Body Beneath, The (and Vapors)
Director: Andy Milligan
Year Released: 1970
Rating: 1.0
I don't mind gore or violence or cheap sets or light-hearted silliness when the movie's mood is right (like, for example, in some of John Waters' 'better' films), but one thing I can't bear in Z-grade movies is slow-moving tedium, and that's all this film is. It's obvious where it's going from the beginning, but Milligan refuses to move things along, thinking the languor would somehow contribute to the 'spooky' atmosphere. The nonsensical drudgery on display cannot possibly be mistaken for art - though his 1963 black and white short film Vapors [1963] could, since it's an altogether better (and more ambiguous) picture (almost a one-act play) about the inhabitants of an unnamed bathhouse one night in New York City. Two men in one decrepit room talk about dreams, self-doubt and the one man's troubled marriage and dead teenage son; although it isn't the most technically sound short I've ever seen (the camera's motor can be overheard), it is effective for the brief time it's on the screen - a comparable piece would be Genet's Un chant d'amour. If you asked a stranger to compare the movies, he/she probably wouldn't be able to tell the same filmmaker made them.
