#jd shit

It’s…hard. I…hm. I’m not quite sure how to describe it. It isn’t that I don’t know what happens next, or that I don’t know how it will end. I think now that there’s such little of it left I…

It makes me nervous, how much people like it, how differently people feel about it, there’s a certain overwhelming nature of it all and it frightens me. The looming threat of dissatisfaction. Maybe I’ll be sad when it’s gone. Maybe I’ll be relieved. Maybe I’ll hate it. Maybe I’ll love it. It weighs on me.

It isn’t perfect. It isn’t. People feel that way about it, but I don’t. How can it be perfect? How can I hope to make the ending “perfect?” What is “perfect” to you? A happy end? A sad end? Death? Life? Marriage? Separation? Redemption? Perdition? How do you define any of these loose things? What does happy mean? What does sad mean?

I started it in such a different place in my life. Can I close the book on that part of my life? Or has the book already closed, and that’s why I’ve stalled?

I was sad, angry, overworked. My emotions felt hot and violent and volatile. I was dancing around with myself, hating myself, trying to convince myself I didn’t, loving myself, thinking I was a bad person, hoping I was a good person. Everything you read, everything there, all the frustration and confusion spilled out. Lena, Kara, me.

The feeling was overwhelming, and I wish misery didn’t help me write. I wish I was interested in other facets of life. That pain and anger and self-doubt weren’t such appealing subjects to vomit onto a word document.

Weren’t so easy to write about.

Weren’t so hard to write about.

I’m sorry this is such a long answer, but I know people want it. Maybe that’s part of it. The wanting. It means so much to you, but it belongs to me. And I fear that others have much stronger feelings for it than I, and that also paralyzes me.

How would you finish it? What do you want from it? What are you looking for? What would satisfy you? It plagues me. Freezes me. Makes my hands shake and my heart pound. It’s terrifying. Will you hate me if it isn’t what you want? How many people will I let down? How angry will people be if I end it the way I see it?

I’m frozen around it. I think about it constantly. I want to finish. That’s the only answer I can give without any false promises.

I want to finish.

You know what it was for me about the new Hellraiser? There was no romance in it.

There was no passion. No sweat. No grime. The desperation rang hollow. There was no dirt. There was no seduction. There was no appreciation for the beauty of filth and ugliness. It was just beautiful.

I feel like, nowadays, people are so concerned about people taking horror ‘seriously’ that any love that might have gone into it falls to the wayside. There used to be a visceral love for horror- not just the heightened aesthetics, but for the grossness. The getting dirty. The true disturbing quality of the human body as an object. The wetness, the juiciness, the blood, the grease, the fat, the flesh. People falling apart, hair undone, eyes wild, covered in sweat and tears. There’s a romance in that. A romance in the base form of humanity. In desperation. In fear.

No amount of beautifully made, consistency-accurate, color-accurate fake blood will match the way Kirsty looks in 1987 screaming “You want it? Fucking have it!” She is raw. She is frightened. She is angry and undone and she wants to fight. She looks like an animal.

That is the franchise. That. The human animal. When you watch Hellraiser 1987, it’s so clear that the people making the movie understood what they were making. Understood the beauty of the horrific. And yeah, that’s probably not a fair comparison, as the literal author Clive Barker was at the helm of the project. But that does even further disservice to 2022. And even with all the beauty 2022 captured, a clean, modern, painfully clinical beauty though it may be, there is nothing luscious or lurid about it. Nothing about the Cenobites seems particularly ‘forbidden,’ because they look like pieces of modern art. They have no enticement. I felt like I observed them with the same appraising eye one might cast upon a particularly lovely sculpture. I didn’t want to take a closer look, a grave and fatal feeling for a franchise like Hellraiser. I mean my god, when people talk about ‘sexy’ horror, Candyman and Hellraiser are often the first two names that get called out. This movie was not sexy. Not at all.

The surreal and fantastical were left to the wayside in favor of brutalism and realism. It leaves wonder behind, supplanting it with rote fear. The character’s lack of understanding is devoid of genuine curiosity. It seems the filmmakers fundamentally misunderstood that you can be filled with awe and wonder both in a positive way, and in a negative way. There’s no temptation. There are no trances. No dreams. You’ll never see anything like the premonition Kirsty had in 1987. Or the flashback romance scenes between Frank and Julia. That visual style of storytelling is gone.

The concepts behind 2022 were good. They had an interesting take on the lore, and to include a ritual to the Configuration was smart, and well done. But that eventually served only in detriment as well, as the entirety of the movie then rang like a ‘deal with the devil’ morality tale. It’s confusing in that way, as one of the iconic lines spoken by the original Priest (Pinhead) when asked who the Cenobites are is “Demons to some; Angels to others.” There’s an attractiveness to that. To them.

How is it possible, then, that the filmmakers seemed to forgo the angelic part of that quote? The 2022 Cenobites were beautifully designed, meticulously created creatures. The were beautiful. But the christian bible, and indeed many faiths across time all understand that to see something beautiful can be terrifying and frightening. One of the most commonly known snippets of the Bible, at least in the western world, comes from Luke 2:10, “But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid […]’.” An angel, and the first words spoken are “Do not be afraid.” If one cast their eyes upon the unobstructed form of Zeus’ beauty, they would die. If one saw Anubis walk into a room, jackal head and all, it would be impossible to look away, but also frightening to the core. To see a god, any god, in the flesh is to be both terrified and excited. Those two feelings are inextricable.

Why is it, then, that no one is seeking the Cenobites out? Why does not one hunt for the Configuration? The very promise of the appearance of the Cenobites is the promise to take you to the furthest reaches of experience and sensation, when pleasure and pain can no longer be separated. To experience that which you could never dream of. To push the boundaries to breaking, until you exist only as a being of feeling, beyond and above even consciousness. So why does no one want to see the Cenobites?

The issue falls to the framing device, which needn’t have been used to such ill effect. When you reduce those claimed by the Cenobites to sacrifices, you reduce the Cenobites to nothing more than pretty weapons. The lives the Cenobites take are offerings, stepping stones to an end goal. While the Cenobites may enjoy in their activities, there is no one seeking out to touch them. To reach them. Not the entity behind them. Those who wish to receive a gift from the Cenobites never truly interact with them. The gift is no longer the visit in and of itself. What sights have they to show us, when they are nothing but glorified weapons of their god, instead of gods in their own right?

And don’t even get me started on the coloring. Look, I know it’s very en vogue for things to be monochromatic and dark in movies these days, but my god where was the color?! Where was it!! The glimpses we got were not enough when 1987 is just so bright. And then, to make things worse, the Cenobites were shown almost entirely without obstruction. Just out there in the open, for the most part, albeit in the distance and shown briefly. No illusory quality to them. I know I don’t want a closer look when I can see every detail of them the first time. That’s a person with pins in her head, that one doesn’t have eyes or a face, that one’s neck is one huge gash, that one’s in a skin straight jacket. I know because I can see it. I’d surely run if I could see that right off the top. Gone is the sense of ‘oh my god, oh my god, what was that?’ I get your designs are strong, and really very well made, but don’t just give it to me. Let me want it a bit first. Tease me with it. With them.

On top of that, the reds aren’t as red. The blues aren’t as blue. The color shift felt virtually nonexistent between the Hellworld and the real one, and neither reality is particularly vibrant. You’ll never see as intense a contrast as you hope to see. People being stabbed, ripped apart, torn by chains, flayed, all these things look wonderful, but just too real. Why do I care if your red is tone-accurate when your reference looks like a technicolor nightmare in the best possible way?

The drama! The unrealism! The intensity! The Cenobites are not of this earth. We call their realm ‘hell,’ but you could just as easily call it a parallel or alternate dimension. They simply exist. There are so few properties with a strong enough foundation for the only limit to be your imagination, and unfortunately it felt like this new Hellraiser was want of any. I don’t want your anatomically correct muscles and perfectly researched disfigurements, I want unreality. Give me fantasy, or don’t bother.

I say all this with the heaviest of hearts. The Priest was well designed. The Cenobites, and there were quite a few of them, all had potential to induce desire. They just…didn’t. It just felt like no one understood. Like no one would think twice about whether they wanted to see the Priest- of course the wouldn’t! And god, did that show. I think at least someone working on a Hellraiser property should be able to see the desirability of the Cenobites, the tantalizing nature of the taboo, the socially outcast.

Clive Barker was a gay man who released The Hellbound Heart in the 1986, and the original Hellraiser film in 1987. This was the height of the AIDS epidemic, when gay men were seen as disease, not just carrying disease. Monsters. Predators. Animals. They were laughed at and scorned, and treated as so much less than human. Treated like they deserved their fate. Their tragedy was the butt of everyone’s joke. Yet, those very people were still wanted under the cover of night. Still desired. How is it possible this new team missed the mark so entirely? How could they not understand that when one’s very desires are deemed deviant, when your nature is seen as repugnant, unnatural, criminal, one eventually comes to a place where those words become badges of pride? Of a way to differentiate yourself from those who would wish you dead? That idea didn’t make its way to Hellraiser 2022.

We never got to a place that said, Yes. Yes they are deviant, and repugnant, and criminal and damned. They will drag you down with them into endless agonies. Not a single person will be able to save you. You think even touching them will kill you. And you still want them.

All the makings of an excellent new Hellraiser were there, but nothing was enough. Colors, editing, acting, story, beauty, fear, dirtiness, sexiness (jesus god there was no sexiness), it all came up short. They weren’t brave enough to explore the further regions of experience.

I know in todays modern, digital age everyone has a camera in their pocket. I know you could run off into the woods and shoot a movie with your friends. I know, I know, I know. But who would watch it? Where would they find it? I am an avid fan of Tubi, of checking out those great, bad horror movies. But something magical I feel is lost in it now. There’s a distance, a lack of touch, nothing is tactile, I couldn’t find it in a video store. Does that mean it’s not real? No. But sometimes it doesn’t feel real because I know I couldn’t find that movie on a vhs or dvd clearance rack.

Maybe that’s all it is. I know the digital age is having its problems with retention, with the value of people’s art, and watching a dumb horror movie streaming feels flighty and impermanent.

I never thought I’d consider physical media to be a gift, but it was- it is. And for me, that gift is encased in an 8 by 4 inch plastic box secured with Phillips head screws.

Like I watched Cabaret last night and honey… god almighty the things that stood out to me. The most intense one was at the end though when Brian and Sally are saying goodbye, and she doesn’t even walk him all the way to the platform, and I just thought, my god. What must it be like to meet the love of your life and have to leave them behind like that. Only a few months together, and that’s it. Like. Testament also to Michael York and Liza Minelli’s performances because when those two people leave one another it is just so clear they are going to think about the other for the rest of their lives.

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Martyrs (2008) is a movie that’s been analyzed to Hell and back (pun intended) but I think the idea that you can artificially create a martyr is a completely fascinating thing to be explored in film, and in horror specifically. Horror is violent, and does martyrdom even exist without incitement by violence? People talk about this movie as a masterpiece, as shocking and raw and horrifying, all visuals and effects and awe. That’s talked out. But I feel I’d like to go into the concept which the movie is founded upon and titled after: martyrdom.

Martyrs is surprisingly slow, for being as iconic in the horror community as it is. We’re not exactly renowned for enjoying taking things slowly, but the Pascal Laugier knows how to write a hook. Martyr’s is instantly engaging and demands your attention. The opening shot is a stroke of genius, riveting and frightening. It’s a movie that’s impossible to look away from, it compels you to watch. At just over an hour and a half long, the pacing is pointedly deliberate for a movie as short as it is. Fear comes slowly, settling in after the shock and sinking lower and lower into your stomach until there is only dread left in you. Dread and sorrow. It has an air of inevitability about it, even if you are unaware of the ending, that reminded me of a Greek tragedy. There is only one way the story will end, and no matter how you wish it there is no changing it. There will be no escape. In this way, as a launching off point, I’m compelled to think artificial martyrdom. Of destiny, fate, and the immovability of the Christian God’s Plan.

It is, in my opinion, a movie about hubris. Man’s thirst for knowledge of the great beyond has driven this whole strange religious cult, if you could call them religious, into such violent and unimaginable extremes that one hesitates to consider them having any faith at all. They do not seek clarity from God, they do not seek clarity from the passion of True Faith; they wish to seize upon and steal that clarity. It is reminiscent, in a way, of the Tower of Babel. They’re chasing something intangible, something beyond human comprehension. One could liken the knowledge martyrs receive upon those final moments to Semele looking at the true face of Zeus, only to perish at the sight of him. They must die; the human mind could not endure the revelation, as evidenced in the movie.

The way the concept of martyrdom is set up happens so quickly, and in what I considered to be such a blithe way, that the cult’s dedication to their ideals is seen as crazed immediately. “Look at her eyes. Look at her eyes.” It is instantly insincere and fanatical. By virtue they are unworthy of the knowledge they seek, and will suffer for reaching out to touch that which no human hand should deign to touch. Adam himself may extend his desperate hand, but even Michelangelo knew he would never reach his holy Father. We are shown a book of pictures, young woman after young woman, with an apparent look of enlightenment on their faces. We are led to believe by the Mademoiselle that these women, through their agony, have seen the face of the Christian God, of the Beyond, and have obtained a truth that she and her cult seek to have. She even goes out of her way to mention those women who are atheistic and who she still believed to have reached this state.

Yet we never see a bible. We never see a crucifix. We never see any religious imagery, nor do the members of the cult even wear crosses themselves. In fact, the movie being bereft of such imagery is a clearly intentional decision. They do not seek to be granted God’s gifts, they do not even consider the knowledge Holy. They want to have their cake and eat it too: they do not want to suffer, they want the results of Holy suffering. They want to burn the martyr and be granted the Holy knowledge thereof. To slaughter the sacrificial Lamb of God and take the flesh from the altar. They are pursuing sacrilege not in God’s name, but in the name of knowledge. A knowledge that can only be granted by a God whom they seem to ignore.

If we pursue the religious aspect of the film further, and we assume Christianity and Christian martyrs are the foundation for this groups fanaticism, then we must also assume that martyrs and martyrdom are destined by the Christian God. You cannot create a martyr. Martyrs are preordained; chosen and touched by God Himself. It then follows that martyrdom, and the creation of martyrs, are moments in His plan that are free from the influence of human choice. These people were not created by human influence, by the hands of man; it was their destiny to live and to die with transcendental suffering. While human beings may have inflicted that suffering, those actions too are preordained and immovable in the wheels of time. But the idea of martyrdom being a thing inflicted upon people by man, rather than a manifestation of God’s Plan on Earth, creates the illusion of choice for the cult to cling to.

If one only assumes martyrdom to be bred at the hands of suffering, it is no wonder, then, the cult is unable to falsify or create a martyr that will grant them the information they seek. How could they possibly, when a martyr must die with His Intention? They see humanity as making martyrs for themselves, rather than something martyrs are doomed for by God.

By definition martyrs must suffer and die for something, for someone, for an emotion or belief or thought. How humanity chooses to inflict such suffering is their own, but it cannot be mistaken for true creation. This type of creation belongs to God alone. Martyrs, if we follow this logic, are born to die, born to transcend, and born to see that which the rest of humanity has never laid eyes upon. They achieve revelation through God’s Plan, and through Him only.

It’s strange the Mademoiselle only shows photographs of modern women achieving what this cult perceived to be an elevated or enlightened state when Christian imagery is full of such visuals in paintings across time. “The Christian Martyrs Last Prayer” by Jean-Leon Gerome, “Saint Sebastian” by Andrea Mantegna, “Joan of Arc” by John Everette Millais. A google search of paintings of Christian martyrs turns up page after page of martyr upon martyr painted from hundreds of years ago right to the present moment. Where are these images in the cult? Why are they absent?

Their detachment from the idea of enlightenment as a religious experience means such images of true Faith have no place in their ideals, in their machinations, or in their hearts. They are vile not only on a human level, for willingly inflicting unimaginable agonies upon woman after woman, but also because what they mean to achieve is a affront to God. They try to fabricate martyrs, to engineer them. They are blasphemers desecrating the very idea of martyrdom in what one could consider to be on the deepest levels of degradation. They boil down the suffering of men and women who died for their faith, who died for their country, who died for God, to nothing; they make those ultimate sacrifices meaningless. These, who are so pure of conviction that they would rather die then renounce their beliefs. Their motives aren’t part of this group’s theology, their intentions and feelings are made irrelevant. The cult stands for nothing, and is a hollow shell of rot and wickedness.

The perceived martyred women in the photographs, as the cult seems to have latched onto the idea of female suffering having a stronger inclination to achieving enlightenment, are seen not as people touched by God, but as blueprints. Religion has been abandoned by the group and has no place within their beliefs. Why else would they seek such knowledge? Surely, if their sect was as founded in Christianity as one might assume, they must already know theirs souls have been damned for eternity in Hell. Is such knowledge worth it? Would Adam and Eve choose not to eat the fruit if given another chance? Or would they, driven by a desperate need for knowledge, fall and fall time and again. Is knowing before worth the eternal damnation that will follow? Or have they truly disconnected martyrdom from God so much that they do not believe their actions will have consequences?

In this way, Anna was not created a martyr by this cult, she was born to be one. Born to be this one. Born to suffer at the hands of her mother. Born to suffer in deep unrequited love and empathetic anguish for Lucie and her pain. Born for the horror and death and heartbreak following the events in the Belfond home. Born to discover the woman being kept there, to care for her and weep for her, to be unable to save her, born to watch her die. She was born to be taken, and born to suffer. These events were preordained, and have always been engineered by the Hand of God. The events of the movie are fated. Anna was born with the blessing and curse of martyrdom. Her transcendence and obtaining of final and true Sight was always hers to have. This cult had failed to create the martyr they sought not because the suffering the women endured was undue for martyrdom, but because the other women victimized by the cult were simply not born to be martyred. Anna is, according to the cult, the fourth martyr they have “created,” yet she is the only one their work has brought to fruition.

One then wonders, why Anna? What has Anna suffered and died for? The answer to this question is, in my opinion, supplied with perfect clarity: Anna has been martyred as a tool for the Vengeance of God. She is a weapon against those who wish to steal from Him, those who wish to take what belongs only to Him, those who wish to create what He alone is able to create. The cult is sacrilegious, blasphemous, and their very existence flies in the face of God. Anna’s martyrdom, and her ability to communicate the visions He showed her, were acts of Divine Retribution. We do not need to know what Anna said to the Mademoiselle, it was never ours to know. We need only know that what God showed to Anna was intended to kill the Mademoiselle, to destroy this cult for its desecration of the work of God, and, as was always destined to be, He succeeded.

So what is a martyr? The movie provides a definition as the final shot: a martyr is a witness. I believe it is up to us to decide what that truncated definition means. Are they witnesses of God’s Glory? Are they witnesses of the Beyond? Are they witnesses of the true face of man? Or do they finally witness that which is truly unknowable: the expanse of time, of life, the endlessness of eternity, the great fears and glories, the face of Death, the fury of God? Do they see what lies beyond is true nothingness, and that death leaves you abandoned and meaningless? Whatever it is, I am happy that we do not hear what Anna says to the Mademoiselle, because I, for one, don’t want to know.

Belgian director Harry Kümel let’s you know right at the beginning that this film will be sexy and weird. The unnatural coloring gives it an ethereal quality that the rest of the movie definitely lives up to. It entices you with ideas, with little glances of vice, with touches of the erotic until you are practically begging for more. The steady and sure pacing is all the more torturous as the movie goes on and you wait for the climax that you know is coming.

The 70s were known for this brand of hot-and-bothered horror, blurring the lines between violence and orgasmic pleasure, and Daughters of Darkness is no exception. While traditional Giallo may offer its viewers the sexual metaphor through black-gloved killers stabbing their victims- usually women- in what can only be described as juicy, cries of pain sounding just enough like cries of pleasure to make one feel just a little bit dirty, surreal or supernatural horror has little use for black gloves. The sex is sex. The seduction is seduction, and the spells and thralls victims- men and women alike- fall under are insurmountable. They will succumb. The weapons are words, sweet and sinful words of suggestion. Unlike slashers, the only way to win in a battle of otherworldly desires and fears is a triumph of will. But when you’re being seduced by Vampress Countess Elizabeth Báthory (yes that Elizabeth Báthory) so clearly modeled after Marlene Dietrich, would one even want to escape? One night would be enough. One night is enough.

Lesbian horror deals in pleasure absolute. It entices the viewer with the voyeuristic idea of women, without the presence of men, giving each other untoward satisfactions; devilish pleasures. It’s taboo, wicked, evil, and delectable. A vice a woman, in this case our heroine Valerie, played with doe eyed care by Danielle Ouimet, must escape from- if she can. She’s only just naïve enough.

The events of the move lie solely at the feet of the husband, Stefan, portrayed by John Karlen, who you might recognize from his time spent on the original run of Dark Shadows. If he hadn’t given into his fears of introducing his bride to his family, the newlyweds would never have found themselves caught in a practically deserted grand hotel in the middle of the off season. The fact that he has left Valerie in the dark regarding his sadistic fantasies and obsession with violence only adds fuel to the fire- suddenly, Valerie finds herself alone against those who would, quite literally, consume her. Stefan is an easy target for the Countess Báthory, as her past deeds arouse and enthrall him.

Delphine Seyring as Elizabeth Báthory is a woman who doesn’t think she’s seductive, beautiful, and sexual, she knows it, and that only makes her all the more attractive. She’s nothing short of captivating. The bright red lip, oh so kissable, draws not only her victims, but the viewer into her undeniable thrall. Her red fingernails draw attention to her hands and her long slender fingers which we know can do so much. Her lover, Ilona, as portrayed by Andrea Rau, is a clear nod to Louise Brooks, and their beautiful dichotomy is a phenomenal choice on the director’s part. The innocent look of Ilona only makes her fruitless efforts to escape her Mistress’ clutches all the more tragic, and her jealousy is bred of insecurities the Countess purposely feeds. While we first meet our newlywed lovers awash in blue, Countess Báthory and Ilona are immediate washed in luscious blood red; immediately relating the two women as a dark parallel to our heroes. They are sleeping together, fucking, and the director wants you to know from the moment you see them together. He wants your mind to fill in the blanks, as censors of the time most likely didn’t allowed him to show much more than the suggestive touches we are offered from our lesbian relationships.

The first time the four are together, the color palette is just to die for- in this case literally. Valerie in a beautifully tailored black suit, Stefan in starch white, Ilona in that same black as her female counterpart, and the Countess in sheer, devil red. The costuming tells us clear: Valerie and Ilona are the same, and both are and will be the Countess’. The color palette and cinematography are orgasmic in their own right; I gasped in sheer delight a few times over composition of the film. And, of course, after Stefan’s encounter with the Countess, he immediately changes into that same rich, delicious red- he is already hers, and his fruitless efforts to make love to his wife lack the sexual violence the Countess Báthory so carefully awoke in him as she whispered in his ear, lips brushing just the shell. He, in the course of one conversation, is lost.

For a movie made in the 70s, it’s rather frank when it comes to handling the idea of pleasure as an entity different from that of sex, and the failings of men and how they objectify women. Báthory, luring her young prey further into her trap, expounds after a violent confrontation between the newlyweds- “…Whatever [he] demands of you, do you consent to do it? Yes, naturally, but you don’t feel any pleasure.” And the Countess has no intention of letting her go, pushing even further the more Valerie resists, a fly that doesn’t know she’s been caught in honey.

At the end of the day, Daughters of Darkness is a movie about hidden desires, pleasure, love and the lies we tell ourselves. It’s a movie about realizing a woman is her own person, and she doesn’t need a man in order to exist. It’s a warning, in a way, to men. Be careful- she doesn’t actually need you. If you’re looking for a beautiful way to spend an hour and forty minutes, look no further. Critical of men and their violent desires, of their weakness, it’s a good, if a bit silly movie. But sometimes it’s just nice to be able to sit down and watch a movie populated by women and see the man be the weakest of them.

The one true downfall of the movie is the trappings of the time- the deaths are, for lack of a better term, jokes. Wholly unrealistic and silly. There are plot holes, things left unkept and unresolved, but at the end of the day I don’t feel it really matters. It’s a movie of suggestion, so let it suggest. It benefits from being European, as most shortcomings can be lumped into the lovely umbrella non-American filmmakers get to use- “artistic decisions.” Still, it’s fun, and I didn’t regret my time spent.

All in all a fun little movie, if a bit thin in the middle, Daughters of Darkness gets a steady 3/5*

Extras:

Best Line:

“…He dreams of making out of you what every man dreams of making out of every woman: a slave, a thing, an object for pleasure.”

Best Death:

A crystal glass bowl splitting in half and magically cutting the wrists of the victim.

Gold Star Award: