Le jour du massacre

Bloody Wednesday treads some of the territory I value the most in cinema, the mind in disarray, its structure embodied in architecture, the pressures within and without. It also as a social agenda, which matters less to me as a viewer but does have the advantage of being something I agree rather strongly with. It is perhaps unfortunate that it announces itself so boldly with the title and opening text, telling instantly that this is less cinema of exploration than cinema as arrow, clean flight from singing bow to grisly target, but its a well mounted and weird enough affair to mostly forgive its shortcomings. The tale is of Harry Curtis, divorced, perpetual loser, who wigs out one afternoon and loses his job as a mechanic, then rocks up to a church service in the buff and is sent for psychiatric evaluation for his efforts. But even though the doctor has her suspicions, he can't stay and ends up living in an abandoned hotel. Then slowly but surely, things get out of control... The key reference point is The Shining, hotel of grand spaces and dark corridors, menacing history and beguiling phantasms a mirror for the mind, a place to get lost and overwhelmed. But instead of gorgeous decor and Steadicam shots there's a talking teddy bear. And snakes, and ghosts that map to Curtis and his frustrations rather directly, and a street gang who turn up to make his life even harder. Its a curious and somewhat derivative brew with an ending inspired by a real life massacre of a few years previous, but generally decent writing pulls it off in engaging fashion. Characters are nicely defined and there are some interesting and quirky lines it has a writerly feel to it rather than the rather flat point a to point b no fuss no muss approach that may such films take. This is probably due to being written by Philip Yordan, who scored a Oscar win in the 50's and a couple more nominations, and though relegated to the realms of low budget horror by the 80's clearly figured he should still take his best shot at every project. Some of the performances help, Raymond Emendorf has a good blank melancholy that steadily grows to creepy intensity, Pamela Baker concerned and likable as his doctor, and Jeff O'Haco bes as the lead street tough, arrogant and venomous but smart in his way. Other performances are weaker, but it doesn't matter too much, the film moves nicely and delivers when it comes to the crunch, an appropriately bloody showdown with decent body-count. Altogether this isn't a film to set anyones life alight, but its good fun in its little way and a thoroughly agreeable late night time filler. Strong 6/10.

Your average neighborhood coffee shop is the scene of a massacre; then, the story shifts to one Raymond Elmendorf (as Harry Curtis). Mr. Elmendorf is employed as an automobile mechanic; but, he can't "make things fit anymore." Unable to repair a car, the newly unemployed Elmendorf attends a church service in the buff. Society doesn't appreciate his public exhibition, and Elmendorf is locked up. He begins to see sexy psychiatrist Pamela Baker (as Dr. Johnson)…

The best scenes occur after Elmendorf is released as an outpatient, and moves into an eerily photographed apartment building (with his madness). He is terrified by monsters from the Id, and punks from the street. Gilhuis/Ryan do some psycho creepy stuff. Jeff O'Haco (as Animal) has a nice pool hall scene. Wife Teresa Mae Allen (as Elaine) has a sexy scene (which turns ugly, of course).

If "Bloody Wednesday" was supposed to show how this man could massacre people in a coffee shop, it misfires.

Talk about a misunderstood film! Bloody Wednesday is a movie about one mans decline into utter madness and the reasons as to why he murdered 36 people in a coffee shop one night. Written for the screen by Academy Award Winner Philip Yordan, you would think this movie would get a better wrap.

The movie circles around a man named Harry, an auto mechanic who is going through a nasty little divorce. When Harry gets fired from his job he starts really losing his mind by walking into a church completely naked singing Halleluya. He is committed to a hospital for sometime. Whe he is released his brother gives him a place to stay, a secluded rundown hotel. It is here that Harry quickly starts losing his mind as he sees ghosts, his life is threatened by street toughs, his teddy bear starts talking to him, etc etc. This all leads up to the obvious disaster at the end.

I thought this was a most enjoyable film. Originally I put this movie on to just go to sleep to, but the movie kept my interest to the very end. What makes this movie so much fun is really seeing the reactions of the people around Harry as they see him slip into insanity. This movie is no masterpiece writing as most of it is rather humorous. The basic message of the movie was well thought out though. I don't know if this was based on a true story or not, but, if it was I wouldn't rely on this movie to tell an accurate story of what happened.

Overall, an enjoyable piece of trash. Definitely worth watching again. 6/10

I am nostalgic for the 80s and the days of going to neighborhood video stores, or even to neighborhood 7-11s, to rent VHS tapes for home viewing. One way of appeasing this nostalgia is to watch 80s movies now that I didn't catch back then, and "Bloody Wednesday" was one of these so I found it on You Tube.

A California mechanic begins acting very weird and "can no longer work." After walking naked and singing into a church, he gets hospitalized, but is released to his brother's custody. His brother puts him up in an old empty hotel he's in charge of, and things get weirder and weirder until the final acts of violence.

This movie tells you what's going to happen from its opening scene so there can be no "spoilers" here. But it really has nothing to do with the "McDonald's Massacre" in southern California in the early 80s. Repeated online descriptions say it does, but these are simply wrong. The character here bears zero resemblance to James Huberty of the real-life massacre, and this movie is more a low-budget, urban aping of "The Shining" than it is about any real-life massacre.

The guy's hallucinations here are unrealistic and deeply involved in a way that I've never heard of hallucinations being with real patients. They are much more detailed fantasies than hallucinations, and most people know what their private fantasies are and do not believe them to be real. Our character here does, and this does not always make for a plausible viewing experience.

Confusing matters further is the fact that there are apparent REAL threats against our character in the form of three punks with a stupid grudge against him. In a sequence more bizarre than any of his fantasies, our guy ends up in an extended conversation with one punk about everything including the meaning of life!

All this may have worked better if done in a different style. As it is, with our guy fumbling between fantasy and reality while distracting action sequences are thrown in, it seems a muddle.

I think the guy's talking teddy bear is a good character and should have been developed more. Instead, there are distractions with hallucinated butlers and possibly hallucinated private eyes looking for long-stashed treasures and such. Most of the stuff with the punks is another snooze, and endless sequences of our guy trying to seduce his female psychiatrist (!!) just go nowhere as well.

Even the final massacre is done oddly, with several people conveniently jumping out on cue to get shot. The end that our shooter comes to is different from real-life Huberty's. The general racial make-up of the victims is different. Huberty's was an attack on a popular fast-food joint. Here we have an attack on a small family restaurant. Huberty called for psychiatric help before his crimes but was put on a callers' waiting list. Our man here has steady psychiatric attention that does him no good. Huberty never separated from his family and was living with them the day of the McDonald's Massacre. Our man here is long abandoned by his wife. Huberty let legitimate concerns about the government become driving obsessions. Our guy here is totally apolitical. And on and on go the complete differences.

Our guy here is hard to sympathize with as he acts child-like and confused one moment, but arrogantly sure of his sanity and dismissive of others the next. Hey, he just forgot to put his clothes on before going to church, what's the big deal?! Such is a guy who is not exactly going to pull at your heartstrings.

Nonetheless, this movie succeeds in some ways as an 80s oddity complete with a Casio-driven score. It is worth a look for 80s video fans in spite of its flaws, and enjoyable in some ways for fans of the strange, especially fans of the low-budget strange. All others need not apply.

Miles better than some of the other movies of the 1980s and 1990s Philip Yordan was responsible for, but still pretty shoddy and odd.

It starts off with a text scroll and voice-over explaining how the world isn't safe anymore, and how a bunch of people came to be killed in a coffee shop. We then see the bodies in the coffee shop. We then see the events leading up to that massacre.

Harry is a strange man working in a garage. It's unclear if he is retarded or what exactly, since his behavior from scene to scene isn't entirely consistent. He's taken a car engine apart neatly and completely, but he can't figure out how to put even two pieces back together again (evidently he's usually very good at it). He's fired and his brother is called to come help him. Harry later walks into a church, singing along as he walks down the center aisle, naked. He's hospitalized where he proves to be very hostile with the Doctor there, but is released for lack of space and funding.

Harry's older brother sets him up in an abandoned hotel he owns that still has electricity and plumbing. How much of what follows is real is unclear, since Harry seems to have very vivid hallucinations. Some punks who've snuck into the hotel give him trouble. Harry imagines he sees a bellhop and some of the former tenants of the hotel (shades of The Shining). He talks to his teddy bear, and hears it talking back to him (I was reminded of the boy in 1981's The Pit). He evidently has an ex-wife as well (she's in several scenes), or maybe she isn't real, I'm really not sure. He receives outpatient treatment from the Doctor who discharged him. He has some fantasies about he he can't separate from reality.