David Hess (1942-2011)

I was stunned the other day to learn that a great actor of exploitation cinema has passed away. David A. Hess died in his sleep on October 8th. He left a legacy of film and music to us and will be deeply missed.



Back in January, 2010, I was lucky enough to catch a viewing of the classic film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with David and we shared some words on the film and his work. It was a night I will never forget until the day I die.

Check out the David Hess Demo Reel:

As usual, it has been a while since my last review and this time I am going to make it up to you with three, count 'em - three mini reviews of the "David Hess trilogy" in chronological order:

Last House on the Left (1972)

Pretty Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) lives out in the country with her parents, just turned 17 and with her friend, Phyllis they are going into town to see a concert and have a little fun. Krug, Sadie, Weasal and Jr. are criminals on the lam and are out to have a little fun as well. The two camps cross paths the baddies take the girls out to the woods to have some rape, humiliation and murder. Then, Krug (Hess) and company meet with car trouble and head to a nearby house to hideout for the night. The film then turns into a revenge film complete with some dumb, lighthearted moments to take some of the strain off because while one may argue their opinion of the film, most will agree that it is very stressful to watch.

The spunky, uplifting soundtrack was written and performed by Hess and gives the film a quirky personality even when all sorts of terrible things happen a few minutes later. There is also another song that is very somber and fitting for the scene of the film in which it plays. "Now You're All Alone" works very well in making the viewer come to a screeching halt from all of the intense torture that has just occurred and makes them reflect on how Mari has given up hope in being rescued.

Here's the song:

Hess' character, Krug is who really shines throughout the film by making us hate him as a vicious, sadistic man with the faintest bit of remorse (and I stress faintest). Although the other actors do fine jobs of not over-acting, (with the exception of the Sheriff and his sidekick) Hess has the charisma which cemented him as one of him as one of exploitation's greatest villians. This was Wes Craven's first film and while it wasn't necessarily scary, it was disturbing enough to make lots of waves as it was banned in the UK for twenty-two years.

I must say that I love this film because of its juxtaposition of lightheartedness, intimidation and the characters, especially Hess and Cassel who does her job well, making the viewer like her more than enough so they feel worse seeing terrible things happen to her. The violence and sex are obviously the exploited elements of this film and they work well with the comedic elements to make a perfect cult classic while making you think too.

4 1/2 Peace Signs (Out of 5)

Check Out the Trailer or BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT:

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Hitch-Hike (A.K.A. Death Drive and The Naked Prey) (1977)

Hitch-hike is quickly becoming one of my favorite films of all time!

Alcoholic journalist, Walter Mancini (Franco Nero) and his wife Eve (Corinne Cleary) whose marriage is hanging by a thread are on a road trip to Los Angeles. If that isn't enough they end up doing something your mother probably told you never to do a hundred times: They pick up a hitchhiker, Adam Konitz (Hess). Now, you are probably thinking to yourself, "I know where this is going" but you don't (unless you've seen this before)! Konitz had just escaped a mental institution and stole two million dollars with some partners and now he wants the Mancinis to drive him to Mexico. Then Konitz's partners return, take control of the Mancini's car and head for Mexico. Konitz kills his partners and gets his original ride back and ends up raping Eve but not after Walter shoots him dead.

As usual, I won't spoil the ending because you really should be watching this instead of Real Steal, but I am going to say that I found it refreshingly unconventional for the type of film it has been up to this point. When Hollywood tries to make endings like this, they always fail because it ends up coming off as cheesy or unconvincing because there is no self-identification with the characters. In Hitch-hike, even though you may not be going through the same emotions of dealing with a failed marriage, there's still a likeable connection to the characters which therefore makes you more sympathetic to them.

Most Hollywood films of this nature have characters that I could care less about so then I am anticipating their hardships and even deaths while I feel dirty and vulnerable because I paid $10.50 to see it.

What I love about this movie is that Hess is playing the character he knows best but has a different quality that isn't as balls out, hardcore sadistic as Krug in Last House on the Left. He playfully taunts Walter and Eve as they drive, making the couple reflect on themselves and their marriage. Although you may like them to a degree, it's Hess who ends up looking like the more put together person in the car, helping you to forget that he is playing "the bad guy" except when he shows it physically.

Of the three films, this is the one I have only seen once but that number will quickly increase.


4 1/2 Whiskey Bottles (Out of 5)

  

Check Out the Trailer but Watch the Road:

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House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

House on the Edge of the Park is an interesting film that I have gotten many things out of multiple viewings. While it may not be the strongest of the Hess trilogy that does not mean it is a bad film.

Alex (Hess) drives around at night in New York City and spots a pretty girl in a car beside him. He chases her down, brutally rapes her and takes a locket from around her neck before strangling her to death. Later, Alex is about to "go boogie" with his friend, Ricky who works as a mechanic at a garage. A young rich yuppie couple, Tom and Lisa drive their car inside and complains of engine trouble. Ricky quickly finds and fixes the problem. Tom and Lisa are grateful and invite him and Alex with them to a party they are headed to.

Once there, Alex and Ricky meet Tom and Lisa's friends, Gloria, Glenda and Howard. After some drinks, laughs and dancing, Ricky is humiliated by Gloria who asks him to do a drunken striptease while Lisa teases Alex with sexual advances. Ricky then plays a (rigged) card game with the hosts as Alex, upset about Ricky's treatment and Lisa's teasing, pulls a straight razor from his pocket, fights and end up tying Howard up to a table. Another simple plot, right?

What follows is one of the longest collections of scenes of constant abuse and humiliation by Alex and Ricky that can only really be rivaled by Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. The stakes get higher as teenage neighbor, Cindy stops by to check on the party and is humiliated and cut all over her body by Alex.

Naturally, I won't reveal any more of the story since there isn't much to it, however there is a plot twist near the ending. While after suffering with these people for the last hour or so, the actual ending and resolution is a little drawn out but there is still much to think about in terms of similarities (if only a few) and differences between the upper and middle class. David Hess's performance is the only notable one here as everyone else isn't always as nonchalant at being terrified as he is terrifying.

Of course, Hess, who knows this role all too well is fantastic and yet there are a few differences for his character this time around, the thing about The House on the Edge of the Park is that you actually feel more sympathetic for Alex and Ricky up to a certain point, although that opinion may change a few times before the film is over.

This is also another film that may be hard to watch if you are offended and/or seriously disturbed by rape and sexual violence. I saw this film once when I was 13. A friend of mine knew it had a lot of female nudity and at that age I was intrigued, however now that the pubescent excitement of seeing naked women has faded into memory, now I see the underlining messages in House on the Edge of the Park when back then, when I was young, it was all about nudity.

3 1/2 Razors (Out of 5)

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So there you have it: Three great films that showcase what "The Mad Hessian" at his best. There are other films David Hess has been in that are great so check out his filmography on IMDB.com and pick out some films that look interesting to you.

R.I.P. David - You will live on through the films and music which have undoubtedly made an impression on many people.

Myself and The Mad Hessian

1/16/10

Red State (2011)

Now I know I said that I don't review current films but I believe that Kevin Smith's Red State is the second best film of the year after Hobo with a Shotgun. I usually only give you a little less than half of the plot but being that this is a new film, there may be some minor spoilers ahead so beware. Also, if you have any strong religious beliefs that you do not wish to have challenged, please stop reading now as this film deals very heavily with religion, specifically Catholicism.

Three teenagers respond to an online posting to gang bang a woman out in the countryside. Before arriving, they side swipe a parked car where Sheriff Wynan (the fantastic Stephen Root) sits, engaged in a sexual act with another man. The teens get frightened and leave the scene, heading for the woman's trailer. Sarah Cooper (Melissa Leo) greets the boys, gives them beers and tells them to disrobe. Before they can get their underwear off, all three pass out and later, Jared (Kyle Gallner) wakes up in a cloth-covered cage in the Five Points Church where Abin Cooper (the always amazing James Parks!) is giving a sermon to his congregation about America's corruption, sinners, homosexuality and the "end times". Among the twelve or so people in the church are Sarah Cooper, her daughter, Cheyenne (Kerry Bishé), husband, Caleb (Ralph Garman) and a few children. After the sermon, the children are led out of the room and Abin identifies a man saran wrapped to the cross in the middle of the room as a homosexual they found in an online chat room. The crucified man is shot in the head and dumped into the crawl space below where we see the other two teenagers, Travis (Michael Angarano) and Billy Ray (Nicholas Braun) who are still alive but bound to each other with heavy saran wrapping.

Sheriff Wynan returns to the station and tells his deputy to locate the countryside for the teens' car. Just as Cooper is binding Jared to the cross, he notices the deputy driving up to the compound and goes outside to have a chat with him. Travis and Billy Ray (the other two teens) free themselves and try to escape. Billy Ray runs into a small rooom filled with automatic weapons, grabs one and faces the door. Caleb runs into the room and the two end up shooting each other. The deputy hears the gunshots and calls Wynan for back-up but is shot and killed. Cooper then picks up the dead deputy's radio and tells Wynan that if he comes near the compound, he will tell his wife about his homosexual affairs. Wynan calls Special Agent, Keenan (John Goodman) of the ATF to secure the compound and free the hostages.

This is where I will stop because the last fourty-five minutes (cir.) of the film are more intense than the first fourty-five.

Now it's time to wax the actor's cars: Michael Parks deserves to win an Oscar for his performance here as does John Goodman. Both actors shine through Kevin Smith's well-written dialogue. Intentionally, Parks allows you to hate him, and rightfully so, playing a character that seemingly has no other morals other than his religious doctrine and even that is askew (pun intended for you Kevin Smith fans). His sermon before the killing of the first man is filled with a strong venom, masked as a loving, caring preacher while making jokes and small talk with the children in between his "gospel" of contempt for the non-religious heathens. John Goodman shines through as the conflicted ATF agent who wants to do the right thing while following orders in fear of him losing his job - which everyone with a job these days can understand. Goodman is crass but sensible and is the most conflicted character in the film, despite the other character's dilemmas. Melissa Leo is also fantastic as the faith-blinded daughter of Cooper who does a great job of making you hate her, and believe that she is simply bat shit crazy.

Kevin Smith previously dabbled with Christianity in his 1999 film, Dogma and while it was a fantasy comedy, Red State does not take itself lightly...at all. This is a very heavy-handed film and while there are laughs, they are far and few between as the drama and action elements take over. This is Smith's first serious film and I use the word "serious" in the sense that the film itself is serious, dealing with serious subjects and people in realistic life and death dilemmas that the slap-happy comedy parody Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back or any other Kevin Smith films didn't have. It's not that I do not like any of Smith's other films. Far from it. It's simply that this is a different type of Kevin Smith film and he knew exactly what he was doing from the moment he put the pen to the paper or the hands to the keyboard. In my opinion, it is his best film by far and I am partial to the first Clerks.

Now onto the plot: While dealing with a sensitive subject such as religion, Red State makes you fear those who show their extremist religious beliefs to the audience and that is what is bound to (and has previously) gotten Smith a lot of negative publicity.

Remember, there is no such thing as negative publicity!

Even when Dogma came out in 1999, there were protests by people who haden't even seen the film and yet they were judging it because of it's subject matter. The radical religious (and non radical alike) usually say that only God can judge people, but these people are willing to judge a film that is about God. Ironic isn't it?
A hate group, concealing itself as a Baptist church, known for their stance that "God hates fags" protested Red State's Sundance premier. Obviously they haven't even seen the film, but if they did, they would find some striking similarities between themselves and those depicted on the screen. According to TMZ.com, the Westboro Baptist church spokesperson said, "God hates fags, God hates fag enablers, therefore God hates Kevin Smith."[1] I don't know about you, but I love Kevin Smith and feel he deserves every freedom to make a film like this if he wants to.

Red State handles the issues of faith and spirituality with an automatic rifle blast to the heart and the brain, making the viewer ponder their own beliefs and opinions about Catholic dogma and the people who take it too far. Intense, entertaining and thought-provoking, Red State is by far one of the best films of 2011 and Kevin Smith's second best (behind Clerks).

5 Raised Hands (Out of 5)



Red State is currently available on VOD via iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Vudu, Best Buy, Blockbuster, Comcast, Xbox 360, Zune, PS3 and any other VOD provider you can think of. Or just go to Cooper's Dell.

The Blu-ray and DVD will be released on October 18, 2011. Pre-Order it on Amazon:

Praise the Lord and Check Out the Trailer:

[1] TMZ.com

The Last Supper (1995)

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative by forty you have no brain." - Winston Churchill.

That said, this review is of the 1995 film, The Last Supper directed by Stacey Title.

Like everyone who has ever been to high school, I thought I knew it all even when it came to our sophomore film class. I had seen everything that was on our list of films to watch and I already knew what I was going to write about each film for each of our papers, scattered throughout the semester. One day, our teacher put The Last Supper in the VCR and I was amazed at how much I discovered about myself in terms of simple, independent film making as well as how myself and others felt about political issues. I also realized that I didn't know jack shit.

The Last Supper is about five liberal graduate students in Iowa who gather together and share meals with a guest and discuss issues about love, life and of course, politics. Jude (Cameron Diaz - in one of her only good roles), Pete (Ron Eldard), Paulie (The lovely Annabeth Gish), Marc (Jonathan Penner), and Luke (The underrated Courtney B. Vance). Pete's car breaks down on his way to one of their weekly dinners and is given a ride by Desert Storm veteran, Zack (Bill Paxton). The group offers him to stay for dinner and during the course of the meal, finds out that Zack is an outspoken racist, insulting the group and eventually attacking Marc who strikes back with a knife to Zack's back, killing him. Obviously, the group panics and eventually decides to not speak of the incident again and to bury the body in the backyard, under a tomato plant.

Marc and Luke end up convincing the group that Zack was an evil person and come to the conclusion that hypothetically, if they could go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler before he spilled his evil on the world, they would. Why not discover and dispose of the would-be Hitlers before they can unleash their reign of terror upon the world?

The five decide to poison a bottle of wine and leave another untouched; if the person they invite to dinner seems as if they would commit atrocious crimes against humanity, then they give them a glass of the poisoned wine and bury them in the backyard. Some of the dinner guests include Charles Durning, Mark Harmon and Jason Alexander. A local sheriff (Nora Dunn) is investigating the case of a missing little girl discovers an abandoned truck in the woods and she eventually traces the truck to Zack, who is a prime suspect in the missing girl case as well as a convicted sex offender. The group rationalizes their first killing and feels that they've done their job well, protecting the world from scumbags like Zack.

The killing continues, the tomato garden grows and seemingly, no dinner guest is spared. Eventually the sheriff begins getting suspicious and the group ends up running into a popular conservative talk celebrity played by the always great Ron Perlman, who is obviously based on Rush Limbaugh.

As a teenager in 1998, my first reaction to the character's actions was positive. I agreed with many of the issues they talked about and killed others over so my enjoyment of the film was complemented with my idealistic ideals about the world and politics and so on; I enjoyed it more because I identified with them to a degree. Now, after having not seen the film in almost ten years, I can say that what they were doing was every which way but right. I admire their intentions, however, they come off now as children who are so involved with their cause that they forget to look at other aspects of their plot such as everyone's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not to mention the consequences, both human and legal. What I find amazing is how much my views of the issues brought to the table (pun intended) have changed and I simply chalk it up to my own always-changing personal growth as well as the always-changing world we live in. I do not agree with our main characters or any of their guests 100% and since there is an certain charm to being young and idealistic, I do not see my 17 year old self as dumb, only naive and not the hardened person I have become now.

Enough of that and back to the film itself! The cast of The Last Supper is excellent even down to its cameos who are always a joy to watch. Courtney B. Vance of Law & Order fame ends up stealing the show in the last act and proves his chops worthy of film, which in my opinion is where he belongs because I detest TV and see it as an inferior medium. In a rare case, Cameron Diaz takes a backseat and actually proves herself to be a good actress. As Jude, Diaz shows that she can be an actress, rather than a celebrity; her bitterness seeps through her pores and while she may not be the most likeable member of the group, she is the one with a decent head on her shoulders. Bill Paxton is especially great as an over-bearing racist and war veteran. Paxton does such a good job of making you believe that he is that character and not the likeable guy from Apollo 13 and Titanic (or Aliens for that matter). He plays it so well, you end up hating him to the point where you could see yourself killing him. Ron Perlman, as usual does what he does best, which is take any role and adds a hardened seriousness that is believable and captivating, especially since his screen-time is very sparse.

There isn't much else to say about the film without ruining the experience for you but I can say that there is a good original soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh and the film is not completely serious; there are a few laughs and some that lie underneath its surface, as well as others that make you question yourself for laughing. When the end credits begin to roll, you will agree with me that even if you didn't agree with any of the characters in The Last Supper, you will be able to say that it made you think.

3 1/2 Tomatoes (Out of 5)

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st Supp