Archive for the ‘31 Days of Horror’ Category

  • 07 Oct

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    31 Days of Horror: Day 7 – The League of Gentlemen

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    League of Gentlemen Season 1 DVDNow I know that he following is not a movie but a television series, but I feel justified talking about The League of Gentlemen because the series did put out a movie called The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse. I am not a fan of the movie but I am a huge fan of television series. Do not worry today is the only day that I’ll talk about a tv show. Tomorrow, we return to movies but I really felt the need to highlight a great series that combines both old British horror with comedy to create something really unique.

    The League of Gentlemen consist of Jeremy Dyson, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith. Each of the actors play multiple characters throughout the series. The series is based around a small fictional town called Royston Vasey. The town consists of dozens of bizarre characters that we watch throughout the three seasons in short sketches which all mesh together into a larger look at the town. In many ways The League of Gentlemen is very similar to a soap opera in its design.

    So you might be asking, why cover a tv series? For me what makes The League of Gentlemen such a great show is it constant reference and feel of being an old horror movie. Characters are creepy and bizarre. The plots are often based on classic Hammer horror movies and there are tonnes of “in” jokes. The following quote about the X-mas special is a good example of where the League was coming from with their series:

    From the start, the Christmas Special has the look of an Amicus portmanteau film , complete with framing device for three separate stories of terror. The linking tale concerns Royston Vasey’s lady vicar, the acerbic Bernice. Alone in her church on Christmas Eve, she is visited by three men, each with their own tale to tell and wanting advice. British Horror heavily influences the structure. There are specific references to Hammer’s Curse Of Frankenstein, The Witches, Dracula and Vampire Circus, Tyburn’s The Ghoul, the list goes on and on.

    The Amicus portmanteau linked anthology films such as Dr Terrors House Of Horrors (See imdb website for overview – http://us.imdb.com/Title?0059125), Torture Garden, Asylum, From Beyond The Grave, Dead Of Night And Tales From The Crypt were structured in the same way as the Christmas special, often with a Central character (usually Peter Cushing, Patrick Magee or someone equally creepy) and a twist at the end. They all involve a group of people telling different stories within the whole film story. (Gail and Mark Coyle)

    League of Gentlemen X-Mas

    Another reason why I really recommend the series is that I can not think of any other show on tv that started of so dark in tone and continued to get darker and darker through the episodes. By the end of the third season the series has gone down some pretty nasty paths that just feel completely inappropriate. By the end of the series the troupe was so deep into the horror and drama that they were forgetting at points to add the joke in and were only do so at last minute.

    Perhaps its my dry sense of cynical humour but The League of Gentlemen is one of my favourite shows of all time and would be a great addition to the horror fan’s DVD collection.

    Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 8 of the 31 Days of Horror.

    


  • 06 Oct

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    31 Days of Horror: Days 5 & 6 – Ils & The Strangers

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    Ils & The Strangers

    So you might have noticed that I did not put up day of of the 31 Days of Horror yesterday. You might think I was just being lazy because it was Sunday and you would only be partially right. I was lazy but my real reason is that I wanted to cover the next two movies as one post. The French movie Ils (Them) and the Hollywood movie The Strangers are so similar in concept that everyone thought that the latter was a remake of the former. The Strangers was actually written two years before Ils so the similarities are just a coincidence.

    I’m going to keep the synopsis for each movie pretty simple as both movies really are simple home invasion stories. In Ils schoolteacher Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy) and her partner Lucas (Michaël Cohen) live in an isolated mansion. One evening someone attempts to steal their car. After an attempt to stop the theft, the thief(s) break into their house and start to terrorize the couple. In The Strangers Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) are dealing with relationship difficulties. After James leaves to collect his thoughts Kristen is startled by a loud knock at the door and a haunting voice asking “Is Tamara here?”. For the rest of the night Kristen and James are terrorized by three attackers.

    I thought it would also be interesting to come up with a couple of comparisons. In Ils a strange rattling noise is often created by the attackers. This noise is there to disturb both the audience and the victims in the movie and it works very well. In The Strangers an old country record is playing in the background and at times it becomes stuck and it is used by the director to also create a strong sense of terrifying tension.

    Just like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games there is both a sense of purpose to the attacks and at the same time a complete randomness to them. In each of these movies the attacks come out of no where. There is no real reason behind terrorizing the victims other than for the fact that the attackers just can. You really get more of a feel for the randomness out of The Strangers as it is spelled out for you which may or may not be a good point depending on how you feel about explanations being given.

    Both movies are “based on true events”. For Ils I feel they bring this up in order to justify an aspect of the attackers. In The Strangers I am at a loss as to why they feel the need to go this path. It is completely unnecessary as I’m sure you could say that every home invasion movie is based off some true series of events. I have no problem that it does spell out the outcome right at the beginning because the movie really is about how they end up where they are at the end and not about the actual end but I would rather they just left off the whole gimmick of “based on true events” for The Strangers as it really does just come across as a gimmick.

    Overall though, both movies do what they do really well. Both are creepy, both have create a great sense of isolation and do a great job of creating a true feeling of being unable to stop what is happening. I mentioned Funny Games a while back and the comparison between these two movies and it. Both The Strangers and Ils are movies that Funny Games is commenting on and yes there is not a lot that needs to be read into either of them but that definitely does not hurt the experience. Both are terrific horror movies that will scare you.

    One last thing that I just wanted to mention for fun was that I ended up seeing The Strangers by myself in a completely empty theatre. I know that horror movies can be creepy when you watch them by yourself at home but you really should try one all by yourself in a large empty theatre.

    Trailer for Ils

    



    Trailer for The Strangers



    



  • 04 Oct

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    31 Days of Horror: Day 4 – Identity

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    Idenity PosterI know a lot of people who aren’t too enamored with my next movie. I on the other hand really enjoyed the 10 Little Indians based horror thriller Identity. What it comes down to is if you can accept the actual premise then you will like this movie. If you can not, you will end up hating it most likely. I am in the former group and this is one of my favorite thrillers of the early 21st Century.

    I am going to avoid spoilers for this one completely but I can not promise that the comments will avoid them. So I really recommend watching the movie first before reading the comments below.

    Identity is the story of 10 travelers who become stranded at a small hotel in the middle of nowhere after the highway is flooded out. The 10 strangers are consist of a limo driver (John Cusack), an ‘80s TV star (Rebecca DeMornay), a cop (Ray Liotta) who is transporting a killer (Jake Busey), a call girl (Amanda Peet), a pair of newlyweds (Clea DuVall and William Lee Scott) and a family in crisis (John C. McGinley, Leila Kenzle, Bret Loehr). As the 10 strangers take shelter from the storm they soon discover that someone or something is killing them off one by one.

    Identity Asian PosterWhat really makes this movie a great thriller for me is the cast combined with the premise. I am a fan of pretty much all the actors. None of them are truly mainstream A grade actors but that is what makes it all the more interesting. They are all extremely strong and the overall story is very compelling.

    If you haven’t already figure it out I am being very vague when it comes to Identity. I want you to watch it but I do not want to tell you what is really going on and if I try to delve into the story or why several people I know dislike this movie too much will be said. All I can say is that at times it is as creepy at hell and I really enjoyed the tension that was created between the 10 as they slowly die one by one. I challenge you to see this and to let me know what you think. I’m also curious to know when you figured out who the murderer is.

    Oh and the poster over on the right is an Asian version which I really like. I’ll never understand why they dropped the cool hand print or even the Asian one when it came time for the DVD release. They picked the most generic boring image. You can check it out here.

    


  • 03 Oct

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    31 Days of Horror: Day 3 – À l’Interieur (Inside)



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    À l'intérieurSo far the 2 movies I have mentioned have been pretty tame when it comes to the violence. Sure My Little Eye breaks out the violence in the last 3rd but up until that point it is a pretty cerebral movie. Day 3 is going to be a bit of a jump into a movie that is a bit more violent and extreme: À l’Interieur (Inside)

. I want to right off the bat say that while the gore is very extreme in this movie that is not why I am including it in the 31 Days of Horror. À l’Interieur knows how to build tension and it has one of the best freak out scenes I have ever seen in a movie.

    On the night before Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is set to go into the hospital to be induced into labor a woman invades her house and proceeds to terrorize her throughout the night. Sarah is all alone as her husband was recently killed in a car crash and she is forced to fight for survival against a scissor wielding woman (Alysson Paradis) who has decided to kill her. There is something to be said for those simple movies that keep everything from becoming too complex. This is a home invasion movie that twists things by having the invader be a woman and pushes buttons by going down a very dark nasty gory path and boy is it a lot of fun.

    À l'intérieur Screen Shot

    I mentioned the freak out scene. This is a very mild spoiler so you might just want to skip down to the next paragraph. At one point before the attacks have happened we see Sarah sitting on the couch. We can see the whole room behind her and off to the corner we can see a dark hallway. From that hallway we slowly see the shape of the woman form in the darkness. It is done so gradually and perfectly that it still haunts me today and while I can’t help but remember the gore it is really the way À l’Interieur is able to build a sense of tension throughout the movie that really won me over.

    À l’Interieur is one of those horror movies that will play well either by yourself or with a huge crowd of rowdy friends. It is easy to become distracted by the idea of all the gore and violence but if you really look closer you will see well put together horror thriller that has a wonderful way of building tension throughout the entire movie.

    Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 4 of the 31 Days of Horror.

    


  • 02 Oct

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    31 Days of Horror – Day 2: Road Games



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    Road GamesA couple of weeks ago I was able to catch Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! which was a lot of fun and it mentioned a cult classic that I had recently purchased but had not got around to watching. That movie is Road Games. Road Games stars Stacy Keach as Patrick ‘Pat’ Quid a trucker who says that he is more than just a trucker and Jamie Lee Curtis as Pamela Rushworth who Pat Quid always refers to as ‘Hitch’ which is short for Hitchhiker. The basic premise is that Quid a trucker believes that the driver of a green van is a serial killer after he witnesses the driver watching some garbage bags being taken a way. The audience already knows that he is indeed the serial killer but Quid only suspects it. Mostly out of curiosity Quid follows the green van and its driver throughout the highways of Australia. While tracking the killer he ends up passing by ‘Hitch’ a couple of times and finally decides to pick her up and offer her a ride. The three then start to play a cat and mouse game through the Australian outback.

    Road Games came out in 1981 and was one of the first Ozzie horror films to feature an American cast. It also has a wonderfully wicked dark sense of humour and does an excellent job of building tension with very little actual violence. The majority of the movie takes place within Quid’s truck cab and about half of that is just Stacy Keach with his dog. Quid knows what he is doing is pretty dumb and is putting his life at risk and the conversations he has with the dog first and later with a hitchhiker (other than Hitch herself) contain some great dialogue.

    Stacy Keach in Road GamesIf you pick this one up I suggest grabbing the recent Anchor Bay release. It contains a documentary called Kangaroo Hitchcock. The documentary is pretty interesting but it really serves to highlight the Hitchockian nature of the story. There is very little violence and a lot of tension that just continues to build. What starts out as just a lone truck driver trying to catch a killer turns into a very personal game once the killer realizes what Quid and Hitch are up to.

    I remember seeing this when I was a kid and it scared the bejesus out of me. Now when I watch it I realize how well the story is actually crafted. It is a real shame that even on the cult classic level this one is a real hidden gem. More people need to see Road Games.

    


  • 01 Oct

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    31 Days of Horror – Day 1: My Little Eye 



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    My Little Eye PosterWelcome everyone to October and the first of 31 posts on horrror movies. I came up with a few ideas on what I should do as something special for Halloween and instead of doing my favourite horror/thriller movies or listing a few cult gems that no one has heard of I have decided instead to do combination of both with 1 post each day. Each post will either highlight a cool horror/thriller movie that I enjoy or else I will write about a horror/thriller movie that I have never seen until now. There will also be one exception where I talk a bit about one of my favourite TV series.

    I want to thank Serena Whitney from Dread Central for giving me some suggestions of little known good horror movies. So far I’ve worked through 4 off of her list and I’ll be covering them. My intention was to originally write about all of them but I ended quitting Campfire Tales part of the way through just because if felt like a bad version of Twilight Zone or Creep Show so I’m dropping it for some other choice of horror that I will come up with mid month. If there is some little horror gem that you love then feel free to send me an email and perhaps I’ll do that one.

    Okay, that is way more than enough preamble on to the first movie.

    One of the movies that Serena suggested is a small low budget horror click called My Little Eye. My Little Eye stars Sean Cw Johnson as Matt (all around nice guy and jock), Kris Lemche as Rex (troubled rebel who is in it for the money), Stephen O’Reilly as Danny (quiet geeky loner), Laura Regan as Emma (repressed quiet girl who wants to be liked) and Jennifer Sky as Charlie (party girl who wants fame). The five of them are brought to a house in the middle of the woods where they have to stay for 6 months. If all of them stay they are awarded $1 million dollars. During the 6 months their entire lives will be put on the web like a version of the television show Big Brother.

    Everything seems to go fine for the majority of the six months but right near the end everything starts to fall apart as external stresses come into play. It seems that someone has started to stalk the 5 contestants. Is it Emma’s childhood friend who has come back for revenge after she had humilated him. Is Matt really as good and nice as he seems or does he have some secret history. What is Danny working on in the basement? Is the stalker just part of the show perhaps even one of the 5 is trying to keep the others from winning their money or is there something else at play that is much darker than any of them can imagine.

    My Little Eye is really two movies combined into one. The first three quarters plays out like a thriller and it is very compelling. There is a real sense of fear in not knowing what is going on and in the rising suspicions amongst the players. I was totally drawn into the character development and the relationships that were being formed. Unfortunately the last quarter turns into a fairly standard stalker story with a conclusion that was pretty obvious. I will definitely not say that it ruined the overall movie for me but it did lessen my enjoyment. I still recommend checking My Little Eye out if you get the chance.

    As one final note about My Little Eye it is interesting to find out that it was originally a 4 hour movie that was set to go direct to DVD but after initial testing (and subsequent poor comments) it was cut back to 92 minutes and was released in theatres.

    Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 2 of the 31 Days of Horror.

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