The Convent (2000) - An Overlooked And Underappreciated Comedic Gore-gasm By Director Mike Mendez

A demon gets back in the habit in Mike Mendez's The Convent (2000).

       As a general rule, I like my gore served with a side of humor.  Photo-realistic depictions of violent atrocity just don't entertain me.  Luckily, the comedic gore movie is almost a sub-genre unto itself.  I originally committed to posting about Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) for this year's Gore-A-Thon, owing largely to the fact that I covered The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) last year.  Then I re-watched Leatherface, and I reminded myself that it's actually not very gory.  Worse, it's not very entertaining.  I proceeded to pore over my movie collection looking for a moist and meaty alternative.  Fortunately, I unearthed my copy of director Mike Mendez's The Convent (2000), a riotously entertaining throwback to the comedic gore greats of the eighties.  I'm pretty sure I heard a choir of angels singing as I pulled the disc from my movie vault.

The nuns at the St. Francis Boarding School want the students to pledge allegiance to their Dark Lord.

      Director Mike Mendez is a talent I wish was afforded the opportunity to be more prolific.  Though I've yet to lay my hands on Killers (1996, aka Real Killers), his recent Big Ass Spider! (2013) is exactly the kind of gleefully silly and entertaining B-movie the SyFy channel wishes it could deliver.  The Gravedancers (2006), one of the best-selling releases from the first After Dark Horrorfest, is also a solid spook show, albeit more serious minded.  Sadly, those two flicks and the Showtime documentary Masters Of Horror (2002) are the extent of Mendez's directorial filmography since The Convent.  Meanwhile, hacks like Uwe Boll seem to release a new movie every other week.

Monica (Megahn Perry) is bound and gagged in preparation for her sacrifice to Satan.

     The Convent is a textbook example of a familiar premise well executed.  Its story revolves around a group of college kids who break into an abandoned convent and unleash hell.  Only a reclusive older woman named Christine who quelled a similar incursion in the past (Adrienne Barbeau, absolutely bad-ass as always) can restore order.  What really sets The Convent apart, though, isn't the shopworn premise, but the frenetic visual stylings and wickedly funny performances.  Chief among these is the acerbically funny Megahn Perry as a goth chick named Monica.  When confronted with a self proclaimed Prince of Evil (an equally funny David Gunn) making a theatrically inept attempt to sacrifice her to Satan, Monica calls him out:  "Prince of Evil?  You work at fucking Dairy Queen."  Actual scripted humor is a refreshing change from the unintentional comedy and winking homage that litter so many like-minded B-movies.

A cheerleader with her face peeled off accompanied by a two former weekend Satanists. Go Team Demon!

     In fact, The Convent is defined more by its comedic elements than its horrific ones.  Aside from a stylish opening segment depicting the young Christine laying waste to nuns and clergy accompanied by the Leslie Gore song You Don't Own Me, the movie never really tries to be genuinely disturbing.  The Convent aims instead to be a cinematic love letter to the over-the-top gore fests with which director Mendez grew up.  Think Evil Dead 2, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what's in store.  Mendez even throws in a cameo by rapper Coolio and genre vet Bill Moseley as dickish local cops, lest viewers fail to recognize the tongue-in-cheek tone Mendez is cultivating.

Monica (Megahn Perry) gets demonized as the Prince of Evil and his minion watch from across the room.

     Rest assured, though - even if The Convent is never truly frightening, the gore runs deep.  There are plenty of stabbings, face peelings, shotgun blasts, genital mutilations, and decapitations to sate even the most ardent gorehound.  Though Mendez trimmed a few seconds of the most gratuitous splatter to secure an R rating for the stateside DVD, he's been quoted as saying The Convent is still a "hard R".  Genre fans won't be disappointed.  With any luck, Mendez's prequel to The Convent, currently listed on IMDB as being in pre-production under the title The Devil's Convent, will arrive sooner rather than later.  Until then, grab a copy of The Convent, gather a few friends, and enjoy one of the most overlooked and underappreciated comedic gore-gasms around.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986) Is Better Than You Remember

                          "Sex is . . . well, nobody knows.  But the saw . . . the saw is family"
                                                                                       Drayton Sawyer, TCM2

Great poster, great tagline, and a great movie - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)

The one on one chainsaw duel between Leatherface and Lefty

     I'm an unapologetic Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 fanboy, so be forewarned.  If you're a hater and you think that TCM2 is a sloppy, cacophonous, scare free mess . . . well, you're probably more than just a little bit right.  But it's also a witty, well-paced, blackly comic satire that succeeds admirably in taking the TCM franchise in about the only direction it could have gone without making it a pale rehash of one of the greatest horror movies ever made.

     Director Tobe Hooper realized that trying to top his brilliantly disturbing original with more of the same was a fool's errand.  Instead, he chose to bring the dark humor present in the original - but mostly overlooked - out into the spotlight this time.  After all, Hooper thought he was making a PG rated movie the first time around.  It was based on a violent flight of fancy he had in the hardware department of a crowded store when he was trying to think of a way to get through the crowd and noticed chainsaws for sale.  It was filmed under the working title Headcheese, for Pete's sake.  Not to belittle Hooper's achievement with the original TCM, but he pretty clearly thought he was making something a little different than what we all took to be a nerve-jangling descent into Hell.  In that respect, he failed.

A Sawyer family portrait from TCM2

     If a viewer can get past the fact that the first TCM is scary and that TCM2 isn't, then the sequel is a perfectly logical narrative progression.  I posted an article recently about how the original TCM is a uniquely American horror movie.  TCM2 expands on this notion by having the Sawyer clan chasing the capitalist American dream of a successful business - The Last Round Up Rolling Grill - which Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow) says he built into a success by hookin' and crookin'.  The Sawyer family's murderous activities are just a means to an end, a necessary evil perpetrated to grow the family business.  TCM2 is building on thematic concerns presented in the original, and in that regard, it's more of a direct continuation of the first than  the shameful Texas Chainsaw 3D purports to be.

Leatherface and the Hitchhiker on the bridge

     TCM2 also finally delivers all that gore that we only thought we saw in the original, another logical progression.  FX master Tom Savini delivers some of his best work here, with the skinning alive of radio station engineer L.G. (Lou Perry) being a notable highlight.  I always get a little tickled when Lefty (Dennis Hopper) makes a point of turning Leatherface's chainsaw disembowelment toward the camera during the climactic chainsaw battle.  It's almost as if director Hooper is saying, "Here's what you always wanted to see, kids!  Here's your gorey money shot!"  It's effects porn at its finest.  Grandpa's old age make-up is pretty incredible, too, as is the Hitchhiker "costume" Leatherface dons in the opening bridge massacre.  Hell, how about that gloriously over-the-top sawed off head in that same sequence?  I know you giggled with glee the first time you saw that.

Leatherface woos Stretch the only way he knows how

     We also get to see Leatherface (Bill Johnson) hit puberty in TCM2, and the tender love story between Leatherface and Stretch (Caroline Williams) serves as the sequel's funniest running gag.  I love me some Gunnar Hansen, but Bill Johnson's wordless performance as TCM2's love addled Leatherface is an underappreciated triumph of expressive pantomime.  It's a logical progression in the character's arc, and it's the only instance anyone other than Hansen has properly captured the child-like essence of the character. 

Stretch strikes an iconic pose at the conclusion of TCM2

     In fact, the entire cast rises to the occasion admirably.  Jim Siedow and Bill Moseley (Chop-Top) both chew the scenery with gusto, and their persistent squabbling brings the dysfunctional Sawyer family dynamic to life.  Caroline Williams and Dennis Hopper do a fine job garnering audience sympathy, as well - no small feat when competing with such a colorful bunch of bad guys.  Their respective meltdowns - with Hopper "bringin' it all down" and Williams ultimately mimicking Leatherface's iconic chainsaw dance from the original TCM - are wholly convincing.  They also serve notice to the viewer that we all have a little "chainsaw" in us.

The Sawyer family "Breakfast Club" pose

     The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is by no means the genre defining masterpiece that Tobe Hooper's original was, but it's a helluva lot better than its detractors would have you believe.  I firmly believe that most fans who don't like TCM2 don't like it because it isn't the movie they expected.  If it had been the movie they expected, they undoubtedly wouldn't have liked that, either.  Appreciate TCM2 for the darkly humorous quasi-parody it is.  Don't take it to task for not being a carbon copy of the original.

     It pisses me off that Texas Chainsaw 3D had the audacity to rewrite canon and position itself as the true sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is, was, and always will be the only true sequel to Hooper's pioneering original.  It's a commendable attempt to expand on the Chainsaw saga while being respectful of its trailblazing predecessor.  It's better than you remember.  Skip the next shitty sequel and watch it again if you don't believe me.

Barking At The Vacuum Cleaner

      How 'bout them Walking Dead this season?  An already exceptional show has really begun to hit its stride.  Let's hope it doesn't start going all to hell like True Blood has.  For you gamers out there, the Special Buy at right is a Wal-Mart exclusive on Black Friday, so. . . ask someone else to pick one up for you while they're there.  You don't really want to face the lumbering hordes of zombified Walmart shoppers armed with just a green and orange plastic shotgun, do you?



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    Now that you're armed, though, you'll want to make sure you're mowing down the undead properly licensed.  This zombie hunting permit is produced by Big Cat Sticker Shack, and there's one available for whatever state you're hunting in. There are U.S. and international licenses, as well, for the traveling bands of survivors trying to stay one step ahead of the zombie apocalypse.  They're only $3.99 each plus shipping.  Get yours at www.amazon.com

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     I may well live to rue the day that I said this in a public forum, but I'm cautiously optimistic that the forthcoming Texas Chainsaw 3D isn't going to blow massive monkey nuts. The pre-release stills and one sheets look promising, and I think it took some nerve to put Leatherface on this retro looking poster at right not brandishing his trademark chainsaw.  Elegantly understated, no?

     Also encouraging: this film will ignore all of the sequels, prequels, and remakes since Tobe Hooper's 1974 original and serve as a direct continuation of that original story.  Even better:  "Chainsaw" franchise veterans Bill Moseley, Marilyn Burns, and Gunnar "I'm the real Leatherface, dammit" Hansen will all make appearances.  Only Hansen will be returning to the same role, but who doesn't get chills imagining the original Leatherface on the big screen again, and in 3D?  In what I think was an inspired bit of casting, Bill Moseley (Choptop in TCM 2) will be assuming the role of Drayton "The Cook" Sawyer.  I'm actually going to leave the Cave for this one, so I really hope I'm not disappointed.

     The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the first midnight movie I ever saw, and meeting Gunnar Hansen at DragonCon was one of the happiest moments of my life.  The trailer is a little iffy (check it out here), but I'm staying optimistic.  Texas Chainsaw 3D opens January 4, 2013.