Northwest Herald from Woodstock, Illinois • Page 80

Page 6 SIDETRACKS NORTHWEST HERALD Friday, October 4, 1996 Fill Grim trend Mordant jokes don't help make 'Curdled' a box office draw By JEFFREY WESTHOFF The Northwest Herald you think you've seen Gabriela, the lead character of "Curdled" before, you have. Sort of. When Quentin Tarantino saw the earlier, 30-minute version of i Iff X. i 4 if 4' the police have given up and called in a maid service. Gabriela creeps out her co-workers (including Barry Corbin and MTV's Daisy Fuentes) with her eagerness to mop up after one of the Blue Blood Killer's victims.

She constantly wonders whether a decapitated head can gasp a dying word. Thai's joke No. 2, and you can probably guess where it's headed (sorry). One of the film's bright lights is Jones herself. She beguiles as the impossibly innocent Gabriela, who fixates on murder the way a young girl plays with dolls.

Coyly blowing a bubble as she scrubs puddles of blood, Jones makes "Curdled" easier to take than it deserves. Although "Curdled" is little rnore than a sanguinary curio, Braddock does show promise with a marvelous sequence toward the end. Late one night, Gabriela slips back into a murder scene unaware that the killer also is in the house. Gabriela takes a knife, and to a Latin dance rhythm she re-enacts the murder playing both killer and victim. As she whirls about the kitchen, Baldwin flits between doorways in the background.

It's a marvelous piece of filmmaking thanks to Braddock's camera work and director of photography Steven Bernstein's lighting. This danse macabre is the one time the film's sick humor works. "Curdled" proves Tarantino's legion of followers has yet to bottom out. But Jones and her twirling skirts do provide a few smiles as the trend grows grimmer. Rating: i i hM "Curdled" in 1992 he enjoyed the character so much he borrowed her, and actress Angela Jones, REVIEW for "Pulp Fiction." Esmeralda, the murder-obsessed cab driver who picks up Bruce Willis, is essentially the same character with a different name.

Now, Tarantino has repaid director Reb Braddock, executive producing a feature-length version of Braddock's student film. Unfortunately, that story is more interesting than "Curdled" itself, a slight black comedy that gasps to justify its added hour. The story is based on two mordant jokes, which may have been enough in the 30-minute version (I haven't seen it), but can't support the new 90-minute length. Gabriela is a wide-eyed Colombian immigrant who' keeps a scrapbook on gruesome murders. Prominent is the handiwork of the Blue Blood Killer (William Baldwin), who's been decapitating society women throughout Miami.

Turning her hobby into a career, Gabriela joins Post-Forensic Cleaning Service, which specializes in cleaning up bloody murder scenes. That's joke No. 1: Miami's homicide rate has grown so high Ok Photo provided Angela Jones and William Baldwin star in Reb Braddock's "Curdled.1 Braddock gains familiar fan in creation of new film By JEFFREY WESTHOFF The Northwest Herald 7v LfS eb Braddock was exhibiting his student fiim "Curdled" at the Noir in Mystery and Suspense Film Festival in Viarregio, Italy, when he gained a new while a film student Florida State University. Jones was cast because she was an FSU acting major. The three schoolmates reunited for the feature version of the film.

Braddock and Jones talked about the experience during a recent visit to Chicago. Gabriela made the transition from short to feature unaltered. She remains a gum-chewing young woman whose fascination with gruesome murders seems oddly innocent. "The main difference is that in the short, Gabriela already was working in the cleaning service," Braddock said. Apart from making Gabriela a new employee, the new script adds detail about the Post-Forensic Cleaning Service and gives Gabriela a boyfriend.

Otherwise, the plot is essentially the same. "It's a simple movie," Braddock said. "You don't have all the traditional plot points and subplots." To research the role, Jones said she met with people who are obsessed with serial killers, read up on the subject and covered her apartment walls with newspaper and magazine articles about serial killers. "If the police had walked in, they would have arretted jqu," Braddock said. But Gabriela never comes across as a ghoul.

Her interest in bloody deaths seems mure curiosity than obsession. "It's kind of a quiet thing with her," Jones said. "She doesn't wear it on her sleeve." Inevitably, Gabriela's obsession leads her to a serial killer, played by William Baldwin. Braddock approached Baldwin while the actor was in Miami filming "Fair Game." Baldwin took the part after reading the script. "He got the whole thing," Braddock said.

"He got thef sense of humor." Getting the humor is key, said Braddock, who admitted that black comedy makes him nervous. "It's real easy to take a black comedy and go too dark with it or go the other way and make it too campy." Braddock said "Curdled" is the naturalistic style of black comedy he prefers. "Hopefully, it's believable people in extraordinary situations." Tarantino has his name on the film as executive producer. Braddock said Tarantino gave advice on the script and casting. "He probably knows more actors than every casting director put 1 0 i fan, Quentin Tarantino.

Tarantino, at the 1992 festival to show "Reservoir Dogs," loved the lead character in Braddock's 30-minute film a young woman played by Angela Jones obsessed with violent murder who works at a crime-scene cleaning service. So impressed was Tarantino, he asked Braddock if he could borrow the character for the script he was writing, "Pulp Fiction." So "Curdled's" Gabriela became "Fiction's" Esmeralda, the cab driver who gives Bruce Willis a ride. Tarantino even hired Jones to play the character. "That was kind of cool for Angela," Braddock said. Tarantino returned the favor by using his influence to green-light a feature-length version of "Curdled," which opens today.

Braddock and screenwriting partner John Maass made the originaj version. Photo provided Angela Jones and director Reb Braddock go over a scene on the set of "Curdled," which opens today..