THE HEADLESS EYES - B_E's 'Nightmare USA' thread is an interesting read, one reason being that many of the obscurities at the margins of yesterday's grindhouse are revealed as being somewhat lacking in far-outness, weirdness and squalor, qualities often associated with off-radar horror of the day and which latter day fans want to pick up on. It can certainly be hit and miss when it comes to this kind of seventies shittiness - for every 'Last House On Dead End Street' there are at least a handful of Rebane-wannabees - but for me, 'The Headless Eyes' somehow captures the essence of the feeling I always hope will hit. In it, a hard up artist loses an eye when confronted with a spoon wielding woman (!) when he tries to rob her apartment - of course, this has to trigger a spoon-driven, eye gouging killing spree. We follow him from kill to kill, although during down time he tends to go from existential strop to existential strop when he's not arguing with his ex, pawing at young art students or playing with his eyeball collection. 'The Headless Eyes' is just great. I could watch it endlessly. It straddles the divide between intentional artiness and questionable competence with total ease, and drops lopsided compositions next to skewed, dreamy imagery with breezy nonchalance. Actually, 'breezy' isn't a word I should choose to associate with 'The Headless Eyes', as its head is definitely rammed down a sewage pipe when it comes to atmosphere, vibes and overall 'texture' - its aesthetics are quintessence of scuzzbucket, and like TLHODES it looks like it was filmed on stock which must have been oozed on by something at some point. The seedy grit of its milieu, seventies New York, comes across so strongly you can almost feel it against your skin. A couple of things really stand out, beyond the general sickliness - the lead's performance, which is wonderfully contorted and overdriven, and, for my money, beats J Spinel's beloved turn in 'Maniac' for sheer spittle-flying angst - "I'm...TWISTED'... also the soundtrack, which is teeming with sleazy early seventies wah-wah and electro clashing with swing-beat moments. Truly a classic, and still only available on long deleted VHS (haven't checked ytube). Whilst a knackered format might suit its sensibilities more than hi-def, I'd love to see a more definitive version.
THE TURNPIKE KILLER - More NY scuzz, this time contemporary. 'The Turnpike Killer' is a recent indie, shot on video but obviously filtered to make it look dirty in that mean early eighties kind of way. It follows the travails of 'John', a thick-set dude with a serious attitude against women, although his main misogynistic inspiration seems to be the Euro-voice in his head urging him to "destroy the impure". So he does. Or at least, he kills a lot of women he doesn't like. I held out for 'The Turnpike Killer' being a real sleazefest, and I think it aspires to be so - it obviously treads in the wake of 'Maniac' and its recent remake - but, despite some intense scenes, it nearly veers towards being 'just another indie horror'. I say 'nearly' - it does distinguish itself in several ways - the kills are pretty gory, although more takes place off-camera than on, the performances are better than average, the 'twist' ending is intriguing (and maybe should've been expanded upon) and some sequences approach a good standard of squalor. I can't believe a just wrote that last bit, maybe I'm getting too desensitised. Anyway, then there is that grainy, messed up vid-cam 'look' - which I really liked. It does lend a certain atmosphere, but in this case 'look' doesn't quite translate into 'feel', and for 'The Turnpike Killer' to have reached the kind of dour, bleak intensity that maybe it gropes for it probably needed to be tonally more coherent and concentrated. Still, I'd say it's definitely worth a look for those into the nastier side of the indie-horror spectrum.
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