The Washingtonians

Today I’m reviewing Peter Medak’s entry into the Masters of Horror series, The Washingtonians. Medak is best known for directing The Changeling, Species II, and a bunch of TV episodes. Species II shows lots of boobs. I was excited when I heard about the premise for this episode. It’s based on a short story by one of my favorite horror authors, Bentley Little. I think the future of horror rests on the shoulders of horror writers, not on remaking shitty movies from the 1970’s.

The basic premise of The Washingtonians involves a family (husband, wife, and 10 year-old daughter) that travels to Virginia to settle the estate of their recently deceased grandmother or some such inconsequential relative. She has lots of cool historical shit in her basement. The husband/father finds a note behind a painting of George Washington. This note contains information that will forever taint (yes, I said taint) the image of our nation’s founding father. Certain individuals, called The Washingtonians, will do anything to keep this information secret. They dress in colonial garb, wear powdered wigs, and paint their faces a ghostly white. They ride around at night on horseback, baring their wooden dentures. They are determined to keep the father from exposing their evil traditions.

The best attribute of this episode is the absurd nature of the story. Bentley Little came up with a great idea; what if everything you thought you knew about an historical figure was made-up propaganda? The film opens with our family in a car, listening to a talk-radio host who is claiming that the media is controlled by the government and we only get a filtered version of the news. The story continues this premise by claiming that the telling of history is altered to leave out the ugly details and that historians are complicit in perpetuating the lies. I like it. I remember reading A People’s History of the United States for the first time my junior year in high school. After reading about the atrocities committed by Columbus and his people on the Native Americans during their arrival to the new world, I felt like I had been lied to about history for most of my school life. After learning that Joseph Smith had over 30 wives, many of whom were teenagers while he was in his thirties, my perception of him changed dramatically.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a serious movie. The premise is absurd, the acting is terrible and over-the-top, the dialogue is cheesy, and it’s not one bit scary (except for the scene with the old people at the funeral; those bastards creep me out). It is meant to be campy and humerous. There is a great, gory sequence near the end of the film that you have to see to believe. The KNB guys did an outstanding job with the effects. Medak’s direction is decent. The little girl’s screams are terribly unconvincing. Also, for some unknown reason, most of the scenes at the beginning of the film conclude with the husband kissing his wife or his daughter. Lots of kissing goes on.

(Spoiler…read the short story or watch the movie first.)

So, what is George Washington’s ugly secret. He was a cannibal that preferred to eat the flesh of young virgin girls. He carved eating utensils from their bones. He learned to be a cannibal during the harsh winter at Valley Forge. Once he discovered the taste of human flesh, he never went back to burgers and french fries--unless, of course, they were ground-up human meat burgers and the fries were fried in human fat. The Washingtonians continue his secret tradition of cannibalism today. If you like cannibal movies, check out Guy Pearce’s Ravenous or that pedophile guy’s movie, Jeepers Creepers. Don’t check out Cannibal Holocaust because that movie sucks ballsack. Thanks.