Some offspring of famed directors fail to fill the shoes of their predecessor while others do quite an admirable job of holding their own. For example, David Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer Chambers Lynch, never posited anything remotely steadfast or as entertaining as her paterfamilias whereas Sofia Coppola is slowly proving to be one of the more remarkable talents of her generation, much like her father, Francis. Likewise, Lamberto Bava had a very heavy shadow to come out from under in the stead of one of Italy’s crowning cinematic talents, Mario Bava. However, the second-generation horror director does a very venerable job, if not stunning considering it is his directorial debut, with Macabre.
During an adulterous rendezvous, Jane Baker’s (Bernice Stegers) lover, Fred Kellerman (Roberto Posse), is decapitated in a horrendous automobile accident while attempting to return his mistress to her home after she is informed that her five year-old son has drowned. As a consequence, during Jane’s year-long stay in a mental institution, her husband, Leslie (Fernando Pannullo), becomes estranged. Upon her release, she moves into an apartment run by a blind landlord named Robert Duval (Stanko Molnar) who becomes fixated with his resident but senses something amiss after detecting a pattern in which Jane visits her locked icebox, succeeded by noises suggesting an undisclosed lover.
A year before Lucio Fulci would plague the Big Easy with The Beyond (which also encompasses the plight of a blind character), Bava brought to the fray a psychological thriller which threatens to drench its audience in sorrow. He does so by articulately presenting a scenario in which every involved party suffers yet at the culpability of none, thereby producing, not one sympathetic character, but a drove in which to wrench the audience’s heartstrings. However, his masterstroke is that he does so, not as a direct consequence of the epicenter of the dilemma–Jane’s daughter, Lucy (Vernoica Zinny)–but rather by having the child’s influence resonate until its exponentially-increased undulations consume everyone around her.
Intriguingly, at most every instance of malevolence, Bava creates a knee-jerk reaction in his audience whereby we instinctively abhor the antagonist-at-hand. However, after each incident, the filmmaker pauses so as to allow us to reflect upon, not only the ramifications of what we have just witnessed, but the genesis for such. In so doing, we realize that not every figure which enacts evil does so with deliberate intent but that most bare the often unconscious alibi of external influence. Thus, after forcing us to transverse our initial opinions, Bava creates the obligation to humbly bond with his characters.
For example, when Michael drowns at the hands of Lucy, it is due to childish jealousy. Jane suffers a mental breakdown, in part, due to the guilt of having distracted Fred in her rush to return home. When Jane flirts with Robert, we get the impression she is engaging in an act of sadistic coquettishness yet we pause as the scene slowly progresses before the epiphany occurs that such is perhaps the effects of the woman’s recent duel trauma, her sympathy for her landlord, or her cardinal lust. Likewise, in a moment echoing the best moments of cinema, Lucy stalls, refusing to believe what Robert is telling her the truth about her mother, yet–like a true skeptic–proceeds to incriminate Jane in order to validate the caretaker’s claims. Bava accomplishes all of this, and more, while remaining true to the essence of his predicaments, symbolized in Leslie bluntly informing Robert–who is attempting to inform the him of his wife’s hidden secret–that he considers his wife dead. He makes such a proclamation, not out of overt hatred, but rather disappointment and sorrow for he understands, but is unable to contend with, the complexity of the scenario involving his wife: Jane willfully left him yet succumbed to mental deterioration as a consequence of unfortunate circumstance.
It is with such patience and presence of mind, atop the feature being innocuously set in New Orleans, that Bava’s film lives up to its title. The macabre circumstance, Hitchcockianly revealed to the audience midway through the feature yet before Robert’s discovery thereof, is reminiscent of the atmosphere and tone of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” as our central character, a blind man–albeit slowly–nonetheless fascinates us, much like Audrey Hepburn’s character of Susy Hendrix in Terence Young’s Wait Until Dark, as he leads us through the sympathy-laden narrative.
As wryly perverse in its subject matter as it is in its approach to its audience, Lamberto Bava’s directorial debut announces that he is more than capable of producing a steadfast film. Much like his father, he does so with veteran control while never forgetting his audience as he nonetheless assures himself of the value of his work. To put it another way, in a scene in which a decimated severed head appears, we witness one, and only one, maggot fall from the decaying flesh. As such, the barely detectable motion sends shivers down the viewer’s spine whereas most horror films inundate their audience with excess, thus depleting the potential prowess and impact of the whole. This is the macabre joy to be had with Macabre.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
