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Beauty is Pain. “Helter Skelter” from 88 Films!

Lilico is the hottest Japanese fashion icon. Fans adore her, brands want her, magazines crave her, and paparazzi and photographers yearn to shoot and work with her beauty that inspires all and commands undivided attention. However, her astonishing beauty isn’t entirely organic as multiple surgeries through unorthodox surgical procedures that enhance her from a forgettable nobody to an unforgettable somebody. Her radical surgeries begin to show blight side effects of the surface of her skin, sending her into vanity driven sociopathic spiral of sex, mental torture, and self-destruction, also affecting those closely around her, especially her assistant Hada who takes the brunt of her maltreatment. When a new, hot model is presented by her manager and the world begins to fall in love with her, seemingly dropping Lilico from being the face of the fashion industry, the model’s snowballing and necrotizing surgical side effects can’t be stopped from becoming all but public.

Social commentary horror movies like “The Substance,” “The Neon Demon,” and “The Ugly Stepsister” underline the vast awfulness and extreme lengths of beauty standards. How to keep youthful, how to manipulate the face and body, and how envy can be weaponized from the worst of counterparts are just some of the attributes, which are very accurate outside the cinema, used as tropes for the body horror subgenre where attractiveness is the core catalyst that motivates monstrosities. These late 2010s and early 2020 films might not have been directly inspired by Mika Ninagawa’s “Helter Skelter” but definitely pulls from the same cloth. The 2012 Japanese fashion industrialized body and psychological horror is adapted by Arisa Kaneko based off the Kyôko Okazaki manga of the same name with established manga-to-film experienced producers, Morio Amagi (“Cutie Honey”) and Mitsuru Uda (“Xxxholic”), producing the WOWOW, Parco Co. Ltd, and Asmik Ace Entertainment film.

Objectification perspective isn’t always from the outside looking in but can be looking out as well. In “Helter Skelter,” model Lilico believes in her self-importance, treating others in subordinate to her illustriousness career as the hottest flavor in Japan’s fashion society. Society objectifies Lilico as nothing more than a stylistic Goddess who can do no wrong and even have the smallest bit of her in their space, whether be the hot topic of conversation or to the be face of their magazine cover, whereas Lilico objectifies those all around her with eviscerating self-proclaimed eminence and dominion over their mind, body, and soul. “Ghost Train’s” Erika Sawajiri has the perfect look and approach to celebrity derision without blatancy toward others as her expressionless face never contorts with anger, never smiles without the devilish smirk and piercing eyes, that makes the fashion icon unreadable and to sway of control during bi-polar scenes where happiness and disgust swing rapid on a totalitarianism pendulum. Personal assistant Michiko Hada, under the performance of “R100’s” Shinobu Terajima, takes the brunt of abuse during on-the-clock and off-the-clock professional and personal time. Terajima’s ordinary bearings for Hada make the character an easy target in contrast to Lilico’s ornate wardrobe and lavish style of living spurred by ruthless nature to be best and most beautiful, taking an authoritative sovereign stance of control in the fashion hierarchy. Lilico’s spoiled prince behavior coincides by a fueling Kaori Momoi in a queen-like mother figure as the talent agent who mostly advises her star pupil an instigating misconduct mindset with pro-surgical advice and like-minded guidance that artificially influences her body despite the pain and dangers as well as providing a mimicking behavior of dejecting and downcast harm. Nao Ōmori (“Ichi the Killer”), Gô Ayano (“Woman Transformation”), Kiko Mizuhara (“Attack on Titan”), Hirofumi Arai (“The Neighbor No. Thirteen”), Anne Suzuki (“Returner”), and Mieko Harada (“Ran”) all play a role in the rise and fall of Lilico.

Much like Lilico’s quickly deteriorating fractured state of mind, and body, Ninagawa utilizes a cinematic style that’s overly brilliant with neon colors and a sharp polished look that contrasts reality and distorted perception, creating a disjointed narrative digression Lilico experiences. The hyper stylization keeps in tandem with the fashion world of flash photography and gaudy maximalism, the ultra-violence and promiscuous behavior depict the cutthroat competition of remaining beautiful and the ugliness that’s truly inside, and the sheer flaunting of indifference and superficiality lingers throughout in and out of favor of our terrible protagonist who is actually the villain and the victim of her own tale. Each character is flawed beyond reproach and having no redeemable qualities that make them appear strong or promising to be a virtuous type. Not even the meek and eager-to-please personal assistant Hada who takes the punishing commands of her employer and manager in a purely pitiful subjugation of oneself to not lose a job position and be in the presence of stardom. Hada even lets Lilico invade her personal life and continues to let it happen with no choice in the matter. “Helter Skelter” embodies the very definition of the term with its confused and hurried chaotic state in design and in story while, in the same baroque breath, disenchanting the illusion of the fashion industry and beauty standards as not glamourous and genuine but fickle and fabricated with a heavy dish of backstabbing and self-destruction.

In the same spirit as photogenic magazine models, UK label 88 Films releases a beautifully crafted, limited-edition Blu-ray release. The numbered release Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080 high-definition resolution, onto a BD50 that was already shot digitally with a Red One MX camera through Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo lenses under cinematographer Daisuke Soma. This gave “Helter Skelter” a glamorously polished look to accentuate the hyper-stylized and contemporary look that starkly discolor the centralized characters as ruthless people of fashion and high society. When good finally enters the picture, a young model stepping to Lilico’s high heels as the next young, hot model, the harsh design of modernism is scaled back to simple and sterile aspects with more of the dramatics being held locally to the downfallen characters. Higher contrasts create deeper shadows amongst a medium-heavy color saturation that primaries strong statement colors like fire-engine red and Duke blue. The curvature of the anamophoric lenses, presenting in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, do show intentional signs of wrapping at the sides to capture the entirety of the wide shots in smaller spaces but adds to the surrealistic effect and is implemented at the right moments to make it all sensible. No compression issues to note. The Japanese DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and 2.0 Stereo tracks are the only two formats encoded. The 5.1 has formidable attention to the side and back channels with the chaotic fashion-industry ambiance with erratic behaviors steering the scene. Every action detail is highlighted to bring quieter scenes more tension and every tumultuous moments a fuller body. The dialogue is crystal clear and layered appropriate with environmental track and soundtrack. Moods rise up and down with the fluctuation soundtrack that pulsates in breath-holding, provocative, turning-point scenes that while melodies play in more of shocking portions to entice attention during climatic notes. The newly translated English subtitles have no synchronization or grammatical issues to note and pace well with the visuals. Special features include a feature in tandem audio commentary with Tori Potenza and Amber T., interviews with star Erika Sawajiri and director Mika Ninagawa, a behind the scenes of raw footage making the film, the Japanese premiere stage greeting, an opening day stage greeting, the Q&A from the Taipei Film Festival with director Mika Ninagawa, the original rehearsal footage, an image gallery, and the teaser and official trailers. Like Ninagawa’s film, 88 Films tangible release is also hyper-stylized with newly commissioned art by Luke Insect that’s surreal, color, and slightly disturbing. The clear Scanavo cases comes with an gold Obi strip with film and Blu-ray details and the sleeve is dual sided with original Japaense compositional design on the inside. Inserted inside is a 23-page color booklet with a chaptered essay by Violet Burns, complete with color photo stills and promotional photos with the front and back art contrasting the two model women in a good and evil, light and dark, way. The not rated, limited-edition Blu-ray has a runtime of 127 minutes and is A and B encoded to support playback in the Americas as well as Europe.

Last Rites: There are plenty of horror as well as commentary films about fashion, but none do it with style quite like Mika Ninagawa and still develop an unrivaled cynicism of self-implosion.

Beauty is Pain. “Helter Skelter” from 88 Films!

Charles Milles Manson was a notorious criminal and cult leader living a commune lifestyle in the peace and love era of the 1960’s. The Mason Family was his communal cult following that squatted in the outskirts of Californian desserts and self indulged in hallucinogens. Radicalized and dangerous, Manson exploited their unwavering loyalty to his radicalizing behavior of a hippie way of life. Filmmaker John Aes-Nihil, a collector and lionizer of all things Charles Manson, shoots a recreation of the daily activities of Mason’s cult members, filmed at infamous Manson locations that gave a taste of commune life while also providing shuddering atmospheric insights of kill spots. To Aes-Nihil, Charles Manson lived and breathed through interpretation of their, so called, home movies.

Filmed between 1974 to 1979, three years after Charles Manson was convicted of first degree murder, director John Aes-Nihil filmed his rather homage-life rendition of what he calls the “Manson Family Movies.” Not released until 1984, Aes-Nihil also brings legend to fruition of a rumor that Manson and his followers filmed much of their daily rituals and societal deviancies, giving “Manson Family Movies” more stigma to the already controversial obsession the filmmaker already made mania in such a short turnaround from Manson’s conviction finale. “Manson Family Movies” is also a silent film, a rarity for a late 70’s, early 80’s that was just in an industrial transitional point of visual special effects and larger than life performances; yet Aes-Nihil’s remains silent and crudely finesses his interpretative documentary with stage play performances and badly scrawled title cards that instill an engrossing affect of internal sliminess toward the already visceral nature.

The cast consists of many unknown faces who have come and gone even before “Manson Family Movies” was first viewed by the public. Their involvement begs the question of their pride for subject matter involving the brutal stabbing murder of a pregnant woman with the senseless and, almost, toying deaths of couple as their listed names are more than likely pseudonyms, credited as if themselves were a part of a hippie commune with names like Rick the Precious Dove as Charles Manson, Krista Meth (Crystal Meth?), Porn Michael, Miss Sheila Star, and Sister Audress just to name some of the more eye-catching credits. As aforesaid, performances are choreographed indiscriminately that much of the violence goes by the waist side, but as characters go, more than most look the part with the exception of some transvestism as some actors and actresses don multiple roles in the bottom of the money barrel feature. Other dime actors included Katie Lazarus, Knarly Dana, Mr. Jacquetta, Judy, Ms Mule, Danny, Lori, Miss Head, Ms Brad, Moka, Chucky, Rusty, King Mama, and The Cosmic Ray. Seriously…

Not much is first-rate about the “Manson Family Movies” aside from a couple of exceptions: 1) Cult Epics amazing two-disc re-release that’ll be covered later and 2) the fact that Aes-Nihil constructed home like movies using what looks like 8mm negative film complete with deterioration and defects, providing a desensitizing and demoralizing halo around the heavy material. “Manson Family Movies” won’t be many audiences cup of historical tea and many folks will probably point out that this is only an interpretation of events, but was the raid on “Pearl Harbor” accurately depicted by Jerry Bruckheimer or did James Cameron give every minute detail correct in “Titanic?” I think not. Not to compare apples to oranges to blue berries, but as base observation, Aes-Nihil did what any director would have more than likely done with an influential historical moment, a little embellished reenactment no different from the stud Hollywood filmmakers.

Cult Epics’ re-release of the “Manson Family Movies” is now presented in a region free, two-disc set complete with a slip illustrated with the same composited Charlie Manson head cover art by Brian Viveros and the same disc art by Charles Manson himself from the 2005 release. The film is presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio with the black bars on either side of the frame and, as previously mentioned, the image clarity is marked by scratches, flares, and dirt. Surely, for visual stimulation. Billed a silent film, the dual channel mix of the redux and remastered score is resoundingly poignant and strangely vibrant with Charlie Manson and his Manson Family recorded music as the soundtrack. Plus, there are actually less aesthetically audio tracks from Sloppy Titty Freaks, Beyond Joy and Evil, Glen Meadmore, and some sampling of the Beatles from, you guessed it, Helter Skelter. Special features include John Aes-Nihil commentary track, outtakes with director’s commentary, last interviews with Charles Manson, the original LADP crime and morgue photos, and the second disc contains Sharon Tate’s home movies without an audio track. After watching “Manson Family Movies,” John Aes-Nihil comes to suspicion as perhaps one of Charlie’s commune followers as he depicts a chilling look into the past, through a window of ghastly sovereignty over impressionable young people, and champions a real home movie approach that makes the entire package, along with a invigoratingly haunting score, a black gem.