:: a world of zombies ::

:: Thursday, September 11 ::

I have seen the light!

And by 'the light,' I mean that I have seen STALKED, a 1968 film produced by the Lutheran Church and directed by Rolf Forsberg (co-director of the scare film pseudo-documentary THE LATE, GREAT PLANET EARTH, narrated by Orson Welles!).

Admittedly, I've been in a bit of a rut recently when it comes to movies. Sure, I've been watching a lot of them, but most of my time's been spent revisiting things that I already loved, or in the case of TARGETS, hadn't seen in ages and had completely forgotten how brilliant they are. Or just watching LAST MAN ON EARTH for the upteenth time. But it's been a while since something come along to make me fall on my knees and give thanks the way I did when I first saw TURKISH STAR WARS, WILD ZERO, THE ABC OF SEX EDUCATION FOR TRAINABLES or ORGAN. Until now. Until STALKED.

STALKED opens in a carnival. Our protaganist is seen walking amongst the crowd, always filmed from behind. His thoughts (most of the movie is related via interior monologue. And the voice is Barry Sullivan from PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES!). He goes on at great length about how weak, unpredictable, and coarse people are while we're shown endless scenes of the yokels enjoying themselves at the carnival. 'Fools,' he tells us as a one-legged man hobbles by on crutches, 'to be exploited, not pitied.' Then it's on to the freak show, where we see midget Siamese twins, and a bearded lady cackling away while some hideous man pokes a stick at her. So basically, it's only few minutes into the film, and already I'm speechless.

We follow our anonymous protagonist into a wax museum, where the guide is showing the crowd a tableau of Salome and the head of John the Baptist. After a really weird moment where a girl strikes the same pose as Salome and stands perfectly still for a moment, the narration begins again. We learn that our 'hero' is the sculptor of the wax figures on display, and that he prefers wax to flesh because the (incredibly creepy) figures never age and can be polished with spit. Then he turns as the guide shows the crowd a wax crucifixion scene. The narration tells us that our hero doesn't love this one, and he didn't sculpt it, after which he completely loses it and pulls the curtains shut before collapsing. His assistant suggests that he take a vacation to get some rest, which seems like good advice, considering.

Cue the credits. Cue also the film's turning to stark, high-contrast black and white as the man flies back to Amsterdam to visit his family. He's apparently the only passenger on the plane. Then, in scenes highly reminiscent of ALPHAVILLE (Jack Hawkins, who plays the protagonist, even somewhat resembles Eddie Constantine) he wanders through a cold, sterile, apparently abandoned and completely automated airport. As he leaves the airport to pick up his rental car, he hears the sound of wooden shoes, and smiles because he realizes that he's back home.

As he's driving, the film goes back to color. He returns to his home, only to find nobody there. He hears the sound of wooden shoes again, and goes to the door, but nobody is there. Later, he hears the sound again, accompanied by knocking, but still nobody is there. He goes to the church, assuming that it's a religious holiday and that's why there's nobody on the streets of Amsterdam.

In the church, he sees a frankly hideous and terrifying Jesus at the center of the crucifixion scene, and this is where things get weird. Okay, weirder. The soundtrack turns to screeching that sounds like it was provided by Oskar Sala, and the man takes a spear from a Centurion's hand and stabs Jesus (right in his area, too. I'll leave the ramifications of that to more subtextually inclined reviewers). He then grabs a key, runs from the church, locks the door, and tosses the key in a fountain. In a scene straight out of a horror film, something starts pounding on the church door from within. At this point, the man runs away. At least I think he runs away, but the print jumps at this point, so it looks like he teleports, which is much more effective. Of course, by this point, STALKED has been so bizarre that maybe the jump was intentional after all.

Anyway, it just gets even weirder from here as the man runs through the streets trying to escape the sound of wooden shoes stalking him. He ultimately has his epiphany, which is somehow precipitated by a flaming calliope and dancing mute man in wooden shoes, and returns home to the carnival, where all the yokels stare accusingly at him, 'to love the unlovely.' Which I guess means he's accepted Jesus, but I'm really not sure how.

Mere words can't begin to describe how bizarre and brilliant STALKED really is. It runs a lean 28 minutes (althoug IMDB lists it at 47, which makes me wonder if there's genius that I'm missing) and often feels like the Lutherans got Fellini, Godard, and Bergman to collaborate on an inspirational film, only to end up with a surreal meditation on alienation and hopelessness. Unlike other similar films, where the weirdness comes from bad acting, dated beliefs, shoddy production values, and often humorous earnestness, the weirdness in STALKED (which is very professionally produced) is completely intentional, and I'm pretty sure it'd make a great double feature with Fellini's 'Toby Dammit' segment of SPIRITS OF THE DEAD. The isolation and stillness of the film is genuinely creepy, in a CARNIVAL OF SOULS kind of way. I've only seen STALKED once so far, but several images are already burned into my mind forever.

I'm honestly not sure if it suceeds as an inspirational film. After all, its message does seem to be that if you don't accept Jesus, he will put on wooden shoes and stalk you like a black-gloved psycho in a Dario Argento giallo until you do. And I certainly don't remember that being covered in Sunday school. If they had covered it, I'd have paid more attention. But I've certainly never seen a movie that makes Jesus scarier than STALKED does, and that's quite an achievement on its own.

See STALKED. Now.
:: Jason Hyde 10:49 AM [+] ::
...