Four Rooms (1995)

I remember watching this anthology at least a few times back in the '90s - while it didn't have much of a theatrical run, it was weird enough to be a popular VHS rental (at least in circles I hung out with) back when that was a thing. The gimmick here is the movie tells four stories, one after the other, about four bizarre experiences a new bellhop has on New Year's Eve, with each of the four stories set in separate rooms and written and directed by different filmmakers: Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino.

The two names in that list you recognize are the two whose segments work, though it's not at all clear which way the causal relationship goes there. Apparently there were some major cuts required by the producer, and those came from Anders's and Rockwell's segments (the "producer" in question was Harvey Weinstein, in case you needed more reason to empathize with those directors). Since the uncut versions were never released (as far as I know) there's no way to tell whether the original versions would have worked better or just taken longer. Regardless, their finished segments don't work as released, while Rodriguez's and Tarantino's do.

The movie starts with an animated credit sequence establishing the tone of the movie (to the limited extent a project like this has a single tone). We also get a brief prologue in which the new bellhop, Ted (played by Tim Roth) inherits the job from the previous bellhop (Marc Lawrence). The section feels as if it was supposed to be meaningful - unfortunately I don't know enough about Lawrence (aside from him having an impressive career) to opine on what him seemingly passing the mantle to Roth would have meant in the mid-'90s. But I will note the sequence is reminiscent of the passing of the Old Year to the New, and I doubt that was accidental.

The first of the four sections is Anders's "The Missing Ingredient," and it's the only of the sequences to feature fantasy elements. The premise surrounds a coven of witches gathering in the room where their goddess was turned to stone decades earlier in the hopes of reversing the spell. But one failed to bring a crucial ingredient: semen. So she's tasked with acquiring the missing ingredient from Ted, who's initially reluctant but eventually is seduced with the help of magic.

The segment replicates the look and feel of '70s exploitation flicks, though it's a little hard to parse what Anders was aiming for here. The section isn't quite funny enough to come off as parody, but it's got too much comic relief to feel like a genuine recreation. You're left with an homage that waffles between embracing the religious and sexual liberation of the era and making fun of it. Instead, this kind of plays like a sex joke that isn't actually funny. It feels like it's supposed to be saying or doing more than it is - I can't help but wonder if necessary context was left on the cutting room floor.

From a holiday perspective, resurrecting a pagan deity during the Christmas season of course ties to symbolism surrounding the solstice and New Year. I should note this section closes with the literal resurrection occurring, likely suggesting the start of a new era (also connected to New Years symbolism).

Madonna appears as one of the witches, and apparently wound up "winning" a Razzie as a result (which is dumb, even for the Razzies - she's perfectly fine in the role, which is written as absurd and over-the-top).

The next segment is Rockwell's "The Wrong Man," which has Ted stumble into the wrong room, where a gun-wielding jealous husband has tied his wife to a chair and assumes the bellhop is her secret lover. There's not much in the way of a story - just a series of cartoonish antics surrounding Ted's attempts to escape or call for help. Like The Missing Ingredient, The Wrong Man isn't really funny enough to work as a comedy, nor is it tense enough to work as suspense. It feels as though there's a connection between Ted's growing confusion at the situation and the viewer's, but it never really develops into much, other than a seeming punchline in which Ted makes it out as another hapless man stumbles in, presumably to go through the exact same ordeal. Once again, you're left with the impression something that shouldn't have been cut was cut. The best part of this is the surprise reemergence of the woman who spends this section tied up in the final segment. But first...

The third segment partially occurs concurrently with the second, as it plays out over a larger portion of the evening, with Ted only in the room for some of it. This is Robert Rodriguez's section, and it features Antonio Banderas as a wealthy (and possibly criminal) man who hires Ted to check in periodically on his misbehaving children while him and his wife celebrate the New Year together.

The point-of-view here largely shifts to the kids. In keeping with the cartoonish style connecting these, they're more or less the Bugs and Daffy of this bit, while Ted transforms into a sort of Elmer Fudd. He's not particularly intelligent in any of these, but here he's also presented as unreasonable and cruel, leaving you with the impression he deserves the hardships he endures. I was surprised by how much this shift helped - Ted works a lot better as a foil than an everyman. It also helps that Rodriguez gradually ratchets up the level of mayhem (alcohol, a giant syringe, damage to the room, a fire, and a dead body hidden in the bed) to a degree where the inevitable finale packs a punch. It's still basically one long joke, but this time the joke is pretty funny.

Finally we get to Tarantino's segment, which is mostly memorable for his use of an extremely long take early in the piece. He later namedrops Hitchcock, so I'm assuming this was a nod to the movie Rope (sidenote: great film). It also does a great job blending comedy with tension, delivering on both fronts. The premise is a Hollywood filmmaker (played by Tarantino himself, which is always a casting mistake) and some friends are drunk (also present is the wife from The Wrong Man, played by Jennifer Beals, as well as an uncredited Bruce Willis). Ted is lured into the penthouse, where Tarantino's character keeps him from leaving. It quickly becomes clear they want him to do something, but what that is isn't clear.

Eventually Tarantino's character explains what's going on: he's made a bet with one of his friends that they can't light their lighter ten times in a row. If the guy can do it, he gets the filmmaker's favorite car. Otherwise, he'll lose a pinky. Only they want Ted to act as the judge and - if necessary - pinky executioner. In exchange, Ted will receive $1000 no matter how it turns out.

The punchline is after all the suspense, the lighter jams on the first attempt, Ted slams the knife down, grabs the money, and heads to the elevator while the inhabitants of the room panic in an attempt to get the pinky on ice and get it and its owner to the hospital.

So let's talk about Christmas. Or New Years. Or just the holidays in general. I already covered the first installment, as well as the transition from the old year to the new, but that leaves us with the last three sections. First, all three (and to an extent all four) are exploring the holiday as a time of excessive celebration. The pagan (well, neopagan) aspects of the first section are obvious, but it's notable the others all resemble a sort of revelry evocative of Saturnalia. All of these stories involve lowered inhibitions (mostly due to alcohol, though The Missing Ingredient uses magic as a stand-in).

The four stories all play with the idea of the holidays as a break from normal time, though in the case of The Misbehavers part of the punchline is that this is basically normal for those people (the father, upon bursting into the hotel room to find it on fire, a dead woman literally hidden inside the bed, his kids holding alcohol, and the bellhop brandishing a syringe, simply asks if the kids misbehaved). But in the case of the other stories, we're seeing the characters existing in a sort of time outside of their normal lives. In the Missing Ingredient, it's them coming together to usher in a new era. In The Wrong Man, we seem to be witnessing a sort of ceremonial catharsis in the marriage (it's notable that the woman is far more interested in playing out this scenario than escaping). And the entire situation in The Man from Hollywood is based on the fact this is a bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime drunken situation those involved are invested in following through to its finale. In the case of everything but the Misbehavers, the holidays are an opportunity to exist in a place outside of the norm; in The Misbehavers it's basically a red herring building up to a reveal this is just normal for these weirdos.

This is of course part of a very old tradition dating back to at least Saturnalia. The holidays are a time for excess, and the stories in Four Rooms explore or use this idea. Whether they do so in a manner that makes this worth watching is another question all together. Again, this is a movie that half works and half doesn't, a quirky experiment that's at best half successful. Roth's intentionally cartoonish performance is interesting, but for the most part not all that funny (again, he works best as a foil). Likewise, the movie's collection of references to old films and genres don't add up to much, even when the individual segments are considered independently. But both The Misbehavers and The Man from Hollywood are fun enough to mostly salvage this (and I suspect the first two sections - by virtue of being extremely weird and creative - have defenders, as well). If you're a big enough fan of any of the filmmakers involved, it might be worth checking out. But I wouldn't recommend casual movie fans prioritize tracking it down.