Death Brings Roses (1975?), by Jack Weis

Because of Crypt of Dark Secrets and Mardi Gras Massacre, there's been a tendency to characterize Jack Weis as a trash-horror director, but he also made some poignant dramas as well. Quadroon, which appears to be his earliest film, is an involving and gut-wrenching examination of racial castes in 19th Century Louisiana, with little focus on exploitative or horrific elements at all. It's strange to watch Mardi Gras Massacre, Weis' attempt to clone Blood Feast, and then pop in something like Quadroon or Death Brings Roses, which seem at the very worst to be TV movies on a B-tier channel. They have an artistic flair to them which make Weis a director with many dimensions and capabilities. That he made comparatively few films will always be one of the minor injustices of movie history.

A Harrison Ford lookalike named Chuck Watts (suspend your Stones jokes here!) is an enforcer working for Max, a theatre agent/mobster. We follow Chuck in his adventures around New Orleans, palling around with bartenders and slapping around hookers. Chuck is cold to his girlfriend Laura, which she thinks is a product of his associations with Max, but Chuck has secret reasons for his behavior: years ago, Chuck and his friend Hal accidentally killed a man in a card game gone wrong in Kentucky. Chuck has cold feet about getting with Laura because there is an active warrant for his arrest. But Max soon solves this problem: he makes Chuck a partner in his organization, and wipes out both his and Hal's record. But shortly thereafter, Max himself is wiped out, and it's up to Chuck to find the murderer...as several organizations are now sniffing at the cracks in Max's outfit.

Like all of Weis' films, Death Brings Roses (apparently also screened or released under the title You Never Gave Me Roses) is a love letter to New Orleans. Like Satan's Touch, it allows its plot to snake in and out of its primary raison d'etre, a study/romantic framing of a particular city. This is a slice-of-life film, pure and simple, and while it is a slice of the lives of Chuck, Max, Laura, and Hal, it is also a slice of the life of New Orleans. This may not be the most interesting thing for some people, even when Chuck and Hal celebrate their age-old entertainment of blowing up cars at a junkyard. It seems to be a directionless film at times, but it's about the journey, not the destination. There's always something about it which keeps your eyeballs on the screen.

It's not a perfect film by any means. The acting definitely slips in places, though the main characters are always portrayed convincingly. There's a brief but awesome appearance by Maureen "Damballa" Ridley from Crypt of Dark Secrets, and yes, she does get naked again. The guy who played Ted Watkins in Crypt is an FBI agent here and he's as stoned as ever. But thematically, this movie slips too. It's a little hard to decipher what sort of story is exactly being told here. It's probably meant to be Chuck's tragedy, with his bad actions and bad fates being the product of his life of crime. Yet he does some things early on--beating up a bunch of people, for example--that make it hard for us to root for him entirely, even if generally he seems to keep his heart in the right place.

There's a token Weird Scene in the film, and that's when Henny Youngman shows up and starts doing his bit. I've seen wilder and more disturbing celebrity cameos but it's kind of remarkable to watch people laugh and cheer over some bits which really aren't that funny. No offense to the Youngman fans in the audience, but "Take my wife, please," was never as amusing as people thought it was. I suppose I've killed my fanbase now. Forgive me, servitors of Youngman. The sheer delirium of his cameo has left me confused and bamboozled, I know not what I do.

Death Brings Roses is a sprawling, fascinating drama which should get a release outside of the whole two copies that I know to exist. If you have a chance to see it, you're lucky indeed. Enjoy the moment while it lasts!

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Crypt of Dark Secrets (1976), by Jack Weis

This is another one which sometimes seems to have a life of its own. Whenever I watch Crypt of Dark Secrets, I always feel like it's the right time; whenever I try to watch this movie when the day doesn't make time for it, it feels flat and empty. But when it's my time to watch it--when the movie lets me watch it--then suddenly every frame seems to gain its own weird inner light. I feel like this sensation goes well in hand with this movie's occult themes, which somehow always scratch my Magic Itch. There's a certain way that I like seeing magic done in movies, and this movie has got it. however that happens to be. Keep in mind that this movie does not contain a crypt.

There are legends of old Haunted Island out in the bayous near New Orleans--with a name like Haunted Island, that's basically a guarantee, ain't it? It's the supposed home of a woman named Damballa, an "Aztec" girl whose alternate form is a rainbow snake that is the bridge between life and death. Vietnam veteran Ted Watkins lives out in a small house on Haunted Island with an extensive fortune, and when he is visited by two cops who are curious about the legends of Damballa, they accidentally spread word of his money to a trio of crooks named Earl, Max, and Louise. The three are surprisingly eager to murder Ted and take his money, so they drown him and take all they can carry. But Ted isn't dead, at least not the way we know it--a beautiful naked woman appears and restores his spirit, explaining that she is Damballa, and that their souls must fuse together to fulfill their respective destinies. Ted is pretty cool with this idea (Ted's cool with basically everything), but he needs to avenge his death before he can move on. But temptation alone will bring fate to its conclusion: for there's a voodoo witch in the swamp who is willing to give the murderous trio the treasure of Jean LaFitte. They should have figured that there are no promises when voodoo dolls are involved.

Returning to the beginning of this review for a bit--almost more than any other movie, save for perhaps The Witches' Mountain, is this film like a dream. Everyone in it acts as if they aren't real, or like they're stoned. Every time I show this movie to someone (because sometimes this film wants me to bring it an audience), they say of Ted, "Is he high?" When I watch this alone, my question is, "Is everyone high?" People are in a strange headspace in this one. It goes beyond Ted's dull, blank stare, and his denim short-shorts. It's not just bad acting. But it's not anything deliberate, either. It's almost like they just aren't aware of what they're doing, like it doesn't matter. I wish I could put my finger on it but I can't.

Because this film takes it easy, generally speaking, it's a relaxing watch. And it manages to have a plot without the conflict being overly stressful. I'm someone who can get stressed out by movies. Even movies that I like can raise my cortisol levels if they contain too much conflict. On my thin-skinned days, this movie can pass over me with no trouble. Like, Ted dies, but he's revived immediately after--he needs to take revenge, but the voodoo cult does it for him, because they want him to succeed--and in the end he and Damballa are united to love each forever in the spirit world. Sure, there's the small detail that they hardly know each other, but there's a dreamy romance to Damballa, and not merely because she's hot. I watched this movie on the same day I did my Divine Emanuelle review and Maureen Ridley, who plays Damballa, is an eerie doppelganger for Laura Gemser. She reappears in Jack Weis' Death Brings Roses, one of the few known films that Weis directed. He also made Quadroon, which I watched for the first time before rewatching this. I don't know if I'll ever review it, but let me say for now that it's as essential as this one...

And Crypt of Dark Secrets is essential. It has a scene where a stack of dollar bills start bleeding ketchup. I was worried that the shortness of this review would detract from my implicit recommendation, but then I remembered that that was one of the details I wanted to mention. There are more, but Dark Secrets are best learned firsthand. Find the time for this film to find you.

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