Weird & wonderful cinema around the world! (UFWO)
Written: Jul 17 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Hundreds of movies you've never heard of! Some of them are probably even worth watching!!
Cons: Try to find them. Especially if they don't come from Hong Kong or Japan.
The Bottom Line: Buy one for that special girl you've had your eye on. If she doesn't fall in love with you instantly, drop her. She's not worthy of someone with your taste.
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| JavaDevil's Full Review: Mondo Macabro : Weird & Wonderful Cinema Aroun... |
You know, I'd kill to find a horror flick from Samoa. Or a Zimbabwean science fiction film. Maybe an animated Iraqi musical. But, for all I'm aware, such things don't exist. Though the idea that they might be out there is enough to give me hope that, somewhere, there's still a film industry thriving with creative types making entertaining movies unlike those you'll find anywhere else.
To that end, I now introduce you to Mondo Macabro by Pete Tombs. The book he previously co-authored, Immoral Tales, was devoted to European exploitation movies. But this takes you on a tour of cult and unknown cinema from around the world. To start things off, Mr. Tombs makes an interesting assertion in the introduction: One can learn more about a country from their genre films than from their art films. Art fare from around the world, he says, pretty much sticks with the French new wave and Italian neo-realists whereas genre films invariably reflect a country's native traditions. I don't know exactly how the works of the Yuen Brothers or obscure anime like Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gotaman reveal the ingrained world views of the respective cultures they come from, but I'll take Tombs' word for it.
Mondo Macabro is not meant to be a definitive overview of world cult movies and thus some things you might expect to be in here aren't. So no biopics of famous pop stars using Barbie dolls or audience participation transvestite musicals or even animal costume versions of the Marquis de Sade story are to be found here. A section explaining exactly what in the world spurred the arrival of Japanese vomit porn would've been appreciated by myself, personally, but I guess that's another book waiting to be written.
All that stuff must be too mainstream for Pete Tombs anyhow. Instead, we have features like Hong Kong's Snake Girl Drops In, involving a jungle girl with snakes for hair who gets exploited as a sideshow freak and then has to battle a transvestite wizard, and Wohi Bhayaanak Raat (aka That Same Horrifying Night), a remake of Fright Night from India! Neato creatures from local mythology such as the penanggalan (flying, disembodied witch heads that have their internal organs and spines dragged along underneath them through the air) show up in the 1981 Indonesian horror film Mystics In Bali. That one's based on a true story, the filmmakers say.
Passing mention is made of A Chinese Torture Chamber Story, which some might know better as the movie that features two people flying through the air while engaged in copulation. Yes, a wuxia sex scene! And let's not forget Nobuo Nakagawa's lost 1960 classic Jigoku (aka Hell), about a man who goes to Hell. It predates 1963's Blood Feast, commonly thought of as the first true gore film, and even makes it look mild by comparison.
But some of the residents of the underbelly of world cinema are virtually only touched on by name, leaving one to perhaps forever wonder what these films are like...Badi (supposedly a version of E.T. from Turkey)...the post-Bruce Lee Enter The Seven Virgins (David Manning says "The best double entendre title of 1974!")...that Indian Superman that uses footage ripped off from the Christopher Reeve original while adding song and dance numbers...
And I can't let a review of this book pass without some word of the more controversial material within. Whenever people want to point out how messed up in the head the Japanese are, someone is sure to bring up the satirical comedy movie series known as Rapeman, about a superhero for hire who, well.....rapes evil women. One has to note here that the writer of the manga (comic books) that the films are based on is actually a woman herself. Don't ask me to figure that one out. And no look at underground horror could be complete without a mention of T.F. Mous' truly gruesome Men Behind The Sun, which depicts atrocities committed by the Japanese on Chinese prisoners in a death camp during World War II. Incidentally, I read an interview with Mous online in which he refutes the long held rumor that there was an actual human corpse used in the infamous decompression chamber scene but then turns around and confirms that the part with the child autopsy was created with the real body of a young boy!
As Mondo Macabro isn't a simple film encyclopedia, Mr. Tombs doesn't merely lay the movies out in alphabetical order with a short plot blurb and a star rating. Instead, he describes the spectacle, putting the movies into a historical context, making it known how one type of film lead to another, and even includes a fascinating story every now and then related to the subject matter. In the chapter on the Philippines, he relates a horrific anecdote regarding a film centre built in Manila in the early 80's. Because the supervisors were rushing to complete it in time for an annual festival, shoddy construction caused the roof to collapse and bury 200 workers in drying cement. Since they were in such a hurry to complete the construction, the project heads ordered no rescue attempts and simply had any protruding limbs hacked off and covered up after the cement dried! When the centre was finally opened, Tombs writes that guests "found the film centre swarming with flies and the air thick with the smell of rotting flesh."
Generous helpings of photo captures and posters from many of the films mentioned can be found on every page. Usually 2 or 3 of them. There's even a glossy, 8 page section with them in the middle of the book in full color.
As for fun facts and trivia, they're hidden within the prose, too. Want to know what the first Chinese film to feature lesbians was? Page 18. How about the author's pick for the grossest moment in Hong Kong cinema? Page 47. Were you at all aware that horror flicks from India are largely modeled after The Exorcist, The Omen, and The Evil Dead? Hell, I wasn't. Read more on that on pages 85-86. And did Marvel Comics approve of the 1973 Turkish film Uç Dev Adam (aka 3 Dev Adam or Three Mighty Men), revolving around Captain America and the Mexican wrestler Santo battling an evil Spider-Man in Istanbul?! The very thought that someone out there, living in Turkey of all places, sat down and said "Hey, wouldn't it be great if we ripped off American and Mexican superheroes, pitted them against each other, and weaved it into a cinematic masterpiece by including scenes in strip clubs?" makes me realize what a truly wonderful place the world is.
Mondo Macabro isn't just for cult film fans. It's for anyone who wants to be reassured that there's much more to the world of celluloid than you've been told about. The book mentions well over 1000 films you've almost certainly never heard of from 9 different countries. I myself have only seen about 40 of those listed, most of them the more mainstream fare which Pete Tombs uses as reference points for the uninitiated reader. I hang my head in shame. But, at the same time, I hang it in awe. For I know now that I cannot allow myself to die before having seen a movie starring Argentinian sex bomb Isabel Sarli or Brazil's titan of horror, José Mojica Marins. Buy this book and behold the might and majesty contained within!
"The Underappreciated Films Write-Off" also includes reviews written by these people and/or reasonable facsimiles thereof: ainsleyjo, alex_isit, angflowr, benho, ebrown2, girlgoddess, kris-kochanski, JackSommersby, JuiceJW, machkick, mangiotto, matt_harney, Mattels, Mike_Bracken, MrsNormanMaine, Psychovant, scott29, shadow8, stargull, teskue, third_man, Vormancian, and Wokelstein. Read their contributions now or risk being cast in the next Seann William Scott feature.
Recommended:
Yes
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JavaDevil
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Location: Von Braun City, Sea Of Tranquility, Moon
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