Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

RIFFTRAX: GHOSTHOUSE: A ham radio operator and his indiscriminately European girlfriend investigate a ghost house, eat chili, and feed Jim Dalen's sister a bunch of tranquilizers. This Umberto Lenzi supernatural sorta-slasher is about as gory as Rifftrax gets, although the movie is otherwise PG-rated. It's a solid outing. 3/5.

[M.10rda]

"Jim Dalen's Sister" would be a good name for a lo-fi/indie/punk band.

[indianasmith]

FRANKENSTEIN (2025)  I don't think Guillermo del Toro can make a bad movie, honestly.  I'd been curious to see his take on Frankenstein, and I was really impressed with it when I finally watched it tonight.  Maybe a tad long, but overall very well done and watchable. 4/5

[Rev. Powell]

"Jim Dalen's Sister" would be a good name for a lo-fi/indie/punk band.

I'd go with "Jim Dalen's Tranquilized Sister," and maybe do some shoegaze/dreamcore stuff. 

[M.10rda]

WEST OF ZANZIBAR (1928):
I thought someone else reviewed this recently but I can't find it (as often is the case when I try to use the search function). It's a Tod Browning "horror" movie that requires the same caveat as FREAKS, another Tod Browning horror movie I've never been able to enjoy. I'm aware that some people will defend FREAKS by suggesting it's actually empowering and not exploitative of its differently-abled stars. Likewise, I've read the argument that WEST OF ZANZIBAR employed 200 black actors (at Lon Cnaney's insistence) rather than putting 200 white guys in blackface. I agree, that is commendable!

However, let's also acknowledge that WEST OF ZANZIBAR is only classified as a Horror movie because it generates 100% of its horror from the presence of those 200 black actors (dressed in tribal drag) and from the threat that the screenplay would have viewers believe they represent. That threat is entirely central to the plot: the antihero utilizes that threat in his elaborate revenge scheme, hopes to punish his enemies with that threat, and ultimately is endangered when that threat is redirected towards him. Now, if the 200 black actors were merely  playing "cannibals", WOZ would be no more objectionable than any other cannibal movie of the pre-Italian era (there's no animal cruelty, anyway) because let's face it, there have been places on Earth where people eat the flesh of other people. But like the mindboggling Fake documentaries of Jacopetti and Prosperi, WEST OF ZANZIBAR can't just rest at plausible cannibalism - it is has to contrive a melodramatic premise of its African tribe, one that feels made-up because it almost certainly is made-up just to upset sheltered white audiences. Yes, these 200 black actors aren't interested in eating human flesh - they are just single-mindedly and dogmatically committed to burning people alive under a highly specific set of circumstances from which they staunchly refuse to permit any exception.  Again, the entire plot focuses on this hysterical contrivance and all of the film's "horror" depends upon it. So, that's pretty racist and silly.

But besides that... the film opens in the Civilized World  with Lon Chaney Sr. as an illusionist performing a magic show. Chaney looks absurd and acts bizarrely but after only about 5 or so minutes he is betrayed and performs a jaw-dropping stunt (irl, not in his magic show) that will compel his character's complete transformation and move the plot forward about 20 years. When we meet Chaney again, he's hanging out deep in the jungle of the Congo, he looks completely different, and - most significantly - he's now giving the most convincing, grounded, dramatically compelling performance of his career. I guess you could think of him as Prof. Charles Xavier's other evil twin - not Cassandra Nova but another bald paraplegic who has now committed his life to venting his spleen on humanity instead of striving for equality or something. The Phantom of the Opera is cool and all, but this is Chaney's keynote role, no question.

The other leads are up to Chaney's challenge. Lionel Barrymore is the target of Chaney's ire. In the long build-up to their inevitable confrontation, one is certain there's no way Barrymore will be any match for Chaney's insane cruelty, but happily that expectation is upended terrifically. (Barrymore is "mean old Mister Potter", after all.) Generic cute blonde Mary Nolan plays the young woman caught in these maniacs' game of brinksmanship, and (also surprisingly) she delivers several highly specific, moving moments of pathos amidst the pitched madness. Browning's direction is so solid and cogent - by sound-era standards - that one almost suspects they tried to record sync dialogue and then scrapped it in favor of some odd sound FX and ambient tracks (mostly of chanting natives, oy). There are lengthy shots of Chaney or Nolan or Barrymore moving their lips that are unaccompanied by any intertitles, but I pretty much received the gist of their lines nonetheless, just based on their crystalline intentions and the strength of Browning's visual storytelling. (Of course if we'd gotten full dialogue here, Chaney's bonkers plot with the pyromaniacal African tribe might have seemed even more ludicrous than it does.)

I don't want to overstate the problematic nature of WEST OF ZANZIBAR, but there are a handful of iconic - okay, brilliant - moments in this film. It's easy to imagine Orson Welles, Werner Herzog, Nicolas Roeg, John Milius, Paul Thomas Anderson, and others seeing this film and having some big lightbulbs sparked in their noggins. It's also entirely plausible to envision an adolescent Daniel Day Lewis watching this and deciding he wanted to be Lon Chaney Sr. when he grew up. Several reviews also speculate an influence on OLDBOY. I dunno, OLDBOY is just "Oedipus Rex" inverted, and there are clear distinctions between OLDBOY's revenge plot and the one here. But - I will allow - Barrymore does respond to Chaney's big Revenge Reveal in exactly the same way I wanted Josh Brolin to respond to the Reveal at the end of Spike Lee's OB remake.

4/5
I really wanted to give this a 3.5 to punish the bizarre racism but - man, the racism aside - Chaney's final scene with the tribe is so next-level nutzo it should have already become a perennial gif/meme. This is quite a movie.