The Editor - 2014
The Editor. 2014, 95 minutes, Canada. Written by Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney. Directed by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy. Edited by Adam Brooks and Nicole Katz. Cinematography by Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Jon’Nathon Stebbe. Effects by Kaleigh Brown, Jason M Koch, Steven Kostanski, Emersen Ziffle. Cast includes: Paz de la Huerta, Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney, Udo Kier, Laurence R Harvey, Jerry Wasserman, Samantha Hill, Tristan Risk. From Astron-6.
1992. Saturday. Noonish. I dart past my mom and barrel through the front door of the trapezoid-shaped building. The smell of cast iron cauterizing crust and cheese perfumes airwaves kissed by the dulcet tones of Kris Kross bumping through the stereo. I breathe deep of the bifold sensory buffet as I press up against the counter.
“Warm it up, Kris, I’m about to
Warm it up, Kris, ‘Cause that’s what I was born to do”
My enthusiasm couldn’t be more irritating to the lackadaisical teen manning the register as I stammer to communicate the reason for my presence. My mom saunters up beside me with more amusement than irritation and places a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“An order for Nusret, please?”
Mom hands over the BOOK IT! voucher and with a devastated sigh and a shuffle our intrepid sales associate shambles through the air thick with grease over to the heat lamp to retrieve my coveted 8” by 8” cardboard box. Tossed into my waiting arms with all the pomp and circumstance of throwing out a parking ticket, I receive my prize: the culinary equivalent to the Ark of the Covenant. I pop open the box to admire the coming cheesy feast of my very own Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza accompanied by the chorus of angels that is Chris Kelly and Daddy Mack sustained by the skillful scratching of DJ Nabs.
“I'm kickin the type of flavor that makes ya say
you're too much Kris”
Goddamn, my mouth is absolutely sweating at the thought of it! Now before you storm off in a digital huff to Twitter to argue with some stranger about which multi-platinum recording artist demonstrates the highest level of integrity while still being a “vibe” in those jeans, I am planning on talking about a genre picture here, eventually. We in the storytelling biz call this “taking the scenic route.” A little sizzle before your supper. Just a tad bit more set up before the stabby stories so stick with me. For the uninitiated, BOOK IT! is a literacy program that encourages children to read five books a month in order to get a coupon for a free Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza (or PHPPP if you haven’t got a moment to spare). What does pizza have to do with a giallo film? Besides the obvious Italian origins, the concept I’m not-so-subtly hinting at here is experiencing enhanced satisfaction through building anticipation. Those PHPPPs were good and all, but were truly elevated tenfold as a reward for a month’s worth of reading. For a nerd like me, it was like a present for doing what I was just going to do anyway! That shit is win-win!
For a smidge more mise en scène, let’s read about some personal history. As a lifelong horror movie fan I’ve covered a great deal of ground, but giallo has been a bit of a blindspot for me. I’ve seen Dario Agento’s Deep Red and Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper decades ago and while I could recognize various technical feats, I wasn’t really dazzled by either film beyond the score and gore. Still, both had haunting elements that stuck with me, particularly after seeing various themes and motifs repeated in several other splatter films. So earlier this year I decided to explore these nagging notions, see what all the hubbub was about, and do a deep dive into this crazy little thing called giallo. After studying the form and wading into the deep end of this slasher progenitor, I realized it’s so much more than a surface level violence and titillation. The bounty of boobs and blood belies the voyeuristic exploration of mental illness and misogyny that engages the audience's preconceived notions about authority, gender, and the effects of past trauma on psychological development. All this through the use of striking and sometimes revolutionary cinematic styles and techniques.
Now that you’ve done the reading, I bet you want your pizza. After immersing myself in gialli for the better part of the last year, it was an utter delight to find a feature that celebrated the genre with a heroic helping of cheese and no shortage of saucy style! I’m talking about the 2014 independent Canadian film entitled The Editor. This witty and wonderful giallo worship flick embarks on a twisted game of cat and mouse between disfigured horror film editor Rey Ciso and incensed police inspector Peter Porfiry (played by writer/director duo Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy respectively). Joining the array of assaulted and oftentimes au naturel actors that add to the body count are some faces very much familiar to horror fans. Udo Kier of Suspiria fame and Paz de la Huerta, lead from 2013’s Nurse, round out a cast of terrorized thespians as Rey becomes the prime suspect when actors on the set of the schlocky horror movie he’s working on keep turning up brutally murdered and sharing his unique disfigurement: four fingers severed from their right hands. Dun dun dun!
A familiar enough movie-within-a-movie set up, but that’s where The Editor really shines. Taking those familiar tropes of giallo, upending them ever so slightly, and turning the comedy up to eleven all while continuing to lionize the essence of Italian horror. Think of what Mel Brooks did with Young Frankenstein in relation to classic Universal Pictures monster movies, but for psycho killers in leather gloves. The elements are carefully curated so as to not spoof the subject matter but instead affectionately pay homage with an appropriate amount of reverence to horror classics such as The Howling, The Shining, The Beyond, and The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh, while including references to their iconic cinematography and lighting.
While maintaining the signature technical flourishes of the genre, like expertly executing the striking red and blue lighting à la Suspiria, The Editor doesn’t pull punches on some of the more ludicrous elements of Italian horror. Duplicating the halting and sometimes baffling speech patterns from dubbed films of the period is a cheap laugh but always funny. Also, the picture is a cornucopia of gratuitous gore and nudity. Practical effects with loads of blood, guts, and viscera make this an essential viewing experience for any gore hound. The tongue-in-cheek tackling of titillation through several scenes of exposition in the foreground coupled with nonsensical nudity in the background is great. Actors stripping or just plain strutting around in the buff while characters fiddle with props or drone on about various plot points is a regular source of hilarity. There are also some of the most farcical and fantastical sex scenes ever recorded. We’re talking screaming and smearing aplenty! If that’s not your kink there’s also chainsaws, car chases, cigarettes, tarantulas, and a litany of slaps. Literally something for everyone!
All of this is made that much more impressive given the comparatively miniscule budget, making this modern day video nasty a value on par with free pizza any day of the week. While this film can easily stand tall on its own merits, I enjoyed it that much more as a culmination of a thorough exploration into a genre I wanted to be more educated in. The cherry on top of the sundae. The ever so enticing 8” by 8” cardboard box balancing atop a stack of young adult fiction. Fuck, now I want to dive into a Chirstopher Pike paperback and some Pizza Hut!
We Need to Talk About Vito Nusret…
“Writing ain't rocket surgery. It's just like fighting a bicycle. Even a broken clock is right thrice a day. I can pick out a name for your pet and it comes with a free haircut (for you, not your pet). Looking for gift ideas for my Nokia 1208 cell phone for its upcoming 17th birthday. Let's talk about horror movies, pro wrestling, and punk music. Additional words viewable at Neon Splatter and Daily Grindhouse.”