Ghost Bride (2013)

While every culture has its own unique spin on ghosts, Asia in particular seems to have the market cornered when it comes to having the most interesting twists on the concepts of ghosts which naturally translates well to film. Obviously Japan is a prime example, with the classic tale Yotsuya Kaidan having been adapted to film over 30 times since 1912, including a version by Takashi Miike in the form of Over Your Dead Body (2014). Of course there was also the J-horror craze from the late 90's into the early 2000's with films like the Ringu (Ring) and Ju-on (The Grudge) series as well as One Missed Call (2003) from the aforementioned Miike. South Korea's A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) also found a big international fanbase solidifying Asian ghost films as the biggest trend of the time. Curiously, one of the finest horror films, 2013's Ghost Bride, centered around specters rooted in Asian lore was in fact not an Asian, but rather a New Zealand based film from the master of Kiwi horror David Blyth. Much like his fetish documentary Transfigured Nights (2007), the inspiration for Ghost Bride came from the internet after Blyth discovered photos and audio recordings from a “ghost bride ceremony” and the resulting film, though much less confrontational than Blyth' previous horror film Wound (2010), is nevertheless a wonderful example of Blyth's signature take on the fantastic.

Despite being in a loving relationship with his girlfriend Syke, Jason Chen, the son of Chinese immigrants raised in New Zealand is under constant pressure from his ailing mother Alice to respect his late, strictly traditionalist fathers wishes to marry a Chinese girl. Keeping his relationship with Skye a secret from his mother and in an attempt to humor her, Jason visits matchmaker Madame Yin who selects for him the silent and subservient May-Ling, though Jason is loyal to Skye and the two are soon engaged, though Jason soon learns the truth about Madame Yin's intentions when May-Ling unleashes her otherworldly jealousy on Jason and Skye.

Setting aside the horror elements for a moment, Ghost Bride is a fascinating film just based on the cultural clash that eventually leads to the horror with the idea of the child of immigrants at odds with his heritage having been raised in a culture wildly different than that of his parents possibly making an interesting drama in its own right. Given the differences between China and New Zealand, it actually makes the eventual supernatural happenings all the more original when considering the various differences in lore when it comes to ghost stories. Ghost Bride is of course a horror film first and foremost and at times a quite beautiful and moving one. While the title already implicates May-Ling's true nature, it's not so much Jason's discovery of her ghostly nature but rather Madame Yin's nefarious plans for choosing May-Ling to be his bride, ultimately making May-Ling the films most tragic and most sympathetic character. Although the film is vastly different from Wound, a good chunk of the film does occupy the same state of esoteric unconsciousness with everything including May-Ling and Jason's initial meeting, the actual “ghost bride” wedding ceremony and onwards playing out like a waking dream. The films final third stands out in particular with the brilliant editing making scenes seamlessly blend into each other, the narcotic haze becoming stronger with each moment. Blyth also sidesteps whatever issues the films limited funds might have caused with some stunning photography and even some moments of gore that give a surprising jolt.

Talking to the Never Repeats podcast, Blyth expressed some reservations when it came to the film, contrasting the shooting of the film with the production of Wound saying “Of course we were working long hours and it was a pretty intense film you know, Wound, but I loved it. It was liberating and it was energizing and I had the bestest time whereas Ghost Bride it was tough, it was hard, I felt I was comprising everyday, I was ripping out pages. It was a whole different experience, a very frustrating experience. It had to enter a kind of a zen level because I had to reduce everything.” Blyth described the shoot of Ghost Bride as “much more structured, much more old-fashioned” and claimed “Suddenly I got sort of lassoed back into a more traditional style of filmaking whereas Wound was liberating 'cause I was able to work with a smaller crew and just get a lot more done.” Blyth also discussed the differences in distribution between the two films with the extremities of Wound limiting is release save for the festival circus whereas Ghost Bride found itself on multiple streaming platforms and even on some TV stations giving it a much wider audience. Of course the film wound up going over many peoples heads though the horrible reviews are best ignored as Ghost Bride offers an intriguing antidote to unimaginative contemporary horror.

Wound (2010)

The motto of “Everything old is new again” has certainty taken a hold of many forms of media and while nostalgia is a pretty potent drug, it's not without its pitfalls. This is especially true when it comes to film and the horror genre in particular has been one of the most unfortunate victims. While obviously not every new film has to reinvent the wheel in order to be good, the sheer number of “throwback” or “homage” films attempting to recreate the styles of past decades has led the gimmick to wear extremely thin, resulting in a slew of films that, while aesthetically pleasing, are ultimately shallow with little to no personality of their own. The same could be said for attempts at “extreme” horror, when the sole attempt of the film is to shock, the gimmick gets old rather quick, rendering the intended shocks null and void. Enter Kiwi troublemaker David Blyth. After taking a ten year hiatus from narrative features following the difficult production of Exposure (2001) to teach and focus on documentaries, Blyth felt the need to go back to his roots and was ready to cause a stir the same way he did with his debut feature Angel Mine (1978). The resulting film was 2010's gut punch Wound, one of the most genuinely affecting and startlingly original post-new millennium horror films that sets a new benchmark for transgressive horror.

Delving into the mind of an extremely disturbed individual with an effectiveness not seen since David Cronenberg's Spider (2002), Wound can be a tricky film to get a handle on and defies any attempt to neatly summarize it. The focus of the film is the troubled Susan (Kate O'Rourke) who early on in the film castrates and murders her father whom sexually abused her as a child. The film follows Susan as she holds sadomasochist “therapy” sessions in front of a webcam with a man she refers to as “Sir”, has phone conversations with her dead mother Ruth who she herself set on fire and finds herself being perused by Tanya, a teenager who claims to be her estranged daughter that Susan believed to have been stillborn and who reveals herself to be just as disturbed, if not more so than Susan.

Wound is the type of film that operates entirely within the unconscious and being that it occupies Susan's headspace for its entirety, any and all concepts of reality of logic are tossed aside relatively quickly. Very few films are as successful at quite literally getting into the head of its main character, oftentimes to the point of extreme discomfort with the film being incredibly frank in its portrayal of the possible effects of abuse. Blyth strips away any possible reasonable explanation for the events happening on screen, most fascinatingly with the character of Tanya who, if Susan's past is to be taken as fact, doesn't really exist, which again goes back to how well the film pulls off taking place inside Susan's fractured mind. Despite the films (purposeful) lack of narrative cohesion, the film is anything but cold thanks to the demanding and cathartic performance of Kate O'Rourke who brilliantly transports Susan's trauma onto the audience making the film as moving as it is incendiary. The film also finds Blyth taking visual influences from his fetish documentaries Bound for Pleasure (2004) and Transfigured Nights (2007), using them in a fictional context with one S&M act performed in the film lifted straight from Bound for Pleasure and the striking, grotesque masks at the heart of Transfigured Nights are prominently featured throughout. There are even some unforgettable moments of gore splatter with Blyth holding nothing back, including two scenes that are sure to have even the most jaded “extreme” horror viewers jaws hitting the floor.

Speaking to the Never Repeats podcast, Blyth explained his intent going into Wound saying “2000 I made Exposure... and it had so many producers and I came out of it so depressed. I then spent the next ten years basically the tutor at South Sea's Film School... The whole thing with Wound was that I became so frustrated and I went back and I re-looked at Angel Mine and I said to myself I've got to go back to my roots, I've got to go back to the unconscious, to the things that drove me and attracted me at the beginning of my career because I'd lost all of it, I'd become a journeyman, I'd become a hired gun.” How fitting that 32 years after Angel Mine, Blyth's comeback film made with the same spirit would draw the ire of moral crusaders just as Angel Mine did, with there being campaigns in New Zealand calling for the banning of Wound, which failed. Much like Death Warmed Up (1984) was championed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Wound found a high profile fan in another pioneer transgressor, the legendary Ken Russell, who loved the audacity of it and was rightfully quoted on the DVD examining “Enter at your own peril!” Russell couldn't have been more right when he dubbed the film a masterpiece. A visually astonishing and potentially psychologically traumatizing experience, Wound stands as Blyth's magnum opus.      

Bound for Pleasure (2004) / Transfigured Nights (2007)

Along with being know as a master transgressor with a particular knack for horror with films like Angel Mine (1978), Death Warmed Up (1984) and Wound (2010), New Zealand based provocateur David Blyth is also a celebrated documentarian. Blyth's first work in the documentary field was the highly personal Our Oldest Soldier (2002), centered around his grandfather, WWI veteran Lawrence 'Curly' Blyth,  who was part of the liberation of the French town of Le Quesnoy in 1918 and was later awarded a French Legion of Honor. The story of the liberation was the subject of another Blyth documentary, French Connection (2011) and Blyth's telling of his grandfathers story later branched out into a series of ongoing interviews with New Zealand war vets entitled Memories of Service. In 2004 and 2007, Blyth once again returned to the documentary field, albeit with radically different subject matter. Fetishism has always played a part in several of Blyth's films going all the way back to his debut feature Angel Mine and various forms of kink would re-appear in Death Warmed Up via mesh nurses masks, Hot Blooded (1997) was described by Blyth as a "dominatrix road movie"  and Wound is loaded with memorable and unsettling fetishistic imagery. With both Bound for Pleasure and Transfigured Nights which followed four years later, Blyth takes a look into the world of Kiwi kink with fascinating and at times terrifying results.

With Bound for Pleasure, Blyth shines a light on the world of the professional dominatrix, focusing on several madame's and mistresses in New Zealand. Each dominatrix profiled brings their own unique way of viewing their chosen profession, each offering their insights on a variety of topics related to the field of professional domination be it what they themselves get out of it, how “polite” society might view them and most interestingly, what they feel drives their mostly male clientele to keep coming back. Along the way, Blyth introduces some of the ladies most loyal costumers who's views on their own personal kinks are equally as interesting. Naturally given the subject matter the film is quite frank and Blyth never shies away when it comes to actually filming the mistresses showcasing their talents and for a documentary the film is often incredibly stylish given the theatricality of some of the S&M scenarios. Blyth's attitude towards his subjects throughout the film is entirely objective, only making himself known one time to ask a question to a man living with his mistresses to willingly be humiliated. At times the film can even be rather funny with the no holds barred attitudes of all the people interviewed and there are moments that are surprisingly emotional, for example the story of an older gentleman entering into a fully submissive relationship with his mistresses near the end of the film, the attitudes of both parties involved making for an incredibly sweet, Story of O-esque romance with the genders flipped.

Transfigured Nights, while still rooted in the fetishism, is something else entirely. Instead of focusing on a multiple kinks, Blyth takes a deep dive into the online world of “masking”, wherein men act out various fantasy scenarios in front of a webcam audience wearing rubber or latex masks and some even donning full body latex or rubber suits. Featuring testimonials from several masking aficionados, all wearing their masks and costumes of choice, it's an utterly fascinating and bewildering look into one of the strangest areas of the fetish world. Stylistically, the film is unique as everything is presented entirely via grainy webcam footage making the film feel far more personal and oftentimes very uncomfortable. Much like Bound for Pleasure, Blyth is once again entirely objective, letting the maskers speak for themselves in explaining what draws them to the webcam and again, like in the previous film some can be quite comedic, like the story of a man's mother-in-law discovering her love for rubber or the last interview with one “Miss Piggy”, who's mask of choice is, naturally, a pig mask, who's jovial the entire time. It's the wordless segments in-between the interviews that take the film into pure nightmare territory, such as an individual slowly wrapping themselves in layers of plastic or the “Lady of the Mask” as the person is credited as, removing one mask after another only to reveal more grotesque masks, all scored to a soundtrack of unsettling drones, somewhat reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's main theme to Mulholland Drive (2001).

While being interviewed at the Fantasia Film Festival in 2008, Blyth explained the connection he feels with dominatrix's saying “I've always sort of had an affinity with the dominatrix's, we seem to understand each other. I understand very clearly the kind of role play, performance, transformational therapy that they're involved in and of course I guess I came to them in a way where I wasn't going for the cliché, the stereotype because they're just like the women next door it's just that they have a very different, you know, career curve...” Blyth also explained how Yahoo served as one of the origins of Transfigured Nights stating “Basically Transfigured Nights came out of when the Yahoo user groups were still the wild west” and how he himself even got involved in the world of masking in order to fully understand the community. Blyth admitted “It took a number of years to actually move down into this very unique little boutique that I found and one just had to go very gently with it and be patient.” Blyth essentially made the entire film himself which required buying multiple hard drives and gaining ultimate trust with the participants despite the anonymity of the masks. Despite the niche subject matter, both films offer a compelling look into some pretty curious proclivities and would serve as an important stepping stone for Wound, Blyth's return to narrative features.