Only now does it occur to me... DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS (1989)

Only now does it occur to me... that there's more to say about DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS, a.k.a. DEADLY GAMES, a.k.a. 3615 CODE PÉRE NOËL, a.k.a. HIDE AND FREAK than merely, "it's the basis for HOME ALONE."

While it indeed shares a few similarities with that 1990 John Hughes/Chris Columbus film––both center on a kid staving off a Christmasy home invasion with a variety of toy-inspired booby traps and Rube Goldberg devices––this is a much darker film, a brutal slice of survival horror by way of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT and CHRISTMAS EVIL, and a paean to R-rated '80s action flicks, from COMMANDO to DIE HARD to RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II.

 

In DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS, our hero is spoiled rich kid Thomas (Alain Lalanne, who went on to not to act, but to become a VFX producer on everything from THE DARK KNIGHT to THE REVENANT), son of a widowed mother who owns France's biggest department store (Brigitte Fossey, whose career was originally launched as one of the two child leads of René Clément's 1952 classic FORBIDDEN GAMES, which is not an action movie). Thomas spends his days wandering the family mansion, playing RAMBO-inspired games with his dog and nearly blind/diabetic grandpa (Louis Ducreux). It must be noted that even before there is a home invasion, the kid has a series of trap doors, a CCTV system he can access from a Power Glove-looking device, working handcuffs, secret wings straight outta BLUEBEARD (but filled with extra toys and weapons, not dead wives), and an extremely indulgent family who allows his fantasies to bleed into their day-to-day lives. With mom stuck at the office on Christmas Eve, a psychotic man-child dressed as Santa Claus (who was "fired" from his mother's department store earlier that day) launches a full-chimney assault on Thomas' home. 

 

Killer Santa's opening salvo is murdering the kid's dog, and it only gets more savage and complex from there. Along the way, we have montages set to a copyright-skirting clone of "Eye of the Tiger" and more fully-juiced gear-up sequences than in COMMANDO. (I'd almost go as far as to say this is more of an influence on HOOK than HOME ALONE.)

 

 There're cat-and-mouse chases that feel culled from THE SHINING

and an original Bonnie Tyler song which plays throughout called "Merry Christmas." Its lyrics are all over the place and the perfect, head-scratching accompaniment to this violent and existential film. "Happy birthday, Christmas!" sings Bonnie Tyler. "Wanted, Mr. Christmas," she sings. "Help me, Santa Claus." "Welcome holy Jesus." "Kids don't grow up like us, you can change the plan, here comes the darkness." What is this song about?! Who is Mr. Christmas? Is it his birthday? Never mind, here comes the darkness!

Director René Manzor brings a lot of visual panache to the proceedings. He has a real filmmaking joie de vivre which recalls early Sam Raimi or George Miller or Richard Rush. It's very kinetic and beautifully shot, full of unexpected images

 and well-orchestrated action.

I'm curious to check out more of Manzor's work, which includes episodes of HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES and THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES.

In the end, this is a strong holiday recommend––a strange concoction of dreamlike imagery, hard-hitting action, unhinged 80s madness, and, finally, and perhaps most realistically, a meditation on PTSD.

"Six Authors in Search of a Character, Part 1: Stephen King" in ZYZZYVA

I'm very excited to premiere the first installment of a new essay series in ZYZZYVA Literary Magazine––it's called "Six Authors in Search of a Character" and it will explore the unusual and complicated psychology of writers portraying on screen characters they created in print. Part 1 tackles Stephen King's appearance as "Jordy Verrill" in CREEPSHOW, a role which grapples with identity, addiction, and a "meteoric" rise.

Only now does it occur to me... THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD (1975)

Only now does it occur to me... first off, that there even was an Earth, Wind, & Fire movie. Nice! Secondly, only now does it occur to me... that the Earth, Wind, & Fire movie stars... Harvey Keitel.

 

Er...what?

That's right: THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD has about fifteen minutes of screen-time for EW&F––the audience's key draw to this film in the first place.

Keitel, who plays "Buckmaster" the record exec (this is mumbled on many occasions and definitely sounds more like the BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD-esque "Buttmuncher"), butts heads with his superiors as he tries to bring Earth, Wind, and Fire mainstream success (in the film, they are referred to as "The Group"). I get that the film's "project" is to realistically show the white stranglehold on the music industry, but so much of the film is just boring dudes chatting in stuffy offices and cocktail parties. EW&F gets, essentially, two concert setpieces––one at a roller disco,

and an arena show meant as the grand finale. The latter, however, is mostly just Keitel bobbing his head awkwardly while he watches EW&F play.

Imagine if CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC was just Steve Guttenberg and no Village People. If A HARD DAY'S NIGHT was entirely Paul's creepy grandfather with a couple Beatles songs. I guess that's the way of the world, or something. As the saying goes:

"Where were you when the stardust hit the fan?"

Only now does it occur to me... MACABRE (1980)

Only now does it occur to me... what would happen if Lamberto "son of Mario" Bava took inspiration from Tennessee Williams to make his own Southern Gothic Italotrash horror saga? And what if all he actually remembered from Tennessee Williams was the ghoulishly nutty finale of SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER? And what if the lead character was, for some reason, named "Robert Duval," just one letter's separation from the iconic actor? Well we don't have to wonder about any of this, because we have... MACABRE.

Based on a true story, yeah, okay.

I'm gonna tell ya right off the bat––this review will be full of spoilers. And I don't feel bad about that because there's nothing in this movie that feels "motivated." It's a collection of crazy things that happen without dramatic rhyme or reason. You do you, Lamberto. And for my Italo-Horror enthusiasts, let me tell you that this is way closer to "bottom-tier Fulci" or Joe D'Amato than Mario Bava or Dario Argento. The two movies of which it reminds me the most are probably BUIO OMEGA and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Within the first twelve minutes, we have some of the sleaziest saxophone and worst child dubbing in the history of Italian film, which is absolutely an achievement. We have an unhappy woman stumbling around in heels and DYNASTY dresses (CITY OF WOMEN and XTRO's Bernice Stegers)

who is having an affair with a guy named Fred. This upsets her––aforementioned, poorly dubbed––daughter (Veronica Zinny)

who acts out by smoking a bunch of cigarettes and drowning her little brother in a bathtub.

The unsighted landlord, Robert Duval (Stanko Molnar, doing some of the best/worst/offensive blind 'schmacting' I have ever seen) 

lazily assembles brass instruments while awkwardly listening to extramarital sex with, uh, "ZATOICHI-esque augmented hearing."

When mom receives the phone call that her son has drowned, she rushes to the hospital with her lover but, unfortunately, they get in a car accident in which Fred is decapitated.

This is already more melodrama than I can shake a stick at and we're fewer than fifteen minutes into this bad boy! Madness, absolute madness.

Mom soon builds a Hobby Lobby shrine to her ex-lover

which I think would get maybe a C+ at my science fair. Comically, she has included his credit cards among the dead man's relics. 

The next hour is where this film really bogs down. She moves into the blind man's boarding house and there's a whole lot of lame tension building about the source of the orgasmic noises coming from her room, where she is the sole occupant. Much hay is made about this mystery.

This was mostly shot in a studio in Italy, but the crew traveled to New Orleans (for three days) to shoot exteriors. This is a nice documentary look at the city in 1979, and visually impressive in some instances:

but usually Lamberto Bava is out here making sure he got his money's worth out of those expensive shoot dates. Generally speaking, every time someone goes from point A to point B, we she them open the car door, get out, slam the car door,

 

walk up to the gate, unlatch the gate, mess around with the gate, open the gate,

 

relatch the gate, walk up to the stoop,

ring the doorbell, wait around for the door to be answered, etc.

It's pretty spectacular, actually, though indicative of how bogged down this movie gets in its middle hour.

Anyway, the secret is finally revealed: mom has apparently been masturbating, nightly, with Fred's severed head.

I really like the placement of the ice tray there. I feel like the thinking was "how's the audience gonna know it's a freezer if there's no ice tray?," but instead you're left with even more questions, like "I get that somebody who masturbates with a severed head every night is not very squeamish about hygiene, but does she really not care when she gets hairs in the cubes?"  

 

 Really goin' to town, I wonder if they used this clip in the Oscar reel

The beauty of all of this is that I've excised no great subtext or rationale; Bava presents it more like: "hey, she loved the guy, so obviously she would love... his head."

This all leads to Robert Duval discovering her secret, whereupon the severed head gains the power of flight and bites him on the neck until he dies!

It is my belief that this scene inspired  ZOMBI 3's greatest moment (a film by Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso, and Lucio Fulci), one I have described as "The Ol' Zombie Head in the Fridge." 

Though the flying severed head in that context at least makes a little more sense because it's in a zombie movie. Later, this ground would be revisited by Michele Soavi in CEMETERY MAN (1994).

 Anyway. MACABRE, ladies and gentlemen.

R.I.P., Dean Stockwell

Only now does it occur to me... THE BRAIN (1988)

Only now does it occur to me... that THE BRAIN is a weird, late '80s mutation of THEY LIVE, THE SHINING, and David Cronenberg, but mostly David Cronenberg. It's that dreary brand of '70/'80s Canadian horror, blanketed in overcast skies, drenched in seasonal affective disorder, and playing out within dystopian concrete spaces punctuated only by ugly primary colors.

I'd still like to eat at that restaurant, though––"Jay's Pit: Steaks & Burgers." Also note the closed captioner's choice to label the music as "afflicted." I love it.

And here, too: "Bitter synth music." That's just terrific. O Canada!

 

The plot, as it is, involves REANIMATOR's own David Gale running a Scientology-adjacent religious pseudoscience TV show/reeducation center called "Independent Thinking."

The secret––revealed in the first ten minutes––is that said broadcasts are powered by an enormous alien brain monster capable of hypnotizing/brainwashing the populace,

a process which is only made possible with the assistance of its human collaborators, both witting and unwitting.

This is probably where the THEY LIVE comparisons come from, and because I am a diehard fan of that film, it's been the major reason THE BRAIN has been pitched to me by friends over the years. Despite a general anti-authoritarian stance, THE BRAIN never quite delves into the razor-sharp satire I craved (though there are some good lines like "Dr. Blake wouldn't be on TV if he wasn't good," said by a clueless parent; or said of a power-abusing cop, "[He] needs a shrink, but they give him a badge and let him tell us what to do.").

Mostly, though, it's interested in having some fun in a Cronenbergian universe, and it can hardly be blamed for that.

Our teenage hero Jim (Tom Bresnahan) is an incorrigible prankster whom we first meet while flushing a block of pure sodium down a toilet

and causing antics of the "explosive plumbing" variety. It is for these crimes that he is sentenced to this form of delinquent conversion therapy, which, at times, feels like a cross between VIDEODROME and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

His therapy in the above scene involves assistance from lab assistant Janet (Christine Kossak), who for all intents and purposes is the "Debbie Harry from VIDEODROME" of this movie. The background there even looks like the wall in the Videodrome torture chamber, and the monstrous/sensual breathing sounds heard throughout are certainly plucked from that film as well.

"Come to me, Max"/"Come to me, Jim"

The Kubrick influence can also not be understated, as THE BRAIN very much adheres to the coldness and sterility of his aesthetic. One particular scene involves our hero hallucinating in an Overlook-esque storeroom

as he imagines blood bubbling and spurting from some canisters therein, a sort of poor man's version of the gushing elevators from THE SHINING.

There are some solid, artistic tableaux along the way,

and David Gale loses his head during a presentation, which feels equally a nod to his legendary headlessness in REANIMATOR as well as to the gory ends to the corporate/scientific exhibitions in SCANNERS, THE BROOD, and VIDEODROME.

Big 'Barry Convex energy' here is what I'm saying.

In the end, my favorite thing about THE BRAIN just might be the closing credits. Before we can even get to the cast and crew, the movie apologizes to us for the sodium prank which kicked off the movie, and it warns us not to try it in real life. Aww, thanks, THE BRAIN––you're so responsible!