RESERVOIR DOGS — SHOCKTOBER!

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In 1992 Quentin Tarantino did something that hadn't been done since 1986 with David Lynch's "Blue Velvet;" he reinvented cinema.

A deft application of an originally voiced time-flipping narrative, Tarantino's "action" script is a filmic illusion worthy of Hitchcock or Welles. 

The main conceit of Tarantino's deconstructed bank heist story is that the film's "action" occurs after the heist. Well-constructed flashback sequences and flashy monologues impose an emotional undercurrent of back-story on every dramatically inflected scene.

Each of Tarantino's six black-suited robbers is known to the others only by his color coded pseudonym. Eddie Bunker plays Mr. Blue, the director himself plays the chatty Mr. Brown, Harvey Keitel is Mr. White, and Steve Buscemi is Mr. Pink.

Suffering from a belly gunshot wound sustained during the heist, Mr. Orange (in Tim Roth's gutsy portrayal) is an undercover cop sincerely befriended by Keitel's character.

Left bleeding in the gang's warehouse, Roth's Mr. Orange witnesses the psychotic Mr. Blonde (manically played by Michael Madsen) torturing a young cop named Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz) to the funky lyrical strains of "Stuck in the Middle With You (Stealers Wheel).

Tarantino's brutal counter-point doesn't just sucker punch his unsuspecting audience in the solar plexus; the effect goes for the heart and groin as well.

"Reservoir Dogs" is a flawlessly conceived picture whose theatrical design pivots on Tarantino's touches of Grand Guignol shocks. "Reservoir Dogs" created a sub-genre of crime suspense copycats, of which Troy Duffy's "The Boondock Saints" (1999) is one of the most embarrassing examples.

Over his career, Quentin Tarantino's films have proven everything that "Reservoir Dogs" seemed to promise and still achieves.

Freshness and raw passion.

This minimalist masterpiece is the real McCoy.

"Reservoir Dogs" was an instant classic the moment it premiered in Cannes in 1992. 

I should know, I was there.

And I met QT, the day after the premiere in the halls of the Palais du Festival, and told him how much his movie kicked my ass. The oh-so-young and talented Tarantino said, "That's just what I want to hear."

Fucking cool.

Rated R. 99 mins.

BASKETCASE — SHOCKTOBER!

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LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)In episode #25 Mike and I take an old school trip to bad old Manhattan of the '80s with BASKET CASE. We're drinking NO HERO from EVIL TWIN.

Bon appétit Bouffers!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD — SHOCKTOBER!

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In the context of a social revolution boiling around the ongoing war in Viet Nam, George A. Romero made a bold independent horror film that shocked audiences to their core in 1968.

Romero took all of the US Government’s vile attacks on humanity and flipped it on itself in an original way that set off a chain reaction that is still echoed today.

Filmed on a budget of $114,000, Romero used black-and-white film stock to create an agitprop‪ masterpiece of revolutionary filmmaking. "Night of the Living Dead" introduced zombies as a literal metaphor for blood-hungry soldiers and washed-up citizens of every stripe. Romero's "zombie" trope would soon become a narrative touchstone of universal appeal.

Although the allegory was lost on audiences unable to get past the film’s outré grotesqueness, itself a commentary on the war in Viet Nam, the socially relevant subtext is unmistakable.

Complacent white siblings Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O'Dea) visit their father's grave in a rural Pennsylvania bone yard that they have visited since they were kids. Johnny can’t resist scaring his adult sister when she shows signs of being scared.  However, shit gets real very fast when a zombie appears out of nowhere and attacks them, getting the getter of Johnny against a tombstone. 

A textbook chase-scene follows that bristles with suspense and horror. Romero instinctively uses Dutch angles to great effect. He expands time to create maximum tension. No key in the car’s ignition means Barbara has to put the car in neutral and coast her escape. Sound effects and spooky music make the sequence all the more terrifying.

Barbara runs to a farmhouse where she teams up with the Ben (Duane Jones), a soul brother on a survival mission. Others seek shelter there too, but Ben is the articulate and clear-thinking protagonist that keeps survival possible. A key scene shows Ben’s superior logic regarding remaining upstairs in the boarded up house where they can fight the off zombies rather than locking themselves in the home’s dead end cellar. Seldom before had a black character exerted such power and intelligence in American cinema.  

Romero handles the violence with a Gothic sense of dread that reflects life in a war zone. Nothing is predictable. Chaos reigns. 

Before it's over, family members will have to kill one of their own that's been bitten by a mindless zombie. Romero was inspired by Richard Matheson's 1954 sci-fi novel "I Am Legend," but expanded significantly on Matheson's doomsday narrative to combine social commentary with satire in concrete terms of ideological conflict directly related to America’s war plight.

George Romero went onto to expand on his original concept for “Night of the Living Dead” with a biting attack on consumerist culture ("Dawn of the Dead" - 1978) that once again turned the horror genre on its head. Romero saw the enemy, and they are the zombie masses among us. There is nowhere safe to hide, from ourselves.

Rated X. 96 mins.