Creatures of the Night: Altered States Review

A walk through certain sections of Leeds city centre on Saturday night, I’m sure you’ll agree, is scary enough. The punters, lovely in the week no doubt, turn feral. As a student myself, I usually enjoy aping with the best of them. However, attempting to bust out of being a creature of habit, I turned away from town last Saturday. Instead of partaking in animal antics I went to watch Altered States instead.

Altered States is part of the Hyde Park Picture House’s Creatures of the Night festival, which sees late night movie screenings of cult classics, forgotten masterpieces, oddball documentaries and the best worst films ever made. 

Last weekend’s film was a science fiction horror directed by Ken Russell, which sees Harvard scientist Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) submitting himself to psychological tests and drug use in an attempt to define man’s true role in the universe. As a result of his endeavours he is devolved into a missing link figure, and runs amok, Saturday night Leeds style, through the streets of Boston.  His wife Emily (Blair Brown) stages a physical intervention and by the end of the film Eddie starts to value those things that make him human.

Undeniably, this film has character. The special effects have a hallucinogenic quality as you’d expect from a 80s sci-fi. Guest appearances from inquisitive rhinos and miffed elephants were greeted with laughter in the auditorium, and the film met with applause when the lights came on.  

The film is made more charming by the lack of care Russell takes with those things that just don’t matter. Bizarre plot twists are met as matter of fact, making the film wonderfully facetious.  Dialogue from the herd of scientists is often jargon based, - ‘I want to get a look at those E.E.G trexics’ - and even overlapping, meaning that it takes a back seat. 

In many ways the protagonist, Eddie, personifies the qualities of the film. The narrative opens with him floating in a tank, garbed in what can only be compared to an astronauts get up, ordering fellow scientist and minion Arthur Rosenburg (Bob Balaban) to get him out. Rosenburg is one of the most likable characters in the film, a constant stooge; he is always there to sweep up the pieces after Eddie’s Mr. Hyde like rampages.

 

Russell’s representation of Eddie’s psychedelic trips has to be seen to be believed. Safe to say the montage-cocktail of geometric shapes, Jesus, fiery fluids, goat man sex and lady lizards still has the ability to raise an eyebrow, even in these liberated times 30 years on from the movie’s release.

Eddie with Ram's head as Jesus.

The mad foray into Eddie’s subconscious is countered by the sketchy details of the external Eddie. Major life events, marriage, kids, divorce, are leapfrogged in a single camera shot. The tongue in cheek nature of the difference between his mind and reality sometimes makes for dull viewing; this is certainly a film of highs and lows.

One of these lows is the representation of Emily, Eddie’s wife. The audience meets her as she chomps suggestively on a carrot. In addition to this as she is ‘sweating out her dissertation’ on anthropology. Unfortunately it is the carrot chomping Emily that takes priority. She has ‘gut feelings’ contrasting to the terrifying rationality of the male scientists, and this does enforce a gender stereotype.

This has not impacted upon the films cult status, which would make an exciting movie itself, the production process was fraught with difficulty, including a transfer from Columbia to Warner’s as the budget his $15 million. The script is based on Paddy Chayefsky’s novel. Chayefksy disliked the story so much that he disowned it, and the film is now credited to his pseudonym, Sidney Aaron.

Eddie in psychedelia. (He hasn't just forgotten his keys,) 

Another reason the film has achieved cult status was the fleeting appearance of Drew Barrymore in her debut role as Eddie’s daughter.

This is a film that deserves its cult status, a film that never quite made it; coming runner up at the Oscars to Lucas’s The Empire Strikes Back in the sound category. The film is suitable material for Creatures of the Night. At times tacky, at times brilliant, this is one of the best worst films ever made.

Next week sees the Pink Flamingos coming to the Picture House, a journey into drug dealing, journalist chasing, furniture licking and of course, pink flamingos.  

You can watch the first section of the film (from youtube) here. 

Review: The Woman in Black: Good film, but she’d do better to keep to the Shadows.

 I have a confession to make. I like Daniel Radcliff. I like how he likes cricket. I think he came across very well in Extras. Lastly I think he has an interesting face. The Woman in Black marks a step in the right direction It is the first step in a process towards throwing off that cloak he donned for Harry Potter.

James Watkins' The Woman in Black sees Mr Kipps (Daniel Radcliff) up against the supernatural again. Only this time he does not have a wand.

Watkins retelling of the 1980s novel is not faithful, but still a ripping good 90 minutes. The film has all the ingredients of a classic horror. Eel house is isolated a seemingly abandoned coastal mansion set adrift upon a grave strewn tidal island. Populating this setting are unfriendly locals, mysterious deaths and a terrifying, violent ghost. Think Bram Stoker’s Dracula meet Henry James’ Turn of the Screw.

Kipps is sent on law business to find the will of Alice Drablow. The estate, and the village it borders is haunted by The Woman in Black, played, funnily enough, by Liz White. Kipps, with the help of local land owner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds) attempts to lay her spirit to rest – she is reeking vengeance on a world that denied her the right to care for her child – and essentially fail.

If there is a fault with the film it is that the Woman in Black appears to much. Indeed, by the end of the film, which sees her looming over the auditorium, I found myself wishing she’d go and bother someone else. Special effects were layered over White, causing her to look like the Scottish Widow on crack. Something which might have happened if Brown hadn’t bailed them out.

The film strides the line between modernity vs supernatural nicely. Evident when Sam and Kipps pull the drowned carriage from the squelchy mud towards the end of the film with the help of Sam’s car ‘the first one in the county. We also saw modernity tooting its horn when the pair rev through the stalwart villages. Although one local (Victor McGuire) looks like he would win if the car drove into him.

 This film is a cheap thriller but none the worst for it. Well worth spending an evening with. You’ll be annoyed with for feeling tense because you really know you shouldn’t. Compared to the likes of Paranormal Activity this film is a walk in the park. Saying that, I was glad to not walk past any women in black on my way home.

The Woman in Black is in cinemas now. 

Sam Reeves

Chapter 2: Mollie Remembers Whilst Teal Misses

The ground runs away from Mollie as they both descend. Always down. Her torch throws demons, terrifying monsters and lurking ape men around the walls. All imaginary. Mollie takes comfort from her string, which she spools out behind her as she walks. Indeed she is starting to almost enjoy herself. She has a processing mind. More than most people.  A mind that, right now, remembers and recounts all that she knows of the sewers.

Built 600 years ago by the original inhabitants of Agapanthus, the sewers, as they were still called, had been designed to carry the city’s waste away. After the recycling boom of the late 2030s most waste had been transported to the agricultural sectors. There had been a plan to turn the sewers into a city wide museum, and some parts had been expanded, great halls, antichambers, even grand stair cases, plunging towards the earth’s core. The project, always ambitious, had gone into bankruptcy and the plan had been abandoned. The head of Lilium and Lilium, the architect firm behind the endeavour, ended her days walking from function to function, begging for money to complete her project. Eventually she grew so disillusioned, so legend has it, that she walked into the sewers and never returned. There was little remorse over her death. She had been a very unpleasant woman.

Since then the sewers had been used for all sorts. Entire families used to hide in the depths during the Blitz years. Despite the destruction meters above, the tunnels would have been full of light then. Defiant laughter as well as the tears. The ghosts of the jaunty fiddle players, employed by the mayor of Agapanthus to keep peoples spirits up, were meant to haunt these places. Mollie smiles at the thought of the ghosts. A lot of superstitious fuss by people who refuse to question their own beliefs.   

When the war was reported finished, and troops, battered, tired, but safe were homeward bound the parties continued in the subterranean tunnels.  Great parties, huge grand parties, lit by electric lanterns. Mollie had a photo of the dancers, an antique piece, smiles never fading through the centuries. The photo, Mollie thought, encompassed it all, ball-gowns, Cha Chas, gin in teapots. However this golden age was short lived. As every generation grew up and went about their business visits to the city sewers declined.  

Then the revolution of 23^rd century. A new dawn had meant that people wanted a new way of living. The sewers had become the fortress of the revolution. A base for the guerrilla army to launch attacks upon those living on the surface. They would strike at night. The city’s other inhabitants, either supporters of the ruling party, or those just too dumb and scared to follow the guerrillas would wake every morning to walls of graffiti and burnt governmental buildings. The carnage was always surrounded by dead or dying security guards and revolutionaries. Every few days there would be news of more assassinations. Promising civil servants with bullets in their backs, pompous officials would go to sleep one evening and never awake. The autopsies always concluded that the result of death was the same. Poison.

That had been a dark time for the city. A violent time. Eventually the ruling classes had responded in kind. The mayor at the time, a Lord Scabiosa, had given the order one Thursday afternoon. By Friday morning there were work teams throughout the city, and by evening all manholes, tunnels, cracks, and service points had been concreted over. That had been the end of the revolution. Months later, teams went into the mines, looking for any survivors. What they found down there had been, by their account, horrific. The revolutionaries, always a violent bunch, had taken to eating each other. Corpses were exhibited, complete with bite and scratch marks. As there were no surviving revolutionaries the team’s account could not be verified. However the evidence was there. Since then there had been no more revolutions.

After the massacre the sewers had been abandoned. Indeed, by most members of the city they had been forgotten. The concrete designed to kill the revolutionaries had crumbled. There had been movements over the years to replenish and rejuvenate the subterranean vaults, but with Agapanthus itself crumbling the successive line of mayors decided to concentrate upon the world that saw light. Now the sewers played host to the occasional tramp looking for a dry place to sleep. Even that was infrequent.

And so Mollie remembers. As she walks she journeys through a thousand untold stories. These stories linger in the air, so pregnant with loss and memory that they become almost tactile. Little does Mollie know, but her story, unravelling like her ball of string, is set to be the greatest, and the most memorable of them all.

Like Mollie, Teal has an inquisitive mind. Often he spends his Sundays at the City Library, reading theology, literature, periodicals. But now he is on a mission. He thinks about what lies in front. Not behind. Like Mollie Teal wades through stories. He comes to a chamber. Walls and ceiling stretching away into the gloom. The roof is so high, or rather the floor so low, that the light from his torch cannot pierce against any solid object. Rather it hangs in the darkness, suspended.

Pausing to consult his map Teal is struck by how inaccurate it is. Instead of walking through the middle of the chamber he skirts around the edge, his chalk grating against the rough granite wall. He comes to a hole, a wide hole that used to hold a door. There is nowhere for Teal to chalk. Holding his breath, he scuttles across the entrance, regaining the far wall with a sigh of relief.

For the first time the scale of his undertaking hits him. The darkness stretches on for miles. Miles of empty rooms, halls and chambers, so criss-crossed with tunnels, passageways and gaping holes that it is incomprehensible. The eyes that watch Teal are suspended high above on the roof of the cavernous hall. For a second an arm, huge and tangled in thick, wet hair enters the torch’s pool of light. But Teal, with his eyes firmly located on where he is going, misses it. 

Sam Reeves