{"id":14958,"date":"2016-12-15T13:54:26","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T18:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14958"},"modified":"2016-12-15T13:56:58","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T18:56:58","slug":"14958","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14958","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy, Kemper, and The Killing of America (1981)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KillingOfAmerica_Sp_poster\"The provocatively titled The Killing of America<\/a><\/strong> (1981) makes its American home video debut more than 35 years after its overseas theatrical release, and besides connoisseurs of mondo and shockumentary films, it\u2019s more than likely most film fans have never heard of Sheldon Renan\u2019s film.<\/p>\n

Produced by a Japanese firm about America yet never sold to a U.S. distributor, Renan\u2019s film developed a legendary status as a kind of forbidden fruit, and perhaps its inclusion of grisly crime scene footage and stills made it a tough sell, especially for TV. Why no home video firm picked up the film is a mystery, given the videotape market in the 1980s was flooded with every kind of taboo production from around the world.<\/p>\n

Killing<\/strong> is a peculiar film because it\u2019s part social documentary on a culture\u2019s decline, a mondo film that packs together themed montages and vignettes for crime aficionados, and shockumentary that repeatedly delivers the goods in gory details \u2013 the perfect kind of forbidden fruit.<\/p>\n

Even Renan mentions the challenge curious genre fans had in tracking down his film, scouring the web for digital clips and rips to see some version of his film which was co-written with Leonard Schrader, brother of writer-director Paul Schrader.<\/p>\n

Severin\u2019s Blu-ray is the definitive release for this long unavailable work that still resonates because violence and lousy human behaviour continue to thrive. More ugliness is showcased in more media streams today than in 1981, and anyone can call up footage of the most heinous acts in HD. It\u2019s a significant leap, because in 1981 degrees of gory details in film were kept in check by the MPAA, and on TV by network Standards & Practices.<\/p>\n

Anything extreme on home video had to be tracked down using mail order catalogues, or in indie shops that made a point of stocking the oddest, weirdest, strangest, nastiest material curated from around the world, sometimes bootleg copies or poor PAL-NTSC transfers from Asian or European releases lacking subtitles.<\/p>\n

\"KillingOfAmerica_pic2\"Killing<\/strong> is a genuine artifact of that era, but as Renan also admits, the film is a rare cultural snapshot of forgotten footage from TV local stations that captured\u00a0some of the strangest events that occur locally but don\u2019t make national news unless the level of weirdness and horror are especially sensational.<\/p>\n

Bad shit happens in big cities, medium sized towns, and sometimes pops up in sleepy communities, and that\u2019s Killing<\/strong>\u2019s most frightening message: the horror is ongoing because it\u2019s a natural element in a society\u2019s evolution \u2013 one of the most starkly pessimistic views ever burned onto celluloid.<\/p>\n

Coming next:<\/em> I\u2019m finishing up on a podcast with Out of Print<\/strong> (2014) director Julia Marchese and a batch of related documentaries on film exhibition, but next is a review of Robert Aldrich\u2019s last film \u2026All the Marbles<\/strong> \/ aka California Dolls<\/strong> (1981).<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of The Killing of America (1981), a grim chronicle of violent America from director Sheldon Renan and co-writer Leonard Schrader, making its North American home video debut via Severin Films on Blu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2562,2563,4842,4847,4845,4844,4846],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/KillingOfAmerica_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8nuyW-14958","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14958"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14969,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14958\/revisions\/14969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}