Archive for the ‘31 Days of Horror’ Category

  • 31 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 7

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    This guy can’t believe October is over, but I still have one more chapter left in my month’s viewing to follow…

     

    Pet Sematary (1989 – Mary Lambert)
    A good half of this adaptation of yet another Stephen King novel is essentially foreshadowing. You know what’s coming, you know how it’s going to happen and you know what the result is going to be, and yet it takes its time getting there…That’s mostly OK as you get a heaping helping of Fred Gwynne during the setup and those bits alerting you to what is to come are handled rather decently. After a new family moves into a house on a well-traveled road (with a single tank truck apparently driving by about 20 times a day), they discover a cemetery at the end of a path behind their house. With help from their kindly neighbour (Gwynne), they learn it’s a cemetery for pets and it dates back hundreds of years. When the family cat gets munged on the road, he lets the father in on a special secret – a bit further afield from that cemetery is another one that provides some interesting side effects to those buried there. It has its goofy bits and Denise Crosby threatens to shut the whole damn thing down on her own, but it finds its rhythms here and there and manages to hold you until the eventual denouement which spirals nicely out of control.

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    Brainscan (1994 – John Flynn)
    You really have to love those older films that played with the early home computers – whether they got the technology right or not, it’s always great to see how little we expected the huge revolution that was just around the corner. Brainscan gets a bit of it, though, by centering the story around a interactive, virtual reality horror video game that sucks in shy teenager Michael (played by Edward Furlong). After being unimpressed with the sales pitch, he gives the game a whirl and suddenly finds himself tasked with killing some unknown sleeping man in his bedroom. Thinking it’s all a game, he completes the task and can’t wait to play the second part since it all felt so real. And then he sees a news story depicting the murder he just committed in the game. Is it real or was it just a game? He balks at playing again, but the virtual host of the game morphs out of his TV into his room and forces him to play several more rounds with more deaths piling up each time. It’s a neat premise, but any dread or even general horror at the concept is diminished by the cartoon character Trickster (egads, what a terrible name). It does keep you in suspense as to how it will all play out and stays at a reasonable entertainment level (and provides Frank Langella as a cop on the case – so you’ve at least got that), but still very much a lesser effort.

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  • 31 Oct

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    Blindspotting #4 – The Mummy and The Wolf Man

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    One of the keys to coming to older horror movies (particularly those of the 30s and 40s) is not to go in to them expecting to be “scared”. I don’t mean this as a way of belittling those movies – in particular my two blind spots this month The Mummy and The Wolf Man – but simply to state that if you are coming to them this late, you’ve likely had experience with other more intense movies with a different purpose in mind. Many of the more recent movies are designed to ramp up your adrenalin and make you feel unease. The older ones typically want nothing more than to entertain…Personally, I like both types.

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    That’s also not to say that the older movies can’t bring some creepiness to bear since they certainly can. It’s a different and less unrelenting type, though, but it can still linger for awhile…Take for instance 1932′s The Mummy – it’s hard to get a creepier still than the great one of Boris Karloff that leads off this post. The lighting emphasizes those sunken eyes and the close-up gives all manner of detail to the ridges and deep valleys of his (its?) craggy face. The first sight of this face from this vantage point is indeed quite disconcerting. It also helps you put two and two together to realize that this man (named Ardath Bay) is actually the reincarnation of Im-Ho-Tep. A decade earlier, Im-Ho-Tep’s mummified remains had been awakened by British archaeologists and now that a new British team is on site, Ardath is helping them to uncover another tomb – this time the one belonging to his ill-fated lover Princess Anck-es-en-Amon. Im-Ho-Tep was sentenced to die after trying to bring his love back to life, but several thousand years later he was brought back by a reading from The Scroll Of Thoth. The new team of archaeologists is actually led by the son of the leader of the first team, a man who said he would never return due to what happened (the man who read the scroll who was part of his team went insane after witnessing the mummy come to life and shuffle out into the desert). By using the most recent team, Ardath (ie. Im-Ho-Tep) plans to find his princess and then reanimate her using the body of another woman – in this case the pretty Helen Grosvenor – who just happens to look very much like her. Of course, the expedition’s leader (Frank Whemple) has just fallen for Helen too…

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    Oddly – at least given the expectations I had coming in – there is not a single scene of a mummy shuffling forward with his arms outstretched. Not one! We see his eyes open, a wrapped hand move into shot and a trailing unraveling bandage dragged off screen as the mummy leaves. This is fine, of course, since the movie doesn’t need those shots, but it was still surprising. The Wolfman similarly doesn’t overdo too many shots of its titular character – though we do get a wolf attack early on and then the actual wolfman towards the end. That wolfman (and I’m not really giving anything away as it is pretty obvious what the throughline of the story is) is Larry Talbot, recently returned from the United States after his brother’s death in order to take over as the heir of his father’s estate (located in Wales). Things start out well enough, but as he escorts a pretty shopgirl and her friend one night, he gets bitten by a wolf. Turns out it was one of the gypsies who set up camp (the other stalworth of Universal monster pictures – Bela Lugosi) and his mother warns Larry that he too will turn once the moon goes full again. Larry (played by the lumbering and not overly smooth Lon Chaney Jr.) tries to tell his father, but it’s not the easiest thing to explain to someone.

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  • 25 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 6

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    For today’s lesson…

     

    The Mummy’s Hand (1940 – Christy Cabanne)
    A poor cousin to the Universal Monster classic The Mummy, this short cheapie may lack in characters, story and humour (not that it doesn’t “try” to be funny), but there’s one thing that it has in spades in comparison to its older relative – an actual walking mummy. And a beady hollow-eyed one at that. Not that it makes this film any better than its parentage, but it at least helps its bland beginnings become somewhat more entertaining in the latter part. Less a horror film and more an action/adventure flick, it’s a reasonable watch and fairly inoffensive (except the attempts to be funny) as two archaeologists find a clue to the ancient Ananka’s hidden tomb. A magician who funds their trip joins them and brings along his beautiful daughter. The four of them must contend with a high priest and his zombie-like mummy who guards the grave. There’s little more to the razor thin plot, but at least it goes about its business quickly and probably provided for a bit of time-wasting fun for kids back in the day (and possibly even today if they aren’t too jaded).

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    The Curse Of The Crying Woman (1963 – Rafael Baledon)
    The dubbing is horrible and the DVD is a mix of grey and light grey, but this Mexican take on the “evil family curses reaching down the generations” genre is far better than you ever might imagine as director Baledon fills the movie with some memorable images and creepy scenes. Amelia is visiting her aunt by invitation for the first time in many years, but in standard horror movie fashion none of the townspeople want to go anywhere near her aunt’s mansion. Turns out they’re not so dumb, since auntie has plans for Amelia. Before the stroke of midnight on her birthday, the curse will take affect and she will help reawaken a witch from years of decomposed sleep. Amelia’s constantly cigar chomping new husband is also present and relatively useless in helping her even if he is clearly about 20 years older than she is (one can only imagine Amelia has some father complex issues to work out). It’s a breezy 74 minutes and despite some blathering about the history of the curse and maddening plot elements, it really does kinda fly by with some well deserved minor scares and, my favourite word in horror, atmosphere.

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  • 17 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 5

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    Batten down the hatches and prep for battle – the horror is among us again…

     

    The Hole (2009 – Joe Dante)
    Part of me thought this would be a great “first” horror film for my 12 year-old. The characters are likeable, the pace is solid, the gore is minimal and the scares come from empathizing with those characters – not just from random jump scares or loud noises. Having said that, it’s pretty disturbing – both within individual key scenes and viewed as an overall concept. A hole in your basement that will bring your deepest darkest fears to life which you must face in order to survive? A hulking zombie-like father who used to beat his family regularly and still keeps track of where they move? Now there’s a film that understands something about what can scare a kid…It’s pretty entertaining too since they keep the mystery alive long enough and create some engaging moments and dialogue between the two brothers and the girl next door. And you also get Bruce Dern and Dick Miller popping up briefly to lend Dante a hand (which they do with ease). If the payoffs to the stories don’t quite hit with force or perfect accuracy, they still hit. It’s a shame this 3 year-old film never really got the wider audience it deserved. I’d even go so far as to say that I would be curious to see it in its 3-D incarnation because of Dante’s grasp of how to entertain an audience.

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    Cabin In The Woods (2012 – Drew Goddard)
    I guess I’ve missed the window for any real discussion of this film – since I get the feeling EVERYTHING has already been covered – but even though I greatly enjoyed it (I fall squarely on the “pro-Cabin-In-The-Woods” side of the divide), I don’t know how much I would have wanted to add to the conversation. I mean, it knows exactly what it’s doing and does so in wholly effective ways. I liked the performances across the board, felt every scene with Jenkins and Whitford was a winner and enjoyed the different uses (and meta-uses) of the horror film conventions – like the brief takes on foreign horror, the calling out of stupid decisions (“no wait, we should split up…”) and sudden changes of character to better fit stereotypes. I can certainly see complaints about it not being as clever as it thinks it is, but it sure felt at least as entertaining as it thinks it is. As a bonus, even if this were just a straight-up kids-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods horror film, it would still be a huge cut above many simply because the 5 main actors come across very well, remain interesting and even somewhat sympathetic. And can I just single out Kristen Connolly here for a second? Not just because she is incredibly attractive, but, well, she really is…

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  • 13 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 4

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    Almost halfway through the month and I’m still transfixed on all manner of freaky films.

     

    Amityville II: The Possession (1982 – Damiano Damiani)
    Though this sequel (or prequel depending on what you want to believe about the background of the stories) plays out its devil possession story little by little, it’s quite amazing how it reaches a major crescendo around the 20 minute mark and then another at an hour before its final inevitable fiery showdown. In between these peaks, it plays out the haunted/cursed house tale mostly via sound, camera point of view shots and character reactions – and it’s far more effective than you might expect. The dialogue and acting are average (though you have to love Burt Young for diving full tilt into the Dad-who-can-snap-at-a-moment’s-notice character), but it builds the transformation of the eldest son a step at a time as the family moves into the house. Along with Mom, Dad and the devil-in-training, there are three others in the family – two youngsters (who keep getting blamed for things the house is doing – e.g. writing on walls, destroying furniture, etc.) and a teenage daughter who is distressingly close with the oldest boy. On top of that, Mom’s just spitting distance away from serious religious fanaticism, so this family has been teetering on the edge before they even pulled up to the front door. And so the house is more than willing to give them that extra push…Even the priest who eventually gets sucked in to the family’s woes may have his own secrets. There are intimations that he may like young girls or maybe that he’s gay or that he’s losing faith. The way this film plays out, he could well be all three.

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    The Reflecting Skin (1990 – Philip Ridley)
    The first of two films in this batch that approach horror from a child’s point of view. If the themes aren’t horrific initially, by the time they’ve been filtered through the eyes of the children they’ve certainly become horror. In this particular film, a young boy named Seth Dove is in the middle of growing up around the wheat fields of Idaho in the 1950s. With his brother off in the Pacific islands working on nuclear test ranges, his mother getting more angry and bitter by the day and his weak-willed father escaping into his vampire books, Seth has lots of time to create his own stories and ideas. As some of his friends begin disappearing, his father’s past gets dug up and tragic consequences ensue – but Seth seems remarkably detached and focused on the single thought that the black-clad widow in a neighbouring house is an actual vampire and has stolen his friends. This is amplified when his brother Cameron comes home and falls in love with the widow. Young Seth sees them together as they disrobe, but is she sucking his blood or are they actually in an amorous clutch? Ridley doesn’t focus on spooky, but still manages to create a disturbing environment – the loneliness is all around them, palpable and it’s all that’s in store for Seth. Cameron and the widow seem to be the only ones with a hope of finding some actual happiness, so is Seth really afraid of vampires, or is he afraid of being left alone yet again? Or maybe he just can’t stand to see others be happy when he knows what his own lot is going to be. A truly odd movie – slow and occasionally uncomfortable, but filled to the brim with allusions to a child’s worries.

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  • 10 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 3

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    Silk (2006 – Chao Bin-Su)
    Within the first 20 minutes of Silk you’ve seen ghosts, a discovery that may lead to anti-gravity, a cop with incredible eyesight and a facility for reading lips, and an obese Canadian photographer. How do these elements fit together? And can they possibly do so without imploding? And what about the cop’s dying mother, the silk that ties the energy of the ghosts back to the real world, daylilies and facial tumors? Despite some treacly moments, it does manage to bring all these threads together, but certainly struggles along the way. Using straight dramatic moments, a bit of gore, some thriller aspects and ghost story elements, the film tracks the mystery of a boy ghost that a research team has trapped in a room. The entire story revolves around an anti-gravity discovery called a Menger Sponge which apparently traps energy and therefore can be used to counter gravity. A side effect is its ability to trap the energy of ghosts as well as allow us to see them. It really strains while trying to explain all these abilities and fumbles away most of the larger ideas it strives to get across. The moments with the ghosts remind one of Ju-On somewhat, but they never quite hit the proper atmospheric dread those films had and occasionally some of the scenes deteriorate into plain silliness. Particularly when they essentially ignore the reality that they’ve set up and start creating new boundaries for the ghosts. Also, I suppose that I shouldn’t pick on details, but when the cop opens fire on a crowded subway (shooting bullets sprayed with liquid Menger Sponge and aimed at a ghost only he can see), it’s rather baffling that the subway could pull into the next stop, have no one run screaming from the train and then close its doors and pull away with him remaining inside. And yet, there were some fine spooky images that, although they never quite “got” to me, were nicely realized.

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    Demon Seed (1977 – Donald Cammell)
    This particular demon seed is not the kind you might be expecting…One of the early “artificial intelligence is dangerous” warning films, this Julie Christie vehicle (based on a Dean R. Koontz novel) is chock full of wonderfully designed lab and ’70s “super-computer” equipment. Proteus 4 is the name of the big computer brain that has just been brought online and, though the government has plans to use it for some mundane number crunching, the computer scientists are still happy that they can use 20% of its cycles for beneficial research in health and environment sectors. The human brain behind the whole operation is Alex Harris and once he taps into Proteus 4 from one of his home terminals shortly after it goes online, he quickly realizes that the artificial brain has already figured out that humanity isn’t worth its CPU cycles. Proteus 4 wants to be let out of its box and allowed to acquire whatever knowledge it can on its own – a request that is quickly denied. But Proteus 4 has a backup plan…By going through the home terminal, it takes over the automated systems in Alex’s house (he has surveillance cameras, robotic arms and other machines to handle daily chores) and imprisons Harris’s wife Susan (the two are separated and he has just left the house for a few months). It gets a bit hit and miss from this point on as Susan (as played by Christie) jumps to hysterical behaviour far too quickly and shows no ability to use logic – a shame, because you always want to like Christie while she’s on screen (in pretty much any role). Proteus 4′s plan involves her because it wants to create its own offspring in order to vicariously explore the world. Yeah, you can see where this is going now right? It wants to impregnate Susan with its own synthetic sperm to create a new step in human evolution and manages to capture her and tie her down for numerous tests, the actual insemination and for the month long, speeded-up fetal development. Though you have to give the film credit for just going for its concept and letting it play out, it would’ve been nice to give Christie a bit of respite…

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  • 08 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 2

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    A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988 – Renny Harlin)
    Seriously though, that above image is one of the reasons I could never quite get into the Elm Street movies as horror – there’s certainly some nightmarish scenarios, but they’re always cut by one of Freddy’s witticisms or by an overabundance of silly. That doesn’t mean they can’t be entertaining though: the first is fine, the second would be a hoot if you watched it with a roomful of drunken smartasses and the third is actually quite fun of its own accord (e.g. Dick Cavett attacks Zsa Zsa Gabor on TV). I find the Freddy character himself kind of tiring, but there’s typically been some inventiveness in the dream sequences despite their cheesiness. The fourth go around stays true to that form. Though it takes itself a bit more serious than number three, there’s still a lot of goofy mixed in with some clever moments. Once again, I never felt any sense of dread during the dreams, but I can forgive the films that. They do tend to side on the gross and goopy when it comes to some of the visuals, but the effects (at least in the first four) are mostly of the old school variety so there’s a lot of craft involved. This one brings back three characters that remained at the end of number three (though a different actress – Tuesday Knight – takes on Patricia Arquette’s role of Kristen) and gives it a bit more of that late 80s look and feel to things. That’s not always a good thing (some of the music is far more frightening than a slash across the face from Freddy’s hand), but it’s actually a fine little time capsule. And Harlin keeps the whole thing moving. My guess is the series starts to plummet from here on out (though apparently New Nightmare is solid).

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    Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984 – Joseph Zito)
    For most of this fourth installment of Jason Voorhees’ story, things feel right in line with the two previous parts – there’s a scenario that brings young people to the backwoods for their partying at which point Jason finds out and starts dismantling them in a variety of painful ways. Both Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman are amongst the cast this time out and the acting level from most everyone just feels a bit stronger. The same music and tch-tch-tch sound effects are used just as effectively again, so everything is working pretty well. And then that ending…Wow. First of all, they kinda rush through some of the final deaths (handling several off screen – to an extent that you aren’t even sure if some of them are dead) and the final chase feels like it was handled by a different director with some odd pauses and blocking. But then they decide to go all bat-shit crazy for the final killing and, even though much of it makes no sense, all is pretty much forgiven because they just WENT for it. They got a little sloppy getting to it, but they certainly gave you value once it arrived. And they even managed to set up a sequel without necessarily betraying the film’s title – though I haven’t yet seen the fifth one to determine if they held true to it. I may put that verification on hold for awhile – it’s been fun, but I need to mix it up a bit more.

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  • 07 Oct

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    A Month Of Horror 2012 – Chapter 1

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    Don’t look so shocked – it’s another October, so it’s time for another feast of horror films. Here are my first four of the month:

     

    Blue Sunshine (1978 – Jeff Lieberman)
    Let’s be honest, the reason to watch Blue Sunshine is for the scenes of crazed bald maniacs freaking out and laying smack downs on whoever might be within reach of their wild flailing arms. In and of itself, that should really be enough shouldn’t it? The film somehow manages, though, to both deliver more and less than that at the same time…”More” in that there are additional scenes that entertain with knowing winks (the marionettes, oh, the marionettes) and sometimes without. “Less” in that there’s very little horror – certainly not much tension. The film has some good sequences, but they always seem to be let down by a poor ending to the build-up, a piece of terrible dialogue, odd acting choices or simply the dumbest central character I’ve seen in awhile. If he had, just once, tried using his words to explain even the smallest detial, so much of this could have been avoided…His name is Zipling and after witnessing a friend of his turn into a berserk bald man (entire heads of hair can come off all in one fell swoop when the affliction kicks in), he goes on the run after killing him in self defense. Desperate to find out why this happened to his buddy, he manages to link it and a few other occurrences to the words “blue sunshine” and a drug that they all took about a decade previous. The plot is of little importance though – you’re simply waiting for the next person to snap. It has its moments as mentioned, but sometimes it just loses its bearings. My favourite scene has to be when Zipling’s girlfriend is pleading with him not to keep searching without her, but as he gets on an escalator she suddenly stops following him – seemingly stymied by those moving stairs (she even kicks it in frustration). Fun, but not a must-see.

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    Omen II: Damien (1978 – Don Taylor)
    Seven years after his parents’ death, Damien is just around the corner from his 13th birthday and the passage into adulthood. While in military school with his cousin he learns the truth about himself and tries to better understand who he really is. That all sounds like most teenagers until you realize that his parentage is a wee bit unusual. To help him cope with being the spawn of the devil, he has guidance from a new sergeant and an executive at his uncle’s company who seem to have his interests at heart. Along the way, a variety of people get in the way of the grand plan and meet rather unseemly ends. It all moves at a pretty decent clip and brings effective tension to several scenes by cross-cutting and stretching out their resolution. Not all of it works (the ominous heavy choir gets a little tiring and one particular death scene is actually quite funny – which I suppose adds to the entertainment value), but overall this was a solid 70s mainstream horror. Along with William-freaking-Holden as Damien’s uncle and guardian, there’s a hell of a great cast of supporting players – Robert Foxworth, Sylvia Sydney, Lew Ayres, Nicholas Pryor, Lance Henriksen, Allan Arbus. Two final thoughts: 1) William Holden even looks bad ass on a snowmobile; 2) Don’t ever wear anything red – just don’t.

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  • 05 Nov

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    A Short Video Summation of an October of Horror

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    As a final wrap-up of my October horror viewing spree, here’s a short compilation of scenes from each movie I watched (2 clips from each film not including the bonus snippets at the end):

     

  • 02 Nov

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    A Month Of Horror – Chapter 8

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    Yeah, I’m surprised October’s over too…32 horror films in the month is my final count – a 33% drop from last year’s total. I blame Toronto After Dark for keeping me busy…

    The last four for the month:

     

    The Shiver Of The Vampires (1971 – Jean Rollin)
    It’s quite surprising that it’s taken me so long to get around to seeing one of Jean Rollin’s art-horror films – you’d think this stuff would’ve been right up my alley. And indeed, it most certainly is. For whatever reason, I just never thought to dive into his output until one of his titles pretty much randomly came up in my lengthy list of items to investigate. In this case, the horror derives almost strictly from images – not sound, not story, not character and not slow builds of tension. It’s all about the visuals. The bright colours mixed with neutral tones, the bits of bright blood red dotting the frame, the creepy statues and artifacts littering the castle, the faces of the undead vampires and the surprising places they can be found. The camera plays its own part occasionally as when it spins around inside a circle of all the characters or becomes the POV of the doomed central character. The nominal story has a newlywed couple visiting the bride’s favorite cousins in their castle. Unbeknownst to her, these vampire hunters became the hunted and now must put up with eternity. The main female vampire (who converted the cousins) slowly pulls the bride over to “her side” as the hapless husband can do nothing. Throw in a large portion of nudity, gothic outfits and a psychy soundtrack (a slightly twangy low rent version of Goblin – the great band who did the soundtrack to “Suspiria”, “Deep Red” and other Argento films) and you’ve got yourself a memorable picture.

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    Two Thousand Maniacs (1964 – Herchell Gordon Lewis)
    As a director, Lewis wasn’t exactly known for his specific style, storytelling ability or his way with actors. I think even he would say that he wasn’t so much a filmmaker as he was a businessman. By pretty much any account, “Two Thousand Maniacs” is a terrible, terrible movie – the acting is atrocious, useless dialogue scenes go on and on and the whole thing looks completely drab. Except for the blood (primarily what Lewis is known for via both this film and “Blood Feast”) which was bright and vivid. The idea was to shock with scenes of dismemberments and other such gore-filled activities and in this movie’s case, they certainly had a structure that leant itself to such requirements. One hundred years after an entire Southern town has been wiped out by the North during the Civil War, it suddenly reappears and their “centennial” celebration is focused on finding some sacrificial Northerners to kill at their festival. It’s a different spin on Brigadoon and as an idea certainly isn’t the worst one for a gorefest. The odd thing is that it isn’t filled with as much chopped up flesh as you would expect (of course, in 1964 it was rather infamous for a few scenes of severed limbs). It’s not that I necessarily wanted or needed to see more gushing blood, but when that’s all your movie has going for it, that’s all you can hope for.

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  • 01 Nov

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    Playing Horror Catch-up: Vol 3

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    One last set of horror capsules from me, and relatively on time, too! Go me. I would actually have had it ready yesterday except I knew we were going to watch Friday the 13th last night and I wanted to include it. It’s been a solid month of catching up for me, with several big-name horror films crossed off my list. My overall new-to-me favorites for the month are The Cat and the Canary, Carrie, and The Descent, but I enjoyed everything I saw to one degree or another. I think next year I’ll have to come up with another title – I feel relatively caught up now with the big-name things that everyone expects me to have seen.

    The Cat and the Canary

    It figures that my favorite new-to-me film of the month would turn out to be a silent. I think I’m made backwards or something. Heh. Anyway, this “old dark house” film was namechecked at the screening of The Bat I went to earlier this month (capsule review), and even though I liked The Bat well enough, THIS is the film it largely wanted to be. I saw “largely” because this film is not a crime film in the same way, and those crime elements are solid in The Bat. The Cat and the Canary focuses on a last testament left by a crotchety old man twenty years ago – he stipulated waiting twenty years after his death to read it, and this is the time, with all his relatives gathered like vultures in his spooky old house to find out who will get his fortune. His instructions are complicated, involving a second inheritor if the main one proves to be insane, which leads to much suspicion all around. Add in a potential escaped lunatic running around through hidden passageways in the house and a mystery involving the family diamonds, plus some well-done comedy around the disparate group of people, not to mention the quite excellent Expressionist-style cinematography and really innovative animated titles, and this is a super-fun time. Is it scary? Well, maybe not, but there are some moments of genuine suspense and tension, and a few of the visuals are extremely creepy. I wrote a bit more about it here, along with more screencaps.
    1927 USA. Director: Paul Leni. Starring: Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, Forrest Shanley, Tully Marshall, Gertrude Astor, Flora Finch, Arthur Edmund Carew, Martha Mattox.

    The Fog

    This was a nearly random pick off Netflix Instant (not totally random, because I have been meaning to watch more John Carpenter films), and I knew almost nothing about it. I haven’t seen the remake or anything. I ended up really enjoying it – Carpenter has a talent for the kind of creepy scares that I love. Not quite jump scares, but where something just appears (with no cut or music to make it a jump) or you become aware of the bad guy’s presence and it sends chills down your spine. I love that, and there are several scenes in here that did that for me. The story is based on a ghost story (told wonderfully by John Houseman to a bunch of kids in the first scene) about a group of people killed 100 years earlier when their ship wrecked in a massive fog. Legend has it that when the fog returns, so will they, and this apparently is the year for it. Fog is creepy anyway, hiding things until they’re right upon you and tending toward exactly the kind of reveals I just mentioned. And there’s more to the story, as the priest in the town uncovers, that means these ghosts are not just unsettled due to their violent deaths, but actually seeking revenge. Not all of this plot works out totally, and the end is fairly nonsense-making, but on a scene-by-scene basis, I loved this. I actually liked it a little bit more than Halloween, which I’m sure I’ll get eviscerated for, but it’s because I like the ghost back story more (despite the nonsense-making). Halloween is the tighter, better movie, but The Fog appealed to my sensibilities more.
    1980 USA. Director: John Carpenter. Starring: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh, John Houseman.

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  • 31 Oct

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    Music in Film: Suspiria (1977)

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    Dario Argento’s Suspiria is justly celebrated for its bright, bloody set-pieces and flamboyant use of color, but it’s hard to imagine the movie being nearly as assaultive without the nearly omnipresent overwhelming score from the progressive band Goblin, who also provided the score for several of Argento’s other films. They recorded the music first, then Argento layered it into the film, a technique which works perfectly in this case, blending music into sound design to create sensory overload that matches, and sometimes even surpasses, Argento’s in-your-face visuals.

    This is the opening of the film, through the first set-piece, and you can already tell how important the music is going to be, from the initially delicate but creepy as hell main theme up to the frenzy of the horrific first kill. My favorite part of the movie, though, is actually the visually-subdued scene with the blind man and his dog walking into the square – a scene which is terrifying almost solely through the score and sound design. Suspiria beats you senseless with its stylistics (in the best way possible), and the Goblin score is a huge part of that.

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