Oct 21 2007
Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America
The Chopping Block: Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America
By: Thaddeus C. Hunt
Welcome to the Chopping Block! A sick little science experiment strictly dedicated to the more recent B Grade Horror, direct-to-video releases! The mission is simple; randomly grab as many B Grade movies as possible each week and review them. I’m going to stay away from “classics”, renting only new releases (preferably movies I haven’t heard anything about), basically taking one for the team and sifting through all the crap so none of you will ever have to. And yeah, I know there’s a ton of crap out there, but I’ve got a sadistic streak a mile wide and an unflinching vision that all horror is good horror!
When it’s good it stays with you and keeps you up at night, when it’s horrible, it’s funny as hell! Plus, finding that occasional new “cult classic” and spreading the word is totally worth it to me and hopefully to you. So be sure to come by and see what I dig up each week while I’m on this deranged treasure hunt!
So what’s on the Chopping Block this week? A little film by the name of…
Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America
Written and Directed by: Douglas Buck
Released in (on DVD in the U.S.): 2005
Running Time: 103 minutes
Video Case Tagline: There isn’t one.
When heading home from the video store, my wife asked if “Family Portraits…” could really be considered a B-Grade since it seemed to be a legit a movie devoid of any hokey cheese or bad acting. It’s a good question, but there is a slight loophole in The Chopping Block rule set. “Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America”, while playing at a few film fests, would by no means be considered a wide release summer blockbuster, and for all intents and purposes, it’s reaching the bulk of it’s audience via direct-to-video means, which makes it fit nicely into this column.
So what about Douglas Buck’s three short films?
I’ll just get this out of the way immediately, Douglas Buck has created a veritably tour de force of a film. At once beautiful, and then immediately black and ugly to it’s core, “Family Portraits…” will not erase from your head any time soon. Divided into three parts: “Cutting Moments”, “Home” and “Prologue”, Buck strives to show his audience the seedy, decrepit, hopeless, ultra violent, and sorrowful under belly of rural American suburbia. A place where the kids are definitely not alright, and behind every white picket fence is a nightmare that three families can’t wake up from: metaphorically and, after the dust settles from the aftermath, quite literally.
Each tale holds up a magnifying glass, allowing you to see three families self-destruct into either a blood bath, or an irreparable catharsis. It’s heart-rending to watch, and as much as you’ll want to turn your head away or just turn the TV off, you wont.
“Cutting Moments” is the story of a small family. The father of the family, from the onset of the film, has obviously fallen into some pit of despair. He tries to make good with his only son but fails miserably, and has all but abandoned any relationship with his wife entirely. There is never a “why” offered for his behavior, and in a way, after witnessing his interactions with the only people that could care for him, it seems only fitting that we never see that breaking point. All we are treated to is an old picture of him and his wife on their wedding day. Both looked like complete strangers compared to what they have become now. Hollow eyes were bright then, smiles seemed unforced, but they’re the polar opposites of what is trapped in that frame.
When the wife reaches her wits end, she tries to make one last attempt at catching the eye of her husband. She puts on a flattering red dress, some red lipstick and comes out of the bathroom to stand in front of him smiling, trying to get a word out of the man. He glances at her for a second and then looks back at the baseball game on TV, ignoring the last honest attempt at saving his family.
The wife, now pushed over the edge, heads back into the bathroom and tries to wipe the lipstick off her face, but the cleaning of her lips soon becomes something else entirely, and when a steel scouring pad doesn’t get enough of the stain that is her current life off her lips, she reaches for some scissors… When she shows up in front of her husband again, he sees something horribly different from before. Bloodied and horribly mutilated, he takes his wife upstairs for a scene that will leave you breathless, repulsed, and never looking at a pair of hedge shears the same way again.
This first short film is listed in our Top 10 Sickest Movies of all-time list, here on Horrorbrain, and the finale of “Cutting Moments” is reason enough for that esteemed ranking. It’s brutal and it does not flinch. And as the credits roll and you’re treated to a montage of pictures and film clips from better times, you realize that the one life that is left in this family couldn’t possibly be the same. I guess you could also say the same for yourself, the viewer.
That said, excess and not enough character development makes this short my least favorite of all three films. Don’t take that as an insult to the film, which, for the budget and the running time, is outstanding. It’s just the ending is so over the top with it’s message, it undermines all that came before it. One thing’s for sure though, it’s one hell of an opener and it’s a shining debut for Buck in what hopes to be an illustrious independent or big screen film career.
The next film, “Home”, is less complicated but no less disturbing and sad. The main character is the Father/husband of yet again another single child family. In the beginning of the film, you are treated to his twisted upbringing. Through flash-back, we see how his dad, a monster of a man, verbally had his family in a death grip. You can tell from his father’s actions that he never wanted to be a dad or a husband, he is only repeating what his father did to him, perpetuating the cycle of violence that he went through before. Like “Cutting Moments”, the main character’s mother desperately tries to keep the family together, but also like “Cutting Moments”, love isn’t enough in Douglas Buck’s universe.
The film then flashes forward back to our main character and we see him with a pretty much perfect family. His daughter is well rounded and outgoing, his wife is pretty and loves him a lot; a lot of folks would envy our main character. But it becomes abundantly clear that he can’t shake the demons from his past, nor what they are whispering in his ears on what seems like a constant basis. He tries to seek solace in the bible and scripture, but even that won’t help his troubled soul. When he finally breaks, he ties up his family in the kitchen, eats breakfast, and then grabs a carving knife, turning his back on hope, his family, and his sanity.
The final scene of him putting on a blazer over his bloodied white shirt, as he walks past the bodies of his family, which he just carved up, as he heads out the door for work is beautifully done. He picks up the paper in the front yard, waves to the neighbor across the street, and sits on the front porch step, bursting into tears. It’s perfection and you can see not only a change in tone with this second movie, but a change in style and direction as well. That’s one of the joys of this trilogy, its watching Buck’s evolution as a writer and director. There’s a lot of passion poured into each of these films, and it’s awesome to watch someone talented gradually hone his craft.
The final chapter, “Prologue”, follows two stories, one of a deeply troubled old man who is a local artist, and the other of a beautiful young lady who, after going through a horrific event, is paralyzed from the waste down and loses both of her arms at the elbows. The film picks up after the young lady comes home from rehab. The small town is all abuzz about her homecoming, whispering from afar… it’s obvious this young woman’s accident has taken a tax on her and the place she calls home. The young lady remembers nothing of the incident, but as she heads into town one day, with her dad, to meet up with her ex-boyfriend, she sees something that triggers a recollection of the incident that put her in that wheelchair and before we know it, the story of the old artist and our physically broken young lady become intrinsically intertwined.
I won’t say any more. Hands down, this tale was my favorite of the three. It was not only a good horror film (though there is little to no blood at all), but it is an excellent film, in general, pointing out that the truest form of horror is simply what one human can do to another. “Prologue” is an outstanding piece of filmmaking and as I said before, it was a pleasure watching the metamorphosis of Buck and his filmmaking style.
Make no mistake; you won’t feel an ounce of joy after watching one or all of these films. You’ll feel the absolute opposite, and I suppose that’s the point of Buck’s trilogy. There are aspects of everyday life that are wonderful and easy to experience, but there is also the heartbreak, sorrow, despair, and insanity that no one likes to think about, but are just as important to a life lived as the joyous “easy” moments.
What’s so crushing about “Family Portraits…” is that it all seems so real. We read about these horror stories every single day in the paper, we see the edited footage on the six o’clock news every evening. It’s sanitized and we sit back each time, some times in brief disbelief, eventually turning a blind eye forgetting about what we just saw. Douglas Buck focuses on those stories and wants to show us just exactly what happened in that house, who killed who, why, and makes a point to show that sometimes, it’s for no apparent reason at all. Humans are filled with frailty and when we break, we don’t crumble, we shatter into a million sharp pieces, often taking out anything and everything around us. Buck seeks to find the poignancy and, dare I say, the horrific beauty in these moments.
He succeeds, quite simply, on every single level.
Well, that’s it for this week’s Chopping Block. I’m off to sharpen the cleaver once again, so be sure to come back and see what’s on the block next week!
