Jennifer Lynch reconsidered: Surveillance, Hisss, and a bit on human-to-Snake transformation films

Full disclaimer: I like Hisss (which I wrote about at some length some ten years ago). The filmmaker, Jennifer Lynch, also sometimes credited as Jennifer Chambers Lynch, has disowned it -- and participated in a making-of documentary about what an ordeal it was to film, which I have not yet seen (it's called Despite the Gods and is on Tubi), but, what can I say, as a snake lover who gets nostalgic for the scent of garter snake ooze on his fingers, and as someone who used to actually imagine himself a cold-blooded creature to explain his sluggishness at running laps around the schoolyard on cold days -- I am highly partial to human-to-serpent transformation movies. There's a surprisingly long list of films, including, besides Hisss the similarly-titled Sssssss (where the snake transformation is involuntary and spurred on by a mad scientist, terrifically played by Strother Martin)...

There's also the Hammer horror film The Reptile, where the snake-creature is the result of some sort of curse connected to British colonialism in India (if memory serves)...

...Dreamscape, where the cobra-man is a nightmare figure inserted into a child's dreams by a malicious psychic, played by David Patrick Kelly of The Warriors fame...

...and possibly even The Lair of the White Worm, which Hisss has a bit in common with, in that it is the only one where the transformation at hand is related to a character being a kind of god, or, uh, god-monster, if you will. It's arguable, perhaps, whether said creature is a snake, but as you can see, there is a definite connection in the creature design to the other monsters on this page: 

It's actually a bit curious how many such films exist, given how unlikely it is for people to change into snakes, which are fairly far removed from us, morphologically speaking; there must be some sort of Jungian thing at work, though I am not steeped enough in Jung to do it justice. But Hisss combines elements of all of these films, including a somewhat deranged, cancer-afflicted scientist who is hoping to extract a cure for his condition from the cobra he has taken (whose lover, a cobra goddess, sets to hunting him); the cross-cultural elements of The Reptile, which Hisss shares (the evil scientist is white, the snake-goddess Indian); and the deliberate human-to-snake transformations of the latter two films, where a character can actually control the change and use their serpent form as a source of terror. There's also some superb, inventive creature design in Hisss, the only one of these films with a CGI-assist:

Hisss also manages to be a sort of "nature's revenge" movie (also a sub-genre I am partial to) and also a kind of feminist horror film, with the snake goddess occasionally killing other men who get in her way, including some would-be rapists (...so it's also kind of a rape-revenge film!). Given all this, it would be hard for the film to fall completely flat, for me, so far is it up my cinematic alley; while I have no sense what it might have looked like had Lynch been able to bring her own vision to bear, the end result is weird-ass, coherent, and provocative enough that I've watched it a few times now, and recommend it (it also stars the late Irrfan Khan, of The Life of Pi, if you're a fan of his). 

Before Julian Sands' death, Hisss was in fact the Jennifer Lynch film I had paid the most attention to. Then Sands' body was found and I re-watched Boxing Helena, which was fascinating. That film -- see the link above -- is sorely in need of re-evaluation, offering audiences a very strange, unwholesome point of identification: Sands' character is also a sort of mad scientist -- or at least a deranged doctor -- who uses his surgical skills in very questionable ways, to dominate and re-condition a woman he is obsessed with, who becomes a sort of amputee exemplar of the Stockholm Syndrome. Lynch's ability to put herself in the mind of so deranged and problematic a character, allowing us to see things as he sees them, is a remarkable accomplishment, and that it ends up actually being a kind of love story -- Four Stumps of Pink, precursor to Fifty Shades of Grey? -- makes it even more unsettling; you can see why critics of the time howled in moral indignation, as they panned it, but it's precisely these elements that make it fascinating now... Lynch is so willing not to pass judgment on her own fantasy life, in telling such a bizarre and transgressive story, that you have to applaud her courage (even if you ARE morally outraged, which is actually kind of an understandable reaction, too). 

Spurred on by my enjoyment of that film, last night, I re-watched Surveillance. This was the first feature film Jennifer Lynch made after a fifteen year absence from cinema. It's also the film of Lynch's whose marketing, if I recall, made the most of her father's name; David Lynch served as executive producer and in at least some of the art one sees, it's his name that your eye is drawn to first:

The film is not one that lends itself to description -- it is best to enter a film such as this with as few spoilers as possible, since it has a fairly unique structure and some potent surprises in store -- but adding to what I wrote about it thirteen years ago, when I first saw it, the film shows Lynch has lost none of the fluidity of identification you see in Boxing Helena. She is able to enter the world, mind, and life-experiences of, for example, two fairly unwholesome drug addicts; two ruthless, demented, and it turns out very horny serial killers (they don't really announce themselves as characters until late in the film, but they're kind of unforgettable, once you get to know them); and two of the vilest cops ever put on screen (played by French Stewart of Third Rock from the Sun and the film's co-writer, Kent Harper), who make a hobby of shooting out people's tires and then perversely torturing them on the roadside, while keeping the guise of authority intact. I would guess there aren't many cops who enjoy this film.

There's not much more I can say about the film beyond that, but it's a very creepy, punch-packing experience, quite unique in its combined genres (police procedural/ FBI profiler/ serial killer thriller). There are also some reasonably ordinary/ mundane characters (including a spreading Michael Ironside as an aging, lazy cop and Hugh Dillon as a pretty straight family man), who are placed, along with two FBI agents and a little girl, on a trajectory where all these characters' paths will intersect. The richness of the characters confirms that the interesting aspects of Boxing Helena were not just flukes, as does Lynch's willingness to maintain identification with them through some fairly vile things (including an extremely uncomfortable sex-murder, at the film's climax). The film is every bit as dark, every bit as unsettling, every bit as perverse as her father's Lost Highway, which also starred Bill Pullman -- who gets even weirder here! -- but it's considerably more of a genre film, with a plot that at times evokes things like the Netflix series Mindhunter, say (Michael Mann's Manhunter also came to mind a couple of times, though it's not ultimately much like it).

Oh, it also has what is surely the best use of the Violent Femmes' "Add It Up" in any movie ever, even Reality Bites.  And it's way more fully-realized and well-made than either Boxing Helena or Hisss; much as I enjoy both of those movies, Surveillance is still the best of Lynch's feature films that I have seen so far. 

I'm now keen to look at Chained, Lynch's subsequent film, which also has a child's path intersecting with that of a serial killer, I gather; and her (?) upcoming police thriller, A Fall from Grace. I wonder if that will make it to the VIFF? There are pictures online of Jennifer Lynch holding up posters for it, so I'm guessing it has screened somewhere; this may be a very opportune time to be reconsidering her work. 

Jennifer Lynch has, as yet, not gotten her due as an interesting filmmaker, separate from her father, but I suspect that that will change at some point, and that she'll be every bit as noticed and celebrated as, say, Brandon Cronenberg is now. If you're a fan of David Lynch, like serial killer thrillers, are comfortable entering some fairly twisted minds, and aren't particularly fond of the police, Surveillance is kind of a must-see; if you enjoy it, Boxing Helena and Hisss will likely hold your attention, as well.