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The sweaty-palmed lads who grinned in Grindhouse theatres while monsters and murderers mowed down scared, scantily clad sluts never doubted that porn and horror films had a blood brother-like bond. But few directors have so gallantly brought the cum and blood-soaked genres together like
Bruce la Bruce.
Bruce la Bruce is a legend in the satellite genres of gay porn, art, gonzo journalism, independent cinema, punk and academia. Born Bryan Bruce in Ontario, he studied film theory at Toronto's York University and earned his stripes writing punk zines, starring in underground porn and filming witty hardcore satire on Super 8. His 1999 film "Skin Flick / Skin Gang" was hardcore gay skinhead porn, and his 2004 "The Raspberry Reich" combined "terrorist chic" with "a porno-political-palooza." In his 1997 biography "The Reluctant Pornographer," he gave a gentlemanly wag of the finger to contemporary gay culture and further established himself as a cherished gay icon.
Here we have coffee a few blocks from the Berlin branch of the Peres Projects gallery to discuss the untitled zombie hardcore porn flick that BlaB is screening at Peres Projects L.A. until 27 June. After his first zombie film, "Otto; or Up With Dead People," received raves, BlaB decided to riff on the theme of political zombie porn which a character is filming in Otto. The current film does not have a direct meta-link to Otto, which was a Donnie Darko-like coming of age story about a zombie teenager, but BlaB offers insights into the relevance of hot young zombies and reminisces about the glories of Grindhouse.
Installation view at Peres Projects, Culver City
AFH: I keep hearing that this is the year for vampires. Why do a zombie picture now?
BlaB: There have always been vampires, but now they are back bigger than ever. But vampires interest me less than zombies. They are suave and sexy, but they are traditionally loners and misfits. Zombies are more modern because they are viral. They are conformists. They all act the same and they are not a fringe minority. They are everybody. And their whole raison d'etre is just to consume. So they are a great allegory for our modern capitalism and consumerist society.
AFH: They might represent society, but they are certainly into anti-social behaviours.
BlaB: One of my motivations was that I tired of seeing zombie flicks where they were just like these poor homeless people. I was just bored of seeing zombies who were decapitated or burnt just for the fun of it, these poor, anonymous disposable creatures. I wanted to make a movie where zombies mattered. I want to evoke their conformity but invert it and transpose onto the zombie some of the myth of the vampire.
AFH: There have countless sub-genres of zombie depictions. What were your main inspirations?
BlaB: I was inspired by this French movie called "Les Revenants," from 2004. In that everyone who died over the past forty years in a small French town comes back to life. But they are not really presented as
zombies. They are almost just shadows of their former selves. They are not rotting or anything. They are just dumbed down. If they used to be professionals, if they were a lawyer or a doctor, then now they just do menial work. No one knows exactly what they are up to but they revolt at the end.
AFH: Before the revolt, they sound like a great immigrant workforce.
BlaB: Some people say that it is an allegory for people who returned from the Second World War and were shell-shocked. Of course many of them who came back are older, because more older people die. But, there is one hot young doctor who comes back after dying in a car accident. He was a hot French actor with a killer body. He and his wife had split up before he died. But he and his wife kind of get back together. There is a hot necrophilia scene. Though he is dead, their sex life is better than ever.
AFH: I'm sure he's more pleasant to live with.
BlaB: Absolutely, everything became simplified.
AFH: Well, wasn't Dahmer into that - transforming lovers into zombies, just willing bodies to fuck?
BlaB: He was. And Dennis Nilsen did that too.
AFH: Do you think Dahmer's work was like an homage?
BlaB: I think there were just spontaneous outbreakings, like trends. And they were both lonely. They were killing for company. Nelson liked to pick up tricks, kill them and then set them up at the dinner-table.
AFH: Do now see "Otto" as a pre-recession commentary?
BlaB: Yes. Though George Romero has said it all before in "Dawn of the Dead," which was set in a shopping mall. That was a critique of America that has come true now. America is a third-world country now. However, I am working on a real zombie porn movie now. There is a scene where one zombie gut fucks another. It's explicit in the film but shot in black & white, so it's sort of arty looking.
AFH: That's great. Torture porn needs more porn.
BlaB: Well, the problem is that the usual porn distribution company that I work with are like "oh, this isn't porn. It's art." And they don't want to touch it.
AFH: That's hilarious since usually people are upset when art is too much like porn and then they don't want to touch it.
BlaB: They are just concerned that it won't sell. But I think it could. I'm not saying it's the "wave of the future," but it definitely could have a following. Zombie porn has a future.
AFH: Of course it does! There is pirate porn and . . .
BlaB: Clown porn and dragon porn.
AFH: Are these future inspirations?
BlaB: Unlikely. Though porn will always be there in my work. One of the reasons that I do a lot of explicit sex in my movies is because it's like low-budget special effects. It's easy to do but it's spectacular. It's like fireworks. It's an event.
AFH: Are you a fan of mainstream torture porn movies, like "Hostel"?
BlaB: Not at all! I am actually really against that genre.
AFH: Why?
BlaB: I feel that it makes no sense to be making huge, corporate, big-budget versions of B-films from the 70s, like "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Last House on the Left." They were done super-low budget and meant for a very limited audience. It was similar to what I argue is porn's real function. Porn is a forum where you can work out politically incorrect and problematic fantasies in a healthy way. Though for some people its not that healthy. That is at the core of B horror movies. But now that they are A-level popular corporate movies, I feel that they are more exploitative than they were when they were actually exploitation movies. Now, they just play on people's fears of war, torture and terrorism but I don't think they help people work them out. I think they just add to the level of fear.
AFH: By representing a broader set of mass neurosis, don't they become archival demonstrations of our collective, rather then subculture fears?
BlaB: But they are mostly just misogynistic and homophobic and not in an interesting way. They are just not as artful as they were in the 70s. Then the whole fun of it was to use these cheesy, cheap, effects creatively. Now the movies are very slick and there is no mediation between watching real atrocities and seeing carnage in the cinema. Part of why the originals were low-budget was because their subject matter was taboo. But now the way it is all marketed makes one forget that there is anything really troubling about it. The sex and violence is taken as a given. Anyway, I have a theory that all horror movies are about homosexual panic.
AFH: What about the wave of recent movies, mostly remakes of Japanese horror, dealing with maternity and fears of motherhood?
BlaB: Or ""Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Child," when Freddy comes back as a fetus.
AFH: I always interpret that series as a riff on the increased acceptance and almost fetish for therapy among the masses in the eighties. After all, what is more Freudian than Freddy?
BlaB: It is very Freudian. But still I believe virtually all horror movies are about homosexual panic. Speaking of Freud and Freddy, what is that fear about if not castration?
AFH: So it's healthy that you're making gay horror porn. You're bringing all these demons out and letting them confront each other directly, Jason vs. Freddy-style. How nice!
BlaB: Thank you.
Bruce LaBruce: Untitled Hardcore Zombie Project
May 23 - June 27, 2009
Peres Projects
Los Angeles - Culver City
Credits for non- gallery photographs:
Photography: Maxime Ballesteros
Styling: Jordan Nassar
Hair/Make-up: Stephen Riolo
Shoes courtesy of Darklands Berlin |
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ANA FINEL HONIGMAN is a Berlin-based critic and curator. She writes on contemporary art and fashion for publications including Artforum.com, Sleek, V, TANK, Art in America, Artnet.com, Art Journal, Whitewall, The National, Dazed & Confused and British Vogue. As a Senior Correspondent for the Saatchi Gallery's online magazine, Ana contributes exhibition reviews from Berlin, New York and elsewhere, as well as an interview series. To contact her, email anahonigman@hotmail.com
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| Published on 15-06-2009 |
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