lead character then ironically describes as trying too hard. It is the first, but not the last time that the whole thing is a little too on-the-nose, a little too self-congratulatory. Yes, movie, we see that you are too good for this kind of orchestrated anarchy. And yet, here you are, ogling the Suicide Girls. (Which... oh, I'll have to get to that later.)

But the thing that everyone talks about when they discuss this movie is the plot, which makes NO SENSE. Well, actually, when you watch the movie a second time, the plot holes you thought the movie was getting lost in seal themselves up, but a thousand little ones re-open in their wake (I'd almost suggest that the film's final magic-show setpiece was a clever allusion to that fact, but... it's not). And that may be even more irritating, because you find yourself wondering if the filmmakers didn't pick up on those, or just didn't care, and moreover you find yourself pausing every couple of minutes to talk to yourself to be sure that there couldn't be a way for what you just saw to actually hold together in any coherent narrative fashion.

Kip Pardue plays a dilettante journalist who is by his own admission simply a collection of retro aesthetics: in every sense, an empty suit. He's just another bored hipster spectator with too much money and no sense of self. He has a girlfriend to condescend to and an assy loft apartment with no post-1970 technology. One night, he decides to go to a magic show with the same aimlessness he seems to do everything, but the show changes him in ways he spends the next two hours unraveling.

The thing is, if they'd just gone ahead and let the narrative blow itself to hell and not tried to make it make sense, I think the movie would actually be better. But instead we have a deus-ex-Jeffrey Combs wedged in at the end like it's a Scooby Doo episode. Just let the movie get lost in psychedelia and weirdness, and what you've got is a movie that follows happily in the footsteps of the trippy sixties exploitation films that its parentage would imply. Try to turn it into a murder mystery, pretend that all the clues fit together, and instead what you've got is a desperately unsuccessful and vaguely pedestrian genre film.

And the squandered potential is what really gets me about this movie. Here's the thing: most of the individual scenes work okay. Well, no -- every scene where Kip Pardue has someone else to play off of or isn't central to the scene is internally good. But put together, the film falls completely apart.

Pardue is a serviceable leading man, but I think he lacks the depth or charisma to pull this part off. It's not entirely his fault: Ed Bigelow is a deeply unpleasant character, and I'm still on the fence about whether the creators realize how much so. On the commentary, somebody -- possibly the writer -- was characterizing Ed's shifts of identity, saying, "'I'm a modern primitive! I'm a retro asshole!'" So somebody gets it, that the character is an asshole. And the thing is, a fascinating asshole can make for a great central character, but it's really hard to pull off. In Kip Pardue's performance, I can't say there's anything fascinating.

And again, this is wasted potential, because he's surrounded by a cast so wonderful that I actually got all tingly when I first discovered the film on the IMDb.

Montag the Magnificent, the enigmatic magician with a killer sawing-the-lady-in-half routine, is played by Crispin Glover, who basically defines fascinating. Glover's inspiration is said to have been Siegfried and Roy, and... wow. Yeah, that's in there, and in the creepiest possible way. One of the reasons Montag is such a great character is because he's so utterly ridiculous -- you would laugh out loud at him and his campy patter if he weren't so malevolently terrifying. Oily, grotesque, and deeply unsettling, Montag works perfectly in the movie that this should be, and with a different (better) main character and narrative approach, would have been.

And then there's Brad Dourif, who apparently was doing so many movies he couldn't remember which script to use, intimidated the crap out of everyone on set, and wears truly spectacular facial hair. Honestly, he's doing his Brad Dourif schtick. I can't say it's unique here, but it's always, always entertaining.

Another familiar face is Joshua Miller as Ed's bored, jaded best friend; Miller is back in a movie for the first time in almost ten years here. I was a little worried that what he brought to Near Dark was as much a function of his youth as his actual talent -- that his Homer worked on the strength of his baby face and ancient eyes as much as the work he was doing. But I think my concern was probably unfounded. I would admit that he seems vaguely -- rusty? That may be just because of what I went into the film already knowing about his career. But there was still a bit of what I want to call immaturity in the performance. Nevertheless, he thoroughly overpowers Pardue in their scenes together, and so much the better. In fact, if it were up to me I'd probably do away with Ed and make Jinky the main character; the movie loses a lot of steam when he makes his exit.

Oh, I suppose I should talk about Bijou Phillips as the female lead, but... why bother? Maggie has absolutely no personality. For that I'm prepared to place equal blame on the creators, who seem to have no interest in her as anything but a plot device, and Phillips, who is unbelievably irritating. (She's also saddled with some truly unfortunate hair and makeup, but that's just icing on the cake of an utterly forgettable role.)

Jeffrey Combs -- I won't say anything about Combs in the movie, other than the fact that he is, of course, grand. His role has some surprises that I don't want to blow.

But let me go back to Maggie for a minute, because I do write about women in horror, and The Wizard of Gore is the textbook definition of "problematic" in this regard. The character is so slight that she basically disappears down one of the film's more gaping continuity rabbitholes: in brief, the only backstory offered for the character is completely impossible within the narrative sequence of events proposed. I could explain the whole thing, but suffice it to say, we're left knowing absolutely nothing about her that makes any sense. She is so irrelevant that what she might be or might have been independent of Ed simply evaporates.

And this is one of the subtler examples. Much like the first scene I described, the film revels in its own vapid misogyny, then pats itself on the back for calling itself out as misogynist. And the filmmakers do the same thing on the commentary, with the writer ribbing the director at one point, "Hey, I'm not the one who made the misogynist movie!" Guys, admitting that your movie is misogynist doesn't make it okay, it just opens the door for you to actually offer a comment on misogyny in movies, in horror, in society -- just SAY something. All you did is have Maggie say, hey, that guy Montag's routine is misogynistic, y'all. And then you let -- spoiler alert for those of you who've never seen a horror movie before -- both Montag and Ed brutally murder her. So now, Pretentious Filmmakers, you've made a misogynistic movie, and said that your film was misogynistic. And yet again, no one with a double-X chromosome has made it to the last reel. Am I supposed to be impressed?

And that's before we even get to the Suicide Girls. They apparently partly bankrolled the picture, and so a whole flock of them have bit parts, largely as victims. In this picture, their role has not changed much since Herschell Gordon Lewis -- or, indeed, since the pale dead maidens of pre-Raphaelite painting.

And obviously the Suicide Girls out in the real world are a troublesome but ambiguous symbol -- does their embrace of a retro aesthetic and various forms of decorative self-mutilation simply echo in gothy flavors the physical distortions of a mainstream fashion model? Or do they assert their autonomy and right to choice and self-determination by defying Western society's insistence on keeping women safe and clean and quiet? Does anybody care now that they've basically faded into cultural irrelevance? I don't know the answer to any of those questions, though I could probably generate a paper about it.

But in this context, pulled from coy online photos and inserted into an exploitation horror film, any pretext to autonomy or self-determination they might have is stripped away under Montag's drug-induced hypnosis. Stripped, tortured, and eventually murdered for the benefit of a paying audience, they are rendered, as Montag himself precisely notes, meat.

And yet: I recommend the film. It's worth seeing for a brilliant performance by Crispin Glover and the reappearance of Joshua Miller, and the general hotness of both of the above. At the very least, I recommend it to those who enjoy a gory romp for its own sake and revel in a psychedelic mindfuck even if it ultimately disappoints.

But I do think it's kind of ironic that the film actually isn't nearly as bloody or gory as the creators seem to think it is (I saw the unrated version, and I have a hard time picturing what didn't make it into the R-rated version); there's better splatter out there. I'd say it's probably exactly as bloody as fans of the Suicide Girls can stand.