Sisters (1973)

When I was a child, there were no video stores.  There was no Netflix, Amazon Instant Video or iTunes.  Heck, there was no Internet, at least not that was available to the public like it is today.  But I had two things:  HBO and a Betamax.  When I wanted to “own” a movie, I “taped” it on one of its HBO airings, made a neatly printed label for the box and added it to my physical library.

My family got its first Betamax for Christmas in 1977.  The first thing I recorded was a re-run of the second season premiere of Charlie’s Angels, the two-hour episode called “Angels in Paradise”, which introduced Cheryl Ladd to the series.  I had to watch a show when I taped it to pause every 15 minutes, give or take, so I could “cut out” the commercials.

When I taped something, I watched it over and over and over again.  (Ah, what I’d give for the time to do that now!)  One of the first movies I taped on HBO was Sisters (1973).  I loved that movie!  I watched it before I saw many other better-known horror films like Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist.  And I watched it more times than I’ve watched those other movies to this day.

Thankfully, when I re-watched it recently for the first time in many years, it holds up incredible well.  The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Sisters is its director, Brian DePalma.  And when I think of Brian DePalma, I think of style:  long one-shot takes, spinning cameras and, most of all, split screen.  Sisters began a nearly 10-year stretch where DePalma was a true master of horror.

DePalma was controversial during this period of time because he was considered in some circles to be the “new Hitchcock”.  Apparently, you believed only one of two things about DePalma, that he was a transcendent auteur or that he was a mimicking, copycat hack.  I believed the former; in fact, I wrote my senior year English research paper with the thesis that he was the new Hitchcock.

From 1973 to 1981, DePalma made Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise, Obsession, Carrie, The Fury, Dressed to Kill and Blowout, all favorites of mine and worthy of a modern day Hitchcock.  This was before he went in a different direction with movies like Scarface, The Untouchables and Carlito’s Way.  These still utilized his unique style, but were not classic horror or suspense thrillers.

I’ve long maintained that Dressed to Kill is my favorite DePalma movie.  After re-watching Sisters, though, I think I prefer its less polished style.  It’s obviously made by a young director trying out new things and it feels fresh and exciting to this day.  It’s also very dark and twisted.  What begins as a standard, yet stylish murder mystery, later becomes a lurid, almost hallucinogenic horror movie.

Another reason I now prefer Sisters is that the showy DePalma style is used more sparingly.  For example, the split screen is used far less than I remembered, and it’s used more effectively than I think I’ve ever seen in any movie.  Technically, it’s brilliant; I can’t imagine the level of detail required to plan such shots.  Visually, it’s enthralling.

In Sisters, the relatively brief sequence that uses the technique, serves two purposes.  First, it provides two different perspectives on an event at the same time.  On the left side of the screen, it’s the perspective of a man who has been stabbed crawling to a window to write “help” in his own blood.  On the right side of the screen, it’s the perspective of a woman watching the murder from her apartment next door.

Second, it provides real time depiction of simultaneous action.  On the left side of the screen, we see the murderer and accomplice frantically cleaning up the scene of the crime.  On the right side of the screen, we see the woman from next door talking to the police and eventually convincing them to investigate what she witnessed.  I find this technique much more suspenseful that an intercutting of scenes where we go back and forth between the action.

On a psychological level, the screen first splits at the same time the main character suffers an emotional split.  Is that heavy handed and obvious filmmaking or is it subtle and clever?  I think it may be a little of both, but I like it a lot.  It adds multiple levels to the experience.  Reflecting on the many times I watched Sisters in my teen years, I bet it’s the reason I became interested in the “art” of making a movie.

The aforementioned murder takes place in the apartment of Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder).  She is one half of a pair of conjoined twins who were recently physically separated.  Her trick for the evening, Phillip (Lisle Wilson) does not apparently notice the giant scar on her hip as he caresses her thighs.  When the other twin, Dominique, discovers their night of passion, she flies into a jealous and murderous rage.

The entire first half of Sisters leads up to and includes the violent murder of Phillip.  It then shifts to the point of view of Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt), the neighbor woman who must conduct an investigation of her own since the police could find no evidence of the murder.  She hires a private detective, Joseph Larch (Charles Durning), infiltrates the hospital and becomes intimately involved in the twists and turns of the story.

Once at the hospital, it’s a rollercoaster downhill as dark secret after secret is revealed.  It’s trashy, it’s exploitative, it’s gruesome, but man, is it entertaining!  Sisters calms down a bit for a two-part conclusion that’s perfect.  Not exactly a twist, but certainly a gotcha, making you smile while you think, “oh, yeah” as well as “oh, no.”

If you’ve never seen Sisters, now is the perfect time to discover it.  With American Horror Story: Freak Show now airing on FX and featuring conjoined twins, you can see the homage it pays to DePalma.  (You can also see that, no matter how entertaining, the TV show is an inferior product, at least in comparison.)

That leaves us with the homage DePalma pays Hitchcock in Sisters.  It’s in large part Psycho meets Rear Window, but I’ve never believed DePalma was robbing from Hitchcock.  If anything, his movies put a “modern” spin on Hitchcock.  The influence is obvious, but it’s not blatant plagiarism.  I truly believe DePalma took filmmaking to a new level with Sisters.  Familiar in style, perhaps, but it’s undoubtedly something you’d never seen before in 1973.  Or even in 1977 on HBO, for that matter, taped for posterity on a worn out Betamax cassette.

Tomorrow:  The Legend of Hell House!

The Coundown Ends... What Have We Learned?

I started my Countdown to Halloween on October 1 by questioning why I love horror movies.  I mentioned that I am not the only person who puts himself through the ordeal of watching horror movies, particularly when so many of them are bad.  The phenomenon of people enjoying movies that stimulate fear, perhaps the most negative emotion, is called the "horror paradox".  I embarked on a quest to find answers to my question.

First of all, if you read any of my posts this month, there should be no doubt that I love horror movies.  I love watching them, I love studying them and I love writing about them.  Even when I wasn't searching for answers, I researched and wrote about lesbian vampires, animated horrors,  Italian horror movies and found footage.  I wrote not only about movies, but also about television, comic strips, video games and comic books.

I recap the month like this simply to emphasize my question: why?!?  What can I possibly learn about myself from all my research and all my writing?

Decades of Horror

One of the common theories used to explain the horror paradox is that people watch horror movies as a way of coping with actual fears or violence.  Since one source of our fears is undoubtedly the world in which we live, I examined the popular horror movies of different decades to see how they reflected the general fears and uncertainties of the times.  But how did they reflect my general fears and uncertainties?

Born in 1963, I was a pop culture kid from the start.  Before horror, the first thing I remember is Batman.  I remember watching the TV show (1966-1968) and dressing as the Caped Crusader for Halloween.  About the same time, I remember watching Lost in Space (1965-1967).  I guess my first specific memory of horror was watching Dark Shadows after school when we lived at 3205 W. Maine and seeing House of Dark Shadows, or at least part of it, at the theater.

My point is, I was anywhere from 3-6 years old during this time, so I don't think I had any general fears or uncertainties about the 1960s.  I had a good home life.  I enjoyed school.  I think I was artistic and/or creative even then.  Maybe what Batman, Lost in Space and Dark Shadows had in common was the wonder they inspired.  If anything, that's how I remember the 60s: a decade of wonder when man first landed on the moon.

Halfway through first grade, we moved to 2001 Seneca.  This is where I first remember falling in love with The Wizard of Oz (a new friend at school, Jana Jackson, missed the annual telecast, so I invited her to my new house to listen to the record) and the Universal monsters.  This is the era of going to bed early on Friday nights and my dad waking me up at midnight to watch them on TV, even though he teased me that they spoke Pig-Latin.

This was the early 1970s.  I was 7-12 years old.  I do remember some worries then, but since I was oblivious to what was happening in the world around me, they came from my own little environment.  I was nervous about a new school.  I didn't have many friends.  In 5^th grade (my worst year of grade school), I actually challenged a bully to an after-school fight, from which I later chickened-out.  What effect did all this have in forming my interest in horror?

In junior high, I was told to go home one day when I wore my Farrah t-shirt to school.  My siblings and I loved Charlie's Angels.  (My favorite was Farrah, my sister's, Jaclyn, and my brother's, Kate.)  I collected comics and genre magazines and Wacky Packages.  I clipped pictures from Hollywood magazines and started my "files" in my bedroom closet.  I made copies of newspaper movie ads at my father's business on evenings, which I collected into 3-ring binders.  I enjoyed reading mysteries and subscribed to "Ellery Queen" magazine.

Still oblivious to the world around me, my social anxieties increased.  I'd had a crew cut for years and was always the target of ridicule because of it.  Upperclassmen would rub my head and call me a fairy.  Looking back, I think this took a toll on me.  I had regular "sick" headaches that debilitated me.  Telling my father about it one night, he told me that "fairy" meant a boy who liked boys.  "Well, that's not me," I told him.  While I didn't seem to be as interested in horror in the late 70s when I was 12-16 years old, what seeds were being sown for the future?

In high school, my interest in movies, regardless of genre, grew.  But if you look back on reviews I wrote for "The Quill", the Enid High newspaper, it's obvious I favored horror.  I specifically remember receiving a press kit for The Funhouse, going to see it, then writing about it.  In 1978, I saw Halloween for the first of what would be many, many times.  That experience renewed my love of horror and sent me to college wearing it on my sleeve.  I dragged fraternity brothers to see Halloween II, took a date to The Beast Within at the drive-in and first saw A Nightmare on Elm Street in the crappy theater in Fulton, Missouri.

In the late-1970s to early-1980s, I was a little more aware of world events.  Still, though, when I was 15-22 years old, they seemed distant to me.  But they were influencing the personal things.   My father's business was failing and he became unemployed.  While I was away from the family, my younger siblings at home were experiencing things I never did.  And after graduation, I was going to have to get a job.  What in the hell was I going to do?  I think in this era, horror movies became more of a conscious escape for me.  While I was watching them, I didn't have to think about the real world.  They gave me something to anticipate, something to study and something to enjoy.

I'm not going to continue decade by decade.  My love of horror had fully formed by now.  For whatever reason, it was engrained within me and it wasn't going to change.  Not when I married (I'll never forget being pissed that my fiancée wouldn't see Killer Party with me), not when I had a daughter (who, bless her, seems to now enjoy horror movies, although not to the extent that I do), and not when I divorced (scary movies became good again for dates, even though I was now dating men).

These days, I'm extremely concerned about our country.  I never learned more about politics than I did when George W. Bush was president.  (Neither have I been more terrified of the real world!)  I've experienced home ownership, running my own business, bankruptcy and lawsuits.  In a way, I'm now desensitized by all this.  Maybe that's why horror is my favorite escape.  Not only does it take my mind off the real world, but it does so in a way that stimulates a tired, old system.
Theory:  Confronting Our Own Mortality

I don't believe I love horror movies because they help me cope with death.  However, since I am not afraid of dying, maybe that's because I've watched so many horror movies.  The reason I enjoy the Final Destination movies is instead (I think) because I like the series of coincidences leading to/causing each death.  You know it's going to happen, you just aren't sure how.  While some of the death scenes are more clever than others, the concept never gets old.  Don't fight it, you can't cheat death.

Theory:  Reliving Our Youth

This theory probably comes closer than any other to explaining why I love horror movies.  (I didn't just write over a thousand words about growing up for nothing.)  However, I don't think I love horror movies because they remind me of specific childhood times.  My memories are not necessarily about events surrounding horror movies, but of watching the horror movies themselves.  I think this theory is more important from the perspective of when this took place rather than why.

Theory:  Enjoying the Rush

This theory places a close second in explaining why I love horror movies.  It's simple:  I don't think I would ever have latched onto them if I didn't simply enjoy them.  I've written frequently about the feeling I get when the suspense is good.  My heart races, my body constricts and then… I relax.  I don't know about the scientific reasons for this; I'm more inclined to believe that if you're in a relatively smooth-sailing part of your life, horror movies can provide some cheap, entertaining thrills.

Theory:  Sympathizing with the Monster

I feel pretty healthy about this one; I don't think I love horror movies because I sympathize with the bad guy.  I have a clear understanding of who the heroes and villains are in a movie.  I'm sure I feel sorry for King Kong or Frankenstein's monster (who doesn't?) but I've never admired Norman Bates or Hannibal Lecter.  Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger?  Nope; nothing about what they do elicits empathy from me.

When I'm watching a horror movie, part of the thrill is cheering for the good guy to survive.  I'm squirming for Laurie Strode to escape Michael Myers, not for Michael Myers to get her.  I definitely sympathize with the good guy because… that's me.  And I'm not a monster.  If a monster were chasing me, I'd cheer for myself, not it.  However, I will admit enjoying the more deadly monsters.  They offer a bigger threat, so the stakes for survival are also bigger.

Theory:  Acknowledging Reality

While I've admitted to enjoying horror movies as an escape from reality, there's no blur in the line that separates the two.  I'm well aware that horror movies aren't real; however, that's not consciously why I enjoy them.  There must be a little sliver of my mind that thinks they could happen.  If not, would they really be scary?  More likely, they're simply metaphors for my real fears, whatever they may be at any given point in time.
Conclusions?

Obviously, there's no definitive answer for why I love horror movies.  It's all of these things; it's none of these things.  I never made a conscious decision to be a horror fan, but neither do I believe some deep-rooted secret in my subconscious made the decision for me.  I don't know how much more I could research or write to figure it out.

But more importantly, I don't know that I need to.  Yes, I was curious.  But does it really matter why I love horror?  The fact is simply that I do.

So, did I cop-out by not reaching a specific conclusion in my Countdown to Halloween?  I think not.  It's been a lot of fun.  I set the goal to write... something... every single day of the month and guess what?  I did it!  And I enjoyed every minute of it!  For those of you who joined me, I hope you did as well.  Until next year?!?

Happy, Happy Halloween!

Confessions of a Collector

My friend David started the first phase of an "estate sale" this weekend, thinning out his massive collection of approximately 40 years of pop culture treasures.  My friend Cathy has decided it's time to purge her home of the "stuff" she's amassed over the years.  Is something in the air?  Have people been watching too many episodes of Hoarders?

David quotes Lao Tzu, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  Certainly, there's a percentage of people who feel that material goods hold them back and getting rid of their belongings is liberating.  I don't disagree, but is it possible for some people to have a healthy, non-restricting relationship with their "things"?

I've been collecting since I was a child.  My bedroom dresser drawers and cabinets were filled, not only with clothes, but also comic books, magazines, toys and trading cards.  I'm the only person I know who as a teenager had a filing cabinet in his closet to store newspaper clippings of celebrity articles and movie reviews.  Does this sound abnormal?  I made straight-As in high school, never drank or did drugs, and had a close circle of friends.  That seems more abnormal to me.

My mother enabled me.  On one trip to find Wacky Packages at a 7-11, she asked me why I didn't just buy the entire box instead of collecting the individual packages.  That way, she said, I would be sure to have the entire set.  (However, she also reminded me how quickly it could all disappear, once throwing a Farrah Fawcett-Majors poster out the car window because I would not stop bothering my little brother and sister by poking them with it.)

The fact is, I've always enjoyed collecting.  Not just having things, but organizing them.  The physical process of putting comic books into bags or trading cards into plastic sleeves is relaxing for me.  I love cataloguing everything, whether it be in the form of a handwritten, typed or computerized list.  The only thing I ever did on the Commodore computer in my mother's sewing room was make a catalogue of all our Betamax movies and tapes.  Today, I enjoy nothing more than discovering a new way to track a collection, even if it requires entering everything one more time.

Magazines & Comic Books

When that happens, I get to look at everything again.  Right now, I'm working on my comic book collection for some articles I want to write.  Every book that moves through my hands brings back a memory.  I'll never have time to go back and read all of them, but that doesn't matter.  I know that I have them in case I want to go back and read them.  (That's the same reason I have so many movies: I may not watch them, much less ever unwrap them, but when the mood strikes me, they'll be there.)

I sometimes tell myself that if I'm ever bedridden or have absolutely no money, I'll have all these things to entertain me and will want for nothing.  I secretly hope that if I'm ever alone and in a nursing home, I'll have enough of my wits about me to enjoy everything one last time.

Does any of this sound unhealthy to you?  If so, let me assure you that my collections don't run my life.  I work 40 hours a week, have a loving partner and an active family and social life.  Collecting is my hobby and my therapy.  It gives me something to always anticipate, because there's always something new.

My father and I had a joke when I was growing up.  I would justify a new item by saying to him, "But, Dad, it's going to be a collector's item!"  For a long time, I told myself that all my collections were an investment in the future.  Truly, I have some items that are worth "something" today, but I believe two things about selling them:

1) They're only worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for them, and

2) They're only worth something if or when I ever decide to sell them.

From time to time, I have sold parts of my collection.  But you know, I never really sold them for what they were worth; to me, anyway.  And for every set of men's magazines I sell on eBay, I'm simultaneously regretting that instead of keeping an entire magazine from another set, I simply tore out the article and placed it inside the removed cover and filed it, throwing what was left into the trash.

It may sound like I live in a cluttered house among stacks and stacks of boxes, barely able to navigate the narrow hallways.  While I do have many boxes in the basement, I can assure you that there are no animals, living or dead, buried beneath them.  (Neither do I have a room for performing "surgery" on my dolls.)  Unless you enter my office, you probably wouldn't even know I'm a collector.  And I've never had so many boxes that I couldn't physically take them with me when I moved (counting four years of college as one time, I've moved at least 11 times since 1981).

My Library

I sometimes regret that I don't have an area to display my collections; my friend David had a "toy room" for a lot of his.  But some day, we might upgrade to a larger house with an extra bedroom and I have some fabulous ideas for turning it into my museum.  For now, my items will have to rest comfortably in their cardboard boxes, coming out for air as I occasionally make a new list and transport them to a newer, sturdier plastic box.

Boxes Needing Reorganization

The biggest regret about my collection is that it mirrors the aimlessness of much of my life.  I've written before that I'm a jack of all trades, master of none.  So is my collection.  I have a little bit of everything.  I sometimes wonder if I had decided I really, really liked one or two things, I could have gone about collecting everything for those one or two things.  Instead, I have a little Star Trek, a little Star Wars, a little Charlie's Angels, etc.  Partial collections are probably not worth as much as complete ones, except to me, of course.

A lot of people and things in my life give me joy; my collections are just one of them.  Although aspects of what you've read may sound scary, I do not believe I could technically be considered a hoarder.  A&E is not going to be filming at my house and there's no need for an intervention.  I'm not doing myself or anyone else harm.  I'll let other people have their epiphanies and do what they need to do to be happy.  For now, I actually think I'm good.  My only purging will be these thoughts as I unashamedly attempt to express them.

Origins

About this time last year, I wrote a lovely sentiment about “pride” and remember wishing I had a blog on which to post it.

A year has passed.  I realized this morning that it was Pride week again in Kansas City.  And I still had no blog.

In an attempt to force myself into action, I am going to procrastinate no longer!  While this is probably definitely not the way I want my blog to ultimately look (it's awfully... black), it’s a start and will give me a direction in which to head.

I think the primary reason for delay was (and is) that I am a man of too many interests.  The label “Jack of all trades, master of none” is sort of my life story and is likely what has prevented me from ever knowing what I want to be when I grow up.  Like a dying Spock, the needs of the many have outweighed the needs of the few.

But Spock returned, and so can I... reborn with more focused interests, about which I will use this space to write.

Until now, I have been overwhelmed by everything I wanted to accomplish in a blog, with a grand vision for an all-inclusive, universe-spanning catalog of all things Jeff.  But following some quality “me” time the last couple of weeks, it now seems more manageable for me to go back to the basics and focus on the interests that have always been with me.

It’s the interests I collected early in life that remain close to my heart and the things I discovered on my own without influence of others that seem most authentic to me.  So I’ll write about how my father took me to buy comic books after weekend haircuts, how the werewolf from Dark Shadows terrified me after school (even while I continued to watch), how I used to set my alarm clock for late Friday night/early Saturday morning so I could wake up to watch Count Gregore and the old Universal Monsters on TV,  and how I threw a such a bloody fit about seeing the latest Planet of the Apes movie that my parents dropped me off at the theater alone.

Although I have already referenced Star Trek, I probably won’t write about it again.  That was an interest I latched onto; it was never really my own and has not remained consistent since junior high.  But I will write about the reboot movie from 2009, because I loved it.  And if there’s anything I will always write about, it’s movies.

And TV.  Because I remember the day we first got cable and how my parents surprised us with it, having to be home on Saturday nights to watch Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett, and the first thing I recorded on our brand new Betamax (the 2^nd season premiere of Charlie’s Angels).

That leaves me to reconcile just one thing.  It’s something that is really nobody’s business, yet is nevertheless part of who I am.  We’ll see how it develops, but I think for now (and except for right now) I will not necessarily draw your attention to the fact that I am a gay man; instead, try to weave it seamlessly into my blog.  I’d be a hypocrite to do otherwise.

So I invite you to join me on a trip.  With our route mapped, expecting a few inevitable detours, let’s start by reviewing my thoughts from last year about pride.  Because, if anything else, I hope that this blog is something of which I can one day be proud.


Click to read: My Pride Email from 2010