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With less than 2 weeks to Halloween, my month long gorging on Horror films is winding down. It’s a bit of a tradition for me over the last 5-6 years to pack in as many scary films into October as possible. It doesn’t mean it’s the only time of year I watch them, just that I watch more when the leaves start falling. The genre has been around pretty much since the dawn of film and its rich with many different varieties and styles from all over the world, so I try to spread my viewing across much of it. With that many Horror films out there, I try to make all my selections this month first time viewings – there’s just so much to sample. Tucked under the seat is a Best / Worst list of what I’ve seen in Horror this month (out of roughly 30 films so far):
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Favourites
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The Black House (1999 – Yoshimitsu Morita)
I prefer Marc’s review over at Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow (full disclosure – I write for that site as well) to anything I might come up with here, but this is quite the remarkable film in many ways so I should at least mention it. It starts as a satiric look at the health insurance industry (and those patients who try to defraud it) while we follow meek manager Wakatsuki who attempts to deal with several different cases. He gets a call one day from Sachiko Komoda, a very strange and self-centered woman, who asks him quite plainly if suicide is covered by their plan. When he visits their house, he finds their son hanging from the rafters. Coincidence? At this point the psychological horror begins as we try to figure out whether Komoda is completely insane, deluded or if perhaps it’s Wakatsuki who is a bit “off”. Many things are brought into question via visual cues, edits and additional sound effects and it’s this ambiguity that creates an odd tension about the movie. It’s deep into the last half when it actually turns into a horror film with hidden bodies, surprise attacks and bowling balls with embedded glass shards making appearances. A unique film.
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Curse Of Frankenstein (1957 – Terence Fisher)
I’ve been trying to catch up on Hammer Studio films the past few years and finally made my way to this early classic. Fans of shocks may wonder what the fuss is, but that would obviously expose their serious lack of taste – this is a great and fun film. Peter Cushing plays Doc Frankenstein as less insane but more intense than likely any other version you’ve seen. He and his mentor of many years work towards regenerating life from death and begin to have some success with small animals. As his mentor starts having misgivings about experimentation on humans, the good doctor sees no moral issues whatsoever and continues to plow ahead. He becomes obsessed about creating life from different parts of dead people and eventually creates his monster – played remarkably well by Christopher Lee. Like many of the Hammer films, this one zips by in a flash with great sets, superb acting and a script that doesn’t waste any lines.
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Scream Blacula Scream (1973 – Bob Kelljan)
Scads and scads of fun. Oh sure, some of the acting is downright terrible and the connection between Blacula and voodoo is, um, odd at best, but that doesn’t matter. William Marshall is The Count and you better emphasize those capital letters when you say it – his deep baritone voice commands, no, COMMANDS people to do things. Simply put, he’s really awesome here. Of course, this being early 70s blaxploitation, Pam Grier is along for the ride too and she brings her typical beauty and air of invincibility along with her. The horror movie elements are still there and handled well (slow build ups, scenes set up via angles and framing, etc.), but this movie is about fun. Blacula’s initial attack on a visitor to the mansion, as he floats with his cape raised and an unknown light source illuminating his face, made me say out loud (to no one in particular since I watched it alone) “That’s so cool!”. As with many films of this type, it ends in a bit of a mish mash of ideas, but you’re already satiated by that point…Now I have to work backwards and find Blacula (also starring Marshall).
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Devils Of Darkness (1965 – Lance Comfort)
Maybe it was because I had just come off two less than stellar remakes (Quarantine and Shutter), but this mid-60s Hammer-lite story about vampires in a small village felt like a breath of fresh air. It’s a bit silly and sometimes doesn’t make a whole whack of sense, but there’s a great feeling of fun to it (especially the hipster party scene) and a couple of pretty solid moments. The atmosphere of the tale is mostly brought out via the set design and lighting, since the story is somewhat jumbled. However, once you’ve got a handle on the charismatic leader and the fact that numerous village people are part of his ranks, it’s easy enough to go with everything else. It was just damn entertaining.
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Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003 – Victor Salva)
“Every 23rd Spring for 23 days, it gets to eat.” Beginning shortly after the first in the series, the sequel opens on Day 22 as the feasting continues…After snapping up a farmboy, it moves on to its main course – a bus load of basketball players returning from the State championships. The “it” in question is a kind of man-bat with an interesting ability to regenerate portions of itself – which, of course, makes it slightly difficult to stop. They don’t go to great lengths to ingratiate any of the people on the bus with the audience, but it does some basic horror things very well: it sets up a scenario, puts people into danger and then keeps you on edge wondering who, how and when. And like the first one, this is an extremely good looking film with some beautiful night time shots. I also was quite happy to see that this was not the typical case of a sequel feeling it really needed to dive into the “back story” of the creature. The damn thing just exists – so deal with it.
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Kaidan (2007 – Hideo Nakata)
A quiet, fairly slow and slightly too long ghost story about a man and woman whose fates have already been sealed by the actions of their parents. Nakata’s name attached to this film will bring certain assumptions and expectations – best if you shed those up front. This isn’t really a horror film per se, but a melodrama with horror elements. It’s actually quite good from that standpoint since the period details and style are very well done and the ghost story slowly pulls the man deeper into his inevitable fate. The major flaw is the casting of the lead actor who just doesn’t have the subtlety required to match the rest of the performances. There aren’t many (if any) major scares, but definitely some unsettling moments and occurrences. Karma really is a bitch.
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The Fog (1980 – John Carpenter)
I had never actually seen the entirety of this – only snippets here and there. I was previously thinking that Christine was actually Carpenter’s best film (though Halloween will always be my favourite), but I may have to reconsider. The Fog isn’t perfect by any stretch – the actual fog sometimes looks too thick and obviously from a smoke machine, the end doesn’t quite work for me and Adrienne Barbeau didn’t actually interact with anyone in the entire film except for one scene with her son – but its slow pace and low body count works in its favour to build up the creep factor. It may also be his best looking film too with well thought out usage of light and shadows. And you can’t go wrong having John Houseman kick things off telling ghost stories by the campfire.
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House (1977 – Nobuhiko Obayashi)
I’ve already mentioned this. I want to see it again now. Right now.
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Not so Much
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Boogeyman (2005 – Stephen T. Kay)
Yeesh…A few interesting ideas, but nothing concrete or even consistent comes from them. The idea of a real Boogeyman in a young boy’s closet is still ripe for a good modern day interpretation. So is the idea of a young boy’s real life problems (split of family, etc.) being interpreted by himself as being caused by a Boogeyman. It felt like the filmmakers couldn’t quite decide which way to go and tried to have it both ways at the same time. As well, the scares are typically handled using way too many quick edits and jerky film speeds. That can occasionally effectively create a sense of confusion and annoyance, but that may not be what they were after. Also, I found it a huge mistake to show the damn Boogeyman. It just didn’t work.
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My Bloody Valentine (1981 – George Mihalka)
The only reason I can think as to why this is sometimes referred to as one of the best slasher films of the 80s is that it was known for having its bloodiest sequences removed for its theatrical release. On the DVD, you can watch those scenes spliced back into the film and they are indeed graphic (though not really compared to much of today’s fare), but two minutes of bloody footage does not a movie make. It is of interest to note that the story takes place in a working class town and uses a real mining company and mine shaft, but the characters aren’t much different than standard slasher films and certainly no more interesting. Geez, it can’t be that difficult to give your characters something unique to say, can it? The kills are interesting (though only with that additional footage thrown in), but there’s no real scares and not a whole lot of tension. The end title song is pretty awe-inspiring though since it sounds vaguely like Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” with lyrics that pretty much just restate the story line. I can only guess they thought it was appropriate because it was filmed in Nova Scotia? One bright spot – seeing an early performance by Canada’s Cynthia Dale.
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Shutter (2008 – Masayuki Ochiai)
Don’t hold this against the original Thai film, OK? That 2004 movie had jump scares in it like most other modern horror films, but it prepped them with a foundation of creepiness and subtle effects as it slowly revealed the ghostly presences that begin to appear in a photographer’s work. In the 2008 version, every time there was the possibility of a moment of subtlety (and there were actually a few moments), the film just grabbed it by the neck and throttled it until it went whimpering back into a corner. A typical scenario went like this: First, add some scary noises…Then make them louder. Then bring in the ominous music and make it louder and then speedupthepace, shortenthetimebetweenshots, movethecamerafaster, TURNUPTHEVOLUME, ZOOM IN, HAVESOMEONESCREAM! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! Sigh…Director Ochiai’s Infection was actually a pretty decent horror flick from 2004 (using colour in interesting ways). 4 years later, with a bigger budget and a few semi-Hollywood names (the extraordinarily bland couple Joshua Jackson and Rachel Taylor), he was able to deliver something far far less.
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The Lost Boys (1987 – Joel Schumacher)
This is the 80s “classic” I keep hearing about? Really? I know it’s hard to judge 20 year old movies when you can’t help but get distracted by obvious dating factors (clothes, hair, music), but even beyond all that, this just wasn’t a very well put together film. There are a few good scenes, but also plenty of bad ones and pretty sub-par attempts by just about everyone involved. Even the scares were usually ill-timed. Kiefer Sutherland was mostly effective as the ring leader of a gang of young male vampires looking to expand their group, but he didn’t have a whole lot to do and his fellow vampires had even less (speaking maybe a half dozen lines between them in the entire movie). The whole thing is further dragged down by very lame humour – most of which comes via Corey Haim and his wardrobe – that positions the whole enterprise as a made-for-TV movie.
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Silent Hill (2006 – Christophe Gans)
The look of just about everything in this film is beautifully designed (if not always rendered quite perfectly via CGI) and its many creatures creatively bring the proper amount of queasiness. However, as Radha Mitchell searches for her little girl throughout the ghost town called Silent Hill, none of that design is enough to sustain the 2+ hour running time or to fix a really inconsistent performance from Mitchell and needlessly confusing approaches to revealing the story. Not to mention the terrible cliche of “Mother is God in the eyes of a child” and the idea that a mother’s love is stronger than a father’s. Apparently, only a mother would risk everything for their child. The Orphanage bugged me in a similar manner. It’s not the fact that only the mother went looking for the child, but the impression that the mother was the only one that could have gone. Yes, I take this personally…
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Maniac (1934 – Dwain Esper)
If there’s three things I learned from this poorly directed, terribly acted and horribly put together 51 minute film it’s that 1) people sure talked to themselves a lot more back then (“What am I going to do? The police will be here any minute!”); 2) “super-adrenaline” is nasty stuff and makes you snort and cackle like an evil witch; 3) cat’s eyeballs apparently pop out quite easily and are “not unlike an oyster or a crepe”. An aging scientist and his assistant are working on reanimation of the dead and decide to begin raiding the mortuary for test subjects. When the assistant kills the scientist in an argument, he takes his place and tries to cover everything up. However, an evil cat named Satan, a woman patient who sees through his ruse and a wife that he somehow “forgot” (but reappears after he has inherited a great deal of money) all seem to conspire against him continuing his mentor’s work. The film pretends to analyze different stages of mania by occasionally flashing intertitles that discuss certain different characteristics of mental illnesses, but they have no tie to the events on screen. Not that those events really have many ties to each other either…Cat fights (of both the feline and female variety), glimpses of nudity, multi-exposed film to imply the devil’s presence in guiding the crazy scientist (the most effective part of the film) and other seemingly random moments come and go. There’s an interesting idea buried somewhere amongst the inept filmmaking.
Movie laboratories are one of my favorite things ever. Metropolis,...
I do this (gorge on horror films) during October, too. Or, well, this is my second year of doing so. Before that I avoided horror films, and I still tend to wuss out a lot. But I’ve been seeing a bunch of 30s and 40s horror, and hoping to catch up on some classics (like, say, The Exorcist) this month. Will have to read this more in-depth and post something of my own soon. Thanks for the ideas!
Yeah, please chime in Jandy! I need a firmer grounding in the old stuff too – I’ve only seen a handful of Lugosi/Karloff films. If you haven’t yet, check out the Val Lewton films of the 40s. Especially “Cat People” and “I Walked With A Zombie” – both are directed by Jacques Tourneur who went on to make my fave Noir “Out Of The Past”. Since you like Noir as well, you would love some of these films – shadows everywhere (the famous pool scene in “Cat People” is glorious).
There’s a Val Lewton box set (Lewton was the producer – along with Tourneur, Robert Wise and Mark Robson directed the other films) that has nine of these collected and each is worthwhile.
Tourneur also did “Night Of The Demon” from the late 50s which is pretty darn superb. Not like jump out of your seat films of today, but more of a slow creep as it withholds so much and leaves everything in the shadows. Well, almost everything.
Look for “Dead Of Night” as well – it’s a 1945 British omnibus film (from Ealing Studios) that collects 5-6 shorter stories within one wrap around one. Not quite as much fun as the Amicus films from the 70s, but still pretty solid.
I absolutely love horror but more and more I’m realizing that I have just about zero faith in the genre. I’m one of these who’s kinda sick of the fun, jokey ones. I like my horror serious and atmospheric and tongue-completely-out-of-cheek. Unfortunately, that brand seems more and more sparse these days. And as a rule, I usually don’t scare too easy. I love your American Werewolfs and Evil Deads, but I crave to be all tense and disturbed. That’s when I’m really sold.
Not really a “horror,” but you might want to check out The Innocents if you haven’t already. Talk about moody–the cinematography is stylish and just beautiful.
And pretty surprising: The Woman in Black, if you can find it, was actually a British TV movie but, man…there are a few scenes in there that scare the hell out of me.
Love talking horror! ‘Till next time.
Yeah, “The Innocents” is great – another beautiful looking film. A perfect companion to that is another Robert Wise film – “The Haunting” (I haven’t seen the 1999 remake, but all reports indicate it ain’t so good).
“Woman In Black” sounds like a keeper! Thanks for the tip Mike. Added to my zip.ca list and moved it to the top.
My preference is also for the atmospheric, slow, creepy, tension-filled stuff. The Japanese filmmakers can do this very effectively (not all J-Horror is of this type of course, but a good deal is). I have faves in all the styles, but most are the slower ones.
Bob, I LOVE Val Lewton films. One of the repertory cinemas out here did a series of his films last October, and I saw most of them then. The others I finished last week, actually, borrowed from a friend who had the box set. I Walked With a Zombie (which I actually wrote a paper about for litcrit in grad school!) and Cat People are clearly the top, but I quite like The Body Snatcher and Isle of the Dead. And though they’re not really horror, Curse of the Cat People and The Ghost Ship are also enjoyable. Didn’t really care for Bedlam that much. (For whatever reason, Out of the Past is not one of my favorite noirs. Maybe I need a rewatch, but I just don’t see in it what everyone else does, somehow.)
The rep cinema also did some J-horror last year, but the only ones I saw were Kwaidan (which I need to see again; didn’t really get most of it, though I did like the monk-with-the-writing-on-his-face story a good bit) and Retribution, which is one of the few Japanese films I’ve seen that I didn’t really have too much trouble getting into. (Just a few “OMG WTF” moments that I couldn’t tell whether they were supposed to be funny or not.)
This year is early Technicolor horror, and next week is a double feature of Hammer films – I’ve never seen any Hammer films at all, so I’m really excited!
I’ve seen Dead of Night, The Haunting and The Innocents – great stuff. I’ve loved Dead of Night forever, and I’m always glad to find people who’ve seen it. I pretty much recommend it to everyone. In the same vein as the ’60s ones, Village of the Damned is great. (Children of the Damned, not so much.) Same kid from The Innocents, and he’s just as creepy/awesome. The remake of The Haunting is only worthwhile because I can point out the exterior of the manor and the great hall to people, because they were filmed at the school where I studied abroad in college.
I definitely haven’t seen enough noir, but I’ve always felt out of the loop also when people talk about how great Out of the Past is, Jandy. I just don’t really get it.
But that’s great that they have The Woman in Black on Zip.ca; Netflix is still behind the curve on that one. And I’d definitely love to hear what you think about it–I’ve only talked to one other person who’s seen it and that was the guy who recommended it to me. It’s got some stock ghost story elements but some pretty quality stuff too. I think the fact that it was a TV movie is really what made it good, since it had to kind of be reserved and work a bit more inside itself rather than depend on a high budget or gore or whatever.
Oh, and I just rewatched A Nightmare on Elm Street last night and whew…never realized how terrible the writing is in that one. It’s still A Nightmare on Elm Street and iconic and blahblahblah, but hasn’t exactly aged like a champ.
Here I am suggesting Val Lewton films to Jandy…and she’s like studied them and stuff. I bow my head in a sign of deference…B-)
Too bad there’s not a lot of love coming to “Out Of The Past”. It was an early Noir for me, so perhaps that’s why it’s stuck. “Detour” has stuck as well, but simply due to it being such a prototypical example of the form and that dark spiral downwards for the main character (and the telephone cord…).
But as for “Out Of The Past”, Jandy said:
“but I just don’t see in it what everyone else does, somehow.”
Jane Greer. I’d be putty in her hands too.
“Kwaidan” I love partially for the look of it. Especially the second story (with the Snow Woman). Those painted skies are just gorgeous. And the use of sound is another key element and a distinctive trait of Japanese directors. Kurosawa (who did “Retribution”) is another fine example – the sound design in that film is great. Especially when there is almost no sound at all as the woman in red, slowly, slowly approaches him and her face fills the screen. Geezus, that’s freaky…
Mike, I’ll try to include something about “Woman In Black” in a follow-on post – you’ve got me psyched.
And “Nightmare On Elm Street” (even worse – number 2) is not a shining example of dialog writing. Or any kind of writing at all for that matter. It’s still fun though.
I almost hate to admit this but I just realized, at this very minute, that this entire time we were talking about Out of the Past, I was thinking about Night of the Hunter. Ugh! Robert Mitchum confusion!
I honestly don’t remember Out of the Past that much except that liked it. And in my movie log I noted the glory that was the femme-fatal manipulation. Gotta love that.
And yeah, Jandy knows her game. Anybody who writes litcrit essays on zombie movies is more than ok in my book.
Heh, no worries, Bob. I haven’t really studied Lewton films per se. The paper was to exemplify post-colonial criticism – a friend and I jointly wrote a paper explaining post-colonialism as a critical approach, then each did a shorter paper putting it into practice. I did I Walked with a Zombie, she did a J.M. Coetzee book. I just basically turned everything in that class into a film paper (with the sanction of the professor, of course). It’s still the top article on my archive site here, since I haven’t really written anything else of that kind of academic depth since I graduated. (If you look at it, keep in mind it’s geared toward literature students, not film ones, and it’s geared specifically to address post-colonialism as opposed to any other litcrit approach.) At the time, I had only seen Zombie and Cat People, not any of the other Lewton films.
Retribution had awesome sound design. Agreed. And visuals, too. The woman in red was almost iconic. Kurosawa also did the original Pulse, didn’t he? I almost watched that the other night, but ended up watching The Host instead. Which was my first experience of K-horror.
Mike, ah, but I LOVE Night of the Hunter unequivocally. So I guess I’m all alone again in my indifference toward Out of the Past. I’ll have to rewatch it. I did see it early in my exposure to noir, but I think that had the opposite effect on me than it did on Bob – I didn’t know enough about noir to care about it from that perspective, so I ended up just not appreciating it, I think. Knowing more about noir and its different facets will probably help.
Jandy, Kurosawa did indeed do the original “Pulse” – I really recommend you watch it as I’d love to hear your opinion. I will likely be doing up a review for it sometime in November as part of another feature for the site.
And Mike, Jandy and I stand together on “Night Of The Hunter”…B-) If only for the underwater discovery scene (I don’t want to give away to anyone reading this who hasn’t seen the film what is found underwater) and the entire trip up the river. I guess that shows my bias towards rich visuals, but I love the story & characters too – Mitchum’s character and performance are almost over the top, but he brings such an intensity to it that it feels genuine (in the sense that the character would actually behave that way).
Want a horror movie with Sound design? The best one I’ve ever seen is the Limited Edition Korean version of A TALE OF TWO SISTERS. There are several scenes that are told entirely with the sound design. I use that disc to ‘demo’ my home theatre, (although a couple of the ‘attendees’ of the demo have had to leave the room during the ‘girl wakes up during the day to find ghost in her room’ sequence in the film.
But I agree with Bob that Kursawa’s PULSE is one of the more adventurous entries in the J-Horror subgenre (in fact almost everything Kurosawa had ever done fits this category, even Tokyo Sonata.)
…And that trip down the river in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is very fairy tale-ish (in a scary sort of good way)…come to think of it, the entire film is like that.
I think it was the trip up the river that really got me on Night of the Hunter. Up to then, I enjoyed it, but it was just kinda all right, con story, creepy Mitchum, a bit more moody than usual, but other than that, just enjoyable. And then that river trip just threw it onto a whole other level, almost like a fable (which continued into the Gish part), and it suddenly became awesome.
Kurt, I have A Tale of Two Sisters borrowed from a friend – I’ll probably be watching it tonight, actually. You’re making it sound really scary, though!
Yeah, “Tale Of Two Sisters” is quite excellent. I didn’t find it overly terrifying, but it’s beautifully done and the sound is creepy (those scratching fingers on the floor…).
Let us know what you thought of it Jandy. And Pulse too! I’ll report back on Woman In Black once I see it…
I don’t know why I never got involved in these discussions earlier! It’s so great talking to people who love movies just as much if not more than yourself, getting recommendations, feeling them out. And I’m always looking for good horror suggestions–so Pulse, Dead of Night and Two Sisters have all just been moved to the top of my Netflix. How exciting!
Hate to say it, but I agree with you on Lost Boys – I revisited it recently and totally didn’t hold up to my memory of it. Enjoyable, sure but not a great film.
I totally need to see more horror this month! Still over a week to go!
It’s true that TALE OF TWO SISTERS isn’t all that terrifying but seeing it in a packed house at a near midnight screening was something all together different. Seeing at home years later it didn’t have the same impact.
As for THE LOST BOYS, it was never good but man, it’s a fun 80s schlocker. The smooth sax, the bleached hair, wicked clothes and all around vibe is all goodness. I love it.
Just keep coming back Mike…We’re in it for the same reasons! Can’t wait to watch some of the recommendations I’ve already received…
Glad I’m not alone on “The Lost Boys”…It was fun from the perspective of looking back on an 80s movie, but that cheesy sax player with the long hair? Oh man, I wanted to deck him – mostly because he was absolutely destroying the great song “I Still Believe” (by The Call).
Marina, seeing “A Tale Of Two Sisters” in a theatre with an audience must’ve been most excellent – it is so much better watching horror with an audience.
I’m such a wuss. I started watching A Tale of Two Sisters last night but then realized how late it would be when it was over and that I’d pretty much be going straight to bed after. So I stopped it so I could watch it tonight EARLIER and be finished in time to watch something else to defreak myself if it freaked me out.
But just from the first half hour or so, I can already tell I’m going to love it. The compositions, the music – it’s all gorgeous.
And I tend to get more freaked out at home than at the theatre, I think, but probably because I live alone, so my imagination just goes crazy. The Doctor Who episode I posted about on MorePop a few weeks ago (“Blink”) just about had me sleepless. But I’m too new to horror to have seen very many in theatres, so I don’t have that good a basis of comparison.
Okay, you guys, I admit (in fact already have admitted) to being a lightweight about horror films, but I just finished A Tale of Two Sisters and that freaked me the frak out, for serious. I had to turn the light in the kitchen on halfway through and kept having to pause it to catch my breath. I can’t imagine seeing that in a theatre where I didn’t have control of my surroundings. On the other hand, I freaking loved it. Gorgeous, gorgeous – about to screencap it now. Next up: Suspiria.
Oh. My. God. A Tale of Two Sisters is terrifying! You’re way tougher than I am, Marina! The colors, the sound design, shot composition…wow. That’s all I can say. I’ll admit that the last 30minutes or so still have me kind of scratching my head (you gotta make some kind of flow chart for this one), but the style and mood are so controlled so well-crated, and the scares–they’re actually scary! Great pick, Bob. This and [Rec] are probably the two creepiest movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. Seeing it in theater would probably be a revelation.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve Ever seen a genuinely scary movie in an actual theater… Aw, man. And now I’m depressed.