Hauntologic Roxy: ANTICHRIST (1974), TIMES SQUARE (1980)

I consider myself pretty familiar with the myriad weaves and offshoots of the EXORCIST-ripped corners of the 70s Italian cinema tapestry, but THE ANTICHRIST (1974) slipped past me... until now. That's not entirely true, father. I lied it turns out for when I was watching it last week, during its memorable Satanic induction ceremony I had a flash of past life remembrance so foul and monstrous it tore loose a swath of my soul. And I remembered in that grisly instance a Times Square grindhouse whose cursed name brings a knowing shudder to those who've been there.... Roxy.






We walked in cold, three teenagers determined to check one of these places out, seeking lurid thrills and regarding as most still do that 42nd St. and Broadway the extent of NYC, as if it was all a mix of tourist trap and continual vice and corruption freak show, its dangers apparent but we protected in our naive suburban sense of invulnerability and masks of jaded disaffection. But after navigating treacherous halls we entered a world that filched the jade right off our masks, punctured our naive armor and left us paralyzed, a hot hellish box of a theater the screen pulsing with a lurid Satanic ceremony already in progress, replete with naked woman and real goat, the sound crackling insanely with screams and chants, and the people off screen as horrific as those on, creating a scene of indescribable sleaziness where screen devils and offscreen junkie criminal dregs were all part of a weird twisted whole.

But what I remember most is the smell, so troubling it's even memorialized in Bill Landis' and Michelle Clifford's indispensable NYC grindhouse history Sleazoid Express, who dub the place "one of the Deuce's grungiest, most pungent smelling, and most dangerous adult houses... People smoked everything openly in the audience, from nauseating Kools to cheap psychotic crack, those scary angel dust smokers puffing along with the weedheads." (285)

I had forgotten about the full horror of the moment, but it came back to me reading Landis and Clifford's book - their description of the Roxy was so on point I knew instantly that was the one I had been to back in '85.

"To walk into one of Roxy's mini-theaters meant walking into any number of crazy scenes or violent outbursts.[...] You never knew what movie you were walking into. You'd have to stand there for a few minutes to figure it out.

"If you stood long enough though, people would start to surround you, thinking you were looking for a possible sex partner or just stupid and asking to be robbed. So it was wise to take one of the ass numbing seats anyway if you weren't sure, then figure it out. But before you sat down, you'd have to flick a lighter at the seat to make sure there was no weird mess on it." (285)

It wasn't just the ones smoking at the time, of course, but the stale uncirculated air that kept every last stale 'wet' joint (1) alive in layers of stale 'cigar urinal' despair, the insanity in the trapped air circulating in lieu of air conditioning. I was there in 1985, my first and only visit to a Times Square grindhouse, and it turns out to be one of the scariest. That same year I went--on a dare with my thrill-seeking PA buddies--it had been converted from adult to a multi-leveled fourplex that showed exploitation double bills on video projectors (though they don't tell you it's video when you buy your ticket). But even after that transformation, as Landis and Clifford note, the Roxy "remained void of fresh air, retaining both its BO aroma and super-sleazy vibe..."

It took me decades of smoking, drinking, and bellowing like a great inelegant walrus to expunge its malodorous aftertaste from my delicate le nez âme, but even without the smell, the unwashed derelicts, the sleazy vibe, the stale "wet" and the million other fucked up and foul smelling druggy smokes both from that day and all the days before turning already dangerous unshowered homeless scumbags into mouth frothing gibbering shit-where-they-stand psychopaths... even with all that...  Man, to enter a theater so skeevy to see a girl rimming a goat at a Satanic altar. The minute we spent there debating our next move seemed outside space and time, the horror of the smell and the cramped unfamiliarity of the boxy theater short-circuiting our brain's natural fight of flight objectivity. I was still only 17, and sober, straight-edge a virgin to weed, booze, and all other things, except--barely--sex. So this scene affected me in ways I'd have been immune to just a year later, numbed by whiskeys galore, weed, shrooms, and despair.

Now on DVD, in the safety of my triple bolt apartment, I can appreciate Ippolita's (Carla Gravina) induction ceremony with the goat is in an alternate dimension, running concurrently - and it's to director Sergio Martino's skill (and Gravina's) at narrative that it's always clear that the damned and devout can always be two places at once--that her murderous debasements are not just a dream nor is she a passive victim under mind control cover memories ala Rosemary). We don't really judge her for giving in -- we might do the same in her shoes. It fits my argument that when you're too prohibitive and micro-managing on your kids (never allowing them a locked bedroom to masturbate in, etc.) you give the first person to come along who broadens their horizons (or gives them an orgasm) more power over them than you'll ever have, and when your kids realize they've been mislead, it's too late. Take it from one of the ruiners, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Smith of Anytown USA!

Simultaneously back at the Roxy, back before I ruined anyone, nor was myself yet ruined,  my fellow faux-jaded suburbanite teens and I turned immediately to leave this godawful shoebox of the damned to find a different screen. The Roxy had numerous nonstop running little shoebox cinema double features playing on video projection, with stairs stretching between condemned buildings and along the exteriors of the outside, kind of like a haunted house ride where instead of papier mache ghouls there's derelict muggers crouched in corners ready to stick you with a hep-C encrusted needles. The second cinema was better, we caught the end of RUBY (we learned what it was only because they listed it in the end credits "Ruby" - a habit of exploitation movies in those days which made sense since theaters like this never had showtimes, you just went in whenever, to see whatever) Followed by some super Bruce Lee-imitator movie (Bruce Li, or Leh, or Lei). In here, at least, there was air conditioning, and it froze our souls but at least numbed the smell. The dubbing was atrocious.

If I had to do it all over again, well, who the hell knows, We should have suffered through the stench, for ANTICHRIST (AKA THE TEMPTER) is a great great gonzo film. Set in the real life Rome, and to tie in other trend-cresting films, the lead girl, Carla Gravina, has Rosemary's Baby short red hair, though it gives her a very manly countenance, as she's not so pixie-like. But it doesn't matter, because as Ippolita she's the whole show and it's easily the most deranged, inspiring raw performance of the entirety of the 70s Italian EXORCIST rip micro genre.

Crippled as a child by a car accident (dad was driving, mom is dead) she's a 40 year-old virgin, on the cusp of becoming an old maid, and terrified her dad (Arthur Kennedy) is going to leave her for another woman (giallo regular Anita Strindberg). The niece of a priest (Mel Ferrer), she turns to God for guidance, but how's a priest going to her advise her on coping with sexual frustration, especially since he's played by the perennially browbeaten Arthur Kennedy? He's probably responsible for her torment in the first place, filling her mind from childhood with the evils of masturbation and the female orgasm as the devil's tool. With her Rosemary red short hair and manly countenance it fits perfectly that when she's possessed she sounds like a dirty old Italian man and seems for the first time comfortable in her own skin. Sounding like the arch villain in a spaghetti western, the way she sprawls out in her chair, rocking back and forth and smiling is truly disturbing to ex-drugglies like me because it's so familiar, the way one acts when something lifts us free and clear of our old insecurity and discomfort and depression so we feel alive and thrilled to luxuriate in our movements. She revels in her newfound freedom, i.e. her body's full-on abandonment and reception by the devil. In one of the cooler sequences, with her Satanic awakening giving her sudden gift of being able to walk, she goes to visit an old church and seduces a pretty German tourist boy - then kills him- leaving the body sprawled out in the catacombs (she also leaves a toad head and severed body in the communion wafter cache.

But then she comes out of it and is sprawled out only a few feet from her car -unable to walk again and needing help into her vehicle. Did she just imagine things? Again, it's to the credit of this full-blooded possession film that both answers seem to be occurring simultaneously. There's never a question that these happenings are real and vividly imagined.

What is it with the Italians and red hair, though? Especially in the horror films of the 70s-80s, they are utterly obsessed. Luckily, we get to see Gravina in her past life / current alternate reality / sabbath surrender in alabaster skin an a flowing blonde wig, and she looks plenty hot, which makes her that much sexier in the modern age, because the shameless gusto with which she pantomimes her rimming of a goat's devilish arse-hole (a scene originally--unless I'm delusional--was seen first in the silent 1921 opus, HAXAN) hand her susbequent penetration by Satan, is so bravely, fiercely acted that we feel every emotion, pleasure and joy of surrender as well as the sleazy countercurrent. As with the Roxy itself, if you want to be free of the burden of self-consciousness, one must prepare to let that conscious self be utterly debased.


I also dig that, as this film occurring in the hauntological 70s (ala Scarfolk), her shrink sees as established scientific fact that traumatic past life events (namely unnatural, violent deaths) can carry over into subsequent incarnations. Nowadays these kinds of films feel obligated to have at least one scientific dogma mouthpiece dismissing it all as a bunch of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo, but here it's simply not that big a deal that past life trauma carries over (2), with the shrink noting that the only risk in freeing the current self from past self trauma is that a possession can occur, especially if she's a Satanic witch - (and even the devil follows her, via flames ala AUDREY ROSE, which we forget now but was huge in 1977). Strange then that the shrink feels he can't approve of the Catholic exorcism that's eventually called forth. What the hell?

Audrey Rose (1977)

Ah well, Kennedy is pretty funny as the impotent priest, and Father Mittner (George Coulouris) is way more badass than Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) as the pinch hitter in the EXORCIST original, and the cool climax, running all over Rome under multi-colored rain, including around the Coliseum, is truly haunting.

But there's another Times Square - I almost wrote "it ain't your parents times square" -but that's the thing, it is. And your parents' childhood should never be more edgy and badass than their your own, but there it is... but also isn't For in TIMES SQUARE (1980), the two lead girls (13 year old and 16 year old actresses) easily keep their innocence somehow while living as mental hospital escapees amidst the squalor, floating above the cesspool like lighter than air street angels. It's perhaps their excised lesbian scenes that convey this immunity from pimps and scammers, though then again being so young it's not quite clear what could have been shown in that regard.

Dude, I got the last one of these DVDs before they went OOP too, based solely on a professor at Pratt's recommendation after I gave a lecture on what 42nd Street used to look like (before the kids I was speaking to were even born, I shudder to say), when squalor and vice were the order of the day... I showed them about 30 minutes of '42nd Street Forever' trailer compilation (replete with an old Jewish couple raving about some Andy Milligan debacle or other at the Lyric), and then, torn between ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and THE WARRIORS, I went with the latter- the kids loved it, and said those magic words, "after your lecture I was all worried it would be super gory and sadistic - I was expecting to be traumatized" - its like yeah, we all were seeing THE WARRIORS for the first time back in the day, having read about all the gang violence it caused in theaters. And the film traded on that scariness, so that we were scared for the gang themselves, bopping all the way back to Coney, which made those glorious fights so much more electric. The courage to face the gritty horror of the city somehow made you a part of the gritty horror rather than its victim. The ultimate in dour self reflections, the Baseball Furies pursue until you stop running. Turn and face your NYC Koch-era demons (threaten to shove a bat up their asses and turn them into popsicles), bust some heads maybe, and now you're a bopper, a Sleez Sister. Now you get to prowl around scaring the tourists, too.

But there's more connecting these two films than this one teacher's recommendation, the surrender to the Satanic power that comes from facing your own twisted reflection, and the stench of the accursed Roxy: Like Ippolita, Pamela (Trinie Alvarado) is the fucked up (several suicide attempts) only child daughter of a widowed father who's wealthy, important and influential; both Pamela and Ippolita find liberation and strength via what might be considered a bad influence friend, certainly a social outcast (Satan, Nicky [Robin Johnson])... and both need to figure out how to escape that friend when said friend's own issues come to the core (green vomit and sexist telekinetic possession, drunken tirades respectively). Both end with the daughter now returning to dad a better, wiser person and the devil going back to their due (a strong fledgling grrl fanbase, a Virgin Mary statue that acts as kind of single demon bulletin board or 'take one leave one penny tray at the cashier station).

And on a metatextual level, my own early experience at the Roxy, entering that one room with the druggy stench exactly at the heavy Satanic ceremony moment, perhaps inducted me, in an all-at-once kind of iboga flash transdimensional moment, to the core of grindhouse Deuce evil. Recognizing it decades later, in the coziness of my own home, on an HD TV, looking better probably than it did on that old analog Roxy roller video projector, considering that video brought down the grindhouses more effectively than Giuliani ever did, though he gets the credit, I felt a weird flash like one must remembering past lives or buried trauma under hypnosis, but from the HD safety of time and incense, safe--delivered. While in TIMES SQUARE, the original more low key lesbian friendship aspects were jettisoned to make a bigger statement with Nicky's big final concert on the roof after her on-air drunken breakdown seemingly added for rock catharsis. Also added: hot songs to pack a double album of relevant tracks in the producers' hopes of duplicating his SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER albums sales having its correlation to LaGuardia's mix of paternal concern, rock anarchy championing, and exploitative ambitions (3). Said producer also took advantage of star Robin Johnson, who got a lot of deserved cult praise for her role as Nicky, by singing her to a three year exclusive contract, and then failing to cast her in anything. "Johnson took a job as a bank teller whilst waiting for her RSO contract to expire, and by the time it did, there were no offers for work. Johnson did some minor film and TV roles, but by the late 1980s, she gave up on acting and got a job as a traffic reporter on a Los Angeles radio station."

I don't know what  I would have made of TIME SQUARE back in 1980. Nowadays I can't compare it to anything but LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE FABULOUS STAINS which came out two years later, and was better distributed on video (and USA's Night Flight).

The problem with STAINS (see my early BL post The Frauds and the Fabulous) was that it was directed by a (male) music producer, the legendary Lou Adler; and written by Nancy Dowd, a macho lady (she wrote SLAP SHOT), but who used a drag pseudonym, as if hiding her gender rather than trumpeting it, and that it's marred by the spoiled bratty girlish character played by a super young Diane Lane, who promptly confuses her own message by shacking up with the more experienced punk on her tour played by Ray Winstone (who's backed by members of The Clash and The Sex Pistols). Even the imdb.com blurb is sexist and condescending:

"The media and disaffected teens mistake the acerbic rants of an obnoxious teenage punk rocker as a rallying cry for the women of America, launching her and her talentless group to national stardom."

Jeeze! "obnoxious... talentless" Well good thing at the height of the mass merchandizing overkill, Winstone takes the time to berate the gathered girls (all wearing red and New Wave make-up authorized by the band's monetizing manager) thus sending them all home to, presumably, get married and chain themselves to kitchens as is proper. I don't blame Ray Winstone for being pissed when Diane lane steals his song ("The Professionals"), lame as it is (and we hear it endlessly, a long dull dirge that goes nowhere... forever... over and over) but for a girl empowerment movie this gets awfully chiding, almost as offensive in its last minute patriarchal second-guess as KISSING JESSICA STEIN.


Well, there's none of that crap in TIMES SQUARE, the uniform of this revolution is a trash bag and eyeliner thief mask to reflect the cast-off anonymity fostered on young girls by their heedless parents, who'd rather lock their daughters away in rehabs than listen to them (all this added after lesbian overtones taken out). The only drawback is that that rather than explore openly the secret gay subtext, it just handles the girls' soul mate status as a kind of Xena-Gabrielle chaste affection.

But the girls sleep in the same bed and its their loving friendship that holds the film together, there's not a single straight boy in the cast to come between them, nor one who has more than a superfluous role or is an authority figure-- unless local radio DJ and 'voice of Times Square' Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry) has some oblique move planned. Acting as their fairy godfather, he catches wind of the outcry launched by the mayoral aide dad of rich girl Pamela worried about the dangerous influence of wild punk rocker Nicky after the two escape the hospital, and he makes the girls local stars via his radio show acting as a kind pf post office letter exchange between worried dad and bonded girls who dub themselves the Sleez Sisters and start tagging the area, dropping TVs off roofs, and recording spontanous sounding, rather joyful declarative tracks live at the radio station ("Your Daughter is One") so well done it seems like they're kind of making them up on the spot when of course they were co-written in advance by people like Billy Mernit.

This aspect is of course a staple of the time, as seen in VANISHING POINT (1971) and... uh... at any rate, the exchanges between LaGuardia and Pamela's concerned, progressively humbler, father (Peter Coffield) are hilarious and sad, we respect both sides but there's some great hot wire angst between the two, with Curry's fearless goading and the father's progressive fury and desperation creating a situation that, especially in today's post-sleaze Times Square present, when an open container or lit cigarette is considered akin to a terrorist violation, is uniquely real and promising, that freedom of speech could somehow protect a DJ from reckless conspiracy towards endangerment of a minor laws, or something like that.


But while patriarchy tries, it can't beat the all-consuming yet protective 'the zone takes care of its own' chaos of the Deuce. We all wish a braver cut existed as the lesbian romance between these two is cut sadly away, but that's actually interesting in a way as the whole film becomes less about sex or drugs (or even rock and roll) and more about how two fucked up loners can sometimes find each other and form a family that's more than the sum of their parts, brought together by chance while sharing a room while under psychiatric observation at a NYC hospital, then bond over poetry and the Pretenders, and escape together in a stolen ambulance (making it's closest companion, more than anything, KAMIKAZE GIRLS).


Whereas Nicky Marotta's initial declarative punk devotional to Pamela, "I'm a damn dog now" has a great arc (she starts kind of wobbly onstage with her new wave backing band, but ends up crushing it, I'd be pissed to if I was one of the Blondells and had to lug my amp up to the roof, risk arrest, tap into a a power source, and hook up a PA, hoping I don't get electrocuted, all so Nicky can sing half a song, apologize to her girlfriend, and dive into the crowd, leaving her saner Sleez compatriot to reconnect with her by now fairly cool mayoral aide father (we hope he no longer feels so harshly about Times square after this). But that's just part of the weird fairy tale aspect of this film, helping to lend it some of the elements that, say, the relentlessly depressing actuality of the film SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER lacked (4)




NOTES:
1. 'Wet' being the NYC slang for the dried formaldehyde sprayed-on-cheap weed smoked by the truly deranged so well known in Bellevue where the users so often wind up, raving about demons following them with microphones, etc.
2. If you doubt this kind of thing is true, check out the book Life after Life and the TV showThe Ghost Inside my Child.
3. The end of the 70s marked a time when, as punk/new wave was going mainstream, the NYC godfathers like Johnny Thunders and Lou Reed were reaching wretched pinnacles of near-death dissociative speed/heroin junkie mania, where jaded fans, high on Lester Bangs' prose, crowded in to venues to goad their idols into ranting fitss before devolving into incoherence, ala Lou's Take No Prisoners LP
4. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER ended, as I recall, with the gang deb being gang banged in some big car while Travolta sulks, and then later one of his annoying mob kills himself by jumping off a bridge, and so finally Tony decides to go try and sponge off his rich dance partner in Manhattan, still the paint can lugging scrub. Damn but I was disgusted by this movie... and I was only around thirteen and seeing it at the drive-in with my mom and brother - and man it was way too depressing and tawdry for a thirteen year old expecting GREASE style life-affirmation. And don't get me started about how, also at thirteen,  I got permanently scarred after stumbling the last half hour of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR one afternoon on Movie Channel (which showed R-rated movies during the day), thinking it was ANNIE HALL. (See: Blades in the Apple)