Balthazar's Deconstructed Shandy

Let me take you back to either the year 2019 or 2020. The exact year or month is unclear. But I'd be guessing around April or May. All I know is your humble host Mr Funeralopolis was living at Murray Road. A popular phrase back then come Friday evening would be to adopt a full Total Recall Arnie Schwarzenegger voice and scream down the phone to the boys, "Get your ass to Murray Road" And when the call came, you answered. One such man that answered the call on a particular weekend was Balthazar Marie. Infamous pirate of the peninsular without a boat (he's still looking for a houseboat, if you have one for sale please send information to Funeralopolis headquarters and we'll pass the information on). For the life of me and probably for the best, I cannot recall what we got up to that Friday or Saturday evening but on the Sunday morning, hungover as expected, we opted to treat ourselves to some Sunday brunch.

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five's Hotter than That was pumping out over the speakers. It was your King of Psycho-Schradism, Balthazar Marie, Ricardo Carvalho and Ricardo's girlfriend at that time, Blondie. All sat together on a table of four down at Hopper, a cosy café on Eccy Road. Reason why I'd place this as being around easter time is because we were all seated in the outside section. Those unacquainted with Hopper, I'd recommend that part over the cramped indoor dining area. Their outdoor seating section is a stellar spot you might just miss cause from the front cause you have no indication it's even there. If I remember rightly, the only way to access it is from the street round the back. So it's easily missed. Perhaps the most worrying thing was that Ricardo decided to order a bottle of heavy liquor at about half 10 in the morning when the rest of us were still hanging. No, actually it could be more worrying that he spent about half an hour trying to order from the menu because he couldn't read the words on the page. These were his alcoholic days and as some will know, an alcoholic will do what and an alcoholic will do. Yet, these troublesome things were not the things that made this Sunday brunch so memorable.

Ricardo's eyes weren't working and my ears weren't working. As a table of four, between us we just about had a full functioning set of senses. Balthazar has an unnaturally long conversation with the waiter. None of which, I could decipher. Lips moved, sounds were heard, no sense was made. When this poor waiter returns later with all our drinks, he hands Balthazar 2 glasses. Zwei Gläser. One filled with a browny yellow substance, easily recognisable to the trained eye as beer. The other filled with carbonated lemon juice, known by most as lemonade. He proceeded with whatever conversation we were having with Blondie, whilst Ricardo was still scanning the food menu. I couldn't let this go on any longer. "Excuse me, what the fuck is that, sir?", I asked nicely. Holding my hand out to visually draw the current conversation to a clear standstill. "A Deconstructed Shandy", replied Balthazar with an unmistakably strong 'duh' tone in his voice.

"What?", I asked again, this time trying to point at the monstrosity before me but not knowing which glass to point at and so wavering my finger between the two. "A Deconstructed Shandy", repeated Balthazar without explanation. I began to wonder whether this was a real thing or a Balthazar invention. This is something I've googled since and have not a single piece of evidence to suggest its authenticity as a beverage. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this might have been the reason for the unnatural delay. There's no way you could say, "sort us out with a Deconstructed Shandy, mate" and expect a sane individual would know what you mean. Given the nature of what we were dealing with, it was a miracle the waiter understood the request as quickly as he did. Fair play to him for the speed at which he engaged in these particular services. Poor chap did not need his head popping like that on a Sunday morning. Ever since the incident, I wish I had heard the initial explanation given so I could see the waiter deal with this unusual request in real time.

For the next 20 minutes, I demand Balthazar to disclose to me what the fuck these two glasses sitting in front of me were. Everything he knew about the Deconstructed Shandy. "It's simple really, A Constructed Shandy would have the beer and the lime/lemonade together", he expertly reveals. I nodded along to show I was listening and agreeing. "Ok, so we've got to the bottom of what this is and what the conventional would be. Now can we get a bit more on the why this is? Why couldn't you just put de lime in de beer and drank 'em bot' up?", I asked him. "Because Mr Nilsson, I don't want it that way. That way would mix them too equally", answers our deconstructionist. "What's wrong with that though? People been doing the old way for centuries. No-one's complaining. So why bother?", I interrupt. "Look, let's say I want a bit more beer on this sip or maybe on the next one I want a stronger after taste of lime. My method achieves that. You could say...this is how I win", exclaims Balthazar with unmatchable confidence.

"Ok, so what you're talking about is compositions. You're saying through this technique you're getting new flavours each time", I theorise aloud. "Is this like the New Order Confusion Pump Panel Deconstruction Mix?", jumps in Ricardo from behind his food menu. "That's the Reconstruction Mix", corrects Balthazar. "What?", cries out Ricardo, dropping the menu so we can see his horrible face. "The RE Reconstruction Mix. RE. There's no Deconstruction mix. Just RE". Ricardo screws up that horrible face of his, shakes his head and gets back to ferociously attacking his wine bottle. Jesus, I thought, this was getting far too overcomplicated for my hungover brain. I didn't even want to think about reconstruction right now. Why couldn't things just be neatly constructed like the good old days? The all or nothing days. The no fucking around days.

Now when my mind wonders back to Balthazar sipping from his 2 glasses, all I can think of is the Kuleshov Effect. A legendary short film from none other than lev Kuleshov back in 1919. About a hundred years before Balthazar Marie would deconstruct a shandy in Hopper café. In this short, we see the same close up shot repeated multiple times of a man. In between, we see images such as a meal, a baby and a woman.

When we return back to the central image of the man, notice that the shot doesn't change, only our perception of it does based on the image that precedes it in the sequence. If we see food, we assume he's hungry. If we see the baby, we assume he's happy. If we see the woman, we assume he's horny. Hungry, happy, horny. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the power of the montage. A single isolated image has little value but when that single isolated image interacts with another image it has the ability to alter in meaning. In a sense, the editing takes over the performance. As proved by Mr Kuleshov.

Our Russian friends were the early Kings of montage. Sergei Eisenstein is the man to check out in this arena. His film Battleship Potemkin released in 1925 is my vote for best film of the silent era. Emotionally, I'll always have a place for Buster Keaton and his rather romantic precursor to Pirates of the Caribbean and Temple of Doom, known as The Navigator (If you're a woman and we watch that and then you like that, you're then my wife for all eternity, I mean it, I'll get down on one knee then and there). But the film that really conquered the limits of silent filmmaking was Battleship Potemkin. Since sound, it's probably 2001: A Space Odyssey but back then it was Potemkin. Notably, it managed to silence the argument early on whether political propaganda could produce good art. If people didn't know it back in 1925, they would later learn it in 1966 with Gillo Pontecovro's The Battle of Algieres and then again in 1969 with Costa Gavras's Z, that in some cases propaganda can in fact advance cinema. These films create new storytelling methods as a necessity to justify their own existence and work cinematically.

Potemkin was so good, Eisenstein couldn't even repeat his own success. I rate Strike and October for the ambition, hard not to respect anyone who's only restricted by the technological limitations of their time but truthfully, he runs in to some glaring narrative troubles. His crime? Trying to fit in too many intertitles and ruining the flow of the movie.

Consequently, these two become rather stuffy due to cramming in all the details of their revolutions depicted. Write with the camera, not with the pen. More so than ever in the silent era. A trick which caused Alfred Hitchcock to remain ahead of the game for years as he had experience in the silent era. Watch any of his films and I'm sure you'd understand about 90% of them without the sound on. He's the master of show, don't tell. As is the requirement when operating within such a visual medium. It pays not to be too literary in this game.

Even when sound caught up with him, Eisenstein struggled with dialogue that flowed too. His 2 parter Ivan the Terrible was a fun historical epic if a little wayward and clunky. Like all good science fictions and historical epics, this was actually a contemporary piece using the different time period as an illusion to comment on recent events. On this occasion, Eisenstein threw in some subversive anti-Stalin sentiments that did not go unnoticed. He wasn't suddenly anti-communist but he had a few disagreements with Premier Stalin. Not the only one, Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, whilst also not strictly anti-communist is a statement on the difficulties of making art within that system.

Eisenstein would eventually return to the simplicity of Potemkin and obtain a first masterpiece in sound era Alexander Nevsky. On this project, they forced in Dmitriy Vasilev as the co-director on the grounds that Eisenstein be kept from descending in to formalism, which really meant critiquing communism. Ironically, this ends up being his most formally experimental since Battleship Potemkin with less dialogue and more attention to camera work than his other talkies. As evident in the picture above, many shots are these striking close ups that lead the story. Above all though, his main vision with this one was about the emergence of Nazi Germany, hence all the fascist imagery in the mise en scene. However, somewhere along the line, he still managed to piss off the Premier and the reels of the film were quickly destroyed, in spite of international acclaim. This film features the incredible Battle on Ice, a sequence which even though you may never have seen, you've seen it.

But Kelly how's that possible you ask? It's frequently referenced in such classics as, Wizards, Conan the Barbarian, Mulan and Empire Strikes Back. It's a must see. This represents George Lucas at his best for me, taking these kinds of sequences from foreign cinema and doing his own western version often mixed with trash like Flash Gordon. He was the original Tarantino I'm afraid, sampling from Eisenstein to Kurosawa.

Jumping back to the arrival of the Nazis, they were so inspired by Battleship Potemkin and the influence this fresh art form could have on the masses, Goebbels himself decided to take full control of their film industry. Leading up this, Germany was one of the greatest and most dominant national cinemas in the silent era. They had given the world German Expression, the first extremely successful attempt to mix art movements with film, expanding the medium past other art forms and bettering them. Purely visual too, hence its success in the silent era. So what did Goebbels do the second he took charge? He booted out all the Jewish filmmakers who just so happened to be the best ones they had. Amuses me that in a rather film bro moment, he didn't kill Fritz Lang, telling him he admired his catalogue but he had to go. Hitchcock's master Murnau wasn't Jewish but he ended up dying in a car accident. Things did not go well for Goebbels during his reign over the German film industry and the majority of the films in this period are forgotten about.

Time and time again, he tried to recreate Battleship Potemkin for the Nazi party with no luck. About the closest he came to success was through Leni Riefenstahl. Triumph of the Will captures the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. These days it just reminds me of Zack Snyder's Watchmen, it's complete costume fetishisation and fascism. Ironically, the original Watchmen graphic novel was supposed to be Alan Moore's celebration of anarchism but here comes this clown to shut down the party. Zack being Zack (a stupid fuck), he accidentally creates a fascist piece of art. Yes, there is such thing as fascist art. This tends to promote individual beauty, strength and racial purity. Its works seek to evoke awe and intimidate.

Riefenstahl manipulates cinematic techniques to highlight these aspects such as framing of soldiers in near pornographic stances. Lines and lines of well postured men walking towards the camera in angles that make them appear most threatening. Emphasis on those Hugo Boss outfits. In later years, shooting in this style has been studied by the likes of Kubrick and Disney transforming it in to the art of evil if it isn't already. Those wanting to know more about the art of evil, Lars Von Trier's The House that Jack Built is cinemas best albeit not strictly serious take on the subject. A film in which the Danish legend uses himself and his films as a reference point in history to pure evil as it descends in to Dante's Inferno.

Riefenstahl maintains Triumph of the will was merely a documentary covering an event that belongs to cinema verité. Leni, I find this hard to believe, there is no neutrality involved when you construct images together in a manner which promotes fascism. There is still the argument of refusing to condemn means supporting but let's put that aside at the moment and say if you were wanting to be objective (which is very difficult and maybe even impossible) wouldn't you opt for a more fly on the wall approach? Something close to a style which serves as a precursor to Pennebaker's Direct Cinema? Do not bullshit me again, Leni. You were a criminal. You were the Nazi parties cinematic face and you belonged in a jail cell.

Feminists continue to champion her work as one of cinemas early filmmakers. Alice Guy Blache and Germaine Dulac remain less problematic but were nowhere near as innovative. Lois Weber and he film Suspense from 1913 is head and shoulders above anything Guy Blache and Dulac ever contributed. Slightly after Riefenstahl's most creative period but Maya Deren would be my number one go to woman of early cinema. She could be the best female director in history. You Pixies loving freaks and Gaspar Noe heads love to chat the ears off anyone who will listen about the eyeball slicing surrealist classic Un Chien Andalou, maybe it's time you added Meshes of the Afternoon and At Land to your verbal repertoire.

Detour in to women's cinema history aside, Riefenstahl once did make a movie which nearly worked on me. I found Triumph of the Will to be too obvious as to its propaganda. Her shooting of the Olympic Games back in 1936 was a much more subtly evil and effective piece of propaganda because the intentions are not as easy to spot. On the surface it appears innocent. She opens these with a montage of Greek statues and then cuts to our athletes in training camps. Alright Kuleshov gang, I'm sure you can establish the comparison she is trying to make here between past and present. That these are the Übermensch. The strongest of the strongest. The elite. We're dealing with those who carry the perfect genes that need to be passed on to ensure the pure race and most competent version of our species. You know who else likes to use Greek mythology in their films? Zack Snyder and pretty much all superhero movies. Isn't that why he kept returning to Superman so he could keep shooting him in this manner and working on the best possible pose and framing to capture that ethos? Wonder Woman's history is equally problematic with those tribes. Not to say that Hollywood is intentionally churning out fascism (Snyder's too much of an idiot to be credited for this, he's an accidental fascist) but if it's another reason to get this shite off our screens, I'll back it.

Another place I see the legacy of Riefenstahl's Olympia is in Claire Denis's Beau Travail, which tells its story not through a conventional narrative but through the body. A Homoerotic tale bordering on body horror as military men roll around in the mud and fight with each other as part of their boot camp. Not a million miles away from the Olympic training montages. When I refer to Olympia as Riefenstahl and her fascist agenda nearly operating at its most effective, this is because it operates in a real grey area where that ideology is most accessible. Fascism, as I mentioned is about selfpreservation. Sadly beefcakes, I'm talking about exercise. Everybody wants to be healthy and denouncing this tends to be laughable. I wish I could tell people I'm not lazy and that the reason I don't go the gym is because it's the fascist's playground but this would be rather silly.

If there is such a thing as fascinating fascism or the allure of such an evil movement it does lie in this arena. Exactly the reason Mishima's books always amuse me and I can't stop watching Oliver Stone's coked up Conan the Barbarian. Olympia on the surface appears innocent, capturing a fun sporting event but there is a more sinister agenda at work. Let's not toot Riefenstahl's horn too soon, she may have manipulated the capabilities of cinema, constructed images together in an impeccable assortment which highlights the promotable qualities of fascism but there was one thing she didn't count on that really demerits all of her brilliance.

In 1936, she may have carved perhaps the greatest cinematic argument for fascism ever conceived but all that would be ruined in an instant. Enter: Jesse Owens. A black man from Alabama who stole the show by winning four gold medals, proving the fascist ideology of a pure race to be absolute nonsense. Leni Riefenstahl in the mud. All her hard work, and give her some credit, she almost made a coherent visual essay for fascism, destroyed in an instant. How fucking amusing. In a way, it still makes Olympia an incredible watch, just not in the way it was intended. Mainly for Owen's mighty success and the unintended camp of seeing Hitler trying to remain calm and in control but definitely losing his head behind the scenes. Quality stuff. It's Wacky Races the live action film, starring Hitler as old Dick Dastardly himself.

Right, so we learnt images could be constructed and placed together to produce meaning. An image alone having little power but together telling a story. This led to governments recognising the potential to use the medium as a political tool to indoctrinate the masses. The Soviets having a bloody good go at it and the fascists making a fool of themselves. Next, we turn our attention to a man we wrote an article on after his death, Jean Luc-Godard. Any of my fellow Psycho-Schradists who missed this, it is in Vol. 1 Issue #3. Advise you go back and give that a read for this titans history. Since, I went in to such detail there and have already waffled on longer than I should have about montages and early political pieces from the left and right, I will try to skim through this section quickly, If I am in fact capable of such a task.

Godard was one of cinemas first and most recognised post-modernists. The French New Wave made it their mission to clean up cinema and guarantee its place as an art form. One to be lauded as much as music and painting. Part of their process was to reference what they believed to be decent cinema and to subvert the vast catalogue of Hollywood films. Breathing fresh youthful life in to the bland and repetitive rubbish pumped out under the classical Hollywood model. Godard's genius was realising patterns in how images were assorted. I believe he really questioned: why is it that a sequence of images could result in a particular meaning? He studied the order closer than anyone before him and made the link of laziness in having this routine practice for what the order should be in a given sequence. This mad man decide to change the order and that is what gravitates cinema to being art and not just another commodity.

He is a deconstructionist. 2 of his finest examples that always come to mind can be seen in his noir parody debut Breathless and underrated Sci-Fi gem Alphaville. The one in Breathless comes early, we see Jean-Paul Belmondo, Mr Screen Presence, shooting a cop and going on the run. We see the Peppa arriving on his motorbike in a wide shot and we never see him get off. Cut to Belmondo getting something out of his car and we never actually see him get the object out. Another cut now to a close up of Belmondo's face (no longer leaning in to his car but from side on as he's standing upright). The camera tilts down his body to his elbow and then pans right across to the gun in his hand, which is then fired. One more cut to the Peppa's fall. A final cut to Jean-Paul comedically sprinting off through the fields with some silly Hollywood getaway music playing. Each time there tends to be a few shots missing we typically expect to see for visual clarity, mainly in that the gun and its target are never in the same shot. Thus, challenging the vocabulary of cinema.

In Alphaville, he presents a fight as a series of tableaux. As though broken up comic panels that should have, "BAM!" Or "WHOOSH!", sound effect bubble accompaniment as opposed to the fluid motion that cinema can provide in being a different medium. Now, you might ask what is the meaning then behind changing the nature of these images from what we are conventionally expected to see?

Is it not just a formal exercise? Style over substance? I mean you could probably defend them on their added comedy or suspense but if you really want to see a greater maturity and why we needed to depart from the generic order of images in a familiar sequence then accept that these were early works proving that there is at least some formal value and what you really need to see is his later films Weekend and Contempt. These are evidence that new meanings can be found in the changing of the compositions. The former being strongly political and the latter emotionally resonant in a way that trumps any generic montages.

Next, we would see montages grow in popularity during the '80s in a more commercial sense for music videos with the arrival of MTV. Action and dance films would incorporate them not to be particularly innovative but to maintain strict economy. For this, see any film directed by Sylvester Stallone. Rocky IV and Staying Alive covering both action and dance. Jump to the next decade and we're in to the '90s, when postmodernism was back on the brain after Pulp Fiction. Believing the slasher cycle to be bearing its end creatively, Wes Craven took a stab at the postmodernism with New Nightmare. The seventh instalment of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, which radically alters the franchise by positioning the character as a film creation who invades the real world.

If your name is Mark Kermode you are contractually obligated to discuss this film every week on your podcast as the symbol of meta filmmaking. Undeniably, New Nightmare is a great film and I'm sure it has some significance if you were to see Craven's attempt there first being released prior to Scream even if it is flawed. Originality and all that but time has passed and Scream is the go to now best seen as demonstrating this style. So it only makes it more odd and humorous that Kermode continues to ramble on about New Nightmare any chance he gets instead. Postmodernism wasn't only restricted to horror in the '90s, it made its way in to rom-coms too. Heath Ledger was kind of the face of all that with his modern hip Shakespeare and intentionally anachronistic Chaucer adaptations. Kermode's continued support of New Nightmare would be like saying A Knight's Tale is better than 10 Things I Hate About You. It isn't.

Scream and 10 Things I Hate About You are the classics of the arena, get with the programme, Mark! Or actually don't I guess because these two don't need any more pushing, whereas more people need to see New Nightmare. Like all good things (myself), Scream came out in the year 1996. Enough time has passed to say Scream is a classic and part of cinemas canon, which is scary considering we're the same age and it's old enough to be eligible for such status. Avoiding the fact it's reached this position is the wrong move, it has happened. We must now ask ourselves repeatedly, what was it that made Scream so good? Why was it a landmark film?

We'd come out the '80s, which was a period marked by excess with Ronald Reagan and that signified endless sequels of slashers. On the other hand, the '90s was a lot more reflexive and referential so it marked the perfect time for it to be unleashed on the world. This was the time of hip hop and sampling. Although waning in critical approval, having reached a creative dead end, due to the whole concept of diminishing returns, slashers were actually increasing in popularity or more accurately acceptability. Nerds like Roger Ebert had grown accustomed to seeing their controversial images and place within culture that they no longer even bothered to criticise them from an ethical point. They were what they were, every angle had been heard and the conversation was over. Society's stance had changed so much or rather the studios had cottoned on to how they were such an easy money maker that their principles lay down for the gold before them.

Inevitably then you will get higher production values with the studio involvement and better writers can be found when the genres so hot. Scream brought screenwriter Kevin Williamson to prominence and his meta style became vogue in the '90s. Another of his projects that came later was I Know What You Did Last Summer that swaps Shaggy for Fred. Elsewhere, you can see his modus operandi evident in other people's films from the '90s in the likes of Urban Legend and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Unsure as to what changed? It's mainly in the characters. For a long time, a bizarre unwritten rule of cinema was that characters have not seen other movies. They do not bow to pop culture and are strangely unaware of its existence.

Williamson changed all that by making his characters aware of the same rules the films audience acknowledge. Therefore, we got the legendary character Randy Meeks, a horror scholar who has learnt every cliché in the book. He knows the connection between sex and death. He knows the consequences of saying, "I'll be right back". He knows the front door is always the better option than the stairs. He knows the mythical and sexual link between predator and prey. He knows the fantasy elements and dodgy politics that come with having POV shots from the killer's perspective. He knows the phallic symbolism of the killer's weapon and its penetration of women as an act of sexual frustration and misogyny. He knows the killer's systematic targeting is due to their uncomfortable relationship with their gender and sordid family history. He knows the final girls triumph in act three is oddly feminist in spite of anything in the previous two acts. Making Scream not just another slasher but a celebration of all slashers. A loving tribute if you will that finds new ground in the process.

Unlike most parody and satirical films, Scream knows how to toe the line and not step outside of the genre trappings to tell a joke. Characters never stop being characters to become actors that can explain something and break the fourth wall. Jokes are neatly picked so that the body remains intact and it still works as a slasher in its own right. It's not like it picks the easy route. There's a scene in which the characters discuss who would play themselves if this were a movie and in another they compare the sexual nature of their romance with that of the MPA's film rating system. Williamson comes as close to the edge as possible and somehow it doesn’t come apart at the seams. Scream is still a slasher, as opposed to a conversation in the pub between people who love slashers. That's its true gift. As fictional cinematographer Kurt Longjohn once said in Boogie Nights, "It's a real film, Jack"

Eventually, as you well know, I'd lose my patience with studio horror because of how it pollutes the films with illconceived notions of quality, good taste and pointless studio messages sacrificing the films of their punk appeal. Horrors raw, it's got to be one step ahead of the studios, pointing to what they can't say. If it's not then it merely serves the status quo and soon becomes redundant.

Plus, it loses that guerrilla aspect and the whole fuck you to the studios crediting the little guys. However, back in the '90s, before horrors became ridiculously watered down, everything was such a free for all that these films still retain an edge that you don't see these days in our riskless cancel culture society. Look at the studio who produced and distributed Scream. The Weinstein Brothers have their dirty little hands all over it. Forgetting that little sexual scandal for a moment, remember those guys brought us one of the best slashers of the '80s, The Burning. They know this arena.

Dimension Films were also behind Scream, Robert Rodriguez's company, the exploitation king who gave us Desperado, El Mariachi, Planet Terror and Machete This dude even wrote the respected book, Rebel Without a Crew, Or How a 23 Year Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood player. Regarded as the quintessential text for going in to low budget filmmaking. Years later he would even try to recreate his starting scenario with a very noble experiment, Red 11 using the exact same budget as El Mariachi. Cannot recall any other director attempting an experiment like that. In the '90s, you had the choice of 2 people to cast as your resident goth/punk. Scream didn't have Fairuza Balk but it does have Mathew Lillard, old Shaggy himself. Having considered all this, Scream may be a studio horror but it doesn't lose its rough roots. If horror is to infiltrate mainstream, then I'm happy for the first Scream's success. It remains an excellent film.

Scream 2 they churned out pretty quickly and it shows. Only a year later. Very little to add in terms of what it satirises. Their best joke comes right at the start with their nod to the expendable black characters who are always dying first in a horror movie. However, as a straight up slasher with a few good jokes scattered in, it's fantastic. Has some amazing suspense sequences. Namely, Sidney crawling out the cop car and Randy's death. Unfortunately, as good a kill as Randy's was, they should never have gone ahead with that. They killed one of their best characters off far too soon. Definitely, a move they would later regret. You sacrificed your Queen early! You hit the NOS too soon as they'd say in the Fast and Furious films. As a Cotton Weary stan though, it's hard to say Scream 2 isn't a fun time. Especially the whole theatrical end set literally right on a stage.

Whilst on a technical level, there is no way you could argue that Scream 3 is better than Scream 2, I will defend that it has a much better plot. Roger Ebert, who was a fan of the first two would criticise the third for the fact the set-up is done so that it is impossible to work out the identity of the killer, thus breaking the core rules of the whodunnit. Although, he is 100% correct in his statement that it is impossible to work out the killer and in effect cheats its audience due to the lack of logical clues, using this as justification for a negative response misses the point entirely. Scream 3 tackles its time with the difficulties of releasing a slasher film when there is the internet to deal with and the potential for spoilers being leaked online.

In the past, filmmakers were safe knowing that there was only so far word of mouth could spread. No-one was prepared for viral links and online chatrooms. Therefore, this causes constant rewrites to change the ending and the big reveal. A logical pattern of clues becomes disregarded and a new killer is picked seemingly on the day by the studio. No preparation. No motive. Just may as well do a toss of the coin. Anyone can be the killer. Scream 3 embraces the struggle head on and parodies it with their plot. Often, two killers are used but on this occasion, the wheel rolled and landed on Roman. They were fully aware of what they were doing and genuinely made one of the best statements about the condition of horror when it was made. If only they could have gone one step further and found a way to counter the difficulties of working under these conditions where spoilers are so easily accessible, that would have been truly impressive. Sadly it falls in to the area of satire without solution. Suspense and thrills may be limited but based on the statement made I do appreciate Scream 3 and do not believe it to be the worst one as many fans claim.

There is a gap of 11 years between Scream 3 and Scream 4. One of the smartest moves they ever made. I wish they would learn from this. If Scream is going to be this tool to evaluate the state of horror at any one time, then we need to stop pumping another of these every single year. What could possibly change during that time that's worth talking about? Follow the trends, if nothing's changed then stay silent for otherwise you lose credibility.

Releasing about every 10 years would be adequate. Gives time for new voices to appear with radically different ideas. Let Scream be a special event, once it becomes a yearly occurrence well then you're just making Stab, the in-movie throughout the franchise. How can you think you're better than everyone else when you're pulling the exact same moves of relentlessly releasing? When you do this, how can I not lose my respect for you? I'd rather just watch the endless sequels to slashers cause at least they don't have the air of superiority about them that the latest two Screams have. '80s slasher sequels are dumb and they're open about it. They harvest no illusions of grandeur as to what they are so it's impossible to hate them as they're so damn honest and don't look to deceive by any means. They are what they are. Nothing worse than pseudointellectualism. Play to your strengths, I dislike dishonesty.

Regardless of quality, I would always have some nostalgia for Scream 4. Ranks up there with my all-time favourite cinema trips. It came out at the perfect time for me. Age wise? I must have been about 14 or 15. My first proper experience of how this kind of movie should play out in a packed cinema. Birds screaming. Dudes laughing. People throwing popcorn. I got high on that shit from the start. Confirmed my love for the genre. Returning to Scream 4, you'll notice it doesn't just hold up well, it was actually well ahead of its time. So many films now are turning to that insanity of grabbling likes on social media, looking for constant approval and friendship coming second to followers.

It's all superficial and overdone now with awful efforts like Spree, Deadstream and Sissy. Some of the worst satires to date but it's clear that whole social media influencer or blogger is a common role now in horror. A go to psychopath. The strongest image I've ever actually encountered in this field was at the end of the underrated campy delight Eli Roth's Knock Knock, when Keanu Reeves is buried in the ground with only his head sticking out and he accidentally likes the post that 'cancels' him with the Pixies song Where is My Mind playing. Genuinely, a great reworking of Death Game to fit our times. This coming in 2015 was still quite ahead of the curve, before it became such a cheap and easy theme. However, to see all this in Scream 4, where murders are filmed and put online for shallow fame is crazy. This was 2011.

Regularly cited as a fault in Scream 4 is its distain for the younger characters. Didn't bother me at all, it was suitable for what they were going for, which was a soulless generation looking for attention online. The scope widens and it quickly jumps on the success of The Social Network (dropped only the year before). Apparently, Wes Craven, may he rest in peace, has a director's cut for Scream 4. Very interested in knowing how to access that. Inform me if you will how one would obtain this. I hear it's been met with great approval by horror fans.

Right, so all this rambling leads us in to Scream 5 back in 2022. What I was hoping for was a plot like Scream 3, echoing the problems at the level of production. Something addressing the frequent studio algorithms used in place of risk. Everything being almost too smooth, missing a human factor, where the return of older characters and kills are decided on a monetary basis. Something similar to how in The Cabin in the Woods, the secret organisers write down all the villains on the board and take bets on who will surface and be called in to action. Anything to acknowledge how these films have become so devoid of imagination and personal vision. Franchises dictated by the studio with not one individual taking control any more. No foresight in to the future and how to progress story past each individual film. As is a massive issue with the current condition of the industry.

Instead all Scream 5 can do is poke fun at the Halloween revival (dropping the number in the title to be like that one) and Disney's Star Wars with the concept of 'requels'. Basically, that for financial security, what you do is combine the legacy characters with new ones. Therefore satisfying the nostalgia heads with those seeking something new. Cheers. Thanks for that Scream. Very interesting. Very deep. Pat yourselves on the back. You came up with that one all by yourselves? How did you manage that? Round of applause. They even dive in to the toxicity of fan bases. None of that interests me at all, especially when it's so halfhearted and done to deflect from problems with studio filmmaking. The effect of Scream 5 reminded me of watching Vampire's Suck, one of the worst movies ever made, in that you're sat thinking, this is so bad I'd rather be watching the movies you're supposedly better than and trying to belittle.

For the first time, Scream felt behind the curve rather than ahead. In fact, it's so stupid and poorly written that people see this as championing elevated horror rather than slamming it because it pulls its punches. In the opening scene, we have the latest former Disney Channel Princess gone rogue, Jenna Ortega, naming her favourite horror films as belonging to the current wave of so called 'elevated horror'. A list that would include recent popular hits such as, Hereditary, The Babadook and Get Out. She adds that they have more of a focus now on the psychological mindsets of characters (as though no horror movie ever attempted such a feat before these films). To which Ghostface humorously replies, "sounds boring". A very dudes rock response, disregarding this 'intellectual' side involved lately. Return to tradition. Raw and dirty. Good old Ghostface.

This one throwaway line isn't enough for me. Sums up the movie in how it is so self-satisfied with doing the bare minimum. Take the mocking further. Ask me what the problem with contemporary horror and I'd just say read Funeralopolis. It only crops up in every issue. Studio horrors have popped up already in this piece with their unstoppable desire to conform to notions of good taste, removing any sense of thrill or moral ambiguity. They adhere and conform to current thinking rather than challenging popular opinion. Watered down garbage to be soaked up and they're not even entertaining enough to satisfy the most basic of desires. Other than your Blumhouse and New Line output, we have all these A24 movies. There have been good ones. There have also been those like 'Men' that capture the Pseudo-intellectualism prevalent. A24 started out with great intentions but as of late weird for weirds sake and somehow still not even that weird appears to be the current branding.

This goes for both the good films and bad films coming out today but anyone saying they are part of the collective tag 'elevated horror' needs to take a good long look at themselves and realise (and I hate saying this word) how pretentious that is as a term. It's like 'intellectual dance music' (IDM) back in the '90s. Pisses me off as it discredits older horror as never having anything of value, which is blatant nonsense. The newer generation and even sadly mine would think horror was created 5 minutes ago. Their whole arrogant attitude is driving the films today too, as characters reflect the public consciousness. I'm sure these movies would be great if they laughed at people like that but no these are the good guys.

Too often does the subtext come overbearing today to the point the body of the film is destroyed. Purpose comes before structure. That's what I don't like, the lack of integrity present in the construction. If you're making a genre film, you start with the body or foundations and then you add in whatever your personal subject is that excites you. That's the game. Effectively, you hide your interests in the picture. These days you can pick up all you need to know from a trailer. Unfortunately, it's the complete wrong way round in approach now and what you're watching is no longer a slasher but rather someone's ramblings. As if the studio hires vaguely educated people and shoves them on any genre that clearly isn't suited to them. Honestly, I think the whole idea of genre is dying out as they all just merge in to one and rubbish from other genres gets filtered through until they're all one and the same. Appealing to everyone and then to no-one.

Usually these vaguely educated writers gravitate towards the vogue topics of social validation, cancel culture and the endless barriers of social media. The so called good characters in the movies are just self-righteous arrogant arseholes. This is not to say that I condoned the dodgy characters in older slashers. We were allowed to laugh them and that was the fun. Now all the characters just wank each other off over who is the most decent person in the room. This has greater importance to the killing, it’s a battle for social acceptance. Character assassination being worse than actual assassination. Something which Scream 6 does acknowledge, albeit in the least funny and smug way, which will only have you thinking ok then maybe there is no room for the slasher in this climate, so maybe give up?

Personally, I don't have time for any of these shallow topics and their frequent promotion. Especially when they don't add anything positive/constructive to the discussion or anything that hasn't been said before. A poor price to pay for the thrill of a good old slasher. Its depressingly boring. Whatever happened to the concept of a bunch of dudes getting the beers in, going a party, having a good time, a killer showing up and blood splattering the walls? Can’t believe I'm saying this but it could be simplicity that is needed to combat this pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Return to basics is what Ghostface should be demanding. And one line isn't going to cut it for me. Send these nerds packing, Ghostface!

Scream 5 is so content with latching on to singular films that it can't make a wider commentary on the genre or industry as a whole. It does not have a clue where things are going and what to riff on that isn't obvious and in front of its face. It too often succumbs to endorsement of other films flaws rather than critique. Yet, I cannot say that I completely hate Scream 5. One aspect gave it some undeniable likability. That is the nostalgia. Cheap but true. Once you take out the very minor satire at best, then what you have is a film which can be enjoyed to some extent as like a sitcom or soap with a regular set of characters whom we have loved for years. Gale and Dewey's first sighting of each other and Dewey's demise! Skeet Ulrich going full Mirror in the Bathroom. Gale and Sid, who have had their conflicts in previous films, coming together, being the bloody girls when they team up entering the house. Amused me their veteran like understanding of the situation. These wholesome scenes made the faults slightly more tolerable.

Before even laying eyes on Scream 6, it was obvious that the satire the series was once known for would be lacking purely on how quickly it was made. Nothing drastic has happened between now and 2022 to warrant a follow up so soon. Needs a little more before it bursts through the door and on to our screens. It's entire existence comes down to one thing: money. Fine but could the nostalgia card be played once again? Nope. Neve Campbell walked from the project after being asked to take a cut. A cut which made no sense given the fact the previous entry was a big money maker. Make it make sense. Classic case of the company profits going up with no increase down below to its worker's wages. Fair play to Matthew Lillard for supporting his pal and rightly attacking the studio for its decision. Courtney Cox's lack of support for her co-star was downright disgusting and treacherous. Let's go over this. Nothing to satirise. You've pissed off the series lead so she's sitting this one out. Cox should have followed suit but didn't. Oh and Dewey's dead. Before setting foot in the cinema, Scream 6 has nothing going for it.

Should have boycotted this one because wa2tching it was no fun at all. Our new location has been pushed excessively as though this is a redeemable and refreshing factor. This is not a Scream move, this is a Stab move. Sorry, this Psycho-Scradist is a fan of Jason Takes Manhattan

Also, opting for 'New York New Rules' as your tagline and not including Dua Lipa's New Rules is unacceptable. Worse, it's despicable. This is a Scream film, so we open with a famous actress being killed off to give it that pop appeal. On this outing, Samara Weaving plays the Drew Barrymore role. Samara is hot stuff right now, mainly after Ready or Not (also directed by the directors of the last two Scream movies), another overrated non-revolutionary eat the rich film making use of the hunt formula. Preferred her in those trashy The Babysitter films directed by the terrible/brilliant McG. In Scream 6, Weaving plays a film lecturer of course. I want to say there's still some guilty pleasure fun in this method but the Williamson technique is now becoming irritating. These things can be strange and unexplainable like that. In '96 it was ground-breaking, now its verging on annoying. Like when a comedy actor is radically different to anything out there, then all of a sudden, one day you just stop laughing.

There's a real "wahey!" Moment as the killer in the opening takes off the mask to reveal their identity from the outset. It was bound to happen eventually. If you're going to play that move, then it probably goes without saying that you shouldn't make it obvious through the direction and acting. When it enters in to the viewer's head, "that guy's going to take his mask off but they'll kill him too and then the real killer will come in", you've fucked up somewhere along the line and there's no surprise in the tactic. A rather flashy and stupid move you'll see right through.

When the 'fake' killer goes home, it is revealed that his motive was that his lecturer gave him a C- on his "Giallo paper". Couldn't help but take these fools work for the film as a whole and settle on a D. Concluding that Samara Weaving marks too generously. Unforgettable is the reference to the Giallo films though. Does put a smile on my face to think that the genre has become so popular at this point that you can put a joke like that in there without the worry that a mainstream audience won't understand. Is there a possibility that parodying the Giallo could be the way to go?

Especially, when they're clearly so nervous at the thought of going after 'elevated horror' fans and losing their precious new younger audience. Easier to target an already established genre than to risk losing fans by attacking the new community's interests. They wouldn't be the first to take on the Giallo. It's pretty common at independent level. Astron-6 made the excellent The Editors but the floor is still open for talking about the Giallo cycle now that it is fashionable.

I clocked the killer early. They arrive on a crime scene from a strange position in a rather too suspicious manner. The cloak of grief does little to distract. Their actions are off even for their predicament. Consequently, the filmmakers decide to add in multiple killers again to throw you off. Hilariously, that little attempt at distracting you is obvious when a character goes through every movie and talks about how there's normally two killers with the exception of Scream 3. Oh and that reminds me, with the writing being terrible they have to resort to the nostalgia card again. What's up their sleeve? Bringing back Kirby from Scream 4. What next? An extra from Scream 3? Their desperation knows no bounds.

Act 3 literally copies Scream 2s theatricality but is nowhere near as epic. Stealing ideas from themselves now! Bizarrely, they also copy Halloween's trap environment. Genuinely, there's no satire, they copy it. Still looking to David Gordon Green's Halloween for inspiration? Pathetic. Pack it in Scream, thought you were smart and you've come out second best to DGG's ridiculously dumb trilogy. Imagine the embarrassment. Sadly, Scream 6 goes out firing so low it will shock you. Yes, they turn to easiest topic of them all, cancel culture. As Private Hudson in Aliens says, "That's it, man! Game over, man! Game over!".

Since, I'm aware this has been a big wallop of moaning, I wanted to add in that this week I also saw an absolutely incredible post-modern slasher that was not part of the Scream series and I would recommend this instead. Step in 2009's Amer. Instead of satirising just narrative elements it branches out in to deconstructing the image too. Critics have categorised it as strictly Argento worship, which is not exactly false but it does rob it of its wider influences.

More accurately speaking, it is a Godardian Giallo, picking up where Doris Wishman left off with her misunderstood A Night to Dismember and dissecting not just bodies but the entire genre. Wishman's style has always been committed to transforming production obstacles in to artistic choices that give everything an individualistic surreal touch. In her notorious roughie, Bad Girls Go To Hell, she would rearrange furniture to conceal that most of it is actually shot in the same apartment and adding to the trippy aesthetic of the movie. On a Night to Dismember she would re-arrange shot compositions creating an effect similar to Tscherkassky's short film Outer Space. Extremely abrasive and challenging to the perception of overly familiar sequences. Except operating in the realms of low art trash, whereas Amer is noticeably geared closer to high art.

So don't make the mistake of calling Amer genre homage or worship. It is pure genre subversion. Therefore, placing this alongside fellow contemporaries Biller and Strickland, who begin with the Giallo and eurosleaze as a starting point or template and branch outwards to make it their own. In Amer, we get all the colours of the Giallo and the psychedelia but it's also distinctively feminist in a way almost none of those movies from the '70s were. Intrusive shots remain with close ups of ants crawling up thighs in a sexualised Un Chien Andalou manner but here they are presented with vulnerability and fragility. Private sites that should be protected but are exposed for the world to see. Making this a body horror like Beau Travail where every shot of flesh is the story itself over narrative precedence. Visually a web of memories or stream of consciousness connected by the body as a female matures.

Amer is the debut feature of Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. Although, easily confused as Italian given their obsession with the Giallo, French filmmakers who were primarily known for their shorts. Their debut feature has been described as extremely confident and ahead of their years. Deservedly so due to a clever strategy for making that leap to their first feature. Amer is split into three sections, which could be considered short films. The opening section takes place in a castle during our female protagonist's youth.

Essentially, she plays an elaborate game of hide and seek from her mother (Joe D'Amato's daughter, Bianca Maria D'Amato), repeatedly looking at her grandfather's dead body and being chased around by a woman dressed in black. A common shot is kept up throughout this section with POV close ups peering into door keyholes. In one scene, the girl watches her parents engaged in a moment of intercourse. You do not gots to be Sigmund fucking Freud to work out what's going on here. A reality and fantasy merge, the colours and lighting become increasingly exaggerated. The linking factor over this section is that the protagonist is watching and learning.

Next, in the subsequent section, our gaze switches. The female protagonist is no longer the watcher but the watched. Her adolescence is depicted in the changeover between the two sections. Shots of her abdomen and body reveal developments. This is when the ants began invading her body. Damn parasites! Rather amusingly, this entire section narratively speaking is just the girl and mother on a trip to the shops. Yet, these two filmmakers have so much going on to unpackage in truly inspiring fashion. The camera (the viewer) is watching the protagonist. Bikers are watching the protagonist. A child playing football is watching the protagonist. She is fully aware she is being watched and she plays up to her role as the exhibitionist too by drawing her attention to her body. Seductive sucking of hair strands being part of her game. My favourite part in this section is how these directors link the boy and girl through running. Images become blurred with the camera shaking more than a Paul Greengrass movie. Our attention then is drawn to the sound design, repeated panting and footsteps that become unavoidably erotic.

Finally, in our third section, with our protagonist fully aged, we get the climactic cat and mouse chase so common to the slasher/Giallo. But who's gaze is this from? At first we get this extremely claustrophobic overhead shot (often referred to as the God POV shot) on public transport. A sense of paranoia is generated with the close proximity of a woman with all these other people elbow to elbow.

In the next scene, our protagonist abandons public transport and favours a taxi ride. Her chauffer is a leather jacket and driving glove donning sleazeball of a man. She soon begins having near rape fantasies in which her dress rips, exposing her body in the back seat. Her desires contrasting with those held on public transport. She then spends some time relaxing in the bath, dragging a comb across her body simulating a knife attack. We've moved past tearing open clothes and on to skin.

All of a sudden, a real attacker shows up with a knife and proceeds to chase this female protagonist around a castle grounds. The location mirroring that of the first section, emphasising a cylindrical structure. There is so much poetry in the recurring compositions and elliptical editing causing the film to be watched and studied over and over. Countering the dull nature of Hollywood's creations that can be grasped in a single sitting. Was it Truffaut that once said something to the effect that films should have a final layer of mystery and never be too complete? It certainly keeps them open to analysis, consistent discussion and closer to life itself. As for the killer's identity, this an aspect not made clear. In my favourite shot from the entire film, the killer stands as an all black towering figure against a blue background. By the end, she stabs her intruder but in the following shot, we actually see our protagonist laid out in the morgue on a stretcher very much deceased.

Predator and prey has always been a common theme of the slasher. In Halloween, originally no-one knew the connection between Laurie and Michael. This was before they made the decision to unite them as brother and sister. An idea that caused frustration amongst the fans as it killed off the unexplainable mythical connection between them. All they knew was he keeps hunting her down with no apparent motive and like a terminator he will not stop. There has been great debate amongst scholars over the sexual nature of Halloween. Whether it represents a pro Regan conservative attitude to sex or is a parody of that. Carpenter himself believes that critics have often missed the point. At the end, the final girl is not this good natured virgin left standing but a sexually repressed woman who vents her frustration through penetrating the killer with a knife (a phallic object).

When it comes to slashers, a lot of the psychosexual aspects are shockingly evident if not existing as part of the filmmaker's subconscious. Feminists regularly debate over how much is purely accidental and how much the filmmaker discloses their subconscious through certain shot perspectives. The beauty of Amer is it takes all these questions that normally occur unintentionally and tackles it directly. Staging the arguments right before your very eyes. The cat and mouse becoming this ultimate battle between masculinity and femininity. Reality and imaginary.

Without revealing too much, the killers identity being hidden and the stabbing causing the protagonists death, reminded me of the twist in High Tension

Somehow, here it seems less dumb because of how open it still is and there being more meaning to the decisions made. It is far from cheap. In the final shots, we investigate the female protagonists dead body over a series of shots that sexualise her even in death. Almost alluding to Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes , an experimental short filming dead bodies as autopsies are performed on them. A very disturbing experience as it's basically a snuff film but also very clever and watchable for its existential qualities and ability to spin it back on to the viewer to confront their own morbid curiosities.

Spinning it back on to the viewer leads us in to the final shot of Amer. Just before the banging song from Stelvio Cipriani (also used in Tarantino's Death Proof and The Great Kidnapping) and the closing credits slip in, there is a brief moment, where the protagonist's eyes flicker as though they are about to open again. Thus, shifting their gaze potentially on to us and breaking the fourth wall. Are we somewhat responsible for the events that have taken place? We don't quite know as it's an inception style blink and you'll miss it moment. All this considered then, what is the entire picture getting at? Obviously it's very open and to say THIS is what's happening can lead to narrow paths and reductive statements. I'm also not going to pretend I have all this worked out. However, it seems as though we're getting multiple perspectives at each stage of a girl's maturation. From the watcher to the watched to an ambiguous one, perhaps a higher state of being similar to 2001 and Enter the Void

Another interesting element at play is the relationship between fantasy and reality throughout. We have the Freudian realisation of mother and father at the start. The lack of understanding about death. Then in the middle, she develops these fantasies and opens herself up to the world looking for a partner. At last, there is the realisation of the dream that becomes a nightmare she cannot handle. In this reality, there are no final girls just a meeting with the slab in the morgue? Are women just lambs for the slaughter in a production line? Or can you not count them out as she could well still be alive at the end ready to become something we've not seen before. Not Kubrick's super baby but the super final girl.

As I said, this is what we must keep revisiting the film for. It is literally perfect in how incomplete and mysterious it all is allowing for constant revisitation and re-evaluation. I'm surprised it isn't talked about more than it is because due to the set-up there's potential for so many different readings and critical avenues to go down. Perhaps the critics didn't understand a lot of its absurdly specific references to other Giallo films. Many shots mirroring the Italian classics and so you could take the stance that as part of the fantasy side she uses the history of the moving image to construct her own identity. That argument is certainly there.

As I hope to have illustrated, it is superb in both its formalist techniques and in substance. Calling it a shallow exercise would not be accurate. Although, I will accept that a lot of its substance does come through style. Only through analysis of compositions does its true nature reveal itself. Generally, Giallo films would experiment with psychedelia but these two filmmakers make it their entire agenda. Other filmmakers will think along the lines of opening a scene with a wide shot to establish geography (making the audience aware of everything's position in relation to one another), then go in to a 2 shot of the characters having a conversation and then do some simple cuts back and forth between the characters and their perspectives.

Giallo directors would every so often for one scene that's meant to be weird and unusual, play with that order. Cut to strange angle (perhaps a Dutch angle) or hold a shot longer than normal. Anything as long as it distorts the viewer for that key sequence.

When it comes to these two directors, they move beyond that in being so committed to this way of thinking for every single scene. These two constantly think, for example, how can we do this scene with say a minimum of 3 close ups. In the process, re-examining the language of cinema. Experimenting with the linguistics. Amer disposes of conventional scene geography establishment in favour of invading personal space (the bus sequence being a great example) and relating that to gender studies. As a woman, before you can centre yourself and work out your placement in life, you are seconds away from an unsolicited touch. You don't know when and you don't know why. But you are targeted.

We've moved passed the idea of a film has to have a beginning, middle and end but it doesn't have to be in that precise order. the task is now to establish whether a particular shot in a scene needs to become at the beginning, middle or end. As a postmodernism appreciator, I remain obsessed with seeing the image broken down to create new compositions and will continue to study the ways in which the image can be deconstructed until I am in my grave. Key to this is regularly going back to the beginning and seeing how the image is constructed in the first place. No way round it.

Amer is one example of this being used in horror. For action one see the Amer directors Let the Corpses Tan. A 90 minute Free Fire shootout set piece. They even put a clock on screen at regular intervals to illustrate when the sequences are taking place but ironically you still can't put it together with all the broken up shots. Elsewhere, Nicolas Winding Refn's Too Old to Die Young series features the greatest postmodern car chase I've ever seen in episode 5, The Fool. Refn one ups Drive by creating some superb Mad Max tension on the road, then unexpectedly he kills off his masterpiece by playing Barry Manilow's Mandy, slowing the chase right down and mocking Miami Vice by turning it all stylistically in to a music video. Never seen anything like it. May never see such a brave act of self-sabotage again. Who else would be crazy enough to do that? Keep up the good work, Son.

If you see that I keep logging Too Old to Die Young on Letterboxd, it is because I cannot stop studying that sequence. Over and over. What was that line in Peeping Tom about, "all this filming isn't healthy". It's now "all this deconstructing isn't healthy". The constructed Shandy alone isn't enough anymore. It's a thing of the past. We must persevere. Even if the obsession kills us. Whatever you take from these ramblings is completely optional. All you need to know is Kuleshov walked so Balthazar could run.

Bonus Points:

-Ghostface when he sees the ladder across the two windows, slapping his knife down in to the windowsil, stopping for a moment with a look in his body language that firmly said, "time for mischief" and then proceeding to rock it back and forth until someone fell to the ground

-Detective Bailey cracking me up with the line, "he was a strong, feral young man!"

Overall Score: 2/5