Past Misdeeds: Don't Look In The Basement (1973)

aka The Forgotten

aka Death Ward #13

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only  basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.


When psychiatric nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, growing increasingly hysterical very prettily) arrives at the peculiar little clinic of Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey), where no door is ever locked, and patients are treated in a manner as far away from traditional psychiatry as possible (with all the good yet also all the bad that implies), she doesn't suspect the awful truth the audience learned during the pre-credit sequence. Stephens has been axed by one of his patients, the axe-loving Judge Cameron (Gene Ross and his favourite fake axe), and the only nurse has been strangled for supposedly kidnapping a baby (that is in fact a doll) by another patient. It's the sort of thing that can happen when you give an axe to a man with violent tendencies so he can live them out hitting a poor innocent log, and a baby doll to a woman who thinks it's her baby.

The only remaining medical professional, Dr. Masters (Annabelle Weenick), has decided to get rid of the bodies, so that her little family can remain as if nothing had ever happened. How fortunate there's no missing persons bureau in Texas (or so I imagine).

Masters is not too keen on Charlotte's arrival, but after some back and forth, she decides to allow the nurse to stay. That's a decision Charlotte won't be all that happy about in the long run, for the streak of violence among the patients, once awakened, continues with a bit of murder and a smidgen of tongue cutting, and deteriorates further from that point. Why, you could even think at least some of the murders have a concrete reason besides madness.

But who is doing the killing - creepy manchild Danny (Jessie Kirby, reminding me of Steve Ditko's "The Creeper", among other nightmare-inducing things), orally fixated friendly manchild Sam (Bill McGhee, in a surprise turn where the person of colour is the least murderous character on screen), the judge, the nymphomaniac, the soldier (Hugh Feagin)? All of them together, or somebody else?

The Forgotten (as is the initial and least sexy sounding title of the film at hand) is the directorial debut of Texan local filmmaker S.F. (Science Fiction? San Francisco?) Brownrigg. Brownrigg, unlike many other director/producers of local independent horror actually managed to put out more than one film, and going by The Forgotten, that's a thing to be quite excited about. Even in this debut, Brownrigg proves himself a capable director, using the small number of locations available - the film basically takes place in and around one not very interesting mansion - and a love for close-ups and surprisingly sprightly camera-work and editing to produce a mood of increasing claustrophobia and tension. Sure, there are some moments that will seem amateurish compared to bigger productions (sometimes Brownrigg's love for close-ups goes a bit too far for example, the blocking of scenes is often just strange, and you can't turn a normal house into a clinic, not even one as weird as this one), but by and large, Brownrigg is in control of his material, and knows which techniques to use to achieve his aesthetic goals.

I very much love how Brownrigg's direction grows less and less "normal" and conservative the longer the film runs, clearly mirroring how increasingly unhinged the characters become.

These characters, though, may be the film's main problem for some. The way they are written and acted is hardly informed by any actual knowledge about mental illness. One might even find the movie's whole set-up and large parts of its execution and vibe utterly offensive. Personally, I've seldom found myself offended by the depiction of the mentally ill in horror films because I see the movies' various whackos and psychos as just as fictitious as vampires and werewolves. If you want to piss me off in this regard, show me I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK and its horrible romantization of the pain people with mental illnesses suffer from.

Anyhow, coming back to the film, Brownrigg has to work with a cast of amateur and semi-amateur actors, and if you've ever seen an amateur actor trying to play "mad", you probably know what to expect: a horde of people chewing scenery so hard and excitedly, it comes as a bit of a surprise there's still scenery left to chew after half an hour of the film is through. However, the actors' various ideas of how to go about their roles (from cackling, to shouting, to bug eyes, to menacing stares, to McGhee's awesome blissful calm and Kirby's "crazy clown in puberty" performance) come together in a way that may start out silly but becomes increasingly intense, the bad portrayals of "insanity" taking on the feel of more real insanity, as if all the cackling, shouting and gibbering would actually unhinge the actors and/or the audience. Come the film's grand (as much as the budget allows, of course) freak show finale, the performances have taken a turn towards the feverish, even the disturbing, and the film's tone turns from a 70s interpretation of the friendly hokeyness of a William Castle production towards something a little more nightmarish and (in)arguably creepy. One may very well argue the latter turn to be utterly typical of the more cynical mood of 70s horror cinema, even though Don't Look doesn't have quite as cruel an ending as one would expect of it following this theory.


While Brownrigg does escalate his movie's action further than older horror rules and regulations would have allowed, and certainly shows himself unafraid of a little blood and decapitations, there's also a sense of (rather black) humour surrounding the movie that reveals itself in knowing nods in the direction of the audience that are best exemplified by the film's lovely ending credits, which show the actor's names over stills of their characters' corpses (if available). It's the perfect mix of the brazenly exploitative, the funny, and the slightly disturbing - a perfect ending for a film like this if ever I've seen one.

In short: Don't Open The Door (1975)

After an anonymous phone warning that something evil is afoot with her grandmother, so-spunky-she's-actually-just-rude Amanda Post (Susan Bracken) returns to her ancestral home where her mother was murdered twelve years ago.

Grandmother really is in dire need of help too, for her doctor (James N. Harrell) is keeping the sick old woman so drugged she's never conscious anymore. The doc is working for the local lawyer Judge (yeah, they call the lawyer judge for some - probably southern-ness induced - reason) Stemple (Gene Ross), who wants granny's house for himself even though he is living in an awesome rail wagon (with a train sound effect tape!).

Because these Southern gentlemen are less than subtle about their plans, Amanda soon realizes what's going on, packs her granny off into a hospital and decides to stay at the house for a while to spite the Judge.

That isn't such a good idea, though, for a creepy caller begins to bother Amanda, a caller who seems to know way too much about what's happening in the house, and who might have had something to do with her mother's death.

But who is the mysterious caller: the Judge? The creepy, manikin-loving owner of the local history museum (Larry O'Dwyer)? Amanda's ex-boyfriend (Hugh Feagin)? Whoever it is, he won't stop at just using the phone to terrorize the not easily terrorized Amanda.

S.F. Brownrigg's Texan Gothic thriller is a bit weaker than his first film Don't Look in the Basement, because the comparative lack of crazies doesn't play to Brownrigg's strengths that lie more in creating a mood of strangeness than in creating a tight, suspenseful thriller plot.

It's not that Don't Open's suspense scenes are bad, though. In fact,  there are some rather effective moments shot in a style that reminds me of a very cheaply produced giallo, which surely is the best Brownrigg could hope to achieve in a strictly local production as this one; there's even a staircase of the kind Bava and Argento did love so dearly, and it's even put to a use these two would have approved of. Brownrigg's problem aren't these scenes, but rather his problems connecting them through some very awkwardly staged dialogue scenes - whose quality isn't improved by the fact that Susan Bracken's character may be more resilient than you'd expect but she just isn't a good enough actress to convince me of it - that stop the film dead in its tracks instead of keeping its plot moving forward.

It's a shame too, for whenever Brownrigg allows his weirdo actors O'Dwyer and Ross (who also played a mad judge in Don't Look) to chew scenery, or allows himself to speak in his very own visual language - a language strong enough to make a basically silly threatening telephone conversation feel at least somewhat creepy - Don't Open becomes a very compelling movie. These scenes don't come quite often enough to completely make up for the drab dialogue scenes and moments of nothing of import happening, but they keep the film worth watching to anyone not afraid of a bit of boredom and awkwardness.

Brownrigg's brand of off-handed creepiness and very personal feeling weirdness aren't something you get to see every day, after all.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,s.f. brownrigg,in short,thriller,susan bracken,larry o'dwyer,gene ross,annabelle weenick

On WTF: Don't Look In The Basement (1973)

It's been a while since I've last written about a US regional horror production in the style and length these films often deserve, but S.F. Brownrigg's directorial debut Don't Look in the Basement/The Forgotten/Death Ward #13 is much too great to ignore.

It features all the creativity, all the awkwardness and all the charm that makes the locals so irresistible. Click through to my column at WTF-Film to learn more about the film.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,horror,reviews,s.f. brownrigg,annabelle weenick,bill mcghee,other places