Craft Notes
Bad Houses
The Last House on Dead End Street
I found an interesting parallel in the two films from The List that I rented this weekend. They were Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure and Roger Watkins’s The Last House on Dead End Street.
Central to both films are abadoned, decrepit buildings. In Cure—a serial killer film that is more about mood and psychological tension than the gorefest that is LHODES—it’s an old hospital.
The movie’s killer has a tiny apartment filled with books and cigarette butts. He has been an obsessive, and the room is filled floor to ceiling, a mess. He has, by the time viewers encounter him the first time, abandoned the obsessions that made him who he is. He appears to have no memories. He considers himself empty, a shell. The abandoned building, the old hospital, then, becomes the natural setting for the film’s climax. Before that, killer and cop meet in a rundown asylum for criminals. Tiny room, decaying walls, water leaking in.
***
The Last House on Dead End Street’s abandoned, decrepit space is an old college. It’s discovered by a psychopath bent on revenge for the year he has just spent in jail. (I have to say, the revenge he takes is well out of proportion for a year in the lockup. But exploring deeply the character’s motivation was surely a small part of Watkins’s process.)
Each room in the place—large and small—is repurposed by the killer and his crew as the building becomes a location for the production of snuff films. In one scene, an interior window, sans glass, becomes an impromptu Punch and Judy stage.
The murder is being committed offstage. Note the blood spatter.
***
What is it, then, in an old building that amplifies terror? Because an abandoned building is a symbol of failure? Because it is empty and once was not? Because things fall apart? Because it is dark?
Gaston Bachelard said, “A house that has been experienced is not an inert box.“ It holds impressions of its occupants. It remembers.
In its way, it remembers everything. An abandoned building, then, is one that has seen multiple failures. The crimes of serial killers and psychopaths are simply an added layer of dust. The abandoned building did nothing to save its last owner’s failure. It will do nothing to save you, either.
Tags: cure, gaston bachelard, last house on dead end street
A large majority of my taste in narrative (in general–not just film), has strong architectural influence. This is often because my personal aesthetics are suited more to environment and atmosphere than a character’s psychology or actions. Because of this, space and architectural environments that hold characters and events are privileged over the characters & events in their own rights (this is a pretty consistent theme throughout my entire “canon”– many of the films have a strong architectural influence).
Blake…
I read Blake’s work and sometimes feel trapped in some house he built. Feel he will weigh in.
Sort of thought that this might be the case.
I found a ten minute version of Serene Velocity on Youtube. I watched it twice to get the full effect. Beautiful. I’ll keep posting about the list as I track down more of the films on it.
Blake, indeed.
Also:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqbSwu4oTNM
this song was the first thing i thought of when i saw your post title. prolly my fav big black song
i like this a lot Matthew. all the most haunting movies for me are the ones that focus on enclosed space and how they contain their air over the periods of people inhabiting and what they did there. charging space in that way adds so much more unnameable i think, and is a more effective way of thinking about ‘setting’ in art.
i hope you’ll keep posting on the films from that list.
Inland Empire had a very different sort of claustrophobia to it, didn’t it? All that time we spend in orbit around the character’s heads. The settings in the film are the actor’s pores and worry lines.
edify me, what list?
wait, i see the link. nevermind.
Link’s in the first sentence, but I’ll give it to you again.
http://murdermystery.livejournal.com/465783.html
Dig.
The more I listen to it, the more I begin to appreciate it—and some of the other underappreciated Big Black songs—more than the big “hits” like Kerosene.
yeah i found it.
sorry, i sometimes don’t see lines when i first read especially if they are near graphics.
my eyes suck.
personally, i think setting mood inside of houses is easy.
a radical director would figure out how to do that in an open field at noon.
trying to think of examples and failing.
Depends on how tall the grass is.
What’s at the edge of the field.
Todd Haynes creates menace in an open field at noon in Safe.
more field.
Done.
House (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)
the house from steve miner ain’t so bad either!
examples of a director using an open field at noon as ostensibly ‘repressive’ and atmospheric:
Reflecting Skin, (Philip Ridley, 1990)
Alaska, (Dore O, 1968) [on the list]
All About Lily Chou Chou, (Shunji Iwai, 2001)
La Vie Nouvelle (Philippe Grandrieux, 2002) [listed]
Personally I think it’s just as difficult to do it in a house/architectural structure anymore precisely because it is overdone.
oh god that movie made me want to die in a bad way
A large majority of my taste in narrative (in general–not just film), has strong architectural influence. This is often because my personal aesthetics are suited more to environment and atmosphere than a character’s psychology or actions. Because of this, space and architectural environments that hold characters and events are privileged over the characters & events in their own rights (this is a pretty consistent theme throughout my entire “canon”– many of the films have a strong architectural influence).
Ding dong, you’re dead.
Me, too. Let’s go.
Blake…
I read Blake’s work and sometimes feel trapped in some house he built. Feel he will weigh in.
Sort of thought that this might be the case.
I found a ten minute version of Serene Velocity on Youtube. I watched it twice to get the full effect. Beautiful. I’ll keep posting about the list as I track down more of the films on it.
Blake, indeed.
Also:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqbSwu4oTNM
Disco
this song was the first thing i thought of when i saw your post title. prolly my fav big black song
i like this a lot Matthew. all the most haunting movies for me are the ones that focus on enclosed space and how they contain their air over the periods of people inhabiting and what they did there. charging space in that way adds so much more unnameable i think, and is a more effective way of thinking about ‘setting’ in art.
i hope you’ll keep posting on the films from that list.
Inland Empire had a very different sort of claustrophobia to it, didn’t it? All that time we spend in orbit around the character’s heads. The settings in the film are the actor’s pores and worry lines.
edify me, what list?
wait, i see the link. nevermind.
Link’s in the first sentence, but I’ll give it to you again.
http://murdermystery.livejournal.com/465783.html
Dig.
The more I listen to it, the more I begin to appreciate it—and some of the other underappreciated Big Black songs—more than the big “hits” like Kerosene.
yeah i found it.
sorry, i sometimes don’t see lines when i first read especially if they are near graphics.
my eyes suck.
personally, i think setting mood inside of houses is easy.
a radical director would figure out how to do that in an open field at noon.
trying to think of examples and failing.
Depends on how tall the grass is.
What’s at the edge of the field.
Todd Haynes creates menace in an open field at noon in Safe.
more field.
Done.
House (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)
the house from steve miner ain’t so bad either!
examples of a director using an open field at noon as ostensibly ‘repressive’ and atmospheric:
Reflecting Skin, (Philip Ridley, 1990)
Alaska, (Dore O, 1968) [on the list]
All About Lily Chou Chou, (Shunji Iwai, 2001)
La Vie Nouvelle (Philippe Grandrieux, 2002) [listed]
Personally I think it’s just as difficult to do it in a house/architectural structure anymore precisely because it is overdone.
oh god that movie made me want to die in a bad way
Ding dong, you’re dead.
Me, too. Let’s go.
Disco
Last House on Dead End Street is a stone classic. Amazing, dark, fucking creepy stuff. The fellatio on a goats hoof scene towards he end is very intense.
Talking of space, and psychological horror, Roger Cormans “Masque of the Red Death” with Vincent price has a great end sequence that makes the most of the film’s low budget with some inventive visual ideas.
Aw fuck it, I just like scary movies..
Last House on Dead End Street is a stone classic. Amazing, dark, fucking creepy stuff. The fellatio on a goats hoof scene towards he end is very intense.
Talking of space, and psychological horror, Roger Cormans “Masque of the Red Death” with Vincent price has a great end sequence that makes the most of the film’s low budget with some inventive visual ideas.
Aw fuck it, I just like scary movies..
yeah and sergio leone.
i forgot about sergio.
stupid me.
Another kind of amazing thing about Last House on Dead End Street is that it has one of the most amazing soundtracks I’ve heard.
yeah and sergio leone.
i forgot about sergio.
stupid me.
Another kind of amazing thing about Last House on Dead End Street is that it has one of the most amazing soundtracks I’ve heard.