One Zany Chick Flick*: MANIA (2015, Directed by Jessica Cameron, written by Jonathan Scott Higgins; with Ellie Church, Tristan Risk)

*Okay, I admit it: "zany," and perhaps even "chick flick," are being used ironically here (depending on your interpretation of terms).

April 18, 2016 about 3:00 pm

Alright.

I already have at least two other movie reviews I want to finish writing, having started one last summer (!) and the other one a couple months ago. So, of course, I’m starting a THIRD review before finishing either of the others. But I have my reasons—simply put, I keep thinking about this movie after having seeing it [now over 36 hours ago]. I’m going to try and just blitz through this review. try to purge these thoughts from my system. Maybe I’ll actually finish what I started this time…

[NOTE: I’m still writing and editing as I go along and I started this at midnight last night. It’s 10:30 am now. Yes, I did sleep in-between, but still…]

I saw MANIA at the recent Buffalo Niagara Film Festival (BNFF) which ran from April 13-17 at the Tonawanda Castle, at 69 Delaware St., in Tonawanda, NY. I didn’t realize beforehand that the film was even playing, but when I learned that it was I made a point of seeing it because it was directed by Jessica Cameron.

Jessica isn’t from the Buffalo, NY area, but from Canada. Born in Owen Sound, Ontario, she later moved to Toronto and after acting in several independent films (made in the U.S.), she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full-time. But she also runs Small Town Girl Productions which focuses mainly on producing genre films. (BTW, all this info is from the handy Jessica Cameron Wikipedia page).

Now, I don’t know how writer/director (and friend) Adam Steigert and his Hamburg film company DefTone Pictures Studios crossed paths with Jessica, but she had a small role in their darkly comic horror film, A GRIM BECOMING (2014), where she played the character Life. By coincidence, I was an extra for one day on that film (I can be seen very briefly in the funeral home scene) but sadly, I never met Jessica in person during shooting. However, it was through that production that I first heard about her, and soon afterwards, I learned of her directorial debut, TRUTH OR DARE (2014). Shortly thereafter, that film happened to be in the 2014 BNFF which was held at the (now defunct) Market Arcade theater. It was a pretty effective film and Jessica also had a role in it.

Through Facebook I learned of her next project, MANIA, and now, about a year and a half later, was delighted that I had the opportunity to see another Jessica Cameron film playing at another edition of the BNFF.

After watching it Saturday night (April 16), I’ve been thinking about it constantly ever since for a variety of reasons. So, enough about me talking about nothing, let’s get on with the damn review!

Already from the MANIA movie poster itself we get a sense that the filmmakers are aiming for a reckless, unbridled sort of exploitation film vibe. The tagline wantonly brags: “A Fucked Up Lesbian Love Story.”

Tristan Risk and Ellie Church are Brooke and Mel respectively, ie. our lesbian lovers. [NOTE: Considering the lovers’ names, you’d think we’d be watching more of an irreverent comedy because the pairing of their monikers seems more than coincidental (uh, reverse the order to get my meaning), but this isn’t quite a parody of THELMA AND LOUISE. Oh, it gets strangely humorous, and inappropriately so at times, but it really ain’t that kind of movie.]

After first sharing via screen text the definition of the word “mania”, the text disappears and we're left looking at a black screen. As we sit in the darkness, we begin to hear a woman moaning, eventually revealing that it’s Brooke being orally pleasured by Mel. Then it’s time for Mel to go to work and before she goes she reminds Brooke to take her pill. After that, everything goes south.

Basically, Brooke has issues, psychological medical issues, and she really needs to stay on top of taking her pills. This morning she perhaps didn’t, then she had some bad work-related news which she was dealing with poorly, and then she kind of went… cuckoo. And by cuckoo, I don’t mean Brooke tried to lay her eggs in another women’s nest, I mean she goes all crackbrained and kills a friend in cold blood with a hammer. Cuckoo. When Mel comes home and discovers the bloody, pulp-faced carcass in the front hall, the only thing she can think to do is get rid of the body, grab Brooke and some quickly packed bags and start running as far away as possible, pronto!

From then on, MANIA becomes a road movie, a road movie where things just keep going wrong for our two lovers.

I LOVE the simplicity of the set-up.

I was also thrilled to be watching a movie starring both Tristan Risk and Ellie Church, because they’ve been on my radar after reading about them in other films, films which I haven’t gotten around to actually seeing. Like, Tristan Risk is in Jen and Sylvia Soska's’ AMERICAN MARY, and even though I have that DVD signed by those talented, slyly provocative siblings, I haven’t watched it yet ‘cause… I’m a dork. Nor have I watched Astron-6’s latest, THE EDITOR, which also has Ms. Risk in it and I also own a DVD of (again: Dork! Dork!). As for Ellie Church, I have seen her in "the lost slasher film of the 70s" HEADLESS (uh, I just haven’t finished my review of it, yet! That’s the one I started last summer…) where I thought she was great playing an employee working at a roller-skating rink who’s blunt, cynical and pretty funny. What’s neat was I thought her character in MANIA was distinctly different from her character in HEADLESS. As Mel, she is, to a degree, naively sincere (especially in these specific circumstances of being in constant "escape mode"), a sort of idealistic person who makes a “promise to protect” Brooke, the one she loves, and for that matter, Mel believes in love as well. As the film goes on, this belief in herself and what she can do to protect Brooke is severely tested.

Besides the impulsive desperation of Mel’s escape strategy, it’s further complicated by two important facts: 1) Mel’s the only one apparently competent enough to drive and 2) occasionally Mel needs to stop and sleep. Normally, the notion of them having to stop mid-flight to points unknown would increase the suspense of being caught, but in this case, there’s another more pressing problem: when Mel sleeps, either in the car or in a motel, Brooke conveniently goes into this sort of trance (for lack of a better word), where she looks awake but her head’s definitely in another world.  Let’s call it Homicidal Sleepwalking. Specifically, Brooke is motivated by some Praying Mantis/Black Widow type of manic complex where her brain may be elsewhere but her body is here and wants to immediately fuck the first strange guy she comes in contact with (and its definitely “fucking” not the more polite “have sex with”), but in this case its vigorous spontaneous sex as foreplay because after she achieves carnal completion, our Ms. Brooke is compelled to reciprocate the male’s act of penetration with her own, using whatever’s handy which is usually something Sharp, Metal and Stabby (the Divorce Law Firm of…). One of the more obvious ways both actresses commit to the film are the way they embrace the variety of scenes that require them to be nude or damn near nude, and as Brooke in “assertive date mode”, Tristan Risk is emphatically unself-conscious about displaying and utilizing her body. Being a guy, I had no problem with this plot device/character trait. I don’t know what specific clinical mental issue Brooke had but from an exploitation film perspective, it’s definitely an attention grabber. Although, actual mental illnesses aside, you could almost formulate a dysfunctional motivation for her impulsive couplings and killings: some misplaced insecurity/jealousy. As they continue to drive, Brooke asks Mel pointedly why she became a lesbian knowing she used to date men. After hearing her explanation, Brooke then asks her how many men she slept with, but Mel won’t go there. But since these questions come shortly after we witness a Brooke terminal quickie, you kind of read into these series of questions. There are times when we see them driving at night where the fragmented illumination of oncoming headlights picks out the women’s separate faces from the darkness and Tristan Risk’s beautiful, staring visage takes on a mask-like quality, similar to the iconic Barbara Steele, a fascinating, enigmatic quality which serves her brooding silences well.

Meanwhile, when Mel does get a chance to sleep, she doesn’t get much rest because she’s tormented by nightmares involving Brooke. On one level, director Cameron has some fun with these nightmares, dolling Mel up in increasingly fancy and outrageous fake eyelashes for example. But the nightmare scenes are also executed to explore moodier, surreal depths, serving up tangible ways to appreciate Mel’s inner thoughts and fears. Obviously, she’s terrified of losing Brooke, as she dreams of finding Brooke dead or having committing suicide, or she’s being physically dragged away from Brooke, etc.

Meanwhile, Brooke’s ongoing impulse to fornicate then exterminate impromptu sexual partners doesn’t seem to let up. Out of desperation, Mel frantically tries to distance themselves from the increasing body count by erasing their on-going trail but she’s also freaking out more and more because she realizes she’s in way over her head.

The plot takes some sick delight in throwing further complications at our lovers on the run. When they need to steal a car our desperately intrepid couple risk searching for the car keys in an unfamiliar house, trying to remain undiscovered even while an increasing number of occupants are still active inside. This sequence features a simple yet amusingly bizarre cameo by Ellie Church’s real husband, actor/director Brian Williams. Williams was also in HEADLESS as Church’s genuinely sleazy boss of the skating rink, but this time he shows us a more sensitive side by being dressed in drag. During this same sequence, there’s an ongoing extended sex scene being hammered out not only as visual and aural comic relief, but also as a way of increasing suspense if the sexual participants happen to take a sudden break and then possibly discover our protagonists searching the immediate environs by sneaking along the floor dog-style, and then director Cameron does a smooth bit of injecting further suspense as well.

There are additional developments sprung upon our anti-heroines, like a mugging by a drifter and a free dinner with unexpected consequences.

If I had any quibbles, part of me wished the tension could have been ratcheted up even more at times, and I second-guessed the wisdom of (somewhat) revealing in advance the intentions of the dinner hostess.

I’ll go a little more into that plus some other thoughts but that’s going to be a spoiler heavy conversation, so I’ll get to that at the end of this review.

After Brooke unintentionally (‘cause she’s nutty) but unequivocally undermines a possible way out of their mess, the film runs headlong into its conclusion. Earlier I noted the somewhat “misleading” coincidence of their names, Mel and Brooke. But, in hindsight, perhaps any “meaning” their two names have because they “go together” has less to do with the film genre and is more an indication of some twisted star-crossed destiny of their tragic love (and still a simple but sincere cinematic shout out?). Arguably the couple's earlier nude scenes together may be exploitation film fodder visually speaking, but these risqué moments also show evidence of a gentle, sensual quality of tangible affection being expressed between the lovers. Before their fateful journey strained their emotional bonds together, their names are sweetly suitable together.

For the most part, the film is a thrilling joyride into shared madness served up well by: our two committed leads (and interpret that however way you want), Ms. Risk and Ms. Church; a disturbingly enjoyable plotline from screenwriter Jonathan Scott Higgins; intimate and creative direction from Jessica Cameron;  consistently sweet looking visuals and lighting from Director of Photography Josh Chiara (for instance, I LOVED the shots where one of the leads was in tight close-up on one half of the screen, like Brooke staring at the camera out the window, and in the other half of the screen in the background but still in focus was Mel entering full-body into the house and discovering the first corpse on the floor). Oh! And I also love the graphics of the beginning and end credits.

MANIA was a pretty damn fine exploitation ride! I’m thinking this would make a suitable double-feature with either the Soska Sisters’ debut DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK or Alexandre Aja’s HIGH TENSION. Hope it does well on the film festival circuit and I look forward to seeing it again.

Here's the 31 second teaser for MANIA. NOT SAFE FOR WORK! But you'll get a sense of what you're in for.

ALSO: SPECIAL BONUS!

Excellent interview with Jessica Cameron about directing, horror films, and a surprising answer as to what film she would remake if she could and with what dream cast. From the Australian website Cult Projections, which looks pretty cool on its own.

POSTSCRIPT: SOME ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS, BUT * WARNING * SPOILERS APLENTY-ISH!

Okay, this is just some additional thoughts/remarks . Part of this is me talking completely as an armchair/wanna-be filmmaker. Part of this is just me making additional comments but I feel it would be best saved for those readers who’ve already seen the film.

1    1.  First of all, a really MINOR point. I was somewhat surprised by the nudity and the amount of it in MANIA (but not disappointed, in fact most certainly I was delighted) although I wasn’t complaining (again: nope!). I say surprised because when I saw Jessica Cameron’s directorial debut, TRUTH OR DARE, there’s a scene where actress Devanny Pinn comes out wearing a bikini but suddenly she’s like covered up or removed from the scene. I forget how the scene actually transpired, but I remember that a point seemed to be made that she needed to cover up. And I thought, how weird, because I didn’t think Ms. Pinn would be self-conscious about appearing in a bikini, so I wondered if this was something to attribute to the director sensibility-wise? Of course, I also wondered if, perhaps, I remembered this scene completely incorrectly (and I did wish I could watch the film again just to see if I had the same reaction). But, since seeing TRUTH OR DARE, in my mind the notion of some sort of “selective puritanism” was attached to Jessica Cameron’s name because of how I perceived that scene in TRUTH OR DARE. And I say “selective” because she had no apparent issues with gore, profanity, etc. back then or now. So, in a (not really) similar way, I also had John Carpenter “pegged” as a filmmaker who would rather suggest than show actual gore, based on watching HALLOWEEN, THE FOG and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK…and then I saw THE THING. But, getting back to the film at hand, after seeing MANIA, I was either 1) absolutely wrong about my original perceptions; or 2) Jessica seriously got over her “hang-ups,“ haha!

I guess this a question for the director if she happens to read this…

      2.  When I mentioned my wish for possibly increasing the tension in the film, I thought there were a couple moments when there was a specific opportunity to milk a situation for more tension and it didn’t go that way. First, the mugging scene. I thought that was great, because you think, “Oh my god, this bastard just stole their money, now what!?” But, the big thing is, he stole Brooke’s pills, and that’s an even more “Oh, shit!” moment. However, I think Mel should have been more beside herself and maybe tried to catch the guy as he ran away. I know he was armed, and maybe he could have hurt her but I’m thinking she knows for certain what Brooke off medication means. Her attempt to fight the guy for the pills didn’t have to be successful, but just an illustration of how Mel is getting further stressed out and hysterical, and if Brooke is the loose cannon, Mel is now deteriorating out of desperation into conducting her own dubious actions. But even if she still didn’t try to catch the guy and get back the pills, I think she should have been a lot more emphatic that they shouldn’t accept the strange woman’s dinner invitation, out of a need to protect the woman. Then, a strained conversation between Mel and Brooke on the topic of whether Brooke can be trusted in society would start to further undermine the doubt Brooke has that Mel still loves her.

3    3.  As stated earlier, immediately after the mugging scene, we introduce the good Samaritan woman who conveniently discovers they’ve been mugged mere seconds ago and out of apparent kindness, she offers them a free meal. It’s a borderline generous and bizarre offer from a stranger, but I’m thinking Mel is really hesitant to put Brooke in contact with any civilians now that she’s without meds. But allowing that, I can accept Brooke convincing her to go because they’re now without money, too, so a free meal is a free meal. But, aside from that, I think the dinner scene might have worked better NOT knowing the Samaritan had a secret agenda, specifically NOT seeing her put something in their wine right away. When Mel is suddenly so sleepy, it might’ve raised a red flag, but still, as an audience we wouldn’t know for sure. Mostly, I think we’d be nervous as to what Brooke is going to do to the poor hostess now that she’s alone with her. When the hostess goes to “get more wine,” we wouldn’t see her get dressed in the plastic raincoat either. I think showing Brooke make the discovery of the blood on the refrigerator door and then seeing what the hostess has for leftovers inside the fridge would be a great discovery for both her AND the audience. Then, after the gruesome discovery she’s surprised by the hostess clad in stylish American Psycho Wear ™. Brooke then continue to kill the woman (“this Samaritan picked the wrong person to help today!”) and when she wakes up Mel, the revelation that Brooke killed their hostess would just set Mel off and she lays into Brooke. Brooke could finally show her the evidence in the fridge, or really, maybe not, maybe Mel finally just backs off but never believes Brooke’s story so the fight would severely strain their relationship from then on. Which also further feeds into Brooke’s imaginings of what she thinks Mel really thinks, which is shown so wonderfully a few times through the film.

4    4.  Okay, part of me wondered, “If they really need to drive all the time to get as far away as possible from their home (and then additional victims, too), how badly can Brooke be as a driver?” So, I had the thought, “Gee, too bad we couldn’t see Mel try to teach Brooke how to drive, “ and then watch where that development took us. Either it blows up in Mel’s face spectacularly, or it seems to work until Brooke starts taking homicidal detours as Mel sleeps beside her. But, that’s just me with my mind wandering, me “what-if?”-ing.

5    5.  Also, part of me debates whether Brooke would kill anybody other than men spontaneously. Murdering the dinner hostess makes sense because of the context, there’s survival involved, arguably. But, the little kids near the end, I don’t know. But, dramatically, you do need to up the stakes to motivate Mel to see the lawyer. Brooke’s “trance” conveniently allows the plot to go in certain directions. But, this could also be me projecting specific motivations on who she kills (as I stated earler) when perhaps there really are no motivations at all. Maybe the first victims happened to be men. She’s simply extremely dangerous. I simply bring this up as a discussion topic.

6    6.  Finally, the ending is really interesting. I predicted to myself as the film wound down that both of them dying would be the way to wrap this up, a la Romeo and Juliet. And that indeed happened. But, then Mel comes to and gets up. This threw me. Partly because of her multiple stab wounds (she survived this?), but mostly because Mel and Brooke didn’t die together. But, as I  thought about it, especially watching Mel walk off, away from the camera with the end credits starting to roll and  descending into the sunrise, it seemed more appropriate, though not necessarily a “happy ending.”
      In fact, perhaps because it ISN’T a happy ending, it seemed appropriate. I mean, it’s a horror story that happens to be a love story, or at least, a story about two lovers. Because I don’t think that the depiction of Mel’s anguish over not knowing what to do anymore during the film is an overt cry by Mel for release from Brooke, it’s simply a cry for some kind of solution for their situation. Mel’s just at her wit’s end. That the lawyer may somehow genuinely help them with their situation is a miracle for Mel. Which of course is immediately torpedoed by Brooke via a hand spade into the lawyer’s heart. The dream sequences we first see Mel have play as terrible nightmares of what Mel first feels she’s up against, the constant possibility of losing Brooke as a lover or losing her to death. But as the film progresses I can see the dreams transforming from Mel’s fears of losing/failing Brooke and turning into Mel’s desperate guilty fantasies of getting out of their terrible, deteriorating situation: if only Brooke would die, if only the responsibility of protecting Brooke was taken out of Mel’s hands by someone else. And that’s an awful thing for Mel to realize she’s subconsciously dreaming about, perhaps after the lawyer’s demise, she’s even consciously hoping for. Okay, maybe this is me over-analyzing a lot, because I didn't really think all this while the end played out. I've been trying to sort out my feelings and articulate them after the fact. It's quite possible I'm really full of shit. But, still I think I could legitimately argue this take on the ending. Brooke and Mel are at their furthest apart emotionally after Brooke kills the lawyer. Mel can't believe she could do that and yells at her and for the first time, Brooke reacts by running away from her. Perhaps realizing what she's done. Mel gives chase but Brooke is long gone. When Mel finally catches up, at a conveniently empty house, Brooke seems to kill her, stabbing her more than once. I wish I could see the film again for this moment because part of me is remembering that Brooke is in her sleepwalking state and that she comes out of it AFTER murdering Mel. But, I could be conveniently misremembering that to fit my half-assed thesis here. Because it seems poetic to me that the now lucid Brooke sees what she's done to Mel, and so she decides to finally end it, and she commits suicide to join Mel (again, so to speak) and also because the thought of living alone is unthinkable. But by committing suicide Brooke does Mel the ultimate (and apparently posthumous) favor of killing herself as well. And I believe this is the only life, her own life, that Brooke consciously takes, all the other victims' deaths (including Mel, I think) are arguably committed while Brooke’s in her sleepwalking state. Sure, Mel could have merely passed out from the shock of being stabbed several times, but in a real way we thought she had actually died. So, when Mel suddenly rises, it's as if she's been resurrected. In fact, it seems that miraculously, Brooke’s self-sacrifice allows Mel to become resurrected. But sadly, Mel may have been more at peace in death. As she rises, she sees Brooke lying next to her on the floor and having committed suicide. As she leaves the house Mel may be arguably free to move on but she also has the lives of all the innocent victims they killed to contemplate. This awful burden is something Mel now has to process for the rest of her life.

Kind of deep.
And hell, yeah, definitely “fucked up.”

Blog post edited somewhat 4-19-16, 1:46 am (and I may still do some tinkering with it)