one day, he finds an African woman (Yves-Marina Gnaboua) in his bed, who may be suffering from a disease, but they share no common language. She eventu- ally dies, but not before reveal- ing she is pregnant. Oscar wraps her body like a chrysalis, from which eventually emerges a beau- tiful young woman who may (or may not) be his sister as an adult, with whom he then has inter- course. Defying chronologic nar- rative, the imagery often consists of unusual insects, utterly alien but also machine-like; the eyes- pot on a butterfly’s wing is asso- ciated with an owl’s eye, a hole, an orifice such as a mouth, a star, an abyss. In other words, the film’s aesthetic is baroque and artificial, thoroughly sublimating its actual subjects, death and sexuality, fear and desire. Cult Epics’ anamorphic pre- sentation, letterboxed at 1.85:1, is crisp and colorful, although the footage often consists of grainy B&W (memory is coded by means of theatrical artifice). The
DD-5.1 soundtrack is suitably atmospheric and detailed, al- though BLACK NIGHT is hardly an action flick. Issued with En- glish subtitles only, supplements include 9m of deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage (7m), an interview with the director (7m 23s) and an interesting featurette (8m).
Additionally, ten of Smol- ders’ early shorts, spanning 1986-1998 and likewise explor- ing the abysses of death and sexuality, are also available on DVD through Cult Epics under the title SPIRITUAL EXERCISES [Exercices Spirituels, 172m 24s, $29.95].
CREATURE FROM THE HILLBILLY LAGOON
2005, Shock-O-Rama Cinema, MA/16:9/+, $19.95, 86m 25s, DVD-0
By Bill Cooke
“This movie is going to live and die by two things: the actors playing the rednecks and the
creature suit” recalls director Ri- chard Griffin in this disc’s audio commentary. “If [the creature] looks like a Roger Corman spe- cial, we’re fucked.” Thankfully a suit was delivered that, despite looking a lot like a C.H.U.D., prompted the Connecticut film- maker to declare “My God, we’ve got a movie!”
No... you’ve got a movie when you write a good story, employ some actors with a modicum of talent and invest the execution with a little wit and style—you know, kind of like how it was with all those Roger Corman “spe- cials.” Griffin’s CREATURE FROM THE HILLBILLY LAGOON has none of that. It’s an insulting combination of ill-informed 1950s genre parody and amok Southern stereotyping that makes the hick histrionics of THE DUKES OF HAZZARD look restrained by comparison. As in the recent and superior BLACK SHEEP [reviewed VW 137:4], hazardous waste infects local yokels, transforming them
CREATURE FROM THE HILLBILLY LAGOON gives new meaning to the idea of redneck victims.
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