Shroudhounder
monster of murderous mystery
a tangle of grotesque bits and pieces
Frankensteined together by the awful Dr. Aufidius,
archvillain of Vigilante Sword Maniac Against the Winds of Destiny: Supreme Slaughter Panorama,
the umpteenth adventure of the cauldron concocted mercenary swordmaster
this was the one where the star was upstaged by the heavy
the magnificent Shroudhounder
a ghastly writhing tangle
of cobra hooded snapping dog's heads
hairy arms swinging heavy blades
and bizarre gearworks extrusions spitting fire'n'smoke'n'cursed pieces of paper
all of it swaddled in a bizarre costume of sutured together potato sacks
and when it rears up to show its belly
it ain't because it wants a rub and a liver treat
for a huge'n'terrible gash vomits forth hot steaming entrails to snare'n'digest you
for years
cult audiences wondered at how such a brain searingly complex monster could function with such poise, ferocity, muscularity, and speed
all of it seemingly live and in camera
the mystery is solved in the special features
specifically
a behind the scenes doc that was only available on a Japan exclusive laserdisc
didn't help that the movie bombed hard with both critics and general audiences
for years nothing but rumors and insinuations
but now we can see
right there on YouTube
a small army of people operating a bewilderingly complex set of guidelines, wires, and all manner of abstruse puppetry gear-it hurts to stare at the tangle for too long, defies technical post-mortem,
and yet the crew shouts with joy as they make the vast'n'writhing tangle of limbs'n'blades rumble across the miniature landscape
chief special efx technician claims they didn't plan to make it boogie like that
it was just something that occured to them on the day
they didn't even have enough crew to do it
so they put out the word to friends and colleagues
and this got them in big trouble with the executives and the union
some say this is why the final edit's so unwieldy
the producers fought the director mightily
whispered stories of rival editing suites
clandestine teams fighting for and against the inclusion of Shroudhounder's wild charge
but many believe that the rules violations don't even touch the mystery
studios fuck over workers all the time
unions have far less power in the biz than people attribute to 'em,
no, no, no,
it was the power that came through in the puppetry
something was instantiated within the artifice
something
impossibly
became real
which put the fear into all present
something powerful
that hungered to be free of cinema
to tear loose of its fated role as a heel who takes a fall upon the appointed moment
to roam the world beyond the screen,
to break the frame,
to collect actual heavy heads,
to drink hot blood pumping from freshly rent neckstumps,
to rumble across actual landscapes,
no bogus three act bullshit to cramp its good time ever again-
-in an interview with the lead actor
he said specifically that he felt kinda upstaged by the "Shroudhounder contraption. I mean, where was the human element, eh? I just thought the whole franchise was devolving into tricks and gimmicks at that point. Here I am, the hero, and I'm just totally eclipsed by this monster machine. May as well replace me with a marionette, too, y'know?"
-as for me,
I remember Shroudhounder's wild charge
-easily the most memorable moment in the otherwise impenetrable umpteenth Vigilante Sword Maniac flick,
which I had obtained through tape trading in 1998 or 1999,
right in the depths of the End of History-
snapping, frothing cobra dogs
wolfman arms swinging exotically shaped blades,
cursed bits of paper causing pyrotechnic spectacles wherever they landed,
glimpses of furiously grinding gears through tears in its potato sack garb,
and square-ass Vigilante Sword Maniac's face blanched with big-time What-the-Fuck-ness
as a storm of spectacularly inhuman wildness overwhelms too-too-precious Method Actor Humanism-
-oh, yes
I see why they junked'n'buried the Shroudhounder contraption
no need to even go behind the scenes
the footage in the actual film
is startlingly free of mysteries
if one is willing to look
and to see-
-December 2012, October 2017, October 2022
