Happy All-Hallow’s Month! In anticipation of Halloween — which, let’s face it, we’ve been anticipating since last Halloween — Daily Grindhouse will again be offering daily celebrations of horror movies here on our site. This October’s theme is horror sequels — the good, the bad, the really bad, and the unfairly unappreciated. We’re calling it SCREAMQUELS!
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True crime has always been a profitable business. From chapbooks to the grand guignol to Law and Order, yesterday’s tragedies have long been tomorrow’s best sellers and box-office draws. It’s all part of humanity’s natural gravitation towards the macabre; whether it be a desire to reconcile ourselves to our own mortality, to feel like we’re playing a part in justice done, or just to get the same thrill as driving by a crash scene, true tales of murder and mayhem are as reliable a standby as romance tales or slapstick comedy. Yet while today’s ripped-from-the-headlines format may see a particular sensational crime reenacted once or twice on a weekly procedural and then left to the realm of the real-life courtroom, the business of celebrity crime wasn’t always such a one-and-done affair. In the glory days of the grindhouse, when “cheap” was the name of the game, true crime was a surefire way to generate both an easy script and a high turnout with minimal effort. From Jim Jones to Patty Hearst, every high-profile crime of the day got the 42nd Street treatment multiple times over, to the point that they began to spawn their own subgenres; and while Jonesploitation and Hearstsploitation were reliable standbys, perhaps no other subset of true-crime-turned-trash-cinema was as high profile, as sensational, or as far reaching as Mansonsploitation.
That the entertainment industry would latch onto the Manson Murders as a source for movie plots was, perhaps, to be expected. Of all the high-profile crime that struck the country in the 60s and 70s, they were the most bizarre and the most cinematic, the atrocities that seemed most torn from the pages of some brutal pulp novel. With murdered celebrities, weird cults in the desert, and apocalyptic prophecies, the Manson Murders were the stuff that grindhouse filmmakers would’ve come up with on their own, given enough time and amphetamines. Then, real life did the work for them. From Michael and Roberta Findlay’s SNUFF to SWEET SAVIOR, Troy Donahue’s desperate attempt to regain relevance, Mansonsploitation films were as reliable and profitable an exploitation standby as roughies and kung fu movies. Yet one Mansonsploitation film would come to stand head and shoulders above the rest—a movie so bizarre in both inception and execution, so abjectly tasteless in content, yet so utterly fascinating that it’s managed to earn itself a well-deserved place in the Criterion Collection: Russ Meyer’s delirious sequel to/remake of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, the now legendary BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.
Plot isn’t so important to Beyond as content. What happens is pretty threadbare, by-the-numbers stuff. The Carrie Nations, an aspiring young girl group, are discovered by the sinister producer Z-Man (John Lazar, channeling Tim Curry’s Frank-n-Furter before there was a Frank-n-Furter to channel), who brings them to Hollywood and makes them stars. The girls are corrupted by the excesses of fame and fortune, and come to realize that maybe they were happier when it really was all just about the music, man. It’s the way all of this stuff happens that has to be seen to be believed. Screenwriter Roger Ebert (yes, that Roger Ebert) has said that his script was meant to be satirical, and this is one of those rare cases where the “it was supposed to be a joke” defense may actually be valid. The film is so over-the-top as to make Tommy Wiseau’s THE ROOM look like Ingmar Bergman. Frontwoman Kelly (the charismatic and magnetic Dolly Read, who demonstrates here that she was a rare instance of a model-turned-actress with genuine acting talent) doesn’t just dump her sad-sack boyfriend Harris— Harris goes crazy, survives a public suicide attempt, and becomes a paraplegic who will later miraculously regain his ability to walk through the power of heroism.
Meanwhile, bandmate Casey (Cynthia Myers) doesn’t just get pregnant from an affair— the experience transforms her into a lesbian and her new lover psychologically manipulates her into getting an abortion. Z-Man isn’t just a sleazy bottom-feeder profiting from broken dreams, he’s a homicidal maniac with delusions of grandeur who holds everyone hostage at a Hollywood hills mansion and reenacts the Tate murders in lurid, if not accurate, detail. It’s this last set piece—snippets of which open the film, and which serves as the movie’s drawn-out, giallo-inspired climax—that both firmly enmeshes BEYOND as a piece of Mansonsploitation and cements the film’s reputation as an over-the-top piece de resistance of mid-century exploitation film making. Head-trip, Laugh In-inspired, socially conscious films—often with musical interludes—were a dime-a-dozen at the time (see the abominable, Peter Sellers-fronted I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS for a look at a straighter version of what this film was trying to do), and even with all the psychedelic bravado, BEYOND could’ve easily just been another lurid pic at the box office in a season of lurid pics. It’s the fact that all of the overwrought melodrama explodes into nightmarish, incongruously graphic violence that sets BEYOND apart. Even the murder sequence can’t help but veer into the fifth dimension, with a bizarre last-minute plot twist involving the sudden exposure of a character’s bare breasts—it isn’t who you think— that’ll surely rankle a few feathers today, but which is so far out of left field and so narratively out of place as to be more confusing and weird than offensive.
It’s a testament to the shrinking divide between high and low art that the Criterion Collection has begun to recognize the contribution—albeit sometimes tenuous—of grindhouse and exploitation cinema to American popular culture, with the release of such films as EATING RAOUL, PINK FLAMINGOS, and, yes, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. It’s just as much a testament that Criterion puts all the same love and care into their exploitation releases as more highly regarded, “legitimate” films. In addition to the expected restoration, the release is chock full of archival extras that help to create a fully realized picture of the creation and formation of the film: A 2003 audio commentary from Roger Ebert, a 2006 commentary featuring Read, LaZar, Cynthia Myers, Harrison Page, and Erica Gavin; a 1992 Q&A with Ebert, Meyer, and a multitude of cast members; five separate making-of features; screen tests; trailers; and a booklet with an essay from Glenn Kenny and excerpts from a 1970 UCLA Daily Bruin article documenting a visit to the set. Lamentably, the vast majority of the extras are archival—a choice at least partially necessitated by the deaths of many of the key players, including Ebert, Meyer, and Myers. Still, Criterion makes up for it with a brand new interview with the Patron Saint of Sleaze, John Waters, who discusses the film with his trademark wit and insight into the deeper implications of grindhouse cinema.
Those interested in genetic criticism can also scope out VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, the straightforward—if not campy—film to which BEYOND does serve as a nice thematic—if not tonal– sequel. Though it’s firmly outside the realm of horror and plays much more like a slightly amped-up soap opera, VALLEY is still a hilarious look at how the line between “legitimate” filmmaking and exploitation is often blurred (it’s hard to take seriously a film whose emotional climax is a hysterical woman screaming her own name in an alleyway.) Both flicks are definitely worth a place in your library—and, depending on your circle of friends, may make great background noise for your own happening.
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