Editorials
How 1977 Horror Movie ‘Rituals’ Exploits the Threatening Canadian Landscape [Maple Syrup Massacre]
Maple Syrup Massacre is an editorial series where Joe Lipsett dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films. Spoilers follow…
In the first two entries of this series – on Adam MacDonald’s Backcountry and Grant Harvey’s Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning – we spent a fair amount of time talking about the Canadian relationship to wilderness.
The outdoors – whether it be woods, open plains, mountain ranges, or desert valleys – has a mythic quality in Western and horror films. For Canadians, the wilderness is a massive part of our identity: the country has a relatively small population (38.25M in 2021, less than the state of California’s 39.34M) in a massive geographical region of 9M square kilometers (or 3,474,919 square miles).
For reference, that’s 3.9 people per square kilometer, compared to the US’s 35.3. So yeah, we’re a fairly small population in a giant geographical area.
In Australia, the vast majority of the population hugs the coast in order to avoid the extreme heat of the Outback. Canadians also tend to congregate in specific geographical areas: namely the southern border near the US. In the 2016 census, two out of three people (66%) lived within 100 kilometres (62 miles) of the US border, an area that represents only 4% of Canada’s territory (see the red line on the map above).
There’s a historical reason for this: Southern Ontario and Quebec is where English and French settler-colonialists established the fur trade back in the 16th century, it provided easy exchange of goods and services with the US, and according to historian William Lewis Morton, the area had the most arable land for agriculture.
The key take away from these statistics is a huge portion of Canada is daunting wilderness: inhospitably cold in the north, large mountain ranges in the west, and tempestuous storms in the east. These are broad generalizations, but there’s a reason why horror films, and particularly Canadian films, center around the horror of leaving the city behind.
1977’s Rituals is one such film. While the overall premise bears a slight resemblance to Deliverance – a group of men on vacation encounter a threatening presence in the woods – the Canadian film doesn’t dabble in the same kind of rural horror class critique.
Ian Sutherland’s script focuses on five doctors who vacation together each year. There’s neurologist Harry (Hal Holbrook); general surgeon Mitzi (Lawrence Dane); gay general practitioner Martin (Robin Grammell); Martin’s brother D.J. (Gary Reineke); and bad family man/buffoon, Abel (Ken James).
The film begins as the men set out on a camping and fishing trip in Northern Ontario. When Rituals opens, the men have already gathered at the outpost where the seaplane departs; the film notably contains no images of a city or even a town. From here the men becoming increasingly isolated when they’re deposited in the woods and told they’ll be picked up in six-days time.
Naturally there’s a man in the woods who bears them ill-will and kills them off one by one. Like the slasher films of the 80s, the villain is tied to a(n undercooked) back story that provides an explanation of sorts, but it’s less satisfying that the unraveling homosocial bonds between the doctors as they negotiate the perilous, rugged Canadian landscape.
From the first scene, there’s disagreement and animosity within the group. Mitski is trying to recruit Harry to come (financially) aboard a “franchise” surgery that is eventually revealed to involve penis enlargement. This opens a discussion that establishes that each man has a different philosophical and ethical approach to their practice, ranging from cosmetic and “for profit” medicine to workload and compassionate care.
All it takes is the disappearance of the group’s hiking boots on the first night to throw the personalities into even greater conflict. Control freak D.J., the only one with a second pair of shoes, ventures off solo to a nearby hydro-electric dam to get help. When he doesn’t return, the others construct rudimentary foot protection and set off after him.
Rituals includes several stand-out set pieces, many of them involving traps set up by the mysterious figure. These include a wasp attack, a harrowing river crossing featuring hidden underwater bear traps, and a shocking (and frankly nihilistic) fiery climax.
Early in the film Marty is injured and requires the use of a rudimentary stretcher that must be manually carried. His status quickly becomes the center of a moral and ethical debate. Mitzi repeatedly argues that they should abandon Marty in order to make better time, thereby increasing their likelihood of survival. Harry, however, disagrees. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that the two men have a medical history informed by shame and regret that is weighing heavily on their current situation. (Trace and I will undoubtedly tackle the casual depiction of queerness, and how it becomes “a burden” to straight men, in a future episode of Horror Queers).
While the traps prove challenging, the danger is repeatedly accentuated by the geography of Northern Ontario. From starvation to rain to threatening river currents and steep rock quarries, the men are repeatedly tested by their environment, which is captured in all of its terrifying beauty by director Peter Carter and cinematographer René Verzier.
At nearly 1 hour and forty minutes, some reviewers call the film slow-paced, particularly its character-focused last act. Unlike many other rural horror films, however, Rituals excels at balancing its moral and ethical debate with the all-encompassing threat of Nature. And in that capacity, it feels uniquely Canadian.
Auteur Filmmaking is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days in reference to big name directors like Quentin Tarantino and even Wes Anderson, but the truth is that film is a collective medium, and no one person can be responsible for every single aspect of a particular production. However, the smaller a film’s budget, the bigger the individual impact of every creative decision behind it – and the easier it becomes to identify a genuine auteur.
This isn’t necessarily a judgement of value, as blockbuster filmmaking comes with its own challenges and a good movie remains a miracle regardless of how big the crew is, but I’ve always been more interested in soulful b-movies produced by handfuls of passionate artists than blockbusters backed by creative armies.
That’s why I love exploring low-budget franchises that never left the hands of their original creators, as you really get to know the artists involved with these flicks and can accompany their evolution over a period of time. With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to join me in this multi-part series as we look into a vampire saga helmed by one of the most fascinating auteurs of the 1990s. Naturally, I’m referring to Ted Nicolaou’s criminally underrated Subspecies!
The Birth of an Unlikely Horror Franchise
A proud graduate of the University of Texas’ Film program, Nicolaou got his start in the industry as a sound technician working on Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. From there, the filmmaker would go on to work for notorious indie producer Charles Band, the founder of both Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions. According to Nicolaou, Band would usually contact him with an offer to direct a feature after more prominent filmmakers, such as the late, great Stuart Gordon, had already refused, meaning that his projects tended to have lower budgets and more inexperienced crew members.
The plans for Subspecies began almost immediately after the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, with screenwriter David Pabian turning in an initial draft of the film after a Romanian producer contacted Band and explained that Romanian tax incentives could cover the cost of film production there so long as Full Moon took care of the post-production process. Since Stuart Gordon was unwilling to travel to Romania, Ted Nicolaou ended up taking over the picture.
However, while the financial incentives meant that this Romanian-American co-production could look and feel much more expensive than it really was, with Nicolaou scouting for locations in advance and selecting real castle ruins to be featured in the movie, the director was soon faced with an incredibly difficult shooting process. In interviews, Nicolaou would later describe the experience as something of a nightmare, with language barriers and the generalized distrust of capitalist outsiders sabotaging many of the team’s plans for the film.
In fact, the script, which had already been altered by Band, ultimately had portions of it rewritten by both Jack Canson and Nicolaou himself in an attempt to adapt the story to their unique limitations.
Radu Is One of Horror’s Greatest Underrated Villains
In the finished film, which was released directly to video in 1991, we follow a pair of American anthropology students, Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and Lillian (Michelle McBride), as they reunite with their Romanian colleague Mara (Irina Movila) in her native land. The group intends to study the folklore surrounding the secluded town of Prejmer, but their research is cut short by the return of Radu Vladislas (Anders Hove) – the evil son of a vampire king (Angus Scrimm) who had previously established a truce with the region’s human residents. It’s now up to Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) to protect the girls from a fate worse than death as the power-hungry vampire seeks to control a magical artifact known as the Bloodstone.
Right off the bat, you may have noticed that the film’s premise sounds decidedly old-fashioned when compared to other vampire movies from around the same time. While the 1990s saw the rise of cool-looking bloodsuckers with badass elements borrowed from Westerns, as well as the sexy aristocrats of Anne Rice’s stories, Subspecies has a lot more in common with Nosferatu and the Hammer Horror series than any of its contemporaries.
This is both a blessing and a curse, as the film falls victim to overly familiar genre tropes while also standing out as a rare example of a ’90s vampire flick that isn’t afraid to flex its muscles as a Creature Feature. In fact, I’d argue that the presence of age-old clichés is a small price to pay when confronted with one of the most compelling vampire antagonists in all of cinema.
Named after Vlad the Impaler’s real-life brother, Anders Hove’s Radu is such a fascinating character and the main reason why Subspecies is still worth watching 35 years later. From his animalistic mannerisms to the joy he feels in simply existing as a chaotic creature of the night, and that’s not even mentioning the iconic makeup that almost certainly inspired the undead from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Radu is a hypnotic presence harkening back to a time when audiences didn’t mind purely evil villains that couldn’t be redeemed through tragic backstories or sex appeal.
Gothic Atmosphere on an Indie Budget
Of course, the film’s Romanian setting and authentic art direction do a lot of the heavy lifting whenever Radu isn’t around. From the masked festivals of the village to the visually interesting selection of local extras, Subspecies’ multicultural elements help it to stand out when compared to similar flicks from the ’90s.
That being said, Nicolaou’s unique eye for special effects and exciting action sequences – as well as Vlad Paunescu’s excellent cinematography – make the movie a delight for fans of expressionist cinema and old-timey gothic horror. While the crew is obviously dealing with limited resources, many of the flick’s blemishes (such as the odd stop-motion demons that serve Radu) end up feeling more like charming idiosyncrasies than actual flaws.
I’d argue that the only real issue here is pacing, as there are long stretches of film where the protagonists are simply bumbling around without realizing what’s really going on around them. Thankfully, the gorgeous visuals and surprisingly effective soundtrack usually make up for this. Besides, how can you dislike a movie where shotgun shells are loaded with rosary beads and our lead vampires duke it out in a dramatic swordfight that would feel out of place during the golden age of Hollywood?
Your overall enjoyment of Subspecies will mostly depend on whether or not you find low-budget corner-cutting and janky practical effects charming rather than distracting, but I know I’ll keep coming back to this Full Moon feature again and again in the future.
That being said, while this first movie is worth revisiting by its own merits as the birth of an indie horror icon, I’d like to invite you to join us as we look into the cult sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II soon.
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