Absolution (1978)

... aka: Anthony Shaffer's Absolution

... aka: Kokuhaku no wana (Confession Trap)

... aka: Murder by Confession

... aka: Syndernas förlåtelse (Remission of Sins)

Directed by:

Anthony Page

Richard Burton, during his late career dive into genre cinema that included roles in Bluebeard (1972), an Oscar-nominated turn in the psychological drama Equus (1977), the oft-ridiculed Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Medusa Touch (1978), headlines this forgotten British production as strict and joyless Father Goddard, teacher at the all-made Catholic boarding school St. Anthony's. During one of his classes, he brings up confession. Specifically, why having a partition / screen in between the priest and the confessor is important. First off, it provides anonymity for the confessor so that they're not intimidated when it comes to unveiling their most grievous sins. Second, sitting alone in the dark booth reminds the penitent that they are in fact confessing to God, not the priest. The priest is merely acting as an intermediary between sinner and God; a middle man that is bound by secrecy no matter what the confessed sin may be.

A student poses a hypothetical question: "Supposing I told the priest in confession who I was and where I lived and I've kidnapped someone and have him tied up in me basement... Could the priest pass it on to the police?" The by-the-Book Goddard tells him no. Absolutely not. The confessed sin can be the worst thing ever and still, "There are no circumstances where a priest can hand over information of this kind." Unfortunately for Goddard, some of his students are about to put this rule to the test.

Primary focus is put on two students in particular. Benjamin "Benjie" Stanfield (Dominic Guard) and Arthur Dyson (Dai Bradley). Benjie is one of Goddard's favorites and the embodiment of what he expects from his boys. He's bright, polite, well-kept, doesn't have a hair out of place and always seems to have the right answers in class. As a reward, he gets special treatment. Arthur is the polar opposite. He's unkempt, with a crooked tie and greasy hair, seems incapable of keeping his mouth shut to his own detriment and is pathological in his need for acceptance. However, try as he might, fitting in just isn't in the cards for him due to his abrasive, needy, pathetic personality. His trivial comments in class are a constant annoyance to Goddard, who isn't above humiliating him in front of his peers for a laugh. In a nod to how outmoded religious beliefs can be harmful, Goddard's even believes the boy being crippled and having to wear a leg brace is tangible proof that he's not favored in God's eyes.

Rounding out the primary cast is Scottish comedian / musician Billy Connolly as Blakey, a bearded, long-haired free spirit and drifter who shows up at the school looking for handyman work, only to be swiftly rejected by Goddard. That doesn't deter him from camping out in the nearby woods and breaking into the school to steal food and wine. Despite being a teacher's pet of sorts, Benjie starts sneaking away from the school late at night to hang out with him. He confesses he finds the clergy to be "swine" who have nothing better to do than try to make them feel guilty about everything and even makes an aside that he'd like to kill them. Blakey teaches him how to catch trout with his bare hands, sings and plays banjo for him and gives him whiskey.

Even though Blakey could be seen as a bad influence (and certainly would be viewed as such by the church), he represents something else entirely to Benjie: life possibilities apart from the church and their influence. The school is a prison. It's stifling, rule-oriented, limited and not so accepting of independent thought, while the woods are wide open and free. Benjie also knows he can't speak honestly at his school. Not really. One may be able to get some things off their chest at confession, but it's certainly not without a side of condemnation and judgment. With Blakey, he can say whatever he wants without such judgment. After all, if anyone's aware that they have no business critiquing others it's him. He steals, drinks, smokes weed and used to swindle money from people as a palm reader.

When Goddard finds out what Benjie has been up to he makes him promise that he'll never see Blakey again. Benjie, of course, doesn't comply. Instead, he concocts a bizarre plan to get revenge. Sensing (from all indications, rightfully) that Goddard is a repressed homosexual with less than wholesome and fatherly designs on him, Benjie confesses a made-up story that he had group sex with Blakey and his lady friend (Sharon Duce) in the woods. In retaliation, the outraged, perhaps mostly jealous, Goddard secretly sends cops to rough up Blakey, which turns Benjie's new friend against him. Goddard then punishes Benjie further by forcing him to clean and forbidding him to play sports for an entire semester, which only succeeds in further incensing him. What follows is a series of confessions which may or may not be true, and may or may not involve a murder as well as plans for additional murders.

While this is generally well-made and well-shot (by John Coquillon), and the performances from Burton, Guard and Bradley are impressive, I'm not sure this really works as a complete package. Slow to start, the film concentrates primarily on the rigidity of the church system and its effect on the central characters in the first hour before transitioning into more traditional mystery / thriller territory toward the end. The problem is that the character building and astute commentary in the build-up is far more interesting than the thriller aspects and succession of final reel plot twists, which come off as cheap and gimmicky when they finally do arrive. Some viewers won't be as bothered by that as I was. After all, the film has to build up to something. I just wish it had been something a little more thoughtful and a little less predictable.

The film was based on a script (originally conceived as a stage play called A Play with a Gypsy) by Anthony Shaffer, who had a pretty great track record at this point having already written Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), the acclaimed The Wicker Man (1973) and the classic mystery Sleuth (1974). While this is nowhere near the same standard of those three films, it's not bad either. Andrew Keir (Quatermass and the Pit), Brian Glover and Hilary Mason all show up in small roles.

In various stages of production for a number of years, this had difficulty securing financing. No major studio wanted to touch it (a financially apt decision it turns out as the film was not a box office success), so producer Elliott Kastner had to raise the funds himself. After completion, it ended up sitting in limbo for around three years before gaining a wide release in the UK and wasn't even screened theatrically in the U.S. until it was a decade old. The same year this was dumped in American theaters, it also made its home video debut courtesy of TransWorld and was quickly forgotten. Afterward, the film landed in the public domain, which resulted in a subpar, dark print filling out those cheap 50 movie multi DVD packs.

Absolution has been saved from an uncertain fate thanks to several recent releases, starting with the 2016 Kino Lorber Blu-ray, which is not an impeccable print but still leagues above the earlier full frame DVD presentations. In 2018, the UK label Powerhouse Films / Indicator also released it on BR with a host of extras, including interviews with Page, Guard and costume designer Anne Gainsford. Their release also includes a newly prepared director's cut of the film, which is actually ten minutes shorter than the theatrical release. I viewed Page's cut in its entirety and then skimmed through the longer one to watch the scenes that were trimmed and can confirm that the shorter cut does indeed play better. The major debit with it is that it unnecessarily neuters a key murder scene at the end.

★★1/2

Effects (1979)

... aka: Death's Director

... aka: Manipulator, The

Directed by:

Dusty Nelson

What makes this otherwise rocky low budget regional production of special interest to genre fans is that it was made by a whole host of George A. Romero film alumni. Director / writer Nelson had previously served as an editor and cameraman for the Romero directed and produced sports series The Winners. Producer / editor / sound man Pasquale Buba was one of Romero's trusted editors. Composer and executive producer John Harrison, who also gets to play an important supporting role, had already done the scores for several Romero films. Tom Savini, who'd first made a name for himself in the world of special effects through the early Romero films, also did the make-up for this one and plays a supporting part. And Romero fans will recognize a number of the other cast members, including leading man Joseph Pilato, who played small roles in both DAWN OF THE DEAD and Knightriders before graduating to play the lead baddie in Day of the Dead. There are a number of other Romero world connections littered throughout that I could mention, not least of which that this was filmed entirely around Pittsburgh. Romero himself, along with frequent collaborators Richard P. Rubinstein and Michael Gornick, are all given a special thanks in the credits.

That they could have, yet didn't, use Romero as a promotional tool is pretty bizarre, as is the fact this wasn't widely available until it was nearly three decades old. Shot all the way back in 1978, this had its premiere in late 1979 and was then given an extremely limited theatrical release in 1980, but never turned up on home video in the 80s and 90s. By the time Synapse Films released a DVD in 2005 the film had long been forgotten. The official story given for the hold up boils down to the original distributor not having the financial means to give it either a wide theatrical release or a home video release yet still retaining the rights into the 90s. By the time the makers regained ownership again, there was a general lack of interest in low budget genre films on VHS. Video stores were already full and owners were mostly interested in stocking major studio films with Hollywood stars. It wouldn't be until the DVD market picked up in the 2000s that the film finally received its release. 

I wish I could say it was worth the wait.

Effects takes place on the set of a super low-budget independent horror movie called "Something's Wrong," which seems aimed at the lowest common denominator with lingering camera shots of a woman showering and cheap gore fx. The pompous, cold-blooded director - Lacey Bickel (Harrison) - curiously seems disinterested in the whole affair. A wealthy trust fund brat who inherited a lot of money, he's not the least bit interested in realism or quality and brushes any suggestions off. After all, "Nobody has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of an audience." That puts him conflict with Celeste (Susan Chapek), who's usually an actress but has taken a job as the film's gaffer and wants to be involved in a quality production. Celeste doesn't like Lacey's script, doesn't like Lacey's insistence on piling on unconvincing gore and doesn't like Lacey's attitude. She also just doesn't like Lacey period. The two used to be romantically involved, which she brushes off as two people using one another. He wanted sex. She wanted access to his money. Simple as that.

Pilato plays Dominic, the production's easygoing cinematographer / cameraman / fx guy. (Hey, it's a cheap regional production so everyone wears many hats!) Dominic begins to date Celeste and suspects she may be bitter because, as of yet, she's failed to secure an acting role in the production. The lead actors are bickering real-life husband and wife Barney (Bernard McKenna) and Rita (Debra Gordon), who seem perfectly cast playing the bickering fictional couple in the film. Almost everyone is heavily involved with drugs. Not many of them seem like they can stand one another. Nicky (Savini), who supplies everyone with coke and does miscellaneous jobs on the set, causes some problems, and there are a lot of film-within-a-film bits meant to disorient. Sometimes we're not sure if what's being shown is part of the movie or is really happening.

It's obvious from the get-go that things aren't exactly what they appear to be. For starters, if Lacey has so much money, why are they shooting on 16mm with such a small crew? And then there's the fact the entire home they're shooting in has hidden cameras and audio equipment in certain rooms that only a few of the crew members are aware of. We're soon clued in that the secretly-recorded footage, including crew members having sex, is being sent back to a modern studio which Lacey and a shadow crew are watching and editing. There's some kind of parallel production going on that only some characters are aware is being made.

We're given a clue as to what's actually going down when Lacey whips out an 8mm film reel to show part of his crew. The b/w silent film depicts a woman tied to a chair getting slashed to death with a razor by a man wearing an executioner's hood. At first, Lacey claims the scene is the real deal; that the woman seen being murdered was actually murdered and the film was shot specifically for a British snuff film collector friend of his. He then backtracks on that claim and says he shot the footage himself and the murder was faked. Being experienced in special effects himself, Dominic suspects it's authentic, but doesn't remove himself from the situation as quickly as he should.

With its meta elements, discussion of other genre films (The Omen and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD are among those mentioned) and critique of amoral opportunists hoping to capitalize on numbed audiences always on the lookout for more extreme and shocking forms of entertainment, this feels thematically ahead of its time. However, a clever central idea isn't quite enough to overcome the film's myriad problems. While the performances are adequate and the gritty, grainy 16mm photography and poor lighting create a potent dreary atmosphere, the pacing is sluggish, characters are flat and uninteresting, a number of scenes are needlessly drawn out, the film fails to shock, disturb or create any suspense and many of the story detours are half-developed and confusing. A good example of the latter is the minor subplot involving the Barney character's gradual transformation from your standard husband type to a more flamboyant alternate personality.

This was supposedly based on a novel called Snuff by William H. Mooney, though I was unable to verify the existence of such a novel. Years later, Harrison would direct and write Donor Unknown (1995), which was also supposedly based on another Mooney novel called Corazon, which also doesn't appear to exist. I'm not sure if these were unpublished novels or these credits were simply made up. I was able to verify that a writer by the name of William H. Mooney does indeed exist. He's a graduate of Penn State, a film scholar, professor and the author of several film-related books, so I assume it's the same guy.

The budget was just 55,000 dollars. Director Nelson went on to make Necromancer: Satan's Servant  (1988) and a couple of action movies. In 2017, American Genre Film Archive released this on Blu-ray. Though the film has been restored from the only 35mm in existence, the print used is heavily damaged, which shouldn't be a problem at all for those who enjoy the grindhouse aesthetic. The AGFA release comes with a commentary track, two short films from director Nelson and Michael Felsher's hour-long documentary After Effects: Memories of Pittsburgh Filmmaking (2005), which features interviews with Romero, Savini, Nelson, Buba, Harrison and most of the primary cast.

★★