The Fifth Cord

Today we're diving back into the world of the Italian cinema of the 70's. A film recommended to me by a friend called The Fifth Cord (1971).

The Fifth Cord is a Giallo, which is Italian for yellow. The Giallo genre are thrillers, sometimes spilling into horror, and possibly with an erotic slant. The name is derived from post fascist era Italian paperback novels of this genre, which had yellow covers. The classic Giallo has a killer with black leather gloves, stalking and killing a bunch of pretty women. Lurid entertainment in other words.

The Fifth Cord is a murder mystery, pure and simple. Well, not that simple as the plot is actually really good. In hindsight, I should have figured out who the killer was, but I was nowhere close. As a Giallo, it's interesting as some but not all, victims are beautiful women. Some victims are men as well.

Plot wise we have the protagonist, Andrea Bild (Franco Nero), a reporter with a drinking problem who tries to figure out who the killer is. The police suspects that it could be him, but it's pretty obvious that it isn't. That's not a spoiler BTW, it's super obvious. The killer keeps on killing, and leaves a glove with fingers removed as a calling card. Every consecutive murder has one more finger removed than the last, leading the police to believe that there will be five murders in total. This is where the title comes from, by the way. I don't get the cord bit either, but the original title is Giornata nera per l'ariete, which translates to Black day for the ram. Go figure.

The cinematography is exceptional, it really is. I could go on gushing about the composition in certain scenes, but just take my word for it.

The music is by none less than Ennio Morricone himself, so that's another feather in the cap. Though it should be said that the intro music will make your ears bleed. It is absolutely ghastly. Once you get past that, it's a fine film.

Obviously, if you're not a fan of films like these, you wont' like it, but if your cinematic omnivore, or you want something a little bit different, go for it.

As an aside, I just learned that the father of the modern zombie movie, George A. Romero has passed on. There are countless films, shows, comics and games that wouldn't be what they are without his original work. Rest in Piece and all that.

Until we see each other next, have a great week!

Rogue One

So, I finally got around to watching the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One. (2016)

Yeah yeah, I'm a year late, but better late than never. So this is what I thought of the film. I'll skip spoilers as much as possible, but treat this as mild spoiler territory, just in case.

In a nutshell the story is this: a group of rebels attack an imperial base to retrieve the plans to the original Death Star. Sure, there's a lot more to it than this, but that's the really important bit. Rogue One is set a few days before A New Hope (1977) and goes almost right into it.

Much like Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One is a very pretty movie. The effects are gorgeous, and really solid. The acting is good, solid work all around. The music is wonderful, even though it's not by John Williams. Fun fact: some scenes are unused shots from Episode IV: A New Hope, and some outfits were recycled from the original trilogy. This is smart as it gives a subconscious connection to the original trilogy.

Speaking of the original trilogy, Governor Tarkin has a prominent spot in Rogue One, but as you may know, the original actor - Peter Cushing - died in 1994 so they couldn't really use him. They could have used another actor like say, Charles Dance, but instead they digitized Cushing's face onto an actor. For being computer graphics spliced into a live action film, they did a marvelous job. It is a tricky job to say the least, but they got very close to pulling it off. They also tried it with another character but that looked really awful. Mixed success there.

The script is mostly good, but they couldn't resist putting in scenes paralleling the original trilogy. You'll recognize them when you see them, and I wish they hadn't bothered. Also, some scenes are needlessly dark which makes it hard to see things, but they weren't too many.

My biggest complaints about the movie are as follows:

• A ship jumps to Hyperspace way too close to a planet, something that goes against deeply established Star Wars lore.
• They manage to communicate long distance while in Hyperspace. This would be impossible as the signal would have to travel faster than the ship.
• If you push an object in space that's bigger than you, it takes considerable energy, and if that object rams into another thing, that thing should move, not break. Also, the energy originally needed, would at the very least double, but apparently the laws of physics are very different when you're far far away...

These things are small, and you may think that they are excessively petty and ultra nerdy. And yeah, maybe they are, but fixing them would have been so easy, and it seems so sloppy to leave them like they are.

I could go on nitpicking, but I won't. The other things I could complain about are more or less a matter of taste, so I'll leave it to you to decide.

At the end of the day, Rogue One is an entertaining film, and I had a good time watching it. If you like Star Wars, there's no reason not to watch this film.

Other fun trivia: this is the first and (so far) only Star Wars movie without the yellow text scrawl in the beginning, as well as the only film in the franchise that never mentions the name Skywalker.

I'll stop ranting here, and until next time, have a great week!

Kathy Rain

One of the games I picked up on Steam during the Summer Sale (still going as I write this) is a game I've wanted to play for about a year: Kathy Rain.

Kathy Rain is a Point & Click adventure game in the style popular in the 80's and 90's. It runs in the style of Gabriel Knight, King's Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island etc.

What's important to note is that although Kathy Rain looks and feels like a 90's game, it's made in 2016. This is important, as the game is a lot more player friendly than it's older cousins used to be. For one, there's no Moon Logic around. For another, you can't get stuck by using an item in the wrong place. The game, or rather the protagonist, Kathy, tells you if there's no point in asking a person about a particular subject or showing them an item. So there's none of that annoying repetitious “That means nothing to me,” spam that older games often had. So over all, it's a very comfortable and easy to use game. And there's no, what's known as pixel bitching, hunting for one pixel on the screen to find a clue in order to proceed.

That's not to say that it's a cake walk. Like all games in this style, there are lots of puzzles, some are really easy, others are fairly hard. I'm no expert at puzzle solving, but I managed to solve most of them pretty easily. A couple took some time, and I had to look up the solution to one. This one puzzle is the closest thing Kathy Rain has to Moon Logic, but even so, it's nowhere as bad as the old games.

The game is set in 1995, and follows our heroine, the eponymous Kathy Rain, a tough journalist-to-be biker. She heads back to her childhood town to discover what her grandfather was up to and to deal with some stuff from her past. This is the kind of story that could be explained naturally or it could be supernatural, ultimately it's up to you. I think the supernatural fits the narrative a bit better. Kathy is a fearless, snarky kind of person, which have annoyed some gamers, but I didn't mind. I think the game adequately explains her personality, and demonstrates that her attitude is more of a coping mechanism than a defect of character.

It took me about eight hours to finish the game, which I think is a decent length as it makes it easier to keep the whole story in mind. The narrative is pretty focused, but it doesn't railroad you either. There are humorous elements, sad moments, creepy happenings and more. I got a Twin Peaks vibe from it, but it's definitely its own thing.

Bottom line: Kathy Rain is an amazing game. I always liked the genre, but couldn't get past the borderline impossible puzzles and unintuitive gameplay. Kathy Rain is absolutely worth it, if you're even slightly curious about the genre of Point & Click adventures.

Until we meet again, have a great week!

History of the Gestapo

Last night I finished reading The Gestapo: A History of Horror by Jacques Delarue.

In short, this is the history of the Gestapo from before it's founding to the fall of the Third Reich.

It's important to point out that the author was a part of the French Resistance, so to him it wasn't just an academic question, but an actual part of his life. This affects the book in two ways.

First, a good portion of the book concerns the activities of the Gestapo in France, which is fine, but I would have liked an overview of it's activities in the other occupied countries as well. They are mentioned in passing, but nowhere near at the same level as France.

Second, it gets a bit preachy at times. Ideally a historical work should remain neutral at all times, and let the facts, good and bad speak for themselves. In my opinion, you don't need to state that the actions taken by the Nazi secret police were bad, but seeing that the author was directly affected by the Gestapo, I get it. And it doesn't happen all that much.

I liked this book. I have read several other books about the Third Reich and the S.S. and some have been a real slog to get through. This one is very easy, not just to read, but also to keep track of. The author repeats events and dates just enough to help you understand what happened when and how it affected other events. This makes it all easy to follow.

I also liked the way the book keeps up the bigger picture as this gives perspective. It's easy to think that the Nazi big wigs were a team, but in reality they were a loose confederation of warring chieftains, viciously fighting each other for prestige and power.

If you are interested in the dark chapter of human history that is Nazi Germany, then I would say it's essential to dive into Gestapo's history since it was one of the principal tools used to keep the regime in power. I guess there could be better books out there, but The Gestapo: A History of Horror is absolutely good enough. It doesn't go too deep, it is more of an overview, but this is essential or everything would get hopelessly bogged down.

I guess the take-away here is that I recommend this book.

Until next time, have a great week!

Paper cuts

Where would modern society be without paper?

We use it to share ideas, entertain each other, fine lawbreakers, build things, create art etc. The myriad uses we have for paper are too many to list here, but did you know that you can use it to cut things?

We've all at some point or another suffered that cruelest of cuts, the paper cut. It hurts like nothing else, but yesterday I found a video concerning the mother of all paper cuts: the powered paper cut.

The Youtube channel in question, ZombieGoBoom, is about a small group of guys who test weapons, tools, every day items, even toys to see if they're any good at killing zombies.

They have themselves designed and created a range of zombie heads that are 99% correct analogs of the human head. Since you know, the only reliable way to put down a zombie is to destroy its brain.

The video below is only one of several that you can find online if you're interested in cutting things with paper, but being the lover of the macabre that I am, I chose this one. I suppose the takeaway from this is that if you absolutely must cut something and you have no other options available, you can use paper, card stock, or cardboard.

So enjoy the awesome power of humble paper, and until we see each other again, have a zombie free week!

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUsxXQmQnGg

Have a good laugh

One evening, while rummaging around on Youtube, I found a documentary called Laughing at the Eighties.

It's not, as you might assume, a mockery on the eighties itself, but rather a look at British comedy of that time.

It's narrated by Ben Elton, the man who amongst his other accomplishments, co-wrote Blackadder 2-4, The Young Ones and many more. He interviews many of the greats in British comedy, as well as sharing some of his own anecdotes.

Then there's the follow up, Laughing at the Nineties. This is narrated by Jennifer Saunders, of both French&Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous fame, to name her biggest creations. As with the Eighties documentary, it analyzes the comedy of the decade and contains a plethora of comedy stars.

Predictably of course, this is followed up with Laughing at the Noughties, this time headed by Catherine Tate. We get an insight into how British comedy yet again has changed, but in the first decade of the new millennium.

As a life long fan of the British school of comedy, I found this trilogy incredibly interesting as well as entertaining. We see how comedy in the 80's changed from the old ways and became politicized, making fun of the establishment, and the police. Not the nine o'clock news, Spitting Image etc.

The nineties brought a new way of life and thinking and comedy evolved again. If course, the 2000's made comedy change once more. I'm not going to go through it here, watch the documentaries instead.

I do want to share one thought that struck me. In medieval times, kings had jesters who could mock and deride things and people that would get others beheaded. It's said that this was not just entertainment, but a form of social critique that gave the king food for thought. What I came to understand is that the jesters aren't gone. They are on television, instead of the throne room.

That's in for today, go forth and have a good laugh, and until next time, have a fun week!

Laughing at the Eighties: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo-6AB08CFM

Laughing at the Nineties:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mgCWxcBkC8

Laughing at the Noughties:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqqCjuV9mSs

The Return of the Living Dead

Last week I talked about The Blob, and I hinted at another 80's horror classic. Well here we are, and today's topic is the original The Return of the Living Dead and it's two sequels. I learned that there are a couple of new additions to the franchise made in 2005, but I have never seen them, so I'm ignoring them.

The original TRotLD was created as a homage/sequel/spoof of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, but when they wrote the script, back in the seventies, they didn't know that Romero was in fact already working on his own sequel, Dawn of the Dead. That's why he didn't want to direct TRotLD.

In fact, the story uses Night of the Living Dead as a plot point, stating that the film was based on a real event, and that's why zombies are real.

The common thread of the trilogy is that a chemical, 2-4-5 Trioxin, can resurrect the dead. It can also turn living people into zombies if they inhale it. The zombies, however, are pretty interesting from a horror history point of view. As far as I can tell, this is where the idea that zombies shamble around and moan “Brains” comes from. In previous movies, including Romero's classic, the undead said nothing and ate everything, particularly the entrails. In TRotLD they only really care about brains. Whats also noteworthy, is the fact that the zombies can both talk and use tools if they choose to. Further more, a shot to the head is not guaranteed to put them down.

The first TRotLD (1985), is a horror comedy. It's silly and messy, but it has fun with itself, and that's important, as it adds a certain charm to the movie. I can't talk about the plot too much,without running into spoiler territory, suffice to say that the chemical is accidentally released and the dead rise. Chaos follows. All things considered, this is actually a good movie.

TRotLD 2 (1988), is a bit unbalanced. It's more of a comedy than the original, and in my opinion it tries too hard and fails a bit to deliver. It both follows and ignores to first film, which is weird. But it's biggest flaw, is one of the main characters: Jesse. He is the typical 80's heroic know-it-all kid, and man is he annoying. Further more, where the first film's characters weren't exactly amazing, they had personalities. Here they are completely one dimensional, to the point of being suicidally dumb. It also recycles jokes from the original, but without updating them. It's more of a “Hey, here's that joke you liked again. Isn't it funny?” No, it isn't. It's almost as if it tries to be mainstream and kid friendly. But it's still a bloody zombie film. Good choice.

If you're only going to watch one entry in the franchise, watch the original and skip this.

TRotLD 3 (1993) is a very different creature from it's predecessors. There is no comedy to be seen here. It's a dark, cruel horror piece, through and through. It has more in common with Resident Evil or 28 Days Later than its own franchise. Again, I won't spoil anything, just be warned that it's nothing like what came before.

For me, it's a bit of a mixed bag. It has it's moments, but it's not terribly good.

Ultimately, The Return of the Living Dead can stand tall as a formative part of Horror Cinema. All the movies have moments that make you face palm in disbelief over how stupid some characters are, but in the end it's definitely worth it. If you are a horror fan, and you haven't seen these, correct that oversight at the first possible opportunity.

That's that. Until next time, have a great week and stay away from zombies and weird military containers.