Everybody Loves the Nazis

I was with James in yet another of those weird suburban bars that
doesn’t have a name or any obvious indication that it’s meant to be a
public place. It was a Thursday night, so we were each approaching our
tenth beer when conversation turned to what Jezebel had done for
Greatsociety.org lately. Whenever we get to talking about Jezebel, we
always end up talking about submarine movies.

I had recently seen the David Twohy horror-fest Below,
which is about an American sub full of goofballs and freaky ghosts
being hunted by a German destroyer in 1943. It’s full of historical
inaccuracies that would make my old college professor throw up blood,
but it’s still about 18 light years better than U-571 in terms of filmmaking and capturing the mood of the era. Of course, Troma’s upcoming Zombiegeddon is likely to be 18 light years better than U-Not Very Well Done.

I’d decided not to review Below for gs.org because,
frankly, I find the writing method for reviews confining and
restrictive. That’s strange. Whenever I talk about things that are
confining and restrictive, I always end up talking about Jezebel.

I’m biased against Twohy because he wrote Waterworld. But you can forgive him that. He gave us Pitch Black,
which makes this the perfect time to embarrass Rotting Corpse by saying
that he’s often told me that Vin Diesel made him seriously consider
homosexuality. I don’t know what’s wrong with that crazy faggot. I’m a
Bruce Campbell man, myself.

Below is creepy enough to stick with me weeks later, sitting in
a dark bar with James, and jumping whenever I see pale faces in the
shadows. In fact, I’d suggest you put it on your short list. It’s got
the lovely Olivia Williams as the skirt, and every submarine movie
needs a skirt. The rest of the cast is fine, as well, but I must
confess to a strange preoccupation with Olivia every time she’s in a
scene. The plot holds water (har-har) and all of the scare moments grab
you the way they’re supposed to. Look for when Lt. Brice’s stuff is
thrown out of the cabin onto the floor of the hallway. That’s a grand
scare moment right there. In fact, just talking about it made me scream
and fall to the floor with glazed eyes. But James says that’s just
because I drank more beer than I have blood in my body.

Compared to the granddaddy submarine movie – Das Boot – the sets are positively luxurious. They’re not as bad as the U-571
sets which were borrowed from “Seaquest 2050” or whatever and painted
battleship grey. Twohy did a good job keeping the technology of the sub
to late 40’s standards, though he really should have set it in the
Pacific Theater. Then again, I’m a stickler for things like that…and if
it was in the Pacific, you wouldn’t have gotten Olivia Williams in a
life raft. Additionally, Twohy admits to fiddling with the history in
the excellent commentary track, and even compares Atlantic sub warfare
to Pacific sub warfare. So – forgiven. James says anything based in the
Pacific would have brought up McHale’s Navy jokes, anyway. I reminded
him that the original pilot for McHale’s Navy was a serious drama where
Borgnine and his wacky crew were stranded on an island, ruled the
natives with an iron fist, took women brutally and even murdered their
rescuers who had come to arrest them. Seriously. There’s this long,
disturbing scene where Borgnine throttles an officer. Never watch the
McHale’s Navy pilot if it ever comes around on TV Land. It’ll make you
cry.

Besides, a submarine in the Pacific should make you think of Run Silent, Run Deep.
Robert Wise directing Gable and Lancaster. You can’t go wrong. Well,
you can, actually, when you have spacious, air conditioned subs where
the entire crew remains clean shaven and dapper throughout their long
voyage. It’s my favorite Moby Dick tale, though. Mad Clark Gable is
obsessed with hunting down the Jap destroyer that sunk him a year
earlier. Lancaster thinks he’s lost his mind…and tempers flare as they
get their asses kicked.

Das Boot is, of course, the best of the best. A three year
odyssey led to the creation of that movie, based on the book written by
Buchheim (Lt. Werner in the movie). His experiences on U-96 and at a
port in France towards the end of the war were enough to make him a
rabid anti-war fanatic, and you see why in Das Boot. Nothing beats it, and I think it’s an unspoken rule that you shouldn’t try to outdo that film.

But Below isn’t a submarine movie. It’s an uber-creepy ghost story. It’s Sixth Sense meets Pitch Black filmed on the Alien set.

Now, if only the ghost stripped off Olivia Williams’ clothes and there
was a long, 45 minute sex scene… Ah, yes. That would have made for a
full Saturday of frame by frame screen grabs.

Talking of extensive, sticky sex scenes always gets me talking about
Jezebel, so I’m going to cut myself short. Besides, James just came
back to the table with an unlabeled bottle of…I don’t know what.