Cult Oddities: The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

Thomas Kretschmann plays the sort of serial rapist you're likely to take home -- certainly not to meet your mother, but someone you'd happily allow to escort you down a dark alley. But behind that winning smile and polite demeanor waits a savage serial killer, who chews razor blades like it's spearmint gum, and whose rape den resides near a serene waterfall for the additional comforts of noise control and underground graffiti art designed by junkies.


Anna Manni's problem lies largely with the artwork. A tough chick who knows her way around a pistol, Police Inspector Manni (Asia Argento) becomes easily disoriented in the wake of great works of art (and some would argue Thomas Kretschmann fits that bill as well). Anna herself then would have trouble watching the first 30 minutes or so of The Stendhal Syndrome (La sindrome di Stendhal), which stream like a surrealist nightmare to match some of Dario Argento's greatest directorial work. It's a disorienting descent into terror from all sorts of abstract sources. One being the notorious serial rapist, the other being framed works of genius that menace and consume Anna's very being. At one point Anna, entranced by the calming cerulean waters hung before her at the Uffizi Art Gallery, falls into the painting and to the ocean floor, where her encounter with a passing fish becomes oddly friendly and oddly lustful. Argento's film likewise plunges immediately into Anna's progressively deranged mental state. She's made a victim before we realize her true strength, and we're asked to repeatedly question such a label as Anna moves further and further off the deep end.


Upon surfacing from the painting, Anna now has a good idea of her condition but no idea of who she is. She suffers from The Stendhal Syndrome -- a rare condition that has Anna overpowered and bewildered in the face of great art. How unfortunate that Anna's police sting to catch a serial rapist had to happen at, of all places, the famous Uffizi Gallery. And how unfortunate that the serial rapist, Alfredo, already had his disarmingly sweet eyes upon her. She's taken into the helpful hands of her rapist, who politely collects her purse and helps her into a cab, only to use that information to track her address. As the blood starts to flow and the sexual violence commences, Anna's world bleeds into itself. Her bedroom artwork becomes a doorway to a crime scene; her scarring rape melds with the sadistic murder of another young woman. The film inhabits Anna's mind completely: disoriented, fractured, violent, and slowly devolving.


Many would describe the entire film in those terms. With the reputation of being one of Dario Argento's weakest efforts (people who clearly haven't seen Do You Like Hitchcock? or Giallo), The Stendhal Syndrome falls into an important crux in Argento's career. It came at the point in which his films moved away from being atmospheric and stylized art films to something more commercial, but no less steeped in camp. While later efforts like Sleepless or The Mother of Tears share brief glimmers of flourish, Stendhal was one of the last to take fully to his hyper-stylized roots, with some unexpected substance to match. There's not the same pleasure to be found in the gore, and the horror is more based in disgust than anything spine-tingling, but it's far from the director-for-hire fare he's been criticized for in recent years. Mirrors, insects, bleeding lips and rushing waters are familiar Argento touches, but their repetition here seems artistically driven as much as it is self-homage. While the story does take odd routes -- ones that fail to sustain the heights of the disarming, dreamlike opening -- they make for an especially unique and sympathetic take on the rape/revenge formula. It's exploitative only toward the inherent ugliness of its violence. The film wants nothing more than to watch Anna deteriorate in the wake of the hideous brutality present in her real world -- a far cry from the works of art she gets so readily lost in.


Refusing to be a victim again, Anna hacks off her hair and trades in her dresses for thick flannel shirts and kickboxing lessons as she attempts to grow an aggressive masculine side. The problem is that violence begets violence and as long as Alfredo exists in this world, Anna is still at risk. Once forced to commit her own acts of violence -- violence against herself and pure vengeance -- Anna is once again consumed and her identity slowly dissolves. Like a truly great inspector, Anna knows that to track a killer she must get into the mindset of a killer. Like a truly terrible inspector, she's becoming criminally insane. For the film's final third there's another wayward turn as Anna's new empowerment has her feeling free and frisky once again, dressed from head to toe in white and looking for love. But we should trust this transition about as much as her shoddy blonde wig. If Repulsion taught us anything it's that blonde women with sexual hangups are not to be trusted, and never, NEVER to be left alone with a razor blade.


It's an interesting turn - unexpected for the film, and unexpected for Dario Argento. For as cold and distant as the film feels at times, it's one of Argento's most understanding character pieces - even if by the end we know very little about Anna herself. Argento's not known for his feeling portraits of women, and whether or not this is any more favorable to them is debatable, given the content. But Argento does fight for an understanding of what comes in the wake of such heinous crimes. The resolve for Anna to become somebody else, let alone herself again after such horrors, is the scope of the film; be it through her artwork, through self-mutilation, or through her own acts of violence. If it weren't for the fact that Asia Argento gives a multi-faceted performance, from lost and frail to driven by fire, we'd have to question Dario casting his daughter in a film that has her repeatedly sexually violated for the sake of his own art. If Asia's traumatic rape scenes read as authentic, it may have helped that her father was the one shouting action off camera.


Dario Argento's also successful at detailing the balance between what is art and what is… not. Stendhal ranges between startling, moody moments and distancing, awkward exchanges. Some genuinely beautiful set-pieces and genuinely gross CGI. The intent of watching pills dissolve within an esophagus, or a bullet demolishing a woman's face, are as inspired as they are grotesquely rendered in giant saturated pixels. Likewise visually appealing paintings, sculptures, architecture and locales are crossed with severed eye sockets and blood-soaked remains. Art is subjective, but if you were to go by popular opinion The Stendhal Syndrome would never be considered high art. But like the effects of the titular disorder, it's completely artful and immersive, even while it's nauseating. Artworks, like good looking people, require a second glance.

Cult Oddities: Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) may have been one of the laziest slasher films ever written -- potentially done so with a power drill during the act of slumber. What leaves a lasting impression is that the sleazy affair was written by a woman (Rita Mae Brown) and directed by one as well (Amy Jones), yet is admirably just as sexist and degrading. Amidst the perpetual changing of tops, showering and mutilation, there hardly seems a clever perspective behind the otherwise obvious sexual metaphors involved in a male killer using a drill on scantily clad schoolgirls. It's most surprising then that its sequel is relatively inspired. No less inane mind you, just more joyously so. It's also been written and directed by a woman, Deborah Brock, with the intention of making something akin to Rock N' Roll High School meets A Nightmare on Elm Street. With Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) it's all about pillow fights and power chords, and the first one to fall asleep gets their bra frozen!

We enter the film during Courtney Bates' scintillating sex dreams of her shirtless crush Matt catching a football - all sunlight, smiles and sweat. Her sportsmanlike lust is startlingly interrupted with images of red hallways, a sanitarium and dead birds, and is made all the more disturbing with flash-cut reminders of the first Slumber Party Massacre. Courtney (played by Crystal Bernard - best known as Helen Chapel from the TV sitcom Wings) survived the power drill slaughter at the tender age of twelve years old, by the strength and savagery of her sister, Valerie, who viciously put an end to the killer's life via machete. When we first met Courtney in the original film, she was stealing Playgirl magazines from Valerie's mattress and perusing them over bananas and lollipops.

Much has changed. Where once she kept flaccid penises, she now keeps news clippings about the crime spree that still haunts her dreams. Now tucked beneath her mattress are scrapbooks composed entirely of news clippings oddly enough all from the same newspaper, all on the same news page, all from the same slow news day.

Courtney's now quite the prude, and she now has a vaguely Southern accent. She's also in a rock band with her girlfriends when she's not suffering constant, psychotic dreams about a death rocker who wants to love her and dismember said girlfriends. Her sister Valerie is now in the mental ward, while Courtney grows more skeptical of her own visions crossed with 80's music videos. The dreams grow progressively more vivid and sexual as the Dream Rocker (known officially as The Driller Killer) wails on a guitar/power drill-combo, groping Courtney and screaming things like, "Rock never dies!"

"I'm you and you're me, until we make it all the way.

Hey, baby... Love the one you're with!"

Courtney decides to relieve stress and head off to the condo owned by the parents of her bandmate Sheila, to celebrate her birthday weekend away from her depressive mother and institutionalized sister. It begins quaintly enough as the girls anticipate the arrival of their boyfriends and discuss plans for college. Things quickly turn understandably tawdry over champagne and corn dogs, ending in a rousing (some would say inevitable) topless pillow fight.

Perhaps the champagne's to blame, but soon Courtney's visions begin to blur with her reality. As her friends become distracted by their braindead boyfriends, Courtney's distracted by the ever-more real presence of the Dream Rocker and the potential murder of her friends. She'd probably be less bothered by the bloodshed if she were aware of the next song being written for their band by the drummer, the sweet and slow-witted Sally:

"I want a silver Caddie with a landau top.

I want a sugar daddy with a candy shop.

I want a lotta things that money can't buy,

But what I want most is a pie in the sky.

What I want most is a pie in the sky!"

The dreams themselves are cryptic enough to keep Courtney (and the viewer) a tad critical. She has visions of a bathtub overflowing with blood, hands in her hamburger (a handburger, if you will), and fears being viciously attacked by poultry!

Courtney tries desperately to convince her friends that Dream Rocker is nearby and that her visions are the truth. She has a difficult task ahead of her when Sally's persistent complaints over a nonexistent pimple has Courtney envisioning Sally with a massive oozing and exploding pustule that demolishes the side of her face.

Courtney thinks Sally is dead and somehow randomly stuffed in the trash compactor downstairs, but rather than check, the gang decides to call the cops and let Courtney babble her mad tale of death by acne. (Homage alert! The bastard officers are names Kreuger and Voorhies -- misspelled to feign authenticity? Courtney Bates (!) also mentions her survival from Trisha Craven's (!) house.) The cops aren't convinced, especially when Sally reappears at the front door, having merely gone out to the store to stock up on Oxy 10.

Matt, Courtney's crush from the film's early football fantasies, arrives to console her with birthday cake. He quickly detours Courtney's ramblings over blood and zits into the perfect foreplay. Matt and Courtney's passions ignite while the gang rocks out downstairs, oblivious to the fact that Courtney's virginity was the real threat all along. Guitar wails unsettle Courtney's mind as she confesses to him, "Matt, I've never--" But Dream Rocker and Courtney are so close now that he can complete her sentences, "--Gone all the way!" He laughs maniacally as he power drills through Matt's chest during a solo, and finally manifests himself outside of Courtney's dreams!

Dream Rocker is to leather and fringe what Freddy is to the red and green sweater. He replaces those snappy puns with inappropriately quippy song lyrics as he decimates Courtney's friends via drill: "This is dedicated to the one I love!" - "I can't get no satisfaction!" While he perhaps uneventfully pulverizes the entire group's chest cavities with the end of his guitar, Dream Rocker's true skill is performance.

He dance kicks, pops his collar and wags his tongue suggestively at Courtney as she leads friends astray through the suspiciously abandoned neighborhood. Of course her pals barely have time to blame Courtney for the crime spree as Dream Rocker offs them all in such an efficient, timely manner. Courtney, the sole psychotic survivor, torches him with a flamethrower as he rocks out ironically, "Come on, baby, light my fire!"

More bizarre than equating Courtney's untapped sexuality with a slaughterhouse is equating it with an 80's rock guitarist. The morbid events that transpire are largely funneled through Courtney's sex-starved psyche, but to what end? Her lethal lust can barely be contained like power ballads bursting from her loins.

Slumber Party Massacre II rocks! Even as it rolls dramatically downhill... Courtney, like her psycho sis Valerie, is now a head case ripe for the mental ward. But she'll certainly have a more exciting sexless existence in the sanitarium if there's a smoke machine involved.

Cult Oddities: The House of the Devil (2009)

Advertising should always be this effective.

I'm not sure the last time I've loved an ad-campaign this much -- outside of anything presented to me by Jon Hamm, of course. Forget the trailer which spoils far too much of its minimalist, already inevitable story, the marketing team behind Ti West's The House of the Devil has given a wealth of other superb material to its target audience. Beautifully eerie artwork, public fliers for a faux babysitter gig, even a penultimate release on clamshell VHS -- to the swoon of aging horror fans everywhere. Vast viral marketing aimed directly at our niche nostalgia.

Now Available on Videocassette.

It's even more of a marvel then that the film largely lives up to it. It's clever, atmospheric, and true to its demonic roots. Steeped in the acid-washed, feathered age of 1983, The House of the Devil conjures something delightfully ominous, something as seemingly ancient as payphones and high-waisted jeans. Of that same era when babysitting was no longer the safe, easy way to make money, and public paranoia toward satanic cults was at its peak... apparently. The late 70's/early 80's were a time when communication was still sparse, apartments cost $300, and horror films knew how to jangle our nerves with slowly built character and suspense. Turns out those days are still here, or at least they can be stylishly recreated by director Ti West.

It's 1983. Rosemary's fork-tongued Baby is now a teenager. Haddonfield's own Laurie Strode wisely retired from babysitting. Jill Johnson now knows better than to answer When a Stranger Calls. Poor Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue) still needs to pay her rent...

The basic setup is all you need. You know where this is headed with that ominous bit of advertising on the campus postings board -- "Baby$itter Needed" - next to fliers about a rare solar eclipse. The presence of Dee Wallace as Samantha's landlady doesn't bode well either, considering her history of fending off werewolves, rabid dogs and hill people.

The factoid about satanic cults that opened the movie was probably a hint as well. Then there's that title... But getting to the house and peeking into its many suspicious quarters, behind its rumbling pipes, getting to meet the man behind the Baby$itter ads and his quirky family (headed by a superb Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov) -- that's where the fun is. Fun being fear and dread, of course.

West is clearly a devout horror buff, but graciously one not invested in homage. His references come more in spirit than in winks. It aims to be an 80's horror film, without the modern reference points. Even when the film has Samantha catching a glimpse of Night of the Living Dead on TV, it's more about the mood of the moment (and the fact that it's a public domain title) than any sort of ode to Romero. But The House of the Devil similarly deserves to be stumbled upon on whilst bored, surfing channels and stuffing your face with bad pizza -- possibly even whilst babysitting what may or may not be an old woman, who may or may not be in the attic.

Better yet The House of the Devil should be discovered on a dusty VHS that no one's been kind enough to rewind, its cover worn and tattered from years of curious rentals. With that inimitable texture of VHS grain to make you cower closer to the screen in its most shadowy moments, only to be jolted back by the hissing screams on the soundtrack. West's film tempts you to turn on the hallway light, double-check the locks, and anticipate a phone call as if it's coming from inside the house -- which, come to think of it, seems itself almost a charming nostalgia.

Suspense remains because the evil at the center is always secondary to the dread surrounding it. Even when the film amps up to a big, bloody payoff, it's the build-up TO the horror that really pays off. Surely the stellar score by Jeff Grace deserves major credit for this as well. Outside of two or three well-timed shock moments (a cemetery surprise is killer), it's the type of horror film intent on getting under the skin rather than ripping it clean off.

Samantha's sympathetic, characteristically aware of any poor decisions, and smart enough to grab the gun when the devilish events transpire. She's also the type of girl that says, "Get a grip," to keep herself grounded. Though she's given some extra personality when dancing about the dank house 80's-montage style set to The Fixx's "One Thing Leads to Another." As one thing inevitably leads to something awful, The House of the Devil lets us know Samantha in all of her everyday boredom as the action builds around her. Jocelin Donahue finds the right desperation and disgust to ground even the film's touchy supernatural streak, with plenty of charm to boot. Satan would do well to have her in his life.

Megan, played by Greta Gerwig, is the goofy but lovable best friend who's wise when she needs to be, yet obnoxious enough to believably be an 80's-movie best friend. She backs her slim role with a great sense of humor. Not enough to seem too snappy or clever, just enough to believe she might be taking bong rips in the back of her Volvo.

"Check it. Volvo. Safest car on the road."

Great marketing. And a great movie. Sometimes they do go hand in hand.

Cult Oddities: The Sweet House of Horrors (1989)

Two orphans stricken by the grief of their parents' vicious double murder try to conceptualize the afterlife and learn to live by their own devices. A poignant tale of innocence shattered and new maturity formed in the wake of devastating circumstance... is devolved and putrefied into this Italian TV splatter movie from gorehound Lucio Fulci! Hence these kids are grating beyond belief, dubbed poorly by middle-aged women, and their parents return from the dead in the form of toy insects and shiny, illuminating rocks. It's all in the execution, and this one has several.


The Sweet House of Horrors comes late in Fulci's madcap career. From his stylish and frantic giallo classics like Lizard in a Woman's Skin, The Psychic and Don't Torture a Duckling, to his deranged deathdream The Beyond, Fulci is rightfully regarded amongst the Italian horror legends alongside Dario Argento and Mario Bava. But for every bloody and surreal bit of cinema splendor he created, he's also capable of slapping together some of horror's more embarrassing moments: girls threatened by snails and a Top Gun poster in Aenigma, slaughter-meets-Flashdance in Murder Rock, a nipple-collecting Donald Duck in The New York Ripper, countless threatening eye zooms, and gore effects that wouldn't look out of place on a Kindergarten arts and crafts table. Not that this lessens Fulci's fanbase by any means. Much like Argento's films of late, Fulci has mastered the form of drivel as art. His films can be sloppy and senseless, but their occasional ineptitude serves far more laughs than most genre-based comedies. Infinitely watchable for the very same reasons they're infinitely unwatchable. There's a childlike innocence to his excessive gore-mongering, and perhaps its what led him to the childlike perspectives behind his hailed/maligned House by the Cemetery, and this complimentary film about kids, haunted houses and slapdash dumbfuckery.


American TV movies find their horror in the likes of Tori Spelling or Tracey Gold, while the Italians prefer detached eyeballs or melted limbs. As Sweet House of Horror's savage intro suggests, they're far less timid when it comes to TV violence. We instantly witness a home invasion turned double homicide in the most explicit way imaginable, and we witness it twice -- the second time for those who couldn't wait for the commercial break, or those who just wanted a little more time to comprehend how a forehead looks when it's being caved in. Mary and Roberto, aka. Mama and Papa, are bludgeoned with kitchen instruments, poked with fire irons, have their skulls smashed and eye sockets burst -- all before they're sent barreling down a cliff in the family car. The killer is soon revealed to be the family gardener, Guido, who hopefully trims his roses with a more delicate touch. His vicious ways would lead one to believe that the two now orphaned children, Sarah and Mark, are being placed into the clutches of a very sick and dangerous man. Lucky for them the serial murderer flees in terror once they chase him, shouting, "Scaredy cat, scaredy cat!"

The kids themselves are pretty cavalier about their parents' demise and the likely grim future that awaits them. While popping bubble gum and attending a funeral, Sarah and Mark discuss their misery with a lighter touch, "I bet it's just about over, he was just looking at his watch." "Father O'Toole has flat feet." "I'm famished..."


The kids return to their home with their new caretakers, oblivious to the fact that they're living on the very scene of the heinous crime. Hungry and lonely, the children are quick with their judgments, "Uncle Carlo and Aunt Marcia aren't bad people, they're simply idiots." Problem is, they're too young to get irony, "I wish (Mama and Papa) would come back, too. Only they're on the moon now." Kids...

But "Mama and Papa" do eventually come back (either from the moon, the beyond, or a land of shoddy visual gimmicks), and their methods for haunting are admirably abstract. First they appear as tiny flickering flames, floating over the children's beds in tiny fits of gleeful laughter.

They've made contact... Just not eye contact.

Next up, an inexplicable haunting of rocks in the backyard... that glow... with menace! These parents are still new to this whole "apparition" thing.

Just when you thought you were safe...
Ghost Rocks!

Guido the Gardener is nevertheless terrified of Ghost Rocks. That and he still can't live with the crimes he's committed. While touching up paint on the home/crime scene, he relives his brutal acts blow-for-blow -- as does the film in order to pad the runtime. Whilst losing his mind, Guido flees the home and is inexplicably attacked and killed by what he thinks is a dog -- but is actually a giant four-wheel truck. Now that the parents deaths are (confusingly) avenged, all that's left is to (confusingly) secure their home and make it safe for their family once again. Sarah assures Mark, "You know what Mama said. This is our house and no one can take it away from us."

After all that pseudo-haunting, the dead parents finally get the nerve and skillset to show up in (undead) person. They give the kids hugs and a few supportive words, before teleporting to the other side of the room to continue their conversation. Still working out the kinks, those two. Impressive though that they've learned to control the weather. They send powerful gusts of wind after the handicapped Mr. Colby, and send evil fog after Aunt Marcia and Uncle Carlo to prevent them from leaving the premises.

Levitation and Ghost Fog are easy.
Special effects are hard.

And apparently being a ghost is communicable.

In the meantime the family spans the bridge of the afterlife to partake in picnics and slow motion running.


But not everyone finds their undead outings so wholesome. Disturbed by what they perceive to be Sarah and Mark's psychosis, Aunt Marcia and Uncle Carlo invite in a famed German parapsychology medium. Together they perform a seance to rid the house of its evil supernatural energy -- the kind of horrifying spirits that shout professions of love for their kids, "We came back for the love of our children... Our children need us! Our children need our love! The power of love is greater than yours, greater than anyone's! And love is something you are totally ignorant of."

Rather than deal with spirits that speak so candidly about love, Aunt Marcia and Uncle Carlo decide to demolish the house entirely. Fight as they may, Mama and Papa are weakened by their attempts to stop the encroaching bulldozer brought on by the crazed medium. Becoming ever-so-slightly more transparent as they lose strength, Mama and Papa revert to their most effective trick to save their home and the lives of their beloved children: Ghost Rocks!


Turns out Ghost Rocks are not only menacing in appearance, they also melt flesh.


The Sweet House of Horrors is saved once and for all... at least until something else completely random happens. In the end, the family that plays together stays together, and love (with a little help from Ghost Rocks) conquers all.

Here's to you Lucio Fulci, with your childlike spirit AND approach to screenwriting.