Compare the Supermarket

Cinema can potentially turn the most mundane surroundings in our lives into something far more exotic. A good example is the humble supermarket; a resource where many of us purchase our essential groceries and the odd luxury or two, yet it can be an interesting setting for many a film maker. 

 

Whether it's directors inflicting their own social perspective - or thanks to all the rows and shelves found in a supermarket, perspective literally being an advantageous form of framing various shots - the mundane supermarket setting lends to some engrossing scenes in cinema.

Hotlinked the scenes in the individual film titles - here is a selection of choice supermarket scenes which come to mind:

The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965)

Unlike James Bond having everything given to him on a plate, Harry Palmer has to work for it like the rest of us plebs. Seeing the bespectacled spy having to go out and do his own grocery shopping was another relatable factor about Palmer. That doesn't change the fact he still buys poncey champignons, however. You know Palmer is earning some serious cheddar when he's willing to spend 10p more over the alternative option. Dada Debaser did the math: in today's money that's a whopping £1.64 he's paying extra for a tin of fancy mushrooms. Still, the beauty of old Brit flicks with scenes set in a supermarket are seeing all the products that are no longer around today; like Smedley's Paella Spanish Rice (in a tin).

Red Sun (Rudolf Thome, 1970)

German New Wave (or Das Neue Kino for pretentious film heads) boils down to me seeing half a dozen Werner Herzog films, one Rainer Werner Fassbinder, half a Wim Wenders and a couple of Jörg Buttgereit underground nasties, but I know an unintentional comedy when I see one. Case in point Rudolf Thome's Red Sun. Uber groupie Uschi Obermaier and her misandrist girl friends take some time out from bomb making and murdering men, by shoplifting with about as much subtlety as everyone in Jane's Addiction's Been Caught Stealing video. Constantly on the lookout for the security guard is not suspicious at all. On another note, it's always a bizarre feeling when entering a foreign country's supermarket and seeing all those strange food products; never 100% certain what they actually might be. One of the wonders of foreign cinema is we can always have that feeling while cotching in the comfort of our own homes.

Messiah of Evil (Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck, 1974)

It's nice to see this film receive the recognition it deserves over the years. The current Dada Debaser banner is from one of the best scenes from the film; the other, which is equally as fantastic, is the unfortunate Anitra Ford being trapped inside a late night supermarket with a bunch of flesh-eating ghouls. Absolutely love how the artificial fluorescent lighting makes the mise en scène equally as creepy as the unnaturally grey complexions of Point Dune's scary residents. An incredibly atmospheric scene, and entirely relatable if you've ever had to do a quick shop at night in the Tesco branch near me. What are the chances George A. Romero was inspired by Messiah of Evil's supermarket scene with his zombie masterpiece Dawn of the Dead (1978)?

Schizo (Pete Walker, 1976) 

Pete Walker channelling Roman Polanski's psychological horror Repulsion (1965) for his film Schizo, might not be my fave film from the British auteur, but it does contain one of his most memorable scenes. Set in a now defunct branch of supermarkets which were called Wallis, Samantha, our film's protagonist, is being freaked out by an off-screen voice yelling out her name repeatedly. I'm more disturbed by the shockingly low special offer prices the girl on the tannoy is announcing, to be honest: baked beans 13p; instant coffee 47p; and New Zealand butter 19p. The highlight of the scene is where the butcher behind the meat counter politely retrieves his bloody meat cleaver which has found its way in Samantha's shopping trolley. Kind of funny how if this ever happened today, Samantha would have wound up in a police cell before she had the chance to run off in sheer disgust.

Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978) 

A fitting reminder that I still need to check out the recent Monroeville Mall Cut of what's arguably the Citizen Kane of Horror. The most tragic scenes for me are my favourite character, the zombie-bitten Roger, making the most of things before his encroaching death and undeath. Trying to find small precious moments of pleasure by munching on pickled kumquats while the regal sounding Fugarock plays, really tugs at my heart strings. George A. Romero's biting social commentary regarding first world capitalism has turned us into consumer zombies maybe written about ad nauseam, but it's counter balanced by the very real moments where the film's heroes attempt to regain domestic normality again in a microcosmic world of the shopping mall. A temporary oasis in a world dominated by the undead.

Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984)

Rows of generic labelled products says a lot about our consumer culture, in Alex Cox's cult eighties film Repo Man, but it's Otto's defiance of his dictatorial authoritarian boss that truly defines the worker's frustrated spirit in the Reagan era. The rebellious "fuck you!" is loud and clear. With his shackles gone, Otto shoves the pathetic bootlicker Kevin, his proto-Napoleon Dynamite looking work colleague to the ground. It's followed by Otto removing his awful bow tie like it's a great beast of burden, which is definitely a nice touch.Him flipping both middle fingers at the comically fascist security guard pointing guns at him, is another defiant note. Viva la revolución, comrade!

They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)

Another example of bland product design in supermarkets. This time around John Carpenter's sci-fi classic incorporates it as hidden subliminal messaging to keep the human race docile and unaware of the secret alien invasion of our planet. With the aid of special glasses, John Nada finally wakes up from a hypnotic slumber; finally seeing that materialism and the capitalist system was engineered by extraterrestrials; the real elites of this world. This is the type of intelligent science fiction which really appeals to a broader audience. Little wonder it's been adopted as truth by the tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists.

964 Pinocchio (Shozin Fukui, 1991)

Can't say I'm a fan of Shozin Fukui's art house cyberpunk film, nor do I even pretend to understand it. However, I do absolutely love the supermarket scene where Himiko drags the childish cyborg 964 Pinocchio around a supermarket. Watching Himiko slap the cyborg's head numerous times while he's being mischievous, is pure comedy to me. The highlight of the film. In true guerilla film making fashion, this scene was shot without the public being aware it was all fake, thus, you witness their real reactions. Perhaps it's because of the cyborg's behaviour, evoking many young tearaways acting up whenever going shopping with their mums, which makes the reason why it's so entertaining. Also applicable to blokes forced into going with their missus shopping. See it all the time. The face of being gutted.

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)

No surprise that Romero's Dawn of the Dead served as the template to many a zombie movie in more ways than one. The supermarket scene is the one most often replicated. Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later is no different. As farcical as it seems to find a Budgens supermarket in London that hasn't been raided and looted during a catastrophic pandemic, it is welcome break from the doom and gloom for our film's characters to let their hair down and have fun. Frank schooling Jim on fine whiskey appreciation while Grandaddy's A.M. 180 plays is a welcome moment. The scene when Frank amusingly leaves his credit card at the checkout till always triggers me, and would have me feeling paranoid, despite the context of banks and regular people hardly existing in the wake of viral outbreak which has completely decimated Great Britain.

 

Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)

"Two blokes and a fuckload of cutlery." Edgar Wright managed to bring Michael Bay levels of high octane, Hollywood action to the English West Country. A notable sequence in Hot Fuzz are the epic shoot out scenes inside a Somerfield supermarket. Love the creative use of various props associated with a supermarket being used to great effect, like the use of shopping trolleys serving as battering rams to overcome the siege with the two butchers. Unpopular opinion, but Hot Fuzz is without a doubt the best in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy on account of Simon Pegg not acting like an incredibly annoying, whining man-child like in the other films.

The Mist (Frank Darabont, 2007)

Other than being the last Stephen King adaptation I've enjoyed, the fundamental appeal of Frank Darabont's The Mist isn't all the bizarre and deadly creatures from another dimension laying waste to everyone caught in the thick mist, but the even greater threat of a religious nutcase. Mrs. Carmody is the local faith loony who manifests into a psychotic prophet to all the scared and gullible religious folk trapped with her inside a supermarket. Watching her become all the more deranged and dangerous, while she gains more authority, is positively frightening. It becomes abundantly obvious that the film is a metaphor for modern day religion and the evil acts performed in the name of God. If that isn't enough to piss off a large section of society, then The Mist features one of the most tragically messed up film endings, which goes totally against the typical Hollywood formula. For those reasons, and the fact that it's a very good film, I salute The Mist for having the balls to go totally against the grain.

 

That's probably it as far selections go. Without a doubt there will be some glaring omissions, but the selections above aren't there to chronicle every supermarket scene from a film; merely what's relevant to the tastes of this blog.

Too bad Bryan Forbes' The Stepford Wives (1975)  isn't available on blu-ray, as I can barely remember much of it and would love to revisit it. Otherwise, I would have felt more comfortable including the supermarket scene, too.