Top Ten of 2021: The Voyeurs

The Top 10 of 2021 is a series of writings centered around my top 10 films of 2021.

The Top 10 of 2021 is a series of writings centered around my top 10 films of 2021. These pieces aren't meant to be film reviews. They are explorations of my personal connection to the films and will range in format from essays to poems.

Presented in no particular order.

Written and Directed: Michael Mohan

Synopsis:

Pippa and Thomas move into their dream apartment, they notice that their windows look directly into the apartment opposite, this will set in motion a chain of events that will lead to disaster.

Demonic Toys by Joe Cabello

There was a time when bare breasts were as common in movies as product placement is today. And no, the objectification in that sentence is not lost on me. In the 70s and 80s, it was practically a mandate to include breasts in your movie. In the case of Chopping Mall, an 80s horror movie about killer robots pursuing teens in a mall, there’s an early scene that according to the director Jim Wynorski, takes place in a women’s locker room and features a naked woman walking past in the background simply because the producer felt the film needed more breasts to sell.

This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment was Wynorski’s rebellious way of giving the producer what he wanted, but not in the way he wanted it. Ironically, a later scene features Barbara Crampton seductively stripping as she hums an equally seductive tune. This is not long before she’s burned alive in one of the most disturbing deaths in horror history. Much like Salem in the 1600s, we draw the line at sexual impurity, but not burning women at the stake.

While we may balk at these films now, context is important. Adult movie theaters thrived from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. Legitimate establishments with the same popcorn and soda pop as any other theater. Far from the dingey dungeon the late Fred Willard was caught in back in 2012, guilty of the crime of sitting in the very same red-velvet theater chair, only 50 years later. Luckily he deflected any real controversy using good humor. He’s a man of the 60s, after all.

These days, five seconds of on-screen boobs doesn't seem like a fair trade-off for a potential lifetime of emotional trauma for an actress who may have only shown them in hopes for greater stardom, only to never find it. Her folly forever etched in celluloid. Nevertheless, both then and now, I find myself titillated by these images with child-like glee.

I remember Demonic Toys, a Peter Manoogian horror film about… demonic toys. It still holds up (as much as a movie about demonic toys could). I rented it countless times as a child, and to this day, I’m not sure what my parents were thinking. The movie is unquestionably hard-R. Some of the delights you can expect from the movie include a demonic baby doll who says, “I can walk, I can talk, I can even shit my pants. Can you shit your pants too?”, violent deaths, including the actress I had a crush on (perhaps the reason I rented it so often) getting her face chewed off like cheese pizza by a jack-in-the-box. And of course, breasts. My bewilderment aside, this isn’t a criticism of my parents. It’s more of a thank you. I wouldn’t be who I am today without my parent’s ignorance.

I remember watching Demonic Toys for the third or fourth time with my grandma while my parents were off on a date night. Why on Earth would I choose Demonic Toys to watch alongside my grandma? If I were a serial killer, it was my “he wants to get caught” moment. Seeking atonement through flagellation. An hour or so in, we got to the scene where the Devil presents himself as a topless woman to seduce the main character. A scene I knew very well (perhaps the second reason I rented it so often). I pulled the blanket over my head in rehearsed shame.

My grandma was incredulous. “What the hell are you doing?”

I told her that I shouldn’t be seeing that.

She said something to the effect of “who cares?” I think it may have even been “I don’t give a shit if you see that.”

I unshielded my eyes just as the scene ended. The topless woman gone. The Devil standing in her place.

I like to think my grandma was making a commentary on the fact that we’d already endured an hour of extreme violence to get to this point of the movie. What’s a couple of boobs? The truth is, she might have just been drunk.

It takes a lot of trust to participate in something so overtly sexual that it borders on pornography. It’s as frail as celluloid.