B-Movies and Agitprop as a Sleeping Aid.

There's something peculiar about me.

Horror movies help me sleep.

Metal albums help me sleep.

Jello Biafra's politically charged spoken word albums help me sleep.

I noticed this happen for the first time when I purchased a DVD for the horror movie The Oozing Skull.  In the film, the brain of a dying tycoon is graphically transferred from his aged  body into that of a super strong giant with a disfigured face.

The first few times, I watched The Oozing Skull all the way through.  Then one day, after a long day's work, I popped The Oozing Skull into my player, hopped on to my couch and prepared myself for some heart pounding fun.

I watched the prologue scene with the dying man in his hospital bed as he made preparations for immortality.  Then I watched the opening credits.

The next thing I knew, I saw the caption "The End."

What in the wha--?

The next day, I tried watching it again.  Again, the last thing I remember seeing before the closing card were the opening credits.  It happened again and again and again.

After a while, I noticed that I was very well rested during the run of the movie.

I reasoned, "Maybe The Oozing Skull is a good sleeping aid."

After a while, it wasn't just The Oozing Skull.  It was films that ranged from horror to art films with a gloomy outlook on life.  Legacy of Blood; Dr. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks; Akira; Salò: The 120 Days of Sodom; Tetsuo, the Iron Man; Doctor Who:  Genesis of the Daleks... all these films helped me drift off into a deep, undisturbed sleep.

The most recent of these films that are accompanied by the sandman is The Night Porter.

This film by Liliana Cavani stars British screen star Dirk Bogarde as Max, the titular night porter who works at the Hotel Zur Oper in Vienna.  But this humble hotel manager has a dark past.  During World War II, he was a ranking officer of the Nazi SS who had a depraved "relationship" with Lucia, a teenage girl prisoner (Charlotte Rampling) in the concentration camp under his command.  Thirteen years after the war, Max and Lucia run into one another at the hotel.  Lucia is now the wife of a celebrated opera conductor who she accompanies on a touring production of Mozart's The Magic Flute.  Lucia is at first terrified by her brush with Max, and Max is terrified that Lucia may run to the authorities and reveal his Nazi past.   That fear devolves into a weird mess of lust and Stockholm Syndrome as the two rekindle their warped love affair.  The two shack up in Max's small apartment, which raises suspicion with Max's fellow sturmbannfuhren in hiding.  Ultimately, Max and Lucia are shot to death on a lonely bridge by the covert Nazis to cover their tracks.

A remarkable scene in The Night Porter is a flashback to a Nazi "joy division" where a topless  Lucia performs Marlene Dietrich's "Wenn Ich Mir Was Wünschen Dürfte" for the entertainment of Max and his fellow officers.  For me and other viewers of The Night Porter, this scene is iconic and is the diseased heart of the film.

So on the third viewing of this film, I drift off during the opening credits where Max walks alone in the streets of Vienna and only wake up when he and Lucia are shot dead in the final scene.

For this reason, I have added The Night Porter to the list of films that help me rest during the afternoon.

Susan has a strong dislike for the film and only allows me to watch it in the time between her leaving for and returning from work.  I understand that fully.  Why would she want to come home to the spectacle of a bare breasted Charlotte Rampling slinking around and purring torch songs to a gang of Nazis?

Yet The Night Porter, a movie excoriated by renowned film critic Vincent Canby as "romantic pornography" and "a piece of junk," helps me doze off peacefully on my comfy couch.

I imagine normal people drifting off to a light drama or a rom-com, or to some peaceful music composition like "Für Elise."

I am eased into dreamland by the abrasive music of Satanic Planet or the comically calculated yelps of Jello Biafra, the political activist and former frontman of The Dead Kennedys.

Am I depraved and desensitized for using these extreme examples of entertainment and edutainment as sleep aids?

All I can say is that it is less costly and less harmful to my metabolism than a tablet of Risperdal.

Pleasant dreams!

- JJB