Celluloid is wasted on the Young

Salome and The Forbidden

     I'm a fan of Clive Barker. Ever since I saw the first 2 Hellraiser movies, I was hooked. I started reading his books and fell in love with his stories, starting with The Books of Blood. Over the years I've picked up several of his art books and went so far as to have one of them tattooed on my back. It wasn't elaborate, colorful, or 'wicked-awesome'. In fact, it was rather crude. But I always found it sinister, creepy, and dangerous. That was 19 years ago, and I still love it. What does this have to do with tonight's film? Well, they're crude, colorless, and certainly NOT 'wicked-awesome'

     Tonight is a double feature of very early student/indie art films by Clive himself. These simple, grainy films were produced in the '70s and star a very young Doug Bradley (Pinhead!), and Peter Atkins who wrote most of the Hellraiser and Wishmaster films along with that terrible live action Fist of the Northstar film. I'll start with Salome

ART

     First off, I can't get over how much the title looks like 'salami'. Infact, that's how I'm going to pronounce it from here on. I really don't have much to say about it other than it's black and white, has a couple of people, and they do things....very....slowly.....as they all do in every art film EVER. I can't make heads or tails of what the hell is going on or what they're trying to convey. It most certainly ISN'T horror of any kind, unless you take into account how horrifying it is to sit through it. Thankfully, it's short as hell so you won't suffer much. And naturally, critics panned it because they don't get the fact that it's over 35 years old, as well as an experimental film done by a bunch of nobodies. There's no acting because nobody can act. There's no color because nobody has any money. There's no story because nobody can write very well (yet). I think you get the idea, whereas most critics are still clueless. Except for Ebert. He was the best. Next up:

FILMS

The Forbidden

     Ok, this is a bit longer joint. It's all black and white, and to make matters worse, it's done in negative. There's a lot of the same thing going on in this film, but there's a little more horror element to it when you see a man skinned alive. There's also some guy with an erection dancing around like a fool. I'm not making that part up. In fact, there's a lot of some dudes junk in this film.

SUCK

     And that's it. Neither film had dialog, color, story, acting....no ANYTHING. The last 15 minutes are interviews with Barker, Atkins, and Bradley, all still very young when this was filmed. Honestly, I wouldn't bother with watching it unless you're a fan of Barker. And even if you are, you'll notice it's really just some young men playing with a camera so don't get your hopes up.

Thursday: Drama! The Undead! My Final Entry!