Reviews
‘Liquid Sky’ (1982) Review: Horror’s Source Code
Slava Tsukerman’s Liquid Sky is a movie everyone’s seen, but no one’s ever heard of. Not quite a horror film in the traditional sense, and yet horror owes it a significant debt it’s never been asked to repay. Drenched in neon, dark shadows, and body odor, New Wave era New York City is the scene, and an actual saucer-sized UFO has flown into town and perched itself upon the roof of fashion model Margaret’s penthouse apartment. She’s tortured, sexually untethered, and looking for drugs. Her otherworldly peeping toms are looking for a different kind of crank; for Margaret to get her fix and release theirs through a psychedelic excretion of human endorphins in the bedroom.
Liquid Sky: The Film That Infected Everything
Written by Tsukerman, his wife and co-producer Nina Kerova, and Anne Carlisle, the audacious film bends gender and sexuality, feminism, and culture in ways rarely seen today, let alone forty years ago. Carlisle exposes inequality by using androgyny to her advantage. We see why the aliens might have found their vessel of choice through the duality of her performance as both Margaret, who is consumed by city and industry, and foil Jimmy, the cokefiend It Boy who is lauded despite his prickish proclivities.
Tsukerman experiments with a Fairlight CMI synthesizer to compose a droning score that paved the way for the electroclash music scene of the late 90s through mid 00s, prefiguring artists like Fischerspooner, Miss Kitten & The Hacker, Peaches, and Crystal Castles. Camp and chaos litter the screenplay, reminiscent of characters not yet put to screen, such as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet or the comedic talents of Julia Louis-Dreyfus. One woman’s fixation with acquiring Chinese takeout purely to bed the only man in New York aware of the impending alien invasion even left me wondering why the hell Reagan-era Americana was so obsessed with romanticizing the cuisine.
Liquid Sky isn’t conventionally scary, but it laid the foundations for the horror genre that wouldn’t be formalized for decades. It Follows, Teeth, The Neon Demon, Under the Skin, Titane, Society, Cam, Assassination Nation, The Craft – all of these films can be traced back to the primordial soup that is Margaret’s ascent into madness. Sex as a curse (It Follows), female sexuality as a literal weapon against men (Teeth), and beauty as both currency and destruction in a world that eats women alive (The Neon Demon). Each of these builds on what Tsukerman and Co. already accomplished in 1982 under the magic hour hues of New York City’s skyline.
A Masterclass in Jank and Genius
The drugs are not always pure, though, and it’s worth noting that Liquid Sky’s $500K baggie is a little light on the scale. Given suboptimal conditions like filming on location in confined spaces with little funds, it’s expected to see those rough edges poke some holes. Yet when it comes to avant-garde filmmaking, the weird typically outweighs the wonky. Thanks to director of photography Yuri Neyman, its celluloid is saturated with striking imagery and camerawork that sparkles even in the dimly lit spaces these club kids kiki. Carlisle and Paula E. Sheppard (of Alice, Sweet Alice fame), as Margaret’s absurdly toxic girlfriend, Adrian, match that energy – both rising above their film school scene partners. The best nights out end up at a dive bar with a 12-inch crystal shard piercing your lover’s skull, anyway.
In the film’s most arresting moment, Carlisle stains her face with neon makeup in a dark abyss and implodes like a sonic boom, delivering a penthouse monologue that tears through the mythology of New York success, industry beauty standards, sexual violence, and queerness in a patriarchal society:
“And to be fashionable is to be androgynous.
And I am androgynous not less than David Bowie himself.
And they call me beautiful. And I kill with my cunt. Isn’t it fashionable?
Come on, who’s next?”
The full sequence is an exquisite convergence of writing, direction, cinematography, and acting at their peak. The irony of Margaret claiming her power while acknowledging she is a tool for a higher authority is not lost. If the erratic eroticism of Liquid Sky ever gets its viral TikTok moment to shine à la Possession, this clip is the moment.
Is Liquid Sky a Worthy Acid Trip?
Trust me, you’ve been here before. It’s a wild ride, and if you attend the party with an open mind, you’ll wake up knowing the trip was worth the comedown. But now Brat Summer has come and gone, and looksmaxxing and biohacking are on trend. So, maybe the drug metaphors are out, but forty-four years later, Liquid Sky remains as strange and vital as the city that made it.
A compliment first: once Evil Dead Burn’s first act ends, the film is cut loose to go wild like Sam Raimi running around with a camera strapped to his head (not a motorcycle, but thanks Bruce, it was a good piece of fake trivia while we believed it). And it’s at that turning point, when the film abandons most of the pretense of its very artificial, featherweight drama, that I started to love Evil Dead Burn. All in all, the film is a seriously entertaining endeavor in its second and third acts for how kinetic it can be.
The cold water second: Evil Dead Burn is poorly edited. But are Sébastien Vaniček and Philip Lozano’s directing and photography good enough to make up for it? Not particularly, no. But, is the story good enough to cover that up? Also no. But does it have great dialogue and humor to make up for it? Again no. But—you see where I’m going with this.
So, I’m sure you’re wondering what I actually enjoyed about this film, if it’s so flawed. And that is one simple fact: Burn is the Evil Dead franchise’s equivalent of a pro wrestling match. And Vaniček’s entry is taking you directly to a deadite royal rumble.
What Is Evil Dead Burn About?
The premise the film starts you off with would obviously never make that apparent. After her boyfriend Will is killed in a horrific car crash, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) is in shambles. Their final moments were a blow-out argument in a long string of abusive behavior on Will’s part. And to make matters worse, as she tries to reckon with that painful relationship, she is forced to attend his funeral and stay at his family’s home in the countryside. High emotions worsen tensions, as the in-laws that already ostracized her become even more aggressive.
But Will’s death was much more complicated than anyone knows: the grisly passing was set up to find the Price Family. Because Will’s brother Joseph has tampered with some very special occult items, and in the process awakened the evil dead to search for their personal effects once more. As one might expect from relentless Kandarian demons at this point, they will stop at nothing to find their possessions, even if it means tearing the family apart piece by bloody piece.
The Deadites Are Really Just Here to Put Belt to Ass
The fact of the matter is, Evil Dead Burn only really has enough structural support for its true star: the ridiculously bloody action it has on offer. This is not a ponderous horror film on the nature of trauma, despite its efforts to prod at that. It’s not a surprisingly contemplative film talking about addiction like, say, Fede Alvarez’s 2013 turn at the wheel. It is, however, the cinematic equivalent of that one RAW promo where Triple H breaks into Randy Orton’s house and just starts putting belt to ass.
The film is at its best when it’s simply letting the deadites run roughshod with their host bodies and their human prey. Tossing each other into furniture and running the fade with extreme malice, it’s borderline action horror with how much they throw down. And it looks great too, in no small part to some phenomenal practical gore and physical acting on the parts of both the main cast and their stunt performers.
The Perfect Family (of Horrific Demonic Undead)
Alyssa Sutherland’s deadite Ellie Bixler was like a slinking undead spider, crawling around and waiting to strike when her victims were at their most scared. But the Price family of Burn is more like a herd of bulls rampaging through a hospital and aiming for the patients on life support. I really can’t emphasize enough how much the stunt performers run this film, since their physicality and wild movement is perfectly in line with their fellow lead actors who get to play the deadites.
The undeniable highlight of the film is Erroll Shand. His role as the slimy grieving father Edgar is almost as good as Ellie with how absolutely nasty and demented he gets; he has the particular pleasure of working a true gross-out moment that felt like watching a Brian Yuzna film for the first time, so bravo to him if it goes to anyone. A close second for shock factor is Luciane Buchanan, who gets multiple franchise great moments as Thya. But really, the entire deadite family is fantastic once they’ve shed the weight of the film’s bag-of-rocks dialogue and get to just be sick little freaks.
(All due respect to the sick little freaks reading.)
An Examination of Abuse Deflated by Amateurish Writing and Editing
It’s doubly disappointing that Evil Dead Burn’s script is so bad in places, because the conceit of Alice’s situation is rife with potential for some really emotional scenes. Touching on the complexity of abusive relationships and how people begin to blame themselves for staying in them is inherently intriguing. It’s so perfectly in line with the way deadites psychologically torture their victims that the allegory feels wrapped like a present with a bow. And Yacoub is at the very least competent enough to work with that, she’s very engaging when she grows into full final girl form to fight back.
But the dialog is so aggressively one dimensional and unsubtle in communicating the issue at hand, it converts what could be rich drama into something cheap and flimsy. When the film tries to stoke the dramatic fires of Alice’s turmoil, it starts to feel more like a tone-deaf Lifetime movie where things are so incredibly over the top you can’t take it seriously. It’s just a tonal clash with this film’s better, more chaotic half that I can’t get behind.
If You’re Doing the Stunts, And I’m Doing The SFX, Then Who’s Editing This Movie?
This is an issue only exacerbated by the film having some seriously inappropriate timing in its editing. Most noticeable are these disorienting cuts across the entire runtime that feel like the film reel skipping. But what really gets me is the placement of these harrowing flashbacks to Alice and Will’s relationship that just don’t work. They get popped in at inopportune times to emphasize how high the stakes are emotionally for Alice. Of course, this only lowers the stakes. In isolation, the footage might have been effective (read in a doubtful tone). But in the context they’re inserted into, it evokes the feeling of someone shoving both feet on the brakes; a jarring stop in the momentum, to say the least.
Is Evil Dead Burn Worth Seeing?
So yes, Evil Dead Burn is a film that is slow to warm with its clammy writing and ice-cold editing. But once things get heated up and the film’s ensemble cast of villains are off their leash, it provides an impressive enough spectacle to keep you surprised at the wackiness and violence it achieves. And that’s saying something given the franchise’s laundry list of grotesqueries and always reliable chainsaw shenanigans. It’s hard to say if this will actually become a fan favorite with its many hiccups, but at the very least it keeps the old adage true: there’s no such thing as a boring Evil Dead film.
I’ve said time and time again that horror comedies/dark comedies aren’t my forte. Filmmakers often don’t find the right balance between horror and comedy, usually resulting in a mishmash blend that feels unfocused and lacking. Moreover, I love ambitious films; horror comedies don’t often lend themselves to ambition. (That’s not a diss by any means.) Films like Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Draft!, and Chainsaws Were Singing are just a few that really broke the mold for me. Thanks to the lovely programmers at Chattanooga Film Festival, I can now add Frankie, Maniac Woman to the list of exceptional horror comedies.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Delivers a Bloody Twist on Horror Comedy
Frankie Ramirez (Dina Silva) is trying to break into the industry one way or another. Little did she know that her fame would come at a bloody price. Denial after denial, being told she’s not skinny or pretty enough, when enough was enough…Frankie takes her revenge. Can Frankie slash her way to the top of the charts? Or will her path of violence become too much for her to handle?
Co-written by Dina Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis and directed by Pierre Tsigaridis, Frankie, Maniac Woman is truly a sight to behold. Pierre Tsigaridis’ third feature film takes us to a deeper level than we’ve seen before (though that might not be fair to say, as I’ve only seen his first film, Two Witches). But much of the joy from this film comes from Silva’s co-writing and performance. Oh yeah, and the gloriously violent nature of it all.
Dina Silva Creates One of Modern Slasher Horror’s Best Villains
Dina Silva’s occasionally masked portrayal of Frankie brings us one of horror’s greatest villains of all time. Rarely do we see women in horror take the main stage as such a violent force of nature. And what we also see is a devilishly smart script. Silva and Pierre Tsigaridis’ creation of Frankie brings us both a protagonist and an antagonist. Frankie wants this life where she can live as the performer she is meant to be (because Silva’s voice is gorgeous). On the other hand, Frankie’s direct actions will make sure she never has a career, you know, with the slayings and all.
The beautiful nature of Frankie’s character is the moments of realization that she has warped the trajectory of her future with each subsequent kill. She could stop, sure, but what if killing is what she was meant to do all along? Frankie does have an amazing voice, but Frankie is a fantastic serial killer. If only there were a world where she could do both.
Frankie, Maniac Woman Proves Great Slashers Need Great Stories
Now I’m unable to access the screener again, and the IMDb credits do not show the name, so I can’t fully praise the people in charge of Frankie, Maniac Woman’s SFX. A film like Frankie, Maniac Woman shows me just how wrong modern slashers are. Take Terrifier, for example. Terrifier’s story is bland, uninspired, recycled, and lazy. It’s nothing but filler around a series of fine kills. Frankie, Maniac Woman uses its kills to emphasize its incredibly well-written story. A fine film has a story that’s enough to pass the time; a great slasher has a story that uses kills as exclamation marks.
Frankie, Maniac Woman’s kills are punctuation marks that are a level above exclamation marks. Whatever that may be. Frankie is an unstoppable killing machine, until she can be stopped. She’s not this infallible entity who can take six bullets to the torso and keep lumbering on…she’s just a person. A person with feelings, stamina, and brilliant comedic timing. She’s someone you could easily see yourself being friends with (as long as you didn’t know about the killings (hell, maybe even if you knew about the killings if that’s your thing)).
Frankie, Maniac Woman Is One of the Best Festival Horror Films of the Year
Frankie, Maniac Woman is a devilishly stylized slasher that exudes camp and craft. When was the last time a film made you cry from laughter and sadness? When was the last time you watched a film so viciously riotous that you hoped things would just…work out in the end? On top of being funny, brutal, and bloody as hell, Frankie, Maniac Woman is a genuinely ‘G’reat film. It’s one of the few festival films I’ve seen that’s unquestionably Criterion-worthy.
