When Salvo Zizek compiled his top ten films for Sight and Sound he included that piece of shit 'Hitman'. His explanation was that he was
opting for complete anarchy and that he was not compromising for the sake of
'good taste'. Fair enough. If I assembled a list for sight and sound it would
probably go.
1. Meet me in saint Louis (Vicente Minnelli)
2. 8 1/2 (Frederico Fellini)
3. The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
4. The Searchers (John Ford)
5. ZazieDams le Metro (Louis Malle)
6. Mean streets (Martin Scorsese)
7. Playtime (Jacques Tati)
8. The General (Buster Keaton)
9. Eclipse (Michelangelo Antonioni)
10. Lola (Jacques Demy)
Pretty typical film snob fair but if I opted for total anarchy my list would be
more like this.
1. Alucarda
9. Gremlins 2
10. Domino
Isn't the crazy list interesting? Pure anarchy, and that's what Alacurda is, this film is a motherfucker. I'm gonna talk about why Alucarda is crazy. I never liked the term ‘guilty pleasure’; if you like something why feel guilty about it? I love all the movies in my crazy top ten but what keeps them off my regular list? Usually it just comes down to consistency. The ten films I listed are almost constantly firing on all cylinders but when that's the case the film probably won't hit all its marks but when it does it's usually such a bold choice it's enough for the entire film to stand on.
Alucarda is no exception, the film doesn't have much of an arc and there's not really any stakes and the film's visual style is pretty inconsistent. But Alucarda is bold in a way that few horror films are and I'm not taking about content (though there's plenty of that too) I'm talking about how the film is packaged. Most horror movies, even the goriest ones, try for some precision when unloading scares. Alucarda never does. It's constantly punching you right in the face. The story is this: two 15 year-olds develop a mural attraction for each other, then fall in with Satan. They proceed to attack their convent. Now when I say they fall in with Satan you might think that it's a process...it's not. In The Exorcist we all know Reagan is possessed and the process leading up to that involves her playing with an Ouija board and its established that she's the one innocent in a house of assholes, that's how storytelling works in Hollywood. Not here, and for the record I was never sure what country Alucarda was from because this movie is so insane I can't even fathom its production process or even where it came from. But whatever the hell country this came from (Mexico) they never read any of those screenwriting books. Satan, in person, just waltzes into the story 15 minutes in and an orgy happens. There is a creepy guy who kinda leads them into this world but there are so few indicators of what anything means it’s still pretty abstract. In a way this nonsense is almost postmodern. Coming back to Zizek in his book on Hitchcock he separated modernism from postmodernism by stating that postmodernism there's no clear indicator of what given symbols mean. I don't know if it’s the right way to describe the film but the way each segment in Alucarda functions like a burst of energy without much indication of what set things is motion is very strange.
So what then, without its conventional plotting, does the film actually achieve? Well first of all, the relationship between the two girls is stripped down to essentials. They get undressed touch each other’s breasts even recite some nice words to each other. That's the relationship. In the midst of all the horrible shit that goes on in this film, it actually does an admirable of making being in league with the devil look enticing. There's nuns in the film so wrapped up in their clothing that they look like tampons and the orgy sequence is actually composed like a musical number that feels a lot more involving than any of the ongoing prayers the two main girls must go through. There's another sequence where Alucarda is sent to confession and she goes on a rant about how Christianity cuts down on life experience, it'd actually be food for thought but then she grabs the priest by his balls it's not clear if she's trying to rape him or castrate him but you actually can kind of see where she is coming from.
Second, in the modern age full secular people, Satanic stories might not exactly hold up. However what makes Satanic stories work? Usually the devil isn't hitting you straight up. There's always a air of uncertainty where as soon as something becomes tangible it stops being scary. I was telling a friend that I was actually little disappointed demonic possessions weren't real and I think it'd be kinda cool if that was just another modern day hardships for our generation having to dodge demons. But it wouldn't be scary. Because as soon as something feels run of the mill then it's not scary. That's the other rule that Alucarda breaks. It hits you right away with demonic entities and its still unsettling. The movie tries to be ambiguous but everything is so in your face you know some satanic shit is going to happen someone will end up catching on fire.
Of course there's the possibility that none of this was intentional and I'm
mistaking a stupidly made film for something subversive but that's for you to
decide and that's the other great thing about guilty pleasures.
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