Lars Nilsen is a man who enjoys his work.
Nilsen, usually the film programmer for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, has been working with the Brattle Theater this October on its "Return to the Grindhouse" repertory series, which closed last night.
Programming this series allows Nilsen to bring Cambridge some of his favorite grindhouse films -- titles such as "Don't Go in the House" (1980), "Blood Freak" (1972), "Truck Turner" (1974), "Sex Demons" (1972), "Death Laid an Egg" (1968), "Psycho From Texas" (1975) and "Snakes" (1974) -- that he featured weekly at the Alamo's Weird Wednesday.
Most people are familiar with the term "grindhouse" because of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's 2007 double feature by the same name. The film was their homage to this style of cinema, but Nilsen feels that it gave a limited view of the genre.
Grindhouse films are typically low budget and feature mainstream subject matter outside of the mainstream, and are also known as exploitation films. Many subgenres of exploitation films exist, most ending in "ploitation." A few prominent examples include blaxploitation, sexploitation, nunsploitation and hicksploitation. As Nilsen explained, these films are usually screened in smaller theaters or drive-ins that can "grind out the double and the triple features," hence the name.
"It's a different world of cinema," Nilsen said. "I think we're looking at films that are kind of on a parallel track to mainstream film." He feels that grindhouse movies are more democratic, with smaller budgets and a more "DIY aesthetic," but discounts the idea that they're so bad they're good. Instead, Nilsen said that they are simply different and deserve the same respect and attention that the classic films at Brattle usually receive.
Not all audience members attending the Wednesday night double feature of "Psycho From Texas" and "Snakes" agreed; some compared the films to a bad garage band that's enjoyable to an audience because they're clearly having fun.
Nilsen's passionate introduction of the movies excited the audience at the screening. He joked about the first feature "Psycho From Texas," comparing it to an embarrassing baby photo that opened his region of the nation up to ridicule. The film is the bizarre, disjointed and somewhat nonsensical story of a man named Wheeler (John King III), the titular psycho, and a kidnapping.
The plot doesn't always make sense, but "Psycho From Texas" has it all: over-the-top violence, gratuitous nudity, a terrible theme song, racism, two prolonged chase scenes, unrequited Oedipal complexes and, best of all, a message about family values. Most would look at this gem as a piece of bad hicksploitation, but enthusiasts might appreciate it as a film about family. The psycho with the bad mother falls while the happy family triumphs.
After the intermission, Nilsen returned to the stage to introduce the "devastating masterpiece" that is "Snakes."
"Snakes" is by far the better and more accessible of the two features. It is similarly ridiculous, but fully in on the joke. It is the story of a man named Snakey Bender who catches snakes for a living, a school teacher who has an intense snake fetish and a cast of characters whom Bender ultimately kills. About halfway through the film it seems that the screenwriters ran out of ideas, so the remainder consists of the protagonist killing the townspeople one at a time and shoving their cars off a cliff -- a sight gag that elicited much laughter from the audience. The ridiculousness is aided by a score consisting almost exclusively of John Phillip Sousa marches -- Bender's favorite music.
Both films are scratched and washed out. The sound is fuzzy and there is a glaring lack of production value. The acting is worse than terrible and the plots are ridiculous, but after both films, all sixty or so people in the audience were cheering and laughing.
The Brattle Theater, located in Harvard Square at 40 Brattle Street, often hosts interesting film screenings and series. This weekend the theater will be screening triple features of the complete "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Check www.Brattlefilm.org for a complete schedule of upcoming events. Bring your student I.D. for a discount.
