Body Snatchers

Abel Ferrara's take on Body Snatchers, the third big screen adaptation of Jack Finney's science fiction novel, is set on a military base in Alabama being investigated for polluting the surrounding swampland. Unbeknownst to Terry Kinney's Steve Malone, the Environmental Protection Agency worker dispatched to make the ecological assessment, the soldiers living on this camp have dredged up and disseminated alien seed pods capable of growing into perfect physical replicas of people. Up front, there's an obvious parallel to be drawn between the hive-minded extraterrestrials and the violent, right-wing conformists usually found in any nation's armed forces. Ferrara's film (with a screenplay credited to Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli, and Nicholas St. John) probes deeper still, examining basic familial relationships from a mocking, alien perspective. Steve's daughter Marti, played by Gabrielle Anwar, is the Generation X teen suffering through all manner of minor and massive indignities. Before the occupation becomes violently obvious, this displeasure comes from feeling like the spare person in her father's new family. Marti is a young adult, on the cusp of college, forced to tag along when she'd rather spend her Summer spreading her wings. Marti's stepmother Carol, played by Meg Tilly, is the first person in the family to be assimilated; the unashamed, hirsute nakedness of Carol's newborn facsimile more horrifying to the family's snooping pre-schooler son than the bubbling, stinking mess his father eventually becomes. Carol's transformation upends the established power dynamics within the Malone household too. She's no longer the awed, younger woman. Carol is now the cold, reproachful mouthpiece of an unfeeling invasion. 

Cat Chaser

A film entirely lacking in a main character who behaves decisively. Instead larcenous events spin out of control with multiple unclarified players appearing, out-of-the-blue, then disappearing just as quickly. Occasionally, these roomy suits find the time to hassle Peter Weller's laid-back former marine before they permanently exit the proceedings. Adapted from Elmore Leonard's 1982 novel, Cat Chaser initially proposes an American soldier traumatised by his participation in the Dominican Civil War who has become fixated upon a young woman who he believes saved his life. The film begins with a glimpse of these deeply internalised events: the memories of Weller's George Moran are a fast cut black-and-white montage that adopts the frenzied visual language of an embedded war reporter. The camera of cinematographer Anthony B Richmond crowds at the feet of this soldier as he fires heedlessly at rooftops, our perspective that of a cowering journalist pinned down by unseen assailants. 

Fleeting and barely intelligible as anything other than vivid (but bullet point) trauma, this nightmare is one of the few moments where the manic hand of director Abel Ferrara feels truly detectable. Sweat-inducing night terrors barely established, the film then abandons itself to staid and leisurely noir, overseen by an elderly, omniscient voice-over that often works against the hacked-up highlights that are appearing on screen. Despite a striking opening gambit Cat Chaser almost instantly becomes a film preoccupied with voluminous hotel rooms and the rigid bodies that inhabit them. The smart aleck clip of Leonard's dialogue is broadcasting but it doesn't have any of the author's moment-to-moment intrigue to anchor it. Another sign of life does (eventually) make itself known though, just as the central swindle has begun to circle the drain. Charles Durning's overripe henchman Jiggs Scully discovers in himself a streak of real cruelty: a gloating murderous smugness exacerbated by whispering pistols and his proximity to suitcases filled with folded fortune. 

King of New York

Christopher Walken's Frank White is a spectral presence in Abel Ferrara's gorgeous gangster film. He's a wraith, recently exorcised from Sing-Sing prison, who attracts an almost fanatical level of loyalty from his grinning subordinates - including a never better Larry Fishburne as two-fisted stick-up artist Jimmy Jump. Quite apparently this pallid mob boss is a long established rallying point for the up-and-coming criminals who fail to meet the recruitment requirements of the racially segregated syndicates that otherwise rule the city's drug trade. This King of New York is tall and narrow; he betrays a searching, reptilian demeanour with a shock of hair permanently blasting away from his temples. People flock to this phantom though, and not just the lost boy crews looking for a figurehead. 

White moves and shakes across his island's entire social strata, equally at home in resplendent dining rooms gently manipulating local dignitaries as he is staring into space in one of cinematographer Bojan Bazelli's smoked-out crack dens. Fresh from his Hudson Line lock-up, and consolidating his power base, White sends Paul Calderón's Joey Dalesio, a wavering consigliere, to sit in a cinema alongside a chatty Triad boss watching FW Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. We see glimpses of Max Schreck's verminous Count Orlok creeping across the decks of a schooner, preying on a startled sailor. This mocking insinuation from Joey Chin's drug smuggler, presumably arranged within the context of the film as a power play designed to ridicule his absent rival, does have deeper merit than a simple jab.

White is vampiric. Beyond his lifeless countenance and an affinity for the night, it's clear that he bewitches everyone he encounters, charming them with a directness that is itself rooted in a strange, complicated morality. He's Midtown Manhattan's very own prince of darkness. Like Dracula, he even has three brides, all unwavering in their loyalty. Theresa Randle's Raye and Carrie Nygren's Melanie are his bodyguards, never far from his side and willing to place their own bodies between White and bullets, while Janet Julian's Jennifer is his greatest treasure: a successful upper-middle class attorney whose very presence implies some level of propriety. Unlike his rivals in the city's law enforcement, who argue over a wife at her own wedding, White isn't possessive. These women pursue extracurricular entanglements with a variety of other men. Their fluid sexuality an extension of White's own corrupting spell. 

.45 ACP

Jason Eisener's trailer for the Drafthouse reissue of Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45.

"He talk about you so bad, turn my hair gray"

'92 critic flavoured trailer for Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. Extra special for featuring some brief snatches of Schooly D's Signifying Rapper, a piece that used to hum and pulse throughout the film until Led Zeppelin got wise to D's uncleared Kashmir cop, and issued lawsuit. All subsequent releases of the film now have you hearing Ferrara jamming along with buddy-Christ Paul Hipp instead. I caught a watch of the unaltered version one evening on Channel 4 and never forgot. Rolling, self-perpetuating aggression doesn't quite cover what Schooly D did to Jimmy Page. The perfect accompaniment to Harvey Keitel's masterclass in desperation. If you wanna hear D, you know where to click.