Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

Blow Out, 1981

Jack (John Travolta) is a sound expert working on a slasher film who, out capturing sound samples one night, records audio of a car crash that kills a man. Jack is able to rescue a woman who was in the car, sex worker Sally (Nancy Allen), and the two are further thrown together when Jack realizes that his audio recording implies that the car crash was no accident. Coming up against a political conspiracy and the ruthless fixer (John Lithgow) employed to see it through, Jack and Sally find themselves in danger at every turn.

Intriguing in the way that it seems almost at war with itself, this is a compelling if problematic conspiracy thriller.

It feels very strange to feel torn on a movie where I have so many positive, borderline-fawning things to say about it. I think there’s no better place to begin than with Travolta’s central performance as Jack. I’m someone who grew up being aware of Travolta as a person who people thought was amazing and sexy, but my reaction to most of what I saw him in was, “Um . . . okay, sure.” But watching this movie, you know, I get it. There is a forceful yet effortless charisma and appeal to Travolta in this film that is undeniable. And as the tangled web begins closing tighter and tighter around his character, there’s a sense of destruction as that easy coolness slides into panic, paranoia, and despair. It’s a really lovely synthesis of an actor and the role they are playing, and it’s miles ahead of the way I’ve felt about any other performance I’ve seen of his.

Equally compelling is Nancy Allen’s turn as Sally, though she is given far less to do and a far less coherent character. In Allen’s case, you aren’t watching synthesis so much as you are watching someone elevate a character almost through sheer force of will. From the very get-go we are aware that Sally’s presence in the car accident has put her in the crosshairs, and Allen is so incredibly likable in the role that you immediately develop a protective anxiety toward her. By the very nature of his job---watcher, listener---you sense that Jack will survive. But Allen’s fate seems far more precarious and that adds a heavy dose of suspense to every new threat that comes her way.

There’s also a ton going on from a technical perspective. I don’t always pick up consciously on elements like score, color scheme, etc, but a lot of the brilliance here is so in your face that even a viewer like me can’t miss it. Whether it’s the famous shot of Travolta in the background while an owl’s face fills the foreground, or the sequence where Jack matches his audio recording to a video tape, craft is at the forefront. (I learned a new term while reading about this movie, which is “split diopter”, a technique that allows two objects at different distances from the lens to both be in focus).

There’s also something very satisfying about the structure of the conspiracy that Jack stumbles into. You might expect everything to be shadowy efficiency, but one of the first glimpses we get of the powers-that-be is a frustrated phone call between Lithgow’s character, Burke, and the man who hired him in which we learn that Burke has already gone off-script. There’s this, for lack of a better word, almost mundane aspect to it that’s particularly upsetting. Killing people, intimidating people, blackmailing people, deceiving people . . . it’s all relatively casual for these people.

There’s also no denying that, whatever you think about it once you unpack the content, the last 10 minutes are shocking and provocative.

But that final act, once the immediacy of your emotional reaction passes, ends up being an unsatisfying final stop for a running theme in the film about violence towards women. We begin the movie as Jack and an agitated director watch an extended clip from a slasher, the camera leering at half a dozen semi-nude actresses before deciding that the murder victim’s scream is wrong. As part of his long game, Burke begins a series of brutal, garish murders and the media laps it all up, lovingly dubbing him the “Liberty Bell Killer”. All through the film the lives and bodies of women are exploited and mutilated so that men might achieve their aims, be they large or small.

It’s frustrating because the subplot about Burke feigning a serial killer spree directly acknowledges the way that people absolutely lap up gruesome details about the murders of women . . . and yet we sure do watch a lot of gruesome details of the murders of women in this film. And the movie could maybe get away with that if it did a better job with the women it portrays, but it really falls down on this front. Yes, we get the old sassy prostitute trope, but the time we spend with Allen’s Sally really drives this home. We are at once expected to believe that she’s cynical and worldly enough to participate in entrapment-style blackmail schemes, and yet also so nice and trusting and, frankly, naive as to put herself in multiple situations that would raise huge red flags for any woman, much less one who knows herself to be in danger. And the final moment of this film serves as kind of a middle finger on this front, creating a sense of manufacture that undercuts the emotional impact of it all.

It’s almost dizzying to come up against a movie that is so effective on an immediate emotional level, only to find it shallow and underwhelming the minute you start to unpack what all that emotion is in service of. I think that this film suffers for me in comparison to The Conversation where all that paranoia and conspiracy and lack of trust becomes about the internal journey of the main character.

This is an undeniably engaging, suspenseful thriller, and I know many consider it to be de Palma’s best. There’s an attraction in all the bombast and overt artistry, and it really hits you on a base emotional level, daring you to walk right up to the edge of melodrama in its explosive finale. But there’s something hollow in the way that it uses anonymous sex workers as proxies for Sally’s vulnerability, and then ultimately Sally as a proxy for Jack’s vulnerability. This is a film that wants us to reflect soberly on the pain of a man forced to witness violence, while winking as it wraps a wire around a woman’s throat.

Targets, 1968

Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) is an actor who made his name in the gothic horror boom of the 40s and 50s. Preparing for the debut of his latest, and last, horror film, Byron feels unsettled by the evolution of horror and the sense that he is being left behind. Meanwhile, clean-cut Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) wakes up and, for no apparent reason, embarks on a spree of violence that draws him closer and closer to the drive-in theater where Byron will premiere his new film.

This is a stunning directorial debut that shocks with scenarios and images that are hauntingly relevant nearly 50 years later.

As has become a morbid ritual at the start of every new school year, last week I crouched in the darkness of my classroom with 21 children as we simulated the steps we would take in case of a lockdown. While we waited for the front office to call the all clear, I let my students ask questions. What if someone tries to shoot out our window? What if someone tries to break down the door? What if we run outside, but someone’s waiting outside? But after those questions, which were relatively easy to answer, the last question asked was a little girl who said, “But what I don’t understand is why does someone do that kind of thing?”.

I did not have a good answer for that question, and it’s not a question that this film tries to answer either. What exactly is wrong with Bobby that compels him to pick up a gun and kill people close to him before swiftly moving on to targeting total strangers is unknown, and is the horror at the heart of the movie. There is obviously something nightmarish about the idea that someone you love might one day, seemingly out of nowhere, harm you. But even more nightmarish is the idea that you might just be in your car, on the way to who knows where, when someone you’ve never met in your life decides to take a shot at you.

Contrasted against Bobby’s cold, ruthless stab through the city is Byron’s dismay and increasing disillusionment with his place in Hollywood. Karloff is absolutely fantastic in his lead role, bringing a gravitas and mitigated sorrow to his portrayal. Byron isn’t just a cranky old guy who is disgruntled by decreasing relevance. He is a man who can sense the passing of an era, and the certainty that, at his age, it is nearly impossible to become important in a new one. O’Kelly’s performance is a wonderful foil to Karloff’s. Where a warmth and a sense of life underpins even Byron’s shakiest moments, O’Kelly captures the aloof distance of a man who has, perhaps by choice, severed his connections with the rest of humanity.

The style of the film invites us into both perspectives, and the contrast is eerie. From Bobby’s point of view, we watch at a distance as his bullets find their targets on a highway, sending cars careening off of the road. Indistinct figures collapse, or emerge frantic from the vehicles. Later, however, we are taken right up close to a sobbing family, and in one of the most ominous and disturbing moments of the film, as the camera pans away the distinct sound of a child weeping is cut short.

This is a movie that definitely has something to say about the kind of people who commit such violent acts, and there is something really refreshing about the overt, blunt contempt for those who would so casually dehumanize others. The horror caused by such people is so devastatingly large, and yet their reasons, their notions of being powerful are so pathetically small.

Everything in this film, from the performances to the color scheme to the stunner of a climax, just absolutely clicks into place. If you have access to the Criterion Channel, I highly, HIGHLY recommend listening to Bogdanovich’s stellar commentary.