Header
With his feature film Header, director Archibald Flancranstin has done the impossible-he’s managed to bring one of extreme horror author Ed Lee’s most infamous and shocking works to the big screen without losing any of the things that made the novella so repulsive and beloved in the first place. Fans worried that a cinematic adaptation of Lee’s “Redneck Greek Tragedy” would be a neutered and spineless affair can rest easy-this is the same Header those of us fortunate enough to own a copy of the long out of print novella remember. It’s a rip-roaring, over-the-top, insane redneck splatterfest with subject matter so bizarre and offensive that most people would flee the room screaming if you played a scene or read a few sequences aloud. Seeing it recreated in front of a camera is both incredibly cool and very shocking.
On the list of life’s questions that you don’t really want to know the answer to, “what’s a header?” ranks right up there with “did that condom break?” and “why is there blood in my stool?”. I’ll not be spoiling what a header is in this review-because one of the things that makes both the film and the novella work is the sheer shock value of learning what it is firsthand in the course of the narrative. I’ll just say what everyone else says-it’s the ultimate form of hillbilly revenge-if someone wrongs you in such an awful way that you have no real recourse, it’s probably time to pull a header.
One of the more interesting technical achievements of the film is the way that Flancranstin and screenwriter Michael E. Kennedy have managed to capture the dichotomy of Lee’s story. Header revolves around two separate characters who wind up on a collision course-and the tone of each character’s existence is radically different from the other. Travis Clyde Tuckton (Elliot V. Kotek) is a good ol’ boy redneck just out of jail. With nowhere to go, he winds up moving back in with his legless hillbilly grandfather (Dick Mullaney-who steals every scene he’s in). Grandpappy teaches Travis the joys of the header-and the two of them set out to avenge every wrong ever committed against them and their family.
Meawnhile, ATF agent Stewart Cummings (Jake Suffian) is struggling to stay afloat financially. He’s been with the Agency for five years and has never gotten a promotion. His girlfriend is at home suffering from some debilitating illness, and Stewart can’t afford the cost of medicine. To subsidize his income, he’s taken up running drugs for the local moonshiners. Where Travis and Grandpappy are hilarious caricatures for the most part (and presented in a way that highlights the fact), Cummings is a more somber character and his story grounds the surreal proceedings in something at least resembling reality.
This is one of the wisest decisions on the part of the filmmakers. Without this grounding, Header would still be pretty shocking-but it would be so “out there” that at least some of the punch would be lost. The way that Kennedy and Flancranstin balance these wildly divergent tones is commendable. It could feel as though two different films had been spliced together to make one, but these guys make it work and the film is better for it.
This is not to say that Header is without flaws, though. It’s a low-budget indie horror film and as such it’s not going to appeal to everyone. The work is impressive for what it is, but fans of mainstream Hollywood genre cinema will find the unknown actors and smaller budget production values less impressive than those of us who regularly view these sorts of films. It’s their loss, though.
You could, however, fault the film for being a little cheesy in spots (particularly any scene involving Travis, his Grandpappy, or a header), but it’s just as easy to cite that as part of the film’s charm. Kotek and Mullaney are playing the characters from Lee’s novella and they’re crazy and over-the-top caricatures there too. Lee has a gift for writing frighteningly hilarious rednecks, but if you’re looking for bad guys who’re terrifying, the leads in Header are probably going to disappoint you.
The penchant for rednecks leads to one of the film’s other problems-it’s occasionally hard to understand the dialogue. The cast is speaking in Lee’s version of redneck-ese, complete with lots of hilariously awful euphemisms for things. The issue is that the actors aren’t rednecks-and I don’t even think any of them actually have southern accents. So what ensues is a group of people trying to sound like rednecks-and stereotypical rednecks at that. The end results are some genuinely awful accents that make understanding the dialogue all but impossible. Mullaney, in particular, can be hard to follow-which is a shame, because he has most of the film’s memorable lines.
If you can get past that and the low budget thing, then Header turns into a good time (well, as good a time as you can have given the subject matter…). It’s clear that Flancranstin and crew love the source material (that’s Ed Lee himself, alongside fellow horror author Jack Ketchum, playing the two local cops in one scene-other homages include a cop reading Ed Lee’s Verotik Comics’ version of Grub Girl, and a cop named Straker, which was one of Lee’s early pen names. Oh yeah, the Dr. Seymour thing is a hidden reference too-it ties back to Lee’s real name) and went the extra mile to recreate Lee’s hellish vision exactly as it appeared on the printed page. As a fan, you can’t ask for much more than that.
Horror Geek Rating: 3 out of 5
Tags: DVD, Edward Lee, Film Reviews, gore, Header, redneck horror, Synapse Films
July 20th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I really dug the flick. Reminded me of those cheesy exploitation B-movies that took very fraked up subject matter and made it black humorously funny.
Good times.
I’m glad you didn’t reveal what a Header was.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I agonized over whether to reveal what it was or not–but I think it’s better if you go in not knowing. It’s so much more fucked up when you have no idea what’s coming.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
All I can say is this movie sucks. It tries to be all deranged
and crazy, but it just turns out to be a joke that goes on way to long. Sure, the “header” thing is repulsive, but it gets boring
when it is repeated again an again. The actors are annoying, the story is just dead. It has all the wrong traits of a b-movie, and none of the good ones. To be warned – this will be the most wasted 90 minutes of your life – if you watch the flick.
December 19th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
i think this film although flawed ( ?) maybe in some senses is most likely not a waste of time and is worth checking out , not knowing what a header is is the best way to go into it . the acting i felt was a little over acted , and i felt the actors where trying way to hard to try and sound like real hillbillies . aside from that i really liked the film . ending was killer too .