Pigs!

Yes, Pigs! is the name of the movie I just watched. This is not a post about excitement over Wilbur or Babe, Pig in the City or anything regarding actual pigs. And yes, the exclamation point is part of the title. I'm not overly exuberant enough about pigs to justify punctuating the title in such a manner on my own.

However, I am pretty excited about the movie Pigs! It has a surreal, almost psychedelic feel, which I wasn't expecting going in, because I had little expectations at all about a 70's film possibly about pigs distributed by Troma that was for some reason in my netflix queue. It could have gone either way - I would wind up loving it and singing its praises from the balcony of my condo like a crazy person or I would relegate it to some underused portion of my brain never to be called upon again. I'm pleased to say the former wound up being true. Shall we?

The pretty, but disturbed, Lynn (director Marc Lawrence's daughter, Toni Lawrence), stabs her father after years of sexual abuse. She's condemned to a mental institution, but escapes when a nurse on Lynn's ward disrobes to fuck a doctor type and Lynn winds up stealing her outfit and car. She drives a bit and winds up at weirdo ex-circus performer Zambrini's (director Marc Lawrence) ramshackle cafe in the countryside. Exhausted and broke, Lynn asks Zambrini for employment and he eerily complies, offering her less than Ritzy accommodations in the back of the restaurant.

Before Lynn arrives we know Zambrini's up to no good, as we saw him feed a dead man to his pigs. But he's not all bad, see, since he apologizes to the corpse beforehand. "I gotta do it, they got used to human flesh. The first time it was an accident - they got loose in the field. There was a drunk in the field asleep, yeah, asleep." Did Zambrini actually kill this unfortunate fellow or did he dig him up somewhere? Director Lawrence thankfully keeps Zambrini's necro-dealings ambiguous.

No worries, Lynn's pretty deranged herself, and Zambrini quickly takes her under his wing. Sensing she's on the run, but not really caring why, Zambrini covers for her when local law enforcement (pig joke here, too easy) Sheriff Dan starts sniffing around. Seems the tags on Lynn's VW have expired and she's attracting suspicion as the pretty young lass Zambrini's been hanging around with. Zambrini's not without his own acquired suspicions however, as his two dotty old neighbor bitches, Ms. Macy and her sister, Annette, have been complaining about Zambrini and his pigs for quite some time. Ms. Macy will tell anyone that'll listen to her ramblings that Zambrini's been killing people and feeding them to his pigs. She tells Sheriff Dan, "he feeds the pigs dead people and then he eats the pigs!" to which Sheriff Dan replies, "Where does he get the dead people?" Ms. Macy's got an answer for that too and hysterically wails, "From the cemetery after he kills them!" The scenery is chewed right off the set for this hilarious exchange.

Dan then goes on to tell Ms. Macy that body has recently been stolen from the morgue, thus making Zambrini's actions even more ambiguous. However, if you want the less ambiguous, how about Lynn's growing psychopathic nature? After she's nearly raped by a amorous customer from the cafe, she invites him back round to hers the next night and castrates him in her bed. Zambrini, discovering Lynn and her now-dead suitor, calms her as she rocks back and forth, delirious and childlike. And what do you think he does with the dead body?

Things only get more deranged and out of control, spiraling into an almost incestuous feeling love story, between Lynn, a psycho teen with a daddy complex, and Zambrini, a grave-robbing body-snatching pig farmer/possible cannibal. What complicates this further in my mind is the fact that Zambrini and Lynn are father and daughter in real life - taking this to a meta textual level I haven't experienced since Asia and Dario. Zambrini and Lynn never kiss or embrace or do anything on screen that would lead you to believe there is a sexual relationship between them, but they're both so odd, and the dynamic between them so instantly weird, it's hard not to imagine something happening. What confounds this further and takes it to a new level of perversity is that Sheriff Dan implores at one point of Lynn, "are you related to the Great Zambrini?" to which she responds with a resounding no. But Dan's a love rival, having already made his affections known to Lynn on more than one occasion.

It's almost as if Zambrini has become her surrogate father, and because I'm a pervert, and Lynn's been raped by her daddy, it's hard to not think of Zambrini possibly doing the same. There is one particularly hellish sequence in which Lynn is experiencing a nightmare. We see Zambrini enter the darkened room (the print that I watched was horrible - so sometimes it's hard to tell what is going on) and advances across to her bed where she lies sleeping. As we think the rape is imminent, Zambrini makes sure she's asleep and begins slashing her face repeatedly with a straight razor. The camera spins out of control and we're treated to the cacophonous squeals of pigs distorted and amped up to the point of utter madness. That being said, it's a great scene.

For a film titled Pigs! I haven't really talked too much about them thus far. They are a constant fixture here, what could even be referred to as harbingers of death and madness. They certainly mirror the madness Zambrini and Lynn both experience. We see them push their dirty snouts through the rickety gates of the pig pens, we hear their high pitched squeals that wind up just sounding savage. Lynn's screams are often merged with the pig squeals at opportune times during the film, causing much discomfort for the viewer. Not just aurally, but visually as well. Because when Lynn goes crazy, the camera goes crazy.

It makes you feel almost high. That, and the film is neither set here nor there. It's somewhere in the desert, the local economy seems to consist of Zambrini's pig farm and an oil rig, and there aren't that many residents. The fact that most townspeople at least have some kind of idea what Zambrini is up to, but then nothing is really ever done about it, smacks of a surreality. He's allowed to continue in with his grisly business, without anyone challenging him. Weird, right?

But you know, I might be reading to much into it. Yeah, pigs conventionally symbolize greed or uncleanliness, but I don't think director Lawrence lingers too long at a symbolic level. In fact, as I mentioned previously, the pigs, while an overarching presence throughout, could have been left out entirely and the movie could have functioned just on Lynn's burgeoning and continuing madness and killing spree.

And hey, look, a female killer! How unusual. But I've bored you enough for now. Watch Pigs! although I will warn you, some of the 'action' does drag. But it's got a great noise-like score, Toni Lawrence is chilling as Lynn, Zambrini's effectively creepy, and there's a whole lot going on beneath the surface of this forgotten unconventional slasher. Too bad for the unfortunate tagline on some alternate box art I found - 'If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a pig surprise.' Wow, it doesn't get any worse than that. Now that fucking tune is in my head. The film can also be found under the title Daddy's Deadly Darling.

A Bell From Hell

I love when I finally come across something that's been recommended to me for no reason in particular, except for the fact that people who have seen it and know me think I might like it. Such is the case with A BELL FROM HELL; I've had numerous fellow perverts, say, hey, Jenn, you ever seen A BELL FROM HELL, to which I've said no, should I have? To which the reply is always a resounding, YES! No details, no description, no nothing, except, hey, that might suit you just fine. And boy, were you guys right. I love you guys. You guys always steer me in the right direction.

The film opens peculiarly enough, with John, a mental patient confined to a sanitarium, mixing up some latex plaster stuff to make a mask of his face - a detail we should all remember because it comes up a few times later on. After John's done with his mask, we come to find out his trial date is right around the corner and the institution, hoping he can maintain himself on the outside, has offered him probation. Upon giving him his summons and discharging him, John lights his summons for his upcoming court date on fire (how punk, John!) and takes off on a motorcycle into the countryside.

Before arriving at his dead mother's decaying manse (we'll get to all that in a minute), he takes a brief sojourn through the woods, where he runs into a bearded hermit who he knew from childhood and the hermit's deaf mute daughter. The hermit, an ominous fellow tells John, 'the owl hooted three times when your parents secretly copulated to conceive you. I thought you were far away. Why have you come back? I told you as a child you would be unlucky. Fate has dealt you the cards.'

John replies, equally as ominously, 'But I'll play them.' At this point only a few minutes in, while curious enough, we don't know why John has been confined to a mental institution or what his situation is in general. On the part of the filmmakers, this is a brilliant choice. There's so much suspense building, one of this movie's wonderful, brilliant charms, it almost smacks of Hitchcock, but once again, more on that in uno momento.

So John's more than a bit unsettling at this point, and he arrives at his mother's old home, the place having fallen into disrepair. He mopes about and then, not one to sit about idly obviously, takes a job in a slaughterhouse. Now, long time readers know my aversion towards animal cruelty in a movie. I CANNOT deal. And these slaughterhouse scenes had to be watched through my clenched fingers. It was bad enough I had to hear the cows screaming as John learns how to butcher them, while watching this half-edly through my hand. John dutifully goes about his work, clocking them on the head with knives and chopping off their legs with ease. He quits after a few days, however, and much to my relief, I thought I was going to have to sit through more than one slaughterhouse scene and thankfully I didn't, stating, 'I've learned enough.' Eww, creepy, John, you and your deadpan self.

After the slaughterhouse, John runs into his old girlfriend, who tells him she married a rich older dude who builds stuff in town and is apparently pretty well connected. Never to be ruffled, John's all like, that's cool, and, as the movie progresses, it's really difficult to tell how John feels about anything. But again, more on that in a second. Let get the plot out of the way, calm down.

So John goes to meet up with his old Aunt Marta and her three daughters, and it's here we learn why John was locked up for the last three years. Seems he couldn't keep his rapey paws off of one of his cousins and she was the one that had him committed. But wait, there's more! John's mommy was apparently pretty wealthy and as long as John, her sole heir, stays insane, Aunt Marta can collect all the dough. Soooo, are we to think John's not really crazy and Marta set her daughter as some sort of bait to tempt John? Or is John really a psychopath and needs to be locked up? This is one of the brilliant unreconciled issues in this movie that just makes it so easy to drool over. Yeah, John's obviously disturbed, but how much so? What's Marta really playing at? Anyway....

So, not only is John more than a little creepy, he's also a great practical jokester. He manages to convince his old flame's new hubby that his cousins all perish in a fishing accident, in one of the most well-timed, perfectly paced ghost stories I've ever head, and Marta does only that much more to perpetuate it. At times, you think Marta and John might be in on the sadistic joke together; the film is so brilliantly constructed and well told, it leaves you reeling.

He also manages to get the same man to take out his penis to help him pee, and always the master of disguise, manages to convince his old GF that's he's ripping out his own eyes. Which in turn, causes her to faint, and then he pretends to rape her. How do you pretend to rape someone? Well, track this movie down and watch it for yourself.

So there's lots more suspense building and creepiness and great atmosphere (think old dark decrepit homes and lots of fog), and lots of conversations about the sexy times (but alas, no actual sexy times). Here's one of my favorites between John and the ex, while they're feeding chickens no less:

J:Aren't you happy?

GF: Happy?

J: How often do you need to have sex?

GF: What?

J: You haven't had sex with your husband in three weeks.

If you're asking how John knows this, you can go ahead and add pervert and voyeur to his resume of slaughterhouse worker, mental patient, and special effects master. Seems he rigged up a microphone in the chica's bedroom so he could get info into her love life. It happens.

I won't ruin the ending for you, because it is just one of those endings that you won't be able to stop thinking about for days, I'm serious. Even now, like two days later, I'm thinking about all the underlying yuckiness and atmosphere and everything going on here. It's at times subtle, at other times overt, and all the time, it's just wonderful.

John couldn't be better in his role and Aunt Marta is equally as talented. Even the sexy cousins are interesting in their own right and the backdrops are just superb. There's enough pedophilia, depravity, repressed sexual tension (and that which is not so repressed as well), and Bava-esque camera shots and colors to make me a very happy Jenn. I would even go as far as to say Jodorowsky was inspired by this; and at the very same measure, perhaps even Eli Roth. And as for the titular bell, just like the pretend rape, you have to see it - I just don't want to ruin it for you.

Good perverted stuff, ya'll. And anything with a line like this out of nowhere, you know is incredible. 'Dearest darling, do you know what you are, my dearest darling. A stupid cunt, who doesn't know how to use it.' I say that very same line to my cousins all the time. John's a man after my own heart, truly.