After consuming a scrumptious plate of scrapple – which, oddly enough, looks and tastes like something you might see in a Lucio Fulci film – I finally decided to write down my thoughts on last weekend’s film du jour, Demons, which had been stirring in my mind for the past several days.
Now, I’m no virgin to the Italian greats of horror – I know my Fulci from my Mario Bava, I have a special section on my microSD card for Goblin soundtracks, and consider me giddy at the fact that it looks like Darren Aranofsky is channeling Dario Argento with Black Swan, if not ripping him off wholesale.
But, faithful readers, I was unprepared for how awesome Demons is, which is like Satan’s love letter to the cineplex (and ‘80s pop culture), as imagined by Argento and Mario Bava’s son, Lamberto. It encapsulates everything I love about Italian horror – the violence, the lighting, the atmosphere, everything.
The idea is simple - kids go into movie theater, but kids do not come out. Well, they do, but by the time the last two survivors literally climb their way out of the AMC 7 Circle of Hell, the world has been overrun by demons. And just when you think you might have been granted a reprieve from dread and despair, Bava and Argento toss a figurative Eff You to the audience as the credits roll.
(Suckers!)
It was earlier this year when I finally watched Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, as part of a lengthy research effort. What struck me then (and now), is that a lot of Italian horror sensibilities - namely the emphasis of style over logic and use of surreal imagery - seem to trace their way back to Lamberto’s father as a shared reference point.
For a lot of Americans, the Italian horror legacy is simply not in their wheel house; too gory to enjoy, too mean-spirited to tolerate and too misogynistic for our politically correct tastes. What gets lost in our particular Judeo-Christian translation of Italian horror is that Fulci, Argento, Bava, etc. have no interest in dealing with realism.
The Italians, in my humble opinion, are simply the best at making nightmares with feature-length running times. Y’know, the ones where you wake up in the middle of being eaten alive or trapped with no way out. Where the abrupt and unsettling nature of such jarring ethereal escapes permeate the rest of your thoughts for days.
Our recollection of how such events begin and end are hazy, but we always seem to remember the graphic imagery in vivid detail. The overwhelming sense of dread is so potent that it creates a lingering effect that rattles us long after the nightmare has ended.
Tell me that doesn’t sound like a good, ‘ole Italian horror flick?
Americans make horror films where characters are punished for violating an ideal set of principles: don’t drink, don’t engage in pre-marital sex, don’t do drugs, don’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc. The protagonist’s mortality is usually tied to their morality, and there is often a sense of hope – no matter how bleak – somewhere near the end. We are driven to resolve situations, even the scary ones, and survive.
In contrast, the Italians conjure up surreal, and graphic imagery that seems to insinuate that anything that could go wrong, will go wrong – and then some. There is no rhyme and reason to the terrible situations characters find themselves in, because – shocker! – there is nothing realistic about them.
The best part about the absence of morality from Italian horror is that being an upstanding citizen doesn’t really help your odds, nor does being a complete tool make you a shoe-in to get knocked off first. Heck, one of my favorite characters from Demons, Tony the Pimp, doesn’t meet his maker until half a dozen or so have already been brutally murdered. And he’s a pimp!
(Editor’s Note: Wouldn’t Tony the Pimp be an awesome cereal box mascot?)
Yes, the Italians end up sacrificing linear logic (and some restraint), but the sooner you stop trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, the sooner you end up coming to the conclusion that these guys are just in the business of filming our nightmares – the graphic violence is entirely separated from realism (unlike our own, fucked-up brand of filmmaking).
And in that respect, Demons is very much Bava and Argento’s visual confirmation of that. It’s violent and gory and ugly and mean and grim, but then, so are my dreams.
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