I think I might be emphasizing directors here a little too much, but they are an easy place to start.

Frank Henenlotter might make horror films but doesn’t see himself as a horror filmmaker. He sees himself as a maker of exploitation. I don’t see these being mutually exclusive in any way, but it is still interesting to look at his work from this point of view.

According to him, exploitation has more attitude than pure horror. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll as he puts it. He does have a point in the sense that horror and exploitation can be very different experiences and can thus have very different audiences.

While we tend to think of some exploitation movies as poorly made horror, which it can be, exploitation is most often enjoyed by people who appreciate the transgressive and often amateurish nature of these films. There is also leeway for the people behind these movies: A certain amount of crudeness in the effects is part of the fun.

Henenlotter actually loves exploitation so much that outside of his work as a filmmaker, he works to protect and save exploitation movies. I guess someone has to do it. Library of Congress isn’t exactly keen on adding them to their collection of movies to be preserved, so many of them have been lost to time or only a few copies still exist in private collections or film archives. (Although, I should also note that Basket Case, see below, was selected by MoMa to be preserved.)

Of course, just having seen many of these movies gives insight to someone like Henenlotter on what makes these movies worthwhile. There is a rich history of these movies, even if it isn’t acknowledged by the mainstream.

Basket Case
United States, 1982, dir. Frank Henenlotter

A half-star review from Letterboxd: actual buns

A five-star review from Letterboxd: Fine cathode, Fine, I’ll watch basket case again. I think thats the third time this year.

Duane has a secret: He has his conjoined twin, Belial, hidden in a basket he keeps carrying around. Belial is getting back at the doctors who forcibly separated them and left Belial to die. While Belial is on his crusade, Duane meets a woman, which causes a rift between the brothers.

Here’s a thing I find funny, but I don’t know if anyone else does: My copy of this DVD has a catalogue from the distributor from the time of the release. When I open the case, I am greeted by Death from The Seventh Seal. I love that this weirdo cult classic and the movie that has often been referred to as the epitome of art film can be linked together in this way.

Belial’s design is quite simplistic. He is just a blob of flesh with a crude face and weirdly shaped arms. While he looks horrific and is extremely violent, there is a sympathetic side to him. After all, he was separated from his twin brother and left out to die, because he doesn’t look like the rest of us. He is still human. He still loves his brother.

Belial is often just not seen, because he was Henenlotter himself puppeteering it. He’s also often just sitting there. At times, when there isn’t room for a puppeteer and no-one else on screen, he is stop-motion animated. This looks pretty horrible, but it doesn’t matter, because so does the rest of the movie.

Considering the nature of the movie, there have been quite a bit of analysis done on this movie. Some angles, like abortion discussion around this movie, isn’t really interesting to me, but I liked the Freudian interpretation that Belial is Duane’s id or the monster that lurks within him. You can also see shades of doctors misusing their powers and lacking sympathy for their patients, being more interested in the craft.

There are two sequels to this movie, neither of which I have seen, so I won’t cover them here.

United States, 1988, dir. Frank Henenlotter

A half-star review from Letterboxd: I need more parasitic demons to have Norm Macdonald style charm

A five-star review from Letterboxd: don’t let that worm squirt all over you like that…

An elderly couple have lost something. They run around their apartment building but with no luck. We see them get some kind of seizures. Soon enough we learn what they were missing as Brian wakes up in a pool of his own blood. He meets Aylmer (although the name appears as Elmer in much of the marketing materials and it was spoiled by the subtitles early on, because it doesn’t come up until pretty late in the movie), a somewhat phallic creature, that has dug itself a hole in the back of Brian’s head, so that he (I assume) has easy access to Brian’s brain. Brian turns out to be a willing partner in this, as Aylmer does give him hallucinogenic experiences in turn for living in his brain. The relationship seems symbiotic, but definitely has parasitic elements to it. Brian’s girlfriend and brother witness weird things and start to suspect something.

The funniest thing about this movie is the voice of Aylmer. He speaks in this weird, mellow voice that feels like something someone would test for a character in a sketch. And yes, that is the creature that likes eating brains. It is disgusting, but not really scary physically. Even it’s mouth that is full of weird teeth.

Since the budget was quite limited, we tend to see Aylmer in sinks when it talks or only briefly when it needs to move. This isn’t exactly a Jaws situation, though. We find out about it’s true nature quite early on.

In a way it invokes exactly what it’s supposed to: drugs. Henenlotter has stated that the movie is about his own cocaine addiction. While I have never used drugs or felt a need to, there is something intriguing about them. Despite all the propaganda we have been fed all our lives, there must be something positive about drugs or otherwise people would not use them, but at the same time, the propaganda has worked and there is an element of fear around them. (For the record, I do think Western prohibitionary policies are misguided and we should approach the issue very differently.)

There’s a cameo by Duane from Basket Case. He sits on the opposite side from Brian on the subway before Brian’s actions freak him out and he moves to another seat.

Frankenhooker
United States, 1990, dir. Frank Henenlotter

A half-star review from Letterboxd: mmm yes misogyny with a side of movie my favorite

A five-star review from Letterboxd: rewatched this with my friends last night high as a kite. i told them ‘i didn’t say this movie was good, i said that it was a favorite of mine’

Jeffrey Franken has already been kicked out of three different medical schools, but in an all too real take, that has not stopped him practicing his own brand of medicine. This includes operating on his fiancée, Elizabeth Shelley (wink, wink). When Elizabeth dies in a freak accident, Jeffrey begins to use his electrobiological knowledge to rebuild her with parts he steals from sex workers.

The New York of this movie is the seedy New York that doesn’t exist anymore. There’s graffiti everywhere, drug use is rampant and sex workers are working in a very dangerous situation with both their pimps and johns representing threats. Jeffrey is basically a tourist in this world. He does not have any experience in it and is thus a danger to himself, but as he is a mad scientist, he is also a risk to the people around him. That is where much of the humor in the movie comes from.

Now, it is not as funny as it thinks it is.

Finally, is the accusation of misogyny correct? Hard to say, but I would err on the side of ‘no’. There is a difference between the movie being misogynistic and the character being misogynistic. The character clearly is. He is very much objectifying women. To him, these women are just parts and he doesn’t really see them as real humans.

The thing is that when we talk about male gaze in regards to movies, this is what we mean. In reality, it’s more complicated, but it often boils down to seeing the women as parts of their body rather than real humans. So, was Henenlotter sophisticated enough to understand this in 1990? As previously mentioned, he has affinity for exploitation, so while he might not have been up on his theory, it is still possible that he understood this.

While the women in the movie are not depicted in the best possible light, neither are the men. The women might mostly be sex workers, but that is just what the plot requires. Considering that the only major male characters are a mad scientist, who is willing to kill for his work, and a violent pimp, who brands his sex workers, you might as easily argue that the movie is just vile misandry (the effects of which, in general, are not as bad as misogyny). In the end, the only sympathetic character is Elizabeth.

The defense rests.

Bad Biology
United States, 2008, dir. Frank Henenlotter

A half-star review from Letterboxd: Porn with little plot. Enjoyed the cock puppets and baby amalgamation. I wanna see a version of this from like the fbi’s perspective.
“yeah boss, we got another freak baby and a body. 3rd one this week!”

A five-star review from Letterboxd: “God wants to fuck me.”
This is the real nymphomaniac movie. I never thought I would see a steampunk pocket pussy.

This was Henenlotter’s big return after 17 years of hiatus. It is immediately obvious that he has not lost his touch.

This feels like it had a bigger budget then Henenlotter’s other movies. Still, the budget is not huge and he seems to have deliberately kept the costs low just so that there wouldn’t be pressure on him to try to make the money back. He also kept the movie unrated so that he wouldn’t have to deal with that either.

It’s a love story between Jennifer, a nymphomaniac who becomes pregnant every time she has sex but gives birth to a “freak baby” (as described above), and Batz, a man who’s penis has gained autonomy as he has been abusing steroids for too long. Neither of them are really keen on killing anyone but their biology often causes them to inadvertently kill their sexual partners. So, bad biology on multiple levels. Their meeting is truly prodigious as their mutations just fit together in a way they have never experienced before.

I mean, that is kind of beautiful. Two people finding each other. If only there wasn’t a trail of dead bodies they have both left behind (well, Batz doesn’t kill anyone himself but his penis kills multiple people) including a bunch of babies being left wherever.

Weirdly, despite Henenlotter’s history and cult status, there are no reviews of this film on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics, apparently, just weren’t interested. In a way I get it. This is purer exploitation than his earlier work. This is more interested in being in-your-face than Basket Case or Brain Damage, which feel like they have actual themes behind them. Sure, you can argue that there is a theme of our biology driving us, but it doesn’t feel like it really discusses that.

I would like to suggest something similar to what I suggested on how to use Final Flesh (by just putting it on without any explanation), but this movie is just too much and you would have to be very certain your audience can take it. If so, instead of trying to discuss artistic value, just use the name of the movie and try to discuss the implications on biological research.