I watched a bunch of movies this weekend; my life has gotten so much more bearable since I discovered Fandango Now. At first I wanted something relatively wholesome, but I started with the darkest Disney movie in 90s history so maybe even then I should have known the direction my mood was about to take.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) is a Disney animated movie that inexplicably got a G rating despite murder, torture, and a thinly veiled rape reference. To be fair, it IS lighter than the original story, but that’s really not saying much. Most funerals are lighter fare than the original Victor Hugo novel.
The hero Quasimodo and his cruel master Frollo have opposite lives and viewpoints throughout the film, and they manifest (in true Disney fashion) in song. Frollo is rich and powerful and privileged, and he sees evil and villainy everywhere he goes. Quasimodo is poor, abused, and confined to a bell tower all his life, but he sees nothing but goodness and beauty in the world that he cannot join. In their opening scene together Frollo sings, “Stay in here,” but as soon as he is gone Quasi is on the ledge, looking down at Paris and singing “If I could live one day out there.” They both become enamored of the same Gypsy woman, and again their opposing visions clash. Quasi is touched that a beautiful woman would show him affection, and he sings, “It must be heaven’s light.” Meanwhile the entitled incel-before-there-was-a-word-for-it Frollo feels ashamed of his feelings and blames Esmeralda. “Like fire, hell fire,” he sings without a trace of irony. This movie was ahead of its time in the message that a woman’s sexuality does not determine her worth. Too often morality is determined by the prejudices of whoever is staring at you. If men think you’re beautiful that’s not your problem, and if they think you’re a witch that’s not your problem either… but they’ll sure as hell try to MAKE it your problem.
That was a fun conversation with my son, by the way. “Why is he so angry at Esmeralda?” “Well son, have a seat, and let me explain a little thing called slutshaming.”
Now let’s talk about Repo! The Genetic Opera. Repo! is a horror rock opera about a dystopian future in which organs and cosmetic surgery can be financed through a predatory company called GeneCo. But if patients don’t keep up with payments, their organs are repossessed… without anesthetic. The Repo Man is a masked killer in a rubber suit, a former doctor now in debt to Rotti Largo of GeneCo after the accidental death of his wife. His daughter suffers from a rare condition and must stay confined inside but dreams of freedom and a cure for her ailment.
It reminded me a lot of Hunchback; Shilo’s father says he wants to protect her from the brutality of the world, and possibly protect her from finding out what he really does for a living. She’s all he has left of her mother, whom she strongly resembles. The subtext suggests that though he claims to be protecting her, his motives in keeping her all to himself might not be so pure. He has even told Mag, Shilo’s godmother, that Shilo died at birth. Aesthetically it reminded me of The Phantom of the Opera, with all the masks and subterfuge and dramatic posturing by the antagonists. When the credits rolled I discovered that the resemblance is no coincidence: Blind Mag, the opera star and an old friend of Shilo’s dead mother, is played by none other than Sarah Brightman.
Repo! The Genetic Opera is crude and stylish at the same time. It beats you in the face with the gore and the violent theme, but the production is as slick as a 90s rock video. The music is compelling and aggressive, and the actors can sing like a motherfucker. Brightman’s beautiful soprano is a chilling counterpoint to the growling metal tones of the other characters. Paris Hilton is effectively cast as the narcissistic, drug-addicted GeneCo daughter, Amber Sweet. It’s a great time for anyone who digs heavy metal, slasher horror, and rock opera that fucks with your head.
Which brings me to Spree, which was the perfect mind-fuck to round out the weekend. Joe Keery stars as Kurt, a sad little man who wants desperately to be Internet famous and thinks he finally knows how to make it happen. He turns his ride-sharing gig into a killing spree, streaming videos of the deaths with the hashtag #TheLesson. His behavior gets more and more violent and erratic, and things come to a wild, violent head when he crosses paths with Black comedy sensation Jessie Adams.
It’s a wild ride (haha), funny as hell in a “Oh God why am I laughing at this” kind of way. It’s a scathing critique of our modern obsession with likes and clicks, and along those lines it doesn’t say anything that we don’t already know. (I’m still waiting for the horror movie that attacks corporations for tying financial success to online success; there’s a lot that could be said about, say, publishers that won’t look at your manuscript if you have less than 2,000 Twitter followers.) But I want to step away from that for a moment and talk about a scene that could go unnoticed if all you’re looking for is the next gruesome death.
Kurt’s first victim is a nasty racist, and watching him choke out after drinking poisoned water is a satisfying way to ease into the killing spree. He’s an asshole, you get the vibe that he’s a white supremacist about to go give some kind of Klan speech, and you’re happy to see him go. But Kurt is no woke individual. When he discovers Jessie Adams online and sees how popular she is, his reaction is not, “Wow good for her” or even “How I can I learn to do that?” It’s, “Those should be MY followers.” He picks apart and critiques her videos, complaining about random stuff that her viewers probably don’t even notice. His first impulse when he encounters someone who is genuinely charismatic and just plain better at this than him is to tear her down and claim that she doesn’t deserve those followers. HE does. Jessie’s life is in danger from that moment on.
So just like Hunchback, and just like Repo!, here we have the entitled white male in his natural habitat, behaving as though he has a legal right to a woman. In this case it’s her body of work rather than her body, but the subtext is clear.
Spree is available to stream on Hulu, and the other two can be rented from Fandango Now for about four bucks a piece. Go watch them right now and then come back here and tell me what you thought.
Dawn Napier 