Video extras include “Vagrant Memories” (16 min), an interview with director Chris Walas “You Are in Hell!” (15 min), an interview with Marshall Bell “Barfuss, Homicide” (12 min), an interview with Michael Ironside “Handling His Property” (12 min), an interview with Colleen Camp. The Vagrant has been released by Arrow Video on Blu-ray. It’s a pretty good odd movie, though, for fans of oddness. There’s often a jokey tone, but it’s not funny. While it’s kind of scary, The Vagrant is not a great horror movie. In its stillborn way, however, it’s still more ambitious than most crummy horror movies. The Vagrant seems to be about a lot of things (homelessness, yuppie capitalism, human experimentation) but doesn’t stick the landing on any of them. It falls apart in a more interesting way than many movies work. They do not hang together well because the tone of the film is too divergent.īut it’s not boring. And several of the individual sequences are quite good. It’s wildly underdeveloped, but shows there’s some kind of brain behind this bizarre story. There’s an underlying reason for the vagrant’s action. But at some point the film’s imagination falters, and nothing is as interesting as it is teased to be.īut the movie is freaking crazy, and that’s worth something. There’s a lot to work with in this story world. Every morning when he wakes up, his world seems completely different. The crimes of the vagrant might be in Graham’s mind. There’s a number of intriguing possibilities brought up by the story. It just seems undetermined what style that should be. There’s scenes with severed body parts that are legitimately disturbing. The vagrant is disgusting, from his dead eye and scabby skin to his deformed hands and fingers. Though a largely down-to-earth story, there’s several opportunities for horror makeup to rear its grotesque head. It seems at no time were they discouraged from wholesale chewing on the scenery, and they all indulged.Ĭhris Walas was a special effects and makeup man, and that’s where the movie shines. But these fine actors are not deployed well. Michael Ironside is a suspicious police lieutenant. Marshall Bell (from Starship Troopers and Total Recall) is the hideous vagrant. The script for The Vagrant balances comedy, horror, and social satire in such a way that it needs a deft touch with several elements of filmmaking, acting not least of all. A master at special effects, ( Gremlins, The Fly) he’d directed the not so great The Fly 2 years earlier. This is director Chris Walas’ second, and final feature. The chief problem of the film is one of tone. It’s like an unholy mélange of Brazil, a slasher movie, and some unrealized (and underimagined) ’80s Tim Burton film. It starts out like a normal horror comedy but has such odd twists and turns that to anyone interested it would be criminal to spoil them. It’s difficult to discuss what happens in the film without revealing pertinent plot details, which are this odd, tone-deaf, and wildly uneven movie’s chief source of entertainment. Either he’s unraveling… or he’s being harassed. He can’t remember if he’s done things or if they were done to him. Graham himself begins to descend into paranoia over his fears of the vagrant. Graham has an out-of-town girlfriend who visits, and then disappears from the story. There’s a ton of details that seem important that then fall by the way as the narrative moves on. Trying to recite the plot of The Vagrant is difficult because it goes all over the place. He’s also sure the vagrant can sneak into his house, despite the security measures he’s put in that he can’t afford. Graham doesn’t say anything, but he’s sure the vagrant (hey, that’s the film’s title) is up to no good.Įventually, he gets the man arrested, but he’s released with no charges. He buys the house, but when he goes to move his things in, he finds a homeless man using the kitchen sink. He tries to overlook all the problems, including the real estate agent trying to jump his bones at the showing. It’s not good, and I like it.īill Paxton stars as Graham Krakowski, an aspiring yuppie who is looking to buy his first house. It’s weird, tone-deaf, and kind of stupid. The Vagrant has about four movies worth of themes and plots, but less than a single film’s coherence.
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