EYES OF LAURA MARS — SHOCKTOBER!

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Director Ivan Kershner (graduate of the Roger Corman school of stay-within-the-budget filmmaking), turns John Carpenter's script into a big budget Hollywood serial-killer thriller with style to spare.

Sure, "Eyes of Laura Mars" is a contrived knock-off of Italy's Giallo film genre, but there are so many cinematic gems on display that you can't help but get sucked in.

Photographer Helmut Newton (the father of modern photography) adds a layer of self-mocking, if overtly kinky, sexual surrealism to the narrative.

Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway), is an edgy NYC fashion photographer making her mark. Recently, Laura has been having killer's-eye premonitions of the serial murders of her models.

Raoul Julia gives the murder mystery a kick as Laura's troubled ex-husband Michael.

But it's Tommy Lee Jones who rules the roost opposite one of Hollywood's most glamorous legends. Before Meryl Streep, there was Faye Dunaway.

Unlike most films of the Giallo genre, "Eyes of Laura" is minimalist in its use of gore. The movie also doesn't dare go so far with Dutch angles, and electropop music.

Still a couple of super-cool Disco hits put the film's early '80s NYC locations in their proper timeline.

"Shake, shake, shake, shake your booty."

"Eyes of Laura Mars" is a classic Hollywood movie, and a great guilty pleasure.

This movie could just be your cinematic happy place.

Rated R. 104 mins.

CEMETERY MAN — SHOCKTOBER!

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Michele Soavi’s "Cemetery Man" is a quirky blend of romance, lust, surrealism, horror, and black comedy that surpasses the work of better-known Italian horror maestros like Dario Argento, thanks to its monstrously humorous bent. It’s also sexy as hell. The effect is intoxicating.

Based on a novel and comic book by Tiziano Sclavi, Soavi's avant-garde Gothic movie relies upon a romantic theme of macabre sexual desire that leads the viewer far beyond his or her expectation. The movie is a long rollicking ride into the unknown.

Central to “Cemetery Man’s” irreverent postmodern tone is Rupert Everett's inspired performance as Francesco Dellamorte ("St. Francis of Death"), a hunky cemetery caretaker in Buffalora, Italy. Dellamorte’s daily duties include killing "returners" (zombies) that perpetually rise from their graves. The charismatic Everett gives a spellbinding performance in playing a reputed "impotent" man who hasn't got "time for the living." Dellamorte’s chisled features only faintly obscure a seething passion that simmers within him.

His constant sidekick Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) helps his compassionate master with his graveyard duties, however disgusting they might be. Gnaghi is a socially inept (read, mentally indigent) character loyal to his emotionally confused boss right to the end. Hadji-Lazaro’s unfettered performance is a thing of comic wonder.

The voluptuous Anna Falchi plays three roles. Think of “Cemetery Man” as inspired by Bunuel’s “Obscure Object of Desire.” Falchi’s unnamed She character is a recent widow who appears to Francesco to be the most beautiful living woman he's ever seen — a fact that Ms. Falchi's frequently nude scenes bear out. Having sex with Dellamorte on the grave her recently deceased husband is on the agenda. A bite from a roaming zombie transforms the majestic specimen of femininity into a magnificent corpse able to seduce Francesco in a most delightfully painful manner.

Falchi returns later in the movie as a platonically obsessed girl whose romantic mixed messages eventually send Francesco on a quest to forever eradicate "love" from his vocabulary. One of the film’s primary philosophical themes is, beware of women who send mixed messages. This is juicy stuff that Michele Soavi delivers with exquisite attention to this lovely picture’s design, lighting, and composition. Genius.

Marked by a clever series of escalating reversals that include a goodly amount of outrageous murder, "Cemetery Man" is a dark and thought-provoking allegory about friendship and romantic deception. The outside world beyond the cemetery is nothing. “Cemetery Man” shows you the abyss and brings you back from the edge. There aren’t too many movies from any genre capable of doing that.

Rated R. 105 mins.

 

SUSPIRIA — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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Dario Argento's sixth film is a textbook example of the horror sub-genre known as "Giallo."  The term is derived from the trademark "yellow" background color used for a series of pulp paperback books printed in Italy beginning in 1929.

Giallo is characterized by themes of macabre horror and fetishized murder mixed with erotic overtones. Fantasy is a key element. Argento's heavily stylized visual palette includes a heavy use of garish colors and intentionally artificial lighting designed to affect the central nervous system of the audience. There is no pretense at naturalism.

Filmed almost entirely on a soundstage, "Suspiria" has an artistically calculated atmosphere. Giuseppe Bassan's art deco production design is embellished with Erté inspired floral finishes that figure prominently in the background of nearly every shot.

Argento uses a color wheel of gaudy reds to send visual cues for grotesque death sequences which arrive as carefully orchestrated punches of dynamic narrative. An electronic musical score pulses with satisfying discordance.

Jessica Harper's conspicuously amateur performance as Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student studying dance at an elite German dance academy, adds to the film's bizarre ambiance. Suzy arrives at the private school on a rainy night only to be turned away at the mansion door. We see another student escape from the building into the area's desolate forest. She will become the film's first victim of an outrageously violent death by an unseen hand.

The next morning, Suzy is welcomed into the school by headmistresses Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett) and Miss Tanner (Alida Valli). Rumors of witchcraft swirl about. There's little doubt that Bennett's and Valli's characters are practitioners of the dark arts. The staff put Suzy on a "medicated" diet that prevents her from leaving the school's dormitory. The school's pianist is a blind man (played by Flavio Bucci) accompanied by a guide dog.

Such details are embellished for all of their Grand Guignol potential during extended scenes of gory mayhem. Flashes of grotesquery, like a throat being slashed or an exposed heart being stabbed, are the name of Argento's visual game.

"Suspiria" (1977) is a weird cinematic journey inside a corporeal vision of architectural abstraction. Although not quite campy, considerable humor accompanies the bloody shocks. In the end, Giallo is an acquired taste.

Rated R. 92 mins.