For the week of July 1st, Grindhouse Releasing is bringing Cannibal Holocaust to Blu-ray. Director Ruggero Deodato's horror classic has more than earned its notoriety in the genre for its graphic depictions of violence. The grisly specifics that befall a group of documentary filmmakers investigating a native tribe in the Amazon rainforest are the stuff of nightmares (and chances are, if you're a horror fan, you're familiar with the picture's most shocking image, which was a staple in magazines like Fangoria), and Deodato even had to legally prove that his actors were just that because many people thought he had killed them for the sake of his movie. While that wasn't the case though, as Cannibal Holocaust aficionados know, it's ironic that certain people thought Deodato was capable of such mercenary behavior, given the twists that occur in the film's last act Deodato did stage and film actual animal deaths to lend his work a lurid verisimilitude, and the undeniable horror of these moments (both on and off-screen: apparently many of the cast and crew members were appalled by Deodato's insistence on killing animals for entertainment's sake) led to Cannibal Holocaust being banned or heavily cut all around the world. Seeing Grindhouse's presentation of the director's cut, then, makes for an uncomfortable experience on a number of levels. The content of the picture itself is hugely influential filmmakers like Jonathan Hensleigh (Welcome to the Jungle) and Eli Roth (The Green Inferno) have paid direct homage to Cannibal Holocaust in their own movies, and the vιritι aesthetic of the documentarians' footage helped set the template for the current "found-footage" movement. It's hard to look at Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project and not see some remnants of Cannibal Holocaust, and for that reason alone, the film has merit. That said, the violence especially the animal-related beats is genuinely horrifying, and I'm not sure the subject matter warrants such a hardcore approach. Deodato might be commenting on the destructive line between art and reality, but other films have been able to make the same points without resorting to the savagery on display here the picture's disreputable, grindhouse nature gives the violence an exploitative, rather than instructive, kick, and that sense that Deodato is enjoying the carnage deflates any social ambitions he might have.
For a far more digestible (pun intended) horror option, there's Sony's Afflicted, although Afflicted is one of those movies that owes some portion of its existence, however directly, to Cannibal Holocaust. This found-footage title begins as a travel documentary, which follows best friends Clif and Derek (real-life friends and filmmakers Clif Prowse and Derek Lee) as they self-document their trip around the world. Derek has just been diagnosed with a fatal brain disorder, and Clif wants to give him a proper last hurrah, but things go horribly awry after a mysterious Parisian woman attacks Derek, and the simple travel film becomes a record of both the physical changes that Derek begins to experience as well as his and Clif's desperate attempts to find a cure. To say too much more would be spoiling the fun part of what gives the proceedings their unique kick is the gradual realization of exactly what kind of horror movie Afflicted is though what's nice about Afflicted is its relatively lightness. Horrible things happen (the movie certainly earns its R-rating for "Disturbing Bloody Violence"), but Prowse and Lee bring a sense of exploration to the violence, both onscreen and off. Derek and Clif are equal parts terrified and amused by Derek's sudden changes, and their early filming "tests" play like a horror-spiked buddy comedy (think of what happened in the first half of Chronicle, and you're on the right track). Furthermore, until the finale, these scenes have a spatial clarity that often eludes found-footage movies; we get unbelievably long takes showing impossible actions, and while you can sometimes spot the seams (a CGI-assisted jump, for example), most of the time, the illusion is near flawless, particularly when Derek mounts the camera to his body for a POV-type effect. Afflicted isn't perfect. At a certain point, the found-footage conceit starts becomes a liability. A fight at the very end suffers from some visual incoherence issues, and as things get increasingly out of hand, you wonder how the camera can sustain so much damage - I wish that Afflicted went the End of Watch route and simply abandoned the gimmick when it stopped working. Plus, the ending rankles a little because it dangles a really cool plot development as bait for a sequel. But it's a tribute to Afflicted's overall skill and craft that you're willing to excuse these issues. This is a quirky, genuinely scary piece of work, and those two qualities are hard to come by in the horror genre.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman wrote that "though the film benefits from that tight, well-paced, smartly realized story, it wouldn't work nearly as well without its exceptionally well constructed lead characters and equally strong performances from the men who portray them. Derek Lee (not the ex-baseball player) and Clif Prowse are really quite good in every aspect their roles require. Whether those aforementioned introductory scenes that establish a couple of very likable people with real substance and a tangible bond or the darkest, lowest point of their lives, the actors shine. Certainly, the film's characters suffer from a few convenient 'duh' moments in an effort to allow the plot to continue on - Clif's almost blind friendship and loyalty ultimately seems to get in the way of him doing the right thing and going to get his friend real help rather than let the condition progress too far - but a few minor gripes aside, the film proves very powerfully and convincingly done, and even the 'found footage' angle at least makes contextual sense in today's 'easy' YouTube fame world. Still, parts of the movie may have worked better were it a straightforward, 'real' movie, but at least in this way it sets itself apart from something similar like An American Werewolf in London and it does reinvigorate the genre and restore one's hope for it."
Switching gears, we move to the documentary The Unknown Known. The latest film from Errol Morris, who directed A Brief History of Time and the Academy Award-winning The Fog of War, The Unknown Known is a feature-length conversation with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that emphasizes his involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Anyone expecting something as revelatory as The Fog of War needs might walk away from this new film unsatisfied; if Morris' meeting with JFK and Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara yielded unexpected results, as McNamara evinced far more self-criticism over his decisions than his detractors probably expected, the filmmaker's chat with Rumsfeld is far more banal. Rumsfeld doesn't express much regret or doubt: this is less a confessional than an amiable recount of his career in politics, and one that elides any controversial or shocking details that aren't in the public record. Try as he might, Morris can't get Rumsfeld to dig deeper, yet he turns that surface gloss into the core of the documentary. The Donald Rumsfeld that Morris presents is unnerving because he's so composed in such a politically fraught situation, because he doesn't feel the need to reveal himself. Everything he's done is just a job, and by the end of the film, Morris has painted him as the eponymous Rumsfeld quote from which the film takes its title, the public figure that remains forever distant and elusive. It's an interesting editorial decision, to be sure, but unfortunately, it doesn't make for a terribly exciting film. Once you grasp that the game is watching Rumsfeld expertly remove himself from any potentially threatening topics, you've figured out all The Unknown Known has to offer, since most of the content is stuff that's readily accessible through prior news and interview materials. One gets the sense that Morris wasn't able to get a "good" interview from the former Secretary of Defense, and this was his way of trying to hide that fact, to make the lack of fresh content the point. Whatever your political views are, The Unknown Known will probably leave you cold. Liberals will wish Rumsfeld accepted more of the blame for the Iraq War (he doesn't), and conservatives will wish Morris could have generated more interesting documentary content about Rumsfeld once he realized his baiting questions weren't working (he doesn't).
Martin Liebman's Blu-ray review commented that "where the film succeeds both in the Iraq talk as well as in the contextual framing that makes up much of the film's first-half-plus is in Errol Morris' relegation to but occasional participant. Only rarely will the audience actually hear him talk. Instead, the film features Rumsfeld telling his story without much interference. When Morris does speak, there's a surprising feeling of engaging respect and camaraderie and even, at times, levity, between the men. Rumsfeld carries himself very well throughout the film, whether in its easiest moments or its most difficult. He proves to be an engaging personality that's capable of carrying a 100-minute narrative. He's quick on his feet, well-versed, speaks directly and intelligently, and plays to the camera. He's unafraid and confident, emotional at times but quick to remember details. He's certain of who he is, what he's done, and from where he has come. The only moment of uncertainty comes when he fails to find good reason for actually sitting down with Morris, but the end result is an engaging, though perhaps not exactly provocative, oral history of one of the most contentious men of the post-9/11 political world."
Finally, Universal is bringing a number of catalog titles to Blu-ray this week. Included among them are Kindergarten Cop, Cry-Baby, and Bring It On. Kindergarten Cop is probably the weakest of the three. Though the film was a massive hit in 1990, its big joke its only joke, one might argue is that watching legendary action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger try to handle kindergarteners is never not funny. To be fair, director Ivan Reitman does get a good deal of mileage from the premise; Schwarzenegger and his onscreen partner Pamela Reed have great comic chemistry, and some of his interactions with the kids have already made it into the pop culture lexicon ("It's not a tumor," anyone?). But on the whole, Kindergarten Cop isn't as inspired as Reitman and Schwarzenegger's earlier comedy smash Twins, and it's also way more violent than people probably remember. Richard Tyson's psycho-killer is legitimately creepy, and his end showdown with Schwarzenegger feels cribbed from something like Eraser or Collateral Damage. Cry-Baby is a lot gentler, though in its low-key way, it packs a nice satiric bite. It's another musical from John Waters, and as he did with his Hairspray, Waters sends up the conventions of youth culture. Here, it's 1950s greasers, which Waters calls "Drapes" and personifies in the form of the title character (a very funny Johnny Depp) and his misfit friends (including Susan Tyrrell, Traci Lords, Ricki Lake, and Iggy Pop), all of whom wage class warfare against the genially brutal "Squares." There's a love triangle (Cry-Baby falls for Amy Locane's Square, much to the consternation of her hateful boyfriend) and some juvenile delinquent material that plays as a direct sendup of Rebel Without a Cause, but mostly, Cry-Baby deserves merit for its soundtrack, which is goofy and snappy and never boring. Best of all the Universal titles this week is Bring It On. This teen comedy takes a generic premise a cheer war between competing high-school cheerleaders and turns it into something transcendently silly and sweet. Along with her Interview with the Vampire and Melancholia performances, Kirsten Dunst does some of her finest work as a driven but fundamentally decent cheerleader, and she's surrounded by great turns from Jesse Bradford, Eliza Dushku, Gabrielle Union, and Ian Roberts. Bring It On is the reason people were (semi) placated by Marvel's decision to replace Edgar Wright with Peyton Reed on Ant-Man: Reed pulls off an uncanny mix of sports drama, exploitation comedy, and social satire here.