Dis­cov­er the post­mod­ern wit of this mes­meris­ing metahorror

“I‘d like to point out that for the first time in the entire his­to­ry of the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, this prize is award­ed to an actress play­ing in a hor­ror movie.”

It is 1981, but these words from the man offi­ci­at­ing over the awards cer­e­mo­ny towards the end of David Win­ters’ The Last Hor­ror Film (aka Fanat­ic) hold true even today: while away from the Croisette there is always plen­ty of back­room horse-trad­ing over B‑movies and genre titles, hor­ror is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered too low a form to mer­it the kind of acknowl­edge­ment and acclaim that an inter­na­tion­al film festival’s prize would con­fer (notable, and notably rare, prize-win­ning excep­tions include Kwaidan in 1965, The Shout in 1978 and Thirst in 2009).

So when we see the Cannes Jury nod­ding approv­ing­ly dur­ing a screen­ing of a film in which a char­ac­ter played by scream queen Jana Bates (here played by gen­uine scream queen Car­o­line Munro) con­tin­ues scream­ing as her face is burnt off, and then her name being ticked for Best Actress (over Faye Dun­away, Jane Fon­da, Julie Christie and Meryl Streep), we already have an idea that this is just anoth­er lay­er of wish ful­fil­ment in Win­ters’ mes­meris­ing metahorror.

Itself a genre film shot on loca­tion dur­ing the actu­al 1981 Cannes fes­ti­val, The Last Hor­ror Film exploits the real­i­ties of cinema’s biggest dream mar­ket, while weav­ing into this world of cut­throat deals the kind of slash­er plot that can only hap­pen in the movies. As such, this is hor­ror of a decid­ed­ly self-reflex­ive stamp, made two decades before Bri­an De Palma’s Femme Fatale would again use Cannes as the back­drop to all man­ner of post­mod­ern play in the world of genre. It was also made over a decade and a half before Wes Craven’s Scream took the crown for the sup­pos­ed­ly inno­v­a­tive nature of its meta approach to hor­ror – and, whether by coin­ci­dence or not, the film-with­in-a-film which has just won Jana her award is also called Scream.

Into this world of red-car­pet glam­our wan­ders schlub­by, sweaty, decid­ed­ly unglam­ourous Vin­ny Durand (Joe Spinell), an avid view­er of – and mas­tur­ba­tor to – hor­ror films. If Jana’s sur­name Bates points to Psy­cho, Vin­ny embod­ies the spir­it of Hitchcock’s film. A man­child liv­ing under the thumb of his moth­er (who is played by Spinell’s own moth­er, Filom­e­na Spag­n­uo­lo), Vin­ny dreams of mak­ing Jana, for whom he har­bours an unhealthy obses­sion, the star of his very own Oscar-win­ning movie. Vin­ny is both a fan­ta­sist and, in his reg­u­lar oneir­ic encoun­ters with a more suc­cess­ful ver­sion of him­self, some­what schiz­o­phrenic – and his coex­ist­ing per­sonas all allude sly­ly to Spinell’s past filmography.

So on the one hand Vin­ny is a delud­ed New York cab­bie, recall­ing Spinell’s mem­o­rable appear­ance in the open­ing scene of Taxi Dri­ver as the man who hires the not dis­sim­i­lar Travis Bick­le to pick up night fares – and as Vin­ny prowls after Jana in Cannes, we keep hear­ing back­ground news reports about the recent attempt­ed assas­si­na­tion of Ronald Rea­gan by a man express­ly obsessed with Scorsese’s film and its female star Jodie Fos­ter. There is an anx­i­ety of influ­ence in this blur­ring of fic­tion and real­i­ty, with dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters (mem­bers of the press, an Ortho­dox priest) ask­ing aloud what psy­cho­log­i­cal effect films of vio­lence and hor­ror might be hav­ing on their view­ers, even as hor­ror star Jana finds her­self being stalked by a deranged fan, and every­one around her dis­ap­pear­ing or being vicious­ly killed.

Work­ing out where the truth lies in this hall of mir­rors is half the fun – while the oth­er half is won­der­ing to what degree the unhinged Vin­ny might be repris­ing Spinell’s tit­u­lar role as the mur­der­ous mamma’s boy in Mani­ac. And when we see Vin­ny dis­guis­ing him­self in a gendarme’s uni­form, we are remind­ed of his rôle as a police­man in Cruis­ing, the William Fried­kin film that care­ful­ly plays upon the thin blue line between harm­less dress-up and psy­chot­ic imposture.

“I believe peo­ple under­stand the dif­fer­ence between real life and illu­sion,” insists Jana at a press con­fer­ence to pro­mote Scream. ​“I’m just an actress play­ing a part in a movie.” The truth is that, even as Win­ters was shoot­ing his film on loca­tion in Cannes, an actress real­ly did win a Jury Prize for her per­for­mance in a hor­ror film (unprece­dent­ed­ly so, as the announc­er says, unless you count Susan­nah York in 1972’s Images). For in 1981 Isabelle Adjani gar­nered a Best Actress nod for two films, Quar­tet and Pos­ses­sion, the lat­ter very def­i­nite­ly hor­ror (and des­tined for ​‘video nasty’ sta­tus in the UK).

Adjani her­self is glimpsed in The Last Hor­ror Film arriv­ing at a screen­ing, and Croisette posters for both her win­ning films are also includ­ed (includ­ing a mul­ti-angle mini mon­tage of the Pos­ses­sion bill­board). ​“Art,” as Jana puts it, ​“is also an imi­ta­tion of life.” Still, it wouldn’t hap­pen again until Char­lotte Gains­bourg won in 2009 for her turn in Antichrist – and while The Last Hor­ror Film would itself win numer­ous prizes, most­ly at genre-ded­i­cat­ed fes­ti­vals (and cer­tain­ly not at Cannes), its improb­a­ble star Spinell, so fleshi­ly human, so creep­i­ly mon­strous, so pathet­ic and patho­log­i­cal, would go, as ever, crim­i­nal­ly unrecognised.

The Last Hor­ror Film is avail­able on DVD from 14 March cour­tesy of Fusion Media Sales.