The Soultangler (1987), by Pat Bishow

"After life--after death--the madness begins!"

And what great madness it is. Long Island is a place I've never visited, but want to go to now more than ever. That may be odd for some people (including Long Islanders themselves), but I have always seen it as a faerie-tale world by way of infamous teenage director Nathan Schiff. Schiff, who will inevitably appear on this site at some point, created four films of bizarre and disgusting elegance, beginning with Weasels Rip My Flesh in 1979 and ending with Vermilion Eyes in 1991 (he did also make 1993's The Last Heterosexual and 2008's Abracadaver, but I haven't found the former and the latter lacks the magic). Schiff's films are surreal, intellectual, and vomit-inducing, and all of them have earned a special--or infamous--place in my heart. Long Island occupies that same place. Now, it seems to be a veritable nest of miracles, as today's film, The Soultangler, was also made in Long Island. It's safe that say that that particular part of New York is on its way to becoming the lunatic trash capital of the world.

Doctor Anton Lupesky has created Anphorium, a drug that allows people to transfer their souls into corpses and control them. The corpse must possess eyes for this to work, for after all, the eyes are the window to the soul. Despite his accomplishments, however, Lupesky is "evil...an agent of Sey-Tawn, if not the Devil himself," to quote his murdered lab assistant. Said assistant's daughter, Kim, tries to investigate the circumstances behind her father's death. Kim is an incredibly cool lady. When her boss at the paper doesn't listen to her, she hangs up his phone call to yell at him. She also smokes cigarettes, which the movie reminds us of many times. Slowly, we learn that Lupesky really is evil, as evidenced by the goofy faces he makes as he covers himself in skull-blood, and by the fact that believes by way of Descartes (?) that women have inferior souls. He explains the latter point when on a date with his boss. When Kim visits Lupesky he gives her Anphorium, causing her to hallucinate up some zombies. In the final showdown, almost nothing will be spared from a spattering of both gore and ludicrousness. There are zombies, including one who garrotes someone with his guts. All along the way we get a lot of talk about the soul that manages to avoid being all New Age-y and awful. I feel like it's a movie that tries to say something about the soul, but maybe doesn't.

Because of its metaphysical subject matter--or its attempts at such--Soultangler is an inherently surreal film. Shirtless men rub their hands over yellow walls. Closeups of eyes occur frequently. Stop motion abominations have tarantulas crawl on them. The stop motion in this movie, by the way, is amazing, and in fact all of the effects are. The film seems very professional: it has a full cast and crew, great cinematography, and experienced, if sometimes crazed, editing. There are still enough line flubs, acting failures, and awkward camera glances to make it clear that this was still a production made by one of us Little Guys, not a big studio. It is a mixed beast of the most entertaining sort, and it is a legitimately good movie that happens to be batshit weird. But it still all makes sense, even if you have to watch it a couple of times. But you should be doing that anyway!

I really can't allow myself to glance over the depth of the sheer oddity of this film. Much of the dialogue, especially Kim's father's narration, is incredibly over the top, to the point where it gives the movie an almost pulp-like quality. Actually, this would make an excellent villain pulp, with Doctor Lupesky, of course, as the villain. He has some creepy goons working for him, including a heroin addict who goes for the ever-creepy Texarkana Phantom Killer look from The Town That Dreaded Sundown (which, incidentally, was also used for Bruce from Nathan Schiff's Long Island Cannibal Massacre).

Then again, a pulp probably wouldn't have the trippy dream sequence where Kim is attacked by a zombie priest whose speech is slowed down and backwards. Even the Great Shit of Yore isn't perfect. And Soultangler isn't perfect either--there are some tonal transitions (usually in the form of oddly-placed comedy bits, including Three Stooges doorway schitck with Lupesky and the heroin addict), which may throw people off, even though they were great for me. And for me, at least, it probably is perfect.

It is a film that builds slowly, like a sports stadium built with too many taxpayer dollars. In the beginning, yeah, we do get Lupesky tripping the fuck out. But it has nothing on all of the chaos of the the finale, what with its plethora of cackling faceless corpses. It is never boring because there is always something else great on the horizon, whether it be the graveyard-monologue dubs or the out-of-control latex creatures that populate this fascinating landscape.

The world of this film is a place of madness. And the madness flows richly from New York.

Long Island or bust--I'll make it someday.

P.S. This movie has a pretty rocking soundtrack. Even if the end credits music is apparently just a recording of someone puking.


I'd like to give a special shoutout to Bleeding Skull and their amazing movie label, Bleeding Skull Video. Without Bleeding Skull Video I never would have seen Soultangler, and indeed, without Bleeding Skull's amazing reviews, I wouldn't have encountered the magnificent world of trash cinema.