Who Killed Retro Posters?

Who Killed Mary what's 'er name?

Mary what's 'er name:
a woman as oft-forgotten as her murder investigation.

Who Killed Baby Azaria?

"Who is the murderer? A wild dog or the baby's mother?"

Or TV's own Hank Azaria?

The Lift

"Take the stairs, take the stairs,
for god's sake, take the stairs!!"

An elevator so evil it forces you to be physically active.

Teen Lust

The woman with the triple-X ray eyes!

Sex Through a Window

Where restraints get as kinky as restraining orders.

Last Embrace

...But their first time embracing
on the edge of a hundred foot drop.

Thirst

Friends don't let friends drink their promotional artwork.

Screamers

"They're men turned inside out!
And worse... they're still alive!"

Worse yet... they still feel the societal pressure

to wear pants.

UPDATED: The "How Gay Was THAT?" Guide to 'A Nightmare on Elm Street Part II: Freddy's Revenge'

UPDATED: One of the first posts to find its way onto Club Silencio was this excessive dissection of this notoriously bad sequel. One of my most popular posts I might add. Not because of content or any sort of quality in the writing, just simple softcore nudity and excessive Google searching for "jock shower." Now enjoy the discussion with more pictorial evidence! It's flamboyance made all the more flamboyant, and it comes to you in hopes that when the studio inevitably make a sequel to their upcoming remake that they try their damnedest to out-gay this original sequel. Impossible you say! And yet the possibilities for 3-D are endless.


A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge might just be the gayest sequel to a non-gay horror film ever intended for teenage boys and put out by a fledgling studio. So gay it's fun to watch, so poor a sequel that it's astonishing, and filled with so many mixed messages it has an absolute bevy of "issues."

Its undercurrents about "demonic gay impulses" that threaten to break out of poor, defenseless Jesse White, aren't so much undercurrents as the thrust to the entire plot, so to speak. Is it anti or pro-gay? A case could be made for both sides. As homoerotic as many scenes play, it's also pretty clear we're meant to see Jesse's gay desires as the enemy that needs to be sent back to hell where it belongs. What a weird mutation for an established horror icon. And what a way to ensure no one legitimately respects your film.

Screenwriter David Chaskin had this to say : "Yes, there was certainly some intentional subtext but it was intended to play homophobic rather than homoerotic... Jesse is, in the end, finally able to control the monster inside him (his latent homosexuality) with the love of a good woman. Maybe they should show this film at one of those evangelical deprogramming sessions where they try to “fix” gay people into regular Americans."

Hmm... "Regular?" "Americans?" That doesn't sound too promising... Yet, I'm still confused.

So why not do an exhaustive play by play so we can analyze and dissect this gay content in the only way I know how: observation and mockery. Let's dig in!

The times associated are vague approximations, in case you want to give the film a go for yourself, but they may not match up entirely.


3:00 Jesse, the pasty boy at the back of the bus, gets mocked by the catty girls who have no interest in him. Ouch! Not even in his dreams...

4:00 Cavernous openings appear beside the bus, giving way to giant phallic columns of rock that threaten to topple into hell! Metaphor or lame scare sequence?

6:00 Jesse's little sis asks, "Why can't Jesse wake up like everybody else?" upon Jesse's girlish shrieks from the bedroom.

Jesse awakens and pointedly adjusts himself in his briefs.


7:00 Hints of daddy issues? Maybe it's the drama of moving and all but... Maybe not!

8:00 Jesse gives Lisa a ride to school, just like any nice gay boy to his potential fag hag. Note that Lisa is the redhead. Why are redheads always relegated to the fag hag roles? Let's assume it's because she looks faintly like Kathy Griffin...


9:00 Jocks on the baseball field in short shorts, but it seems Jesse can't (and WON'T) play sports. (Even though his bedroom is decorated solely in sports paraphernalia, like any true closet case.) Many gay men play sports, but Jesse, he's distracted by the short shorts.

Kerry, Lisa's best girlfriend, asks if she's getting any from Jesse. Lisa gets snippy, "He's my ride to school, okay?!" Lisa, we get it. He's just not that into you.


10:00 Ron Grady, a jock clad in red short shorts, joyfully depantses Jesse on the bases, ending in a rousing and playful wrestling match.


Coach Schneider's response? "Okay dirtballs, assume the position."


11:00 Coach Schneider watches from the office as his boys do push-ups. Ron explains, "Guy gets his rocks off like this. Hangs around queer S&M joints downtown. He likes pretty boys like you."

Ron asks Jesse about Lisa, "Are you mounting her nightly or what?" Jesse gets defensive, "Look Grady, you got some problem with me?" Stop hounding him, Ron.

Schneider ends that girl talk quickly, "Okay dirtballs, hit the shower!"

12:00 Locker Room Scene 1! Shirtless boys make conversation while we get plot points.


Can you believe it? I almost forgot this was the sequel to a horror classic.


16:00 Back in class we're discussing the colon.

17:00 A snake appears around Jesse's neck and he gets another girlish shriek in during class. Metaphor or lame scare sequence?


18:00 Lisa gets out of the pool. Notice the lack of drying off, cleavage thrusting and excessive nipple shots usually in abundance in these films.

19:00 Gay Dance Sequence! Jesse pops in a cassette of an ultra gay song and snaps his fingers during the lyrics "All night long." He gyrates his hips and butt bumps his dresser while placing his toy mic in a choice area.


20:00 Uh-oh, nearly outed by Mom and Lisa! They walk in during the lyrics, "You're my kind of man." They pretend it's just Risky Business teen boy fun but know better. He's a Kate Bush superfan after all.


21:00 Lisa comes up to Jesse's bedroom and they... Wait for it... Clean Jesse's room!

Lisa finds a product called "Jock Itch." So maybe that wasn't your standard penile adjustment in the briefs earlier...


22:00 Jesse gets busy cleaning as Lisa finds a diary hidden in the closet (next to a board game called "Probe.") It belongs to Nancy from the first Nightmare film. Lisa reads an entry: "I can see Glen in his window across the way, getting ready for bed. His body is slim and smooth..." Jesse pulls up a seat. It's getting good!

25:00 Freddy Krueger, like your favorite employee at Banana Republic, appears mystically and says, "Go ahead Jesse, try it on for size." Literally he's talking about a glove, or make that a claw. The "demonic" gay side is starting to emerge from Jesse.


26:00 At the sight of Lisa and Jesse close together in the school hall, Kerry gives a winking, "Hi guys..." Lisa gives a somber, dejected, "Hi Kerry." Lisa's getting nothing. Nothing.

Kerry asks about Lisa's pool party, "Are any cute guys going to be there?" Lisa perks up, "All of them!" Jesse mentally RSVP's.

Apparently Jesse and jock Ron are running buddies. Jesse asks Ron if he remembers his dreams. Ron really opens up, "Only the wet ones!"

Of course Coach Schneider is looking on in hopes of some playful grab ass.


27:00 Locker Room Scene 2! Shirtless boys converse again. Ron says Coach Schneider "sure does got a stick up his ass today!" Jesse replies, "Schneider's always got a stick up his ass." Of course Schneider's listening in. Like he'd miss locker time!

Back at Jesse's house they have caged birds. Metaphor or setup for a lame scare sequence?

28:00 Lame scare sequence involving a metaphorical caged bird that gets free and bursts into flames.

29:00 Belligerent Dad blames Jesse for the exploding bird attack. No wonder Jesse's staying in the closet.

31:00 Gay Dream Sequence! Jesse cruises down rainy streets and winds up at a back alley gay bar called "Don's Place." It's packed with leather queens. Jesse enters, drenched, with an open shirt. Seems right at home.


32:00 Jesse orders a beer and chooses to pour it into a glass. He's THAT gay.

(Cameo: It's New Line exec. Bob Shaye as a leather daddy bartender!)

Of course Jesse's spotted by Coach Schneider, who's now clad in a leather getup with a spiked wristband. Coach Kinks has been looking forward to this.


Schneider takes Jesse by the arm and forces him to run laps on the basketball court. After working up a sweat, Schneider tells Jesse to hit the shower.

33:00 Gay Shower Scene! While Jesse's relaxing Coach Schneider's hunting down a jump rope for some old fashioned after-school bondage. He even has boy pics on his office wall, but it does say a lot more than a plaque.

34:00 Schneider is mystically pummeled by balls.

35:00 Gay Bondage Scene! Schneider is supernaturally tied with jump ropes facing the wall in the showers. Jesse looks on through the steam as towels mystically and brutally snap Coach Schneider's bare ass. Lighthearted murder if anything.


36:00 Jesse has now emerged from the steam as the demon Freddy, overcome by his impulses to take part in every gay boy's shower room fantasy. Schneider gets clawed in the back, and in a disturbing image, his nude bloodied body hangs limp against the shower wall.


37:00 Jesse is returned home by the police. An officer tells his parents, "We found him on the highway, wandering around. He was naked." Mom just wants Jesse to go to sleep, Dad suspects drugs. If they only knew!

45:00 Scared by a rat, Jesse and Lisa have their first embrace. Lisa's pretty invested, but Jesse takes her from the side and pats her on the back.


47:00 Jock Ron's persistent at the lunch table. His mouth's full, but a move's a move. He asks Jesse, "Hey, you wanna go out and get a movie or something, hang out? Maybe ease things off your mind, get a pizza or something?" Lisa's NOT invited.

Kerry arrives at the table and flirtatiously addresses Ron. Disinterested, Ron tells an off-putting anecdote about throwing his grandma down the stairs. You don't need to tell Kerry twice, she gets the hint.


48:00 A lover's quarrel... between Jesse and Ron that is. It might all be due to that damn Lisa's constant coddling, but Ron forgives and forgets and still wants to hang out. Cuteness ensues.

49:00 Jesse's at Lisa's pool party hanging solo. He doesn't even want to meet her parents. Girl can't catch a break!

50:00 Time to have... the talk. Jesse wants to leave the party, asking Lisa, "How are you going to help me? What are you going to do for me?"

51:00 Hetero kissing? Lisa says, "We'll stay up all night if we have to..." It's a lead in to a stumbled, awkward kiss. Is it Jesse's first ever? Well, he's trying his best.

52:00 Jesse's working hard! He starts going to town on Lisa's breasts, though they're thankfully veiled by Jesse's workman-like grip and a thick blouse. Lisa's loving it, but Jesse's inner demons are not. Suddenly Jesse's tongue becomes a giant icky gray mass! Jesse can't (and WON'T) go any further.

Lisa's confused and asks, "What's wrong?" Oh Lisa, you'll understand when this happens again sophomore year.

53:00 Jesse rightfully flees the hetero action to Ron's bedroom after getting worked up. Jesse requests, "I need you to let me stay here tonight." Ron's begrudging but he does sleep in a twin.


54:00 Jesse comes out! He confesses to Ron,"There's something inside of me."


55:00 Jesse's loving that open shirt look. He prefaces their night together by saying, "If anything starts to happen or I start to act weird... You've got to stop me."

57:00 Jesse doesn't have the stamina and passes out, while Ron adorably says, "Sweet dreams, pal," before turning in. No action tonight... unless you count the homo-demon Freddy tearing out of Jesse's body to quell those impulses! Maybe Freddy's the one who likes the open shirt look. You know, for ease.


58:00 Jesse's lust unleashes Freddy upon Ron, clawing him in the chest while Ron's parents overhear cries through the doorway. Jesse's gayness is now free in the form of Freddy Krueger!

1:01:00 Jesse confesses his innate desires and lack of control to Lisa, "He's inside me and he wants to take me again." Lisa's so smitten (read: oblivious) that she barely believes him, despite the blood on his hands.

1:03:00 Lisa reads from the diary again, "He is evil himself. I know that I brought him into this world..." She assures Jesse, "You can fight him... You created him, you can destroy him."

She MUST work for one of those ex-gay ministries.

1:06:00 Jesse and his demon Freddy are now interchangeable as he asks Lisa to kill him. Freddy taunts Lisa with professions of love and chooses not to harm Lisa because, well, she never triggers his sexuality. Not when there's a shirtless pool party to be had.


1:08:00 Hetero party guests get slaughtered. Not too many, or enough really, considering this is the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The only ones to really get put down are men.


Freddy/Jesse leaves the party while Lisa, spirited as she is and sure she can change him, follows after.

(What kinds of parents let their daughter leave the house after a mass slaughter?)

1:16:00 Lisa wounds and scars Freddy by saying, "I love you."


1:17:00 Freddy goes up in flames with the help of a tender kiss. Somehow Lisa's wily heterosexual ways have helped stifle those pesky gay desires.

1:18:00 Jesse sheds the demon skin and emerges a new heterosexual man.


1:21:00 Jesse's dreaming again about being on the bus to school. He's still a new man, snuggling close but only briefly kissing his new "love" Lisa. Then the bus speeds up, but Jesse insists it's "going too fast!"

1:22:00 The bus goes off the road and Freddy re-emerges! The gay impulses persist.

So there we have it. Jesse's faced his demons and come out as a happy heterosexual with the help of his most beloved casual interest, Lisa. But it seems he may never really conquer those "demons" of his...

So what's the consensus? Should we be offended, or credit this as a clever way to dissect internal homophobia?

I'm still confused.

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.