Salon.com > Daniel Kraus

“Blood, guts, death, mayhem and nudity”

Thu, 11 Sep 2003 20:00:00 +0000

Say what you will, horror fans take care of their own.

In 1981, Stephen King saw a gruesome little movie called "The Evil Dead" and liked it so much he gave the filmmakers a quote to put on their artwork: "The most ferociously original horror film of the year." Thousands of underage VHS junkies -- myself included -- rented "The Evil Dead" on the basis on this endorsement and were treated to 85 of the most stomach-churning minutes in motion picture history.

"The Evil Dead," directed by Sam Raimi (who went on to make "A Simple Plan" and "Spider-Man"), inspired hundreds of budding filmmakers, including a New Zealander named Peter Jackson. The future "Lord of the Rings" director promptly went out and shot "Dead Alive," the only film to date able to approximate Raimi's wildly inventive use of gore as comedy.

A Greek tragedy starring the Osbournes

Wed, 04 Jun 2003 20:00:00 +0000

In 2002, filmmaker (and Moviefone founder) Andrew Jarecki began to shoot a documentary about New York birthday clowns. While working with one of the city's most popular bozos, David Friedman, Jarecki noticed several offhand comments Friedman made about his family -- something about his father, something about an injustice. When Jarecki inquired further, Friedman merely said there were some things he would rather not get into.

So, like any budding Errol Morris, Jarecki got into it. Research revealed that David's Long Island family had been destroyed in 1987 when his father, Arnold, and younger brother Jesse were accused of hundreds of appalling crimes. The charges included possession of child pornography and the sodomizing of dozens of young boys enrolled in Arnold's home-school computer class.

Jarecki switched the focus of his film to the Friedman case, whereupon David presented him with 25 hours of home videotapes shot contemporaneously by family members during the crisis -- discomfiting, surreal footage of vicious arguments, shifting loyalties and grossly inappropriate mugging. This first-person depiction of the family's implosion is as close to "snuff" as you will ever want to see, and is the most chilling use of amateur video since "The Blair Witch Project."

“The Phantom Edit”

Mon, 05 Nov 2001 20:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, rumors of a new, supposedly better version of "Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace" began surfacing on the Internet. The rumor-mongers were not talking about the video version, which had already been released. Nor were they chattering about the then-unreleased DVD -- just out, with extended scenes and George Lucas commentary -- but actually a shorter version that was traversing the bootleg circuit. This version had been reedited by a fan who disliked the film, but who saw a lot of promise in the footage. The revision was titled "Episode 1.1 -- The Phantom Edit," and was, allegedly, much better than Lucas' original.

For a while it was treated as but a wishful myth. But through the infamous underground network of "Star Wars" fanatics, copies of the new version began popping up all over the place. Fans would watch it in a friend's living room or at a party, dub off a copy for themselves, download it onto their Web site and send it to other rabid fans.

Have a very Wookie Christmas

Tue, 05 Dec 2000 20:00:00 +0000

Aw, what's wrong? Holidays giving you a case of the "Wookie-ookies"?

Take heart, friend. It could be worse. A lot worse. A hell of a lot worse.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (Nov. 17, 1978), CBS broadcast a two-hour holiday event called "The Star Wars Holiday Special."

Never heard of it? That's because after its ill-fated premiere, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas banished it forever from the realm of human existence. But something of this much weight has a way of reaching the masses.

"Special" is certainly one word for that show. Other words one might choose to apply include "distressing," "appalling" and "bad."

Yes, it was that unprecedented. Yes, it was that bad.

Among the "Star Wars" faithful, it's taken for granted that their aloof Marin County Buddha wants every last trace of it expunged from the earth. Nearly every actor involved -- essentially the entire cast of the first film -- would probably rather forget his or her participation, especially Carrie Fisher. If you're unlucky enough to come across a 10th-generation dub of this underwhelming indignity, you'll find her performing a musical number.

Roo the day

Fri, 25 Aug 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Today there is yet another outsider in our midst. In case you're not familiar with Reform Party (and Natural Law Party) presidential candidate John Hagelin -- and judging by a July 17 Reuters poll in which he got exactly zero percent of the vote, you're not -- let me tell you: He's a "roo." Lately Hagelin has tried to distance himself from his roo roots -- strategically understandable, but ultimately unfortunate. Because the roos, as politically maladroit as they may be, are good folk.

I grew up in Fairfield, Iowa, population 9,768. At 35 mph, it takes five minutes to pass through. It is the home of the Fairfield Trojanettes (state basketball champs, '83), a historic town square with a great Christmas-light display, a brand-new Burger King, an original John D. Rockefeller library building and a tiny little movie theater called the Co-Ed, where I worked as a teen.

It's good to be the queen

Fri, 12 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

They begin appearing at 7:30 in the morning, clutching Egg McMuffins and steaming Hardee's mugs. Wearing windbreakers and scarves, and mostly bald or white-haired, they sit down on the cement steps facing the empty riverside stage. They're usually up at this hour anyway.

They have come to witness the Azalea Festival, which, fueled by a budget of $900,000 and more than 1,000 volunteers, is the biggest annual event in Wilmington, N.C. (population 60,000). More specifically, they have come to see the arrival and crowning of the 53rd Azalea Queen.

For 48 years, a woman known only as Funny Face has jockeyed for the best spot on the Cape Fear riverside, one that will give her ample room to blow a kiss to the Azalea Queen as she promenades toward the coronation stage. Funny Face has been here since dawn, her breakfast in a plastic bag and her folding chair bungee-corded to her back.

Ben and Mary Glisson are also here. They attended the first Azalea Festival back in 1948, when Hollywood starlet Jacqueline White was crowned the first queen and TV's "Queen for a Day" offered a trip to the Azalea Festival as a grand prize, and they have attended all 52 since.

Spicy Firebites, with a jumbo movie deal on the side

Thu, 06 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

A good waiter goes unnoticed. He does his job so well that his contributions seem effortless. Salads disappear, main courses materialize and beverages refill, as if by magic.

A good writer does the same. Without bringing attention to the writer, his or her plots compel you, his or her simplest words move you. Real people and real emotions are conjured from ink and wood pulp, as if by magic.

But neither operation is in the least bit magical. "Waiting tables is monkey work -- you learn the menu, you fill the drink, you take the money, you play the game," drones Rob McKittrick. "And writing is a pain in the ass. Most days I just sit at the computer pissed off. It sucks."

He should know. He has done both, simultaneously. While singing his way through another off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" and peddling Tex-Mex Towers and spicy new Firebites at an Orlando, Fla., T.G.I. Friday's restaurant, McKittrick, 27, stumbled upon an El Dorado most Syd Field neophytes find only in their most carnal Hollywood daydreams.

Makin' out at Bob Jones U.

Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Bob Jones University is a beautiful place. I know. I've been there.

I've walked beneath the arcing fountains embellished with multicolored lights. I've weaved my way down the yellow brick walkways that slice through almost-too-green grass. I've trod among the well-groomed Christian scholars as they herd to morning chapel, clutching dogeared Bibles, all of them sharing at least one thing -- their love of and trust in God.

Well, two things, really. The students at Bob Jones University are almost all, like me, white. The girl on my arm, however, is not.

In case you've just returned from a lengthy prison sentence, let me fill you in: Bob Jones University has in one short month gone from being a small, rather nontoxic Christian college in Greenville, S.C., to a symbol of monomaniacal right-wing intolerance.

Dirty Gerald

Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:00:00 +0000

The jail in Davidson County, N.C., is pink.

That's the first thing anyone will ever tell you about Sheriff Gerald K. Hege (pronounced hayg-ee). They will tell you that, after winning the 1994 sheriff's election by 261 votes, the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Hege strode laconically through the dark Davidson County jail hallways in his soon-to-be-trademark fashion, with his right hand loosely gripping his soon-to-be-trademark mirrored sunglasses, answering each "How are you, sheriff?" with his soon-to-be-trademark, "Wide open," critiquing each dirty cell, surveying each cobwebbed corner.

Imagining what it would all look like in bright pink.

Despite the color most associated with him, Gerald Hege is known worldwide as "the toughest sheriff in America." As self-imposed as this moniker may be, it has caught on fast. Last month in a ratings stunt, Deborah Norville from TV's "Inside Edition" spent a week inside Hege's famous jail.

"I think she was sent down here a little bit to slam me and my style and approach. But she stated in the show, 'Hey, he's a tough guy, but he's a fair shooter.' And she hung in there, she's tough, she wasn't given no slack at all," says Hege. Barely grinning, he adds, "I don't think she took a bath for five days."

Show me your indies

Thu, 03 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Kevin DiNovis sits in a dark corner, hunched beneath a coat rack and wedged between two doors. From one door, the loud, brittle shudder of a 35 mm projector. From the other, the muffled moans of a makeshift movie theater. Every minute or two, someone exits the theater. And each time, DiNovis scurries up from his stool and buffers the inevitable slam by closing the door gently. "I know how it feels when you hear that sound," he whispers.

DiNovis is working the back door of the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival, located -- literally -- across the street from the Sundance Film Festival's famous Egyptian Theatre. DiNovis is volunteering his time to the festival that premiered his 1998 film "Surrender Dorothy" and presented him with the first of several awards that he would accumulate over an unprecedented 23-festival run.

Porn for thought

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000

Sir John Gielgud, one of England's most celebrated thespians, was 75 years old when he proudly announced, "I've just finished my first pornographic film, called 'Caligula.'"

Today the notorious 1979 film remains the only major motion picture to couple respected, eminent film actors (Gielgud, Peter O'Toole, Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren) with graphic, penetrative, smut-style sex. The 20th-anniversary edition of "Caligula" may be digitally remastered and enhanced with Dolby stereo sound, but its core is as raw as ever.

As part of Penthouse magazine's 20th-anniversary celebration, "Caligula" was given a brief theatrical rerelease earlier this fall and is now available on video and DVD from Image Entertainment. In the film's press release, producer and Penthouse founder Bob Guccione claims the revised edition of "Caligula" will "fundamentally change the theater-going public's perception of motion pictures."

Tromatized!

Sat, 30 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000

"Within the first two minutes of the movie, you've got a man's leg pulled off, a man blowing his brains out and a woman being defeatist."

Lloyd Kaufman, director, writer, producer and co-founder of the infamous Troma Studios, is describing his new picture, "Terror Firmer," which opens Friday at Laemmle's in Los Angeles.

But I'm confused about the last thing he said. "Defeatist?" I ask.

Kaufman pauses, then clarifies. "No. Her fetus being pulled from her stomach. De-fetused."

Aha.

Founded in 1974 by Kaufman and partner Michael Herz, Troma Studios is the oldest -- and most controversial -- independent film studio in existence. Filmmakers as diverse as Quentin Tarantino, Trey Parker ("South Park") and Sam Raimi ("For Love of the Game") were inspired by Troma. Actors such as Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Billy Bob Thornton and Samuel L. Jackson got their start there. And titles such as "Chopper Chicks in Zombietown," "Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator" and "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell" fill the studio's shelves.

Night of the Living DVD

Thu, 28 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Poor "Night of the Living Dead."

It began as your basic, heartfelt film about six strangers boarded up in a house defending themselves from an atomic plague that makes the dead arise and crave human flesh. OK, so maybe the original concept was a tad convoluted. But its execution and aspirations were humble. Made for $114,000, "Night of the Living Dead" was kinetically shot, frantically edited and sharply acted, co-starring a legion of lurching zombie extras (mostly made up of family, crew members, $600-a-pop investors and the film's stars hiding under goopy makeup). George A. Romero's spare, instinctive direction favored paranoid dread but didn't skimp on the grisly chills either.

When "Night of the Living Dead" was completed in 1967, no one wanted to touch it. Fratricide, matricide and intestinal tug-of-war were not the respected institutions that they are today. To top it all off, "Night" was a black-and-white film during the dawn of color TV. Desperate to make their money back, the filmmakers sold distribution rights to the low-profile Continental Films, and "Night" premiered in its hometown of Pittsburgh on Oct. 2, 1968.

Then it got really, really popular.

The kid's alright

Sat, 16 Oct 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Q: Why did the dead baby cross the road?

A: It was stapled to the chicken.

Q: What's worse than running over a dead baby with your car?

A: Getting it out of your tires.

Q: What's blue and yellow and found at the bottom of the pool?

A: A dead baby with slashed floaties.

Harmony Korine's films are the cinematic equivalents of a dead baby joke. And I mean this as a compliment.

Revolting? Sure. Meritless? Not entirely. Dead baby jokes mine the darkest parts of our hearts and plumb our most repressed imaginings. They show us what horrors we are capable of inventing and then allow us to groan and shake our heads in disgust, quickly reestablishing the boundaries that keep us from hoisting BB guns and acting like ...

Well, like Harmony Korine characters.

"I never set out to shock or offend people," a disheveled, chain-smoking Korine told me at the New York Film Festival, where "Julien Donkey-Boy" made its U.S. debut. "It's really simple: I make these movies because they're the kind of movies I'd like to see, with characters that I want to look at. If someone else was showing me this kind of film, I'd just watch it. But no one's doing it, so I have to -- just to make myself happy."