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| THE EDITOR - Udo Kier, lovemaking, and a virgin bending over in the triumphant new Astron-6 production that presents more than a few things you don't see everyday! |
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| Great giallo must have babes screaming. |
Dir. Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy
Starring: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Paz de le Huerta, Udo Kier, Laurence R. Harvey, Tristan Risk, Samantha Hill, Conor Sweeney, Brent Neale, Kevin Anderson, Mackenzie Murdock, John Paizs
Review By Greg Klymkiw
Okay, ladies and gents, strap-on your biggest vibrating butt-plugs and get ready to plop your ass cheeks upon your theatre seat and glue your eyeballs upon The Editor, the newest and most triumphant Astron-6 production to date and easily the greatest thrill ride since Italy spewed out the likes of Tenebre, Inferno, Opera, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Beyond, Strip Nude For Your Killer, Don't Torture a Duckling, Hitch-Hike, Shock, Blood and Black Lace, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Kill Baby Kill and, of course, Hatchet for the Honeymoon. You will relive, beyond your wildest dreams, those films which scorched silver screens the world over during those lazy, hazy, summer days of Giallo. But, be prepared! The Editor is no mere copycat, homage and/or parody - well, it is all three, but more than that, directors Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy have done the impossible by creating a film that holds its own with the greatest gialli of all time. It's laugh-out-loud funny, grotesquely gory and viciously violent. Though it draws inspiration from Argento, Fulci, Bava, et al, the movie is so dazzlingly original that you'll be weeping buckets of joy because finally, someone has managed to mix-master all the giallo elements, but in so doing has served up a delicious platter of post-modern pasta du cinema that both harkens back to simpler, bloodier and nastier times whilst also creating a piece actually made in this day and age.
What, for example, can anyone say about a film that features the following dialogue:
BLONDE STUD: So where were you on the night of the murder?
BLONDE BABE: I was at home washing my hair and shaving my pussy.
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| A TRUE Giallo Hero MUST sport a stylish FRANCO NERO moustache!!!!! |
HALLELUJAH!!!
To the uninitiated, Giallo is the Italian word for "yellow". Its cultural significance is derived from pulp novels published in Italy with trademark yellow paperback covers. Giallo films are the cinematic expression of this literary tradition. The stories usually involve a psychopath (often wearing black gloves and other costume-like elements to hide his, and sometimes her, identity) who stalks and murders babes. All other kills are strictly of the opportunistic variety and usually include anyone who gets in the way (expected or not) of the killer's motives/quarry.
The movies are splashed with globs of garish colour, replete with cool jarring camera moves like quick pans, swish pans, zany zooms and a delightful abundance of shock cuts. The narrative ingredients will almost always include a hero whom everyone thinks is guilty, a few red herring suspects, disloyal and/or uppity wives, sweet young things to tempt cuckolded hubbies and detectives who are almost always on the wrong trail (some are decent-enough dicks), others well-meaning and others yet, are boneheads rivalling the Order of Clouseau. Studs and babes are de rigueur. Nudity and sex are almost always the norm. This is a world we ALL want to live in. (If "we" don't, "we" are dullards.)
Into this time-honoured tradition comes The Editor. Its deceptively simple plot involves Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks, with the greatest Franco Nero moustache since Franco Nero). A once-prominent film editor who accidentally chopped four of his fingers off and now sports four hooks in their stead, covered by a stylish flesh-coloured, finger-shaped slipcover-like glove. His handicap, more often than not, forces him to edit with one hand.
Working for a sleazy producer, our title hero eventually becomes the prime suspect in a series of brutal murders perpetrated one-by-one against the members of the film's cast. The salient detail is that all the victims have had four of their fingers chopped off. If any of them had actually survived, they, like Rey, would suffer the indignity of being referred to as "the cripple".
To complicate matters, Rey has fallen head over heels for his beautiful, young assistant editor, but he tries to resist seducing her, even though at one point she demands, "Make me a woman." Rey, however, points out their age difference: "You are just a little girl. Play with the boys your own age."
Besides, he's locked into an unhappy marriage with a sexy, but spiteful has-been actress (Paz de le Huerta) - a harping shrew who openly cuckolds Rey. At one point, she admits to having eyes for one of the lead actors in the film Rey is editing. Our hero snidely quips, "What would you do if he died?" Wifey is outraged by his mind games and responds: "I would cry. I would cry. I would cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, cry," and then adds, ""I would cry. I would. I would never, ever stop crying, you stupid cripple!"
Detective Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy, also sporting a Nero 'stache), is hell-bent on finding the killer and upon first laying eyes on Rey, he suspiciously asks, "Who's he?" The sleazy producer makes a most gracious introduction: "That's the cripple, the editor." Porfiry, a lusty swordsman with a penchant for slapping his eager women on the face when they talk back, dogs poor Rey at every step. This is not the ideal situation for our hero since he has to keep editing around all the actors who keep getting murdered. Still, he handles the stress as well as could be expected and when he inadvertently lets an amusing comment slip out, the Producer happily announces: "Good one, Ray. I knew it would be fun having a cripple around."
As bodies pile up, Porfiry slaps together a brilliant undercover idea and manages to get his junior detective (Brent Neale) onto the film as the editor. Hapless Rey is being replaced by an Italian version of Jethro Beaudine. The producer tries to let Rey go graciously. "Honestly Ray," he says, "I thought it would be fun to have a cripple around, but I was dead wrong."
The Editor has all the makings of a horror classic. The writing is always sharp and delightfully mordant, the cinematography is first-rate - capturing all the near-fluorescent colours of gialli, the special effects are outstanding (and wonderfully over-the-top), and the musical score is a marvel of aurally rapturous 70s/80s-styled sleaze. Though the film appears to have a bigger budget than previous Astron-6 titles like Manborg and Father's Day, it's lost none of those pictures' independent spirit.
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| FUCHMAN, (from "Father's Day"), right, is up to his old shenanigans, left. |
Hell, we even get teased with a cameo by Mackenzie Murdock in the role of Fuchman ("ch" naturally pronounced like "k") the Daddy-Sodomizing serial killer of Father's Day. And speaking of actors, the cast of The Editor is to-die-for. Brooks is a terrific schlubby hero, Kennedy is suitably, sexily smarmy, the gorgeous Tristan Risk is a Giallo scream-queen incarnate, Brent Neale is galumphingly hilarious as the junior cop, Conor Sweeney (as per usual) dazzles us with his stunning pretty boy looks and utterly astounding ability to play a terrible actor and among many other astonishing thespians delivering spot-on work, the movie features Udo Kier, the greatest actor of all time, as a demented psychiatrist.
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| Giallo fans will recognize the source of these specific images in "The Editor". |
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| John Paizs' CRIMEWAVE the FATHER of Astron-6 |
Among other Winnipeg practitioners of the art of paying homage to genres and being the thing itself, the crazed Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Archangel, Careful, My Winnipeg) is also part of this tradition.
Consider John Paizs as God the Father of Astron-6 and Guy Maddin as the collective's Uncle Jesus Christ.
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| Chainsaw VS. Conor Sweeney, Axe VS. Tristan Risk Who will Survive? What will be left of them? |
Brooks and Kennedy via the Astron-6 collective in Winnipeg have joined the ranks of the very best filmmakers to smash through the traditional boundaries of the medium and create work of genuinely lasting value. Best of all, though, The Editor is probably the coolest film you'll see this year and one you'll want to partake of again and again and yet again. Cult classics never die. They get better and better.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars Highest Rating
The Editor is enjoying its World Premiere in the Midnight Madness series programmed by the brilliant Colin Geddes at the 2014 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2014). For tix, times, dates and venues, visit the TIFF website by clicking HERE.
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