A billion years ago, back in 2018, I did a summer retrospective on Friday the 13th films, and I briefly discussed Sean S. Cunningham, who was a director and producer on the series. To recap, in the late 60's, he was a Broadway producer and manager who decided to go into independent film. With film censorship loosening at the time thanks to the advent of the MPAA rating system in 1968, many had started to go into hitherto taboo territory. Among the avenues for this were "white coaters", which were films that used a medical education cover (i.e. a guy in a white coat at the beginning explaining how the film you're about to watch is educational) to basically make porn. Cunningham would make his first "white coater" with The Art of Marriage in 1970. Impressed by this success was 31-year old Wes Craven, a former schoolteacher turned film editor. Craven and Cunningham would work together on another white coater, Together, as a result of a deal with Hallmark (not that one) Releasing and notorious genre distributor American International Pictures. That film was a success, and Hallmark/AIP offered the pair a chance to make a bigger horror film. Craven decided to draw upon Igmar Bergman's 1960 film The Virgin Spring to write an incredibly dark script called Night of Vengeance, commenting on what Craven thought was how many films had glamorized or played down the impact of violence. After shooting began, however, the script was significantly toned down. Despite this, the filming proved upsetting enough for star Sandra Peabody to leave set temporarily, before they coaxed her back. Filmed "guerrilla style" in Cunningham's words, in New York and Connecticut, the film starred mostly D-List or first time actors. It would have significant problems with the MPAA. Craven constantly cut down the film, only for the dreaded "X" rating to come back. Finally, he just took a R rating stamp from a friend, and put it on the film. Craven assumed that the film would not be widely seen, much like many others he had edited under pseudonyms. However, the film would go on to have a wide release, and become extremely controversial due to its violence and dark themes. Many theaters would refuse to play the film, and critics (including future slasher opponent and guy who hung out at the Playboy Mansion apparently, Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel) lambasted the film and its violence. All of this is to say, it was a gigantic success, and would be considered a classic in retrospective. It would also (to his lifelong consternation) put Craven on the map as a horror director of note (in part because the film was so traumatic, they didn't want him to do anything else).
On her seventeenth birthday, Mari Collingwood (Sandra Peabody) is attending a concert with friend Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham), despite her parents (Eleanor Shaw and Richard Towers) concerns about her friend. As they drive, they hear a report that four prisoners (Krug Stillo (David Hess), his son Junior (Marc Sheffler), Weasel (Fred Lincoln), and Sadie (Jeramie Rain)) who have escaped. They are eventually tricked into going into their apartment, and I probably should stop it there.
This is a very fascinating commentary on the culture of late 60's and early 70's. Specifically, the culture war, without explicitly noting the whole "hippies/squares" conflict. The villains are coded as hippies, even though they don't necessarily have the signifiers typically given to them. At the same time, the "square" parents, while sympathetic, ultimately devolve to their level of violence once the depravity of their crimes is fully understood. Perhaps a bit "both sides", but it's a nice time capsule of that particular period. Onto a bit more tangible stuff, I definitely see Craven purposely ramping the violence to make a point. The violence in this film is extensive and brutal, but it's never framed as cool or fantastic. In fact, this film is honestly hard to watch because the violence (especially the sexual violence) is very heavy handed, and it's really uncomfortable to watch. It's a good commentary on being desensitized to violence, especially in the wake of the Vietnam War being broadcast nationwide. It's definitely a very intense viewing experience, especially with some scenes I couldn't stomach.
For stuff that didn't work, mostly the tone was all over the place. A lot of stern, extremely serious moments were followed by very weirdly light-hearted moments of comedy with the criminals. It's more than a little jarring, and after the bruality, I wasn't really sure what to make of these moments. Were they a satire? A light relief? Whatever they were, it didn't really work out for me, but these moments are few and far between.
This was a difficult viewing experience. I had to stop the film a few times because of how intense it got, especially towards the middle. If you could stomach some really disgusting stuff, this does have some very interesting commentary on the times it was made in, and feels like a fresh look at how we view violence as a society. It is a hard film to sit through though, and I wouldn't be surprised if people just decided it wasn't something for them.
Alright, now onto another director who got their start in the 70's (two in fact) is Body Bags.
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