Bloodthirsty Butchers (Andy Milligan, 1970)

Andy Milligan films are their own weird trip. They don't look, move, or operate like the movies made by other human beings. They exist in their own weird space, hovering near amateurism, genius, insanity, boredom, exploitation, deeply felt emotion, misanthropic distance, absurdity, cliche, romantic yearning, intentional and unintentional comedy, and hackwork without putting a foot anywhere solid. He's the cinematic equivalent of the Four Corners Monument, permanently in multiple states.

Bloodthirsty Butchers is Milligan's terminally strange take on the Sweeney Todd story, filmed during his prolific London period. You know the gist of what happens if you're familiar with Sweeney Todd, but the way it happens is something else entirely. Milligan's shot compositions are extraordinarily odd and could be misinterpreted as incompetent or inexperienced, but he has an honest, disruptive aesthetic meant to disorient the viewer. He deliberately flips conventions, keeping speaking characters offscreen while focusing on the person listening, composing his shots so the rule of thirds is almost always violated, pointing the camera at the backs of people's heads, abruptly cutting to a quiet scene in the middle of intense action, framing his actors so part of their faces are cut off, cutting to an angle from the opposite side of the room just when you're getting your visual bearings.

Milligan's framing of the action and elliptical editing appear to be asking his audience, "Is this what you really want, you weirdos? Why are you trying to enjoy this?" Sound quality is inconsistent as well, with some dialogue crystal-clear and other lines blown out or muffled. This is less distracting in a Milligan film than it would be in your average Hollywood product. 

Blood and The Body Beneath, the other two Milligan films I've seen, were a bit more fun and dragged a little less, but that's almost beside the point in the Milliganverse. Rules, expectations, and conventional aesthetics must be discarded, and, besides, Bloodthirsty Butchers is not without its pleasures, especially its campy gore, oddball dialogue, freeze-frame prank ending, and general good-natured misanthropy. 

I don't know how many more ways I can say that Andy Milligan films only look like Andy Milligan films and that you need to see at least one if you're interested in independent, horror, queer, protopunk, cult, and/or '70s cinema. I've been working long, crazy hours lately, and I'm tired, so I will bid you adieu until next week. I don't know if this review made any sense.