Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 14 – Tales of Halloween

We’re now two weeks into the swing of things here, and we get yet another appearance from Darren Lynn Bousman, director of such AoG memories as Repo! The Genetic Opera, the two Devil’s Carnival films, Mother’s Day, and Abattoir, along with the second, third, and fourth installments of the Saw series.  Dude’s been around, and here he’s just one of ten (!) directors involved in the 2015 anthology film Tales of Halloween, a film jam-packed with actors, directors, and references to the horror genre’s varied past.

The film kicks off with Adrienne Barbeau as a DJ on the radio, sorta spinning some vague tale of creepiness and whatnot (my mind wanders to Angela Davies’s Veronica on Best Sex Ever), the first of many references to horror master John Carpenter littered throughout the film, Barbeau having starred in Carpenter’s The Fog as, you guessed it, a DJ.  (There are also several Catwoman references in the film, possibly alluding to Barbeau’s recurring role as Catwoman on Batman: The Animated Series.)  Things then truly get started with our first tale, “Sweet Tooth”, from writer/director Dave Parker (who, funnily enough, co-directed Kraa! The Sea Monster back in the day).  The story is the usual horror fare about a kid being told a scary story that happens to immediately turn out to be true.  Appearing here are Caroline Williams (from Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, Stepfather II, and Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2), Robert Rusler (from A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and Amityville: A New Generation), Clare Kramer (The Gift), and Greg Grunberg (Hollow Man).  Next up is “The Night Billy Raised Hell” from Bousman and writer Clint Sears, which tells the tale of a wussy little boy who meets the devil on Hallowe’en, who purportedly shows him how to really raise hell while out trick-or-treating.  Barry Bostwick (“Dammit, Janet!”) is the star power here, and he looks like he’s having a ball.  Next is “Trick”, wherein a group of adults gets unexpectedly hacked up by some trick-or-treaters.  Appearing here are Tiffany Shepis (an old Troma staple who went on to score roles in plenty of low-budget stuff like Sharknado 2 and Victor Crowley) and Trent Haaga (Starry Eyes and Citizen Toxie, among plenty others).  Next is “The Weak and the Wicked”, directed by Paul Solet (Grace), about a man who summons a demon to deal with a trio of hoods who’ve hassled the weak over the years (as well as torching his family’s caravan, Brick Top style).  Here we see Keir Gilchrist (It Follows and Dead Silence), Booboo Stewart (Seth from the Twilight series), Noah Segan (Cabin Fever 2 and the voice of Henry from Nickelodeon’s KaBlam!), and segment highlight Gracie Gillam (from the Fright Night remake).  Next is “Grim Grinning Ghost”, chronicling a young woman beset by the vengeful spirit of a disfigured woman.  This one’s loaded with history-makers, including a We Are Still Here reunion between Barbara Crampton and Lisa Marie, Lin Shaye (Ouija and the Insidious series, among many others), Mick Garris (director of Critters 2 and Psycho IV and writer of The Fly II and Hocus Pocus), and Stuart Gordon (acclaimed writer and director with credits including Re-Animator, From Beyond, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and the 1991 The Pit and the Pendulum), though the furry little Anubis nearly steals the segment with his canine cuteness.  Next is “Ding Dong”, written and directed by Lucky McKee (Red, May, and The Woman), giving us the story of a couple who are unable to conceive a child and dealing with the stress that brings to the wife on Hallowe’en night.  Featured here are Marc Senter (Starry Eyes, Cabin Fever 2, and the Scorpion from the aforementioned Devil’s Carnival films), Felissa Rose (the original Angela from Sleepaway Camp), the adorable French bulldog Lilly von Woodenshoe, and the deliciously over-the-top (and segment salvaging) performance of Pollyanna McIntosh (The Woman and The Walking Dead).  Next up is “This Means War”, co-written and -directed by John Skipp (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and Class of 1999), which tells the story of a culture clash turned violent when differing methods of celebrating Hallowe’en collide.  It starts off like a pantomime, and I was vainly hoping it would stay that way.  Alas.  Appearing here are James Duval (The Doom Generation, Independence Day, and the man who played Frank in Donnie Darko), Elissa Dowling (Party Bus to Hell, Starry Eyes, and Transmorphers), and Frank Dietz (The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and an in-between animator for Disney during the latter years of the Renaissance period).  Next is “Friday the 31st”, from writer/director Mike Mendez (Lavalantula,  Big Ass Spider!, and the editor of this here film) and co-writer Dave Parker, a take-off on the indestructible slasher film from the 80s that gets hijacked by aliens.  It’s not quite as fun as it sounds.  Appearing are Nick Principe (Lavalantula and ChromeSkull from the Laid to Rest series) and an adorable little claymation-looking  animated alien critter.  Penultimately up next is “The Ransom of Rusty Rex”, wherein a couple of hoods kidnap the son of a wealthy man hoping to score some ransom money, only to find the child is really a sort of demon creature.  Always the way, ain’t it?  Appearing here are John Landis (director of many classics, including An American Werewolf in London and the first segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie) and Sam Witwer (The Mist).  Finally, we have “Bad Seed”, written and directed by Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, Doomsday, and The Descent), which tells the story of a killer jack-o-lantern.  Appearing herein are Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever), Kristina Klebe (Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Geraldine from Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival), Pat Healy (Starry Eyes, Dirty Girl, and Magnolia), Joe Dante (director of such films as Gremlins and The Howling), and acclaimed poster artist Drew Struzan, who makes what is likely the funniest joke in the whole damned production.

Now, that may have sounded like a list of thin plotlines/setups and a bunch of references, both to other movies and to previous AoG entries, and you’d be right in saying so.  But, frankly, that’s what the movie basically boils down to (minus any mentions of this here ramshackle operation, natch).  Most of the segments are decent as ideas or as quick visual gags for shows like Robot Chicken, but they barely carry long enough to fill out even their short time slots here.  “Sweet Tooth” is probably the best-executed overall of the bunch, getting its simple point across quickly, efficiently, and effectively, and featuring some solid practical effects.  Both “The Night Billy Raised Hell” and “Bad Seed” are fun, but suffer from some tonal issues (the goofy sound effects undermine things in the former, and the dorky premise of the latter clashes with its almost-serious tone just a bit too much than obviously intended).  The rest are flimsy and often dull.

The film as a whole suffers from its apparently low budget, with some shoddy visual effects (including some cheap-looking CG work and puppetry and plenty of makeup and masks that just plain seem unfinished, often disconnecting from the actors’ faces during their line reads), plenty of wilhelm screams, and some wildly uneven acting: Bostwick is awesome in his role, but Vincent, for example, just looks tired and barely invested.  The cinematography is overly clean and sterile throughout, wiping away many of the directors’ characteristic quirks and making the whole enterprise look mass-manufactured and lifeless.  Nothing sticks, and I’m not likely to remember many of these stories when I wake up tomorrow morning.  Shit, there isn’t even any real connective tissue between the segments aside from Barbeau’s disembodied and nearly completely pointless voice; they’re just ten stories set on Hallowe’en and told together.

And that’s ultimately the film’s main failing: it’s just nothing special enough to remember or thoroughly enjoy.  In a world that already has plenty of great anthology films like Twilight Zone, Creepshow, and, most appropriate here, Trick ‘r Treat, there’s really no need for a lackluster reference fest like this, sadly.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 13 – Diabolique

Not quite landing on a Friday, but there’s always something spooky about the number 13 (especially if you’re triskaidekaphobic).  Interestingly enough, this spoookily-numbered day of Nightmare Fuel kinda stretches the definition of “horror” a bit, as it’s more of a psychological drama/thriller than a full “horror” flick.  Still, it’s got some potentially supernatural bits, so I’m gonna allow it.  Plus, it’s pretty damn good, so there’s that as well.

Based on the 1951 Pierre Boileau/Thomas Narcejac novel She Who Was No More (or, if you’re keener on the Froglish than I am, Celle qui n’était plus), Diabolique (known in its native Frogland as Les Diaboliques) centers on a decaying marriage, that between the headmaster and headmistress of a French boarding school.  He’s cheating on her with a teacher at the school, but the two women have a surprisingly close and genial relationship (for those interested in linguistics, the women address each other with the more familiar “tu”).  We potentially find out why when we learn that the two ladies are out to murder the shared man, staging things to make it all look like an accident.  The headmistress, a Venezuelan import suffering from some sort of malady that’s described as her having a “weak heart”, is somewhat eager to rid herself of her oafish husband, who’s taking advantage of the school she owns and is decidedly verbally abusive, along with the whole adultery thing, but her innate niceness and Catholicism preclude complete immersion in the plan; the teacher, meanwhile, also suffers from the man’s abuse, though more physically than verbally, and she lacks any outward qualms concerning the murder.  Once they get on the same page, the ladies get their stories straight, set things up, and lure the man down out to the teacher’s place, where they sedate him via spiked Johnny Walker and drown him in the bathtub.  They tote his corpse back to the school, where they dump it in the pool and await the discovery.  When the body turns up missing, though, the two murderesses begin to feel some understandable anxiety, which is only exacerbated by constant apparitions suggesting the headmaster’s ghost is back with a vengeance and the investigation at the hands of a detective.  But what’s actually happening, a haunting or something else?

A rave success in France and the US and a stirring inspiration to Hitchcock (particularly when it came to Psycho (the author of which also citing the film as an inspiration)), Diabolique more than deserves its classic status.  Writer/director Henri-Georges Clouzot crafted a meticulous, believable suspense story here, doling out the tension in discrete, calculated doses so that our nerves are never sure how to feel from moment to moment.  His wife, Véra, splendidly plays our headmistress, her Brazilian heritage rewritten as Venezuelan; she deftly embraces all of her character’s wrinkles and folds, having her oscillate between so fearful of divine retribution that she nearly sabotages the whole plan and so disgusted and hurt by her husband’s abuse that she lets him basically do himself in – all within a matter of seconds.  She’s given the largest range of emotions to deal with and to work with, and she does so incredibly well.  I believe her terror during the climax, believe you me.  Alongside her is Simone Signoret, whose more brusque and smoky take on Véra’s co-conspirator is just as well done, even with slightly less subtlety to work with.  Her deceit, sticktoitiveness, and desperation all shine brightly.  On the other side of the act is Paul Meurisse, who plays the cad so very convincingly that I found myself thinking about heading over to France to knock him off.

Meanwhile, Armand Thirard’s cinematography is lovely to look at, especially in his dealing with shadows, especially especially during the climactic trek through the school’s upper halls.  His visuals are all the more effective thanks to the visceral, realistic atmosphere aided by the lack of musical accompaniment (sometimes you just need a good dose of silence).  Clouzot’s script, co-written by Jérôme Géronimi, not only knows when to ramp the tension, but also allows for some entertaining banter between the primary trio and also among the supporting characters, mostly the other two teachers featured and the easy-going detective.

Everything coalesces into a steady-handed thriller that easily stands the test of time.  I vaguely remember the remake coming out in the mid-90s, but I’ve never had the desire to actually see it, and that feeling pretty much died once the original struck mine eyes.  This is a must-watch for fans of classic cinema, of thrillers, of horror, of cinema history, and of French film-making.  It’s pretty dope, is what I’m saying.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 12 – The Wig

We’ve hit a dozen days now (look, I know there have been some massive delays, apologies, but just play along, ‘kay?), and I’ve got the yen to head back to South Korea for some crazy trichological horror fun.  (We may head north of the 38th sometime in the future … we’ll see…)

The Wig (or Gabal or 가발, if you’re so inclined (and it also goes by Scary Hair, if you’re a terrible person)) centers on a pair of sisters, Ji-hyeon and Su-hyeon.  The former is a caring soul who somewhat recently got into a car accident that left her vocal cords (among other parts) pierced by metal rods, leaving her pretty much mute; she cares for her sister, who is suffering from leukemia.  Ji-hyeon feels it’s better for her sister to live out her remaining days in relative comfort and whatnot at home, rather than wiling away the time in the hospital or something.  Looking to help her transition to “normal” life, she buys her sister a wig, to which said sister takes rather well.  While wearing the wig, Su-hyeon feels better, happier, stronger, seemingly free of the cancer.  Unfortunately, the wig has some rather negative side effects:  While borrowing it, a friend of Ji-hyeon’s succumbs to the hairpiece’s malevolence and is found dead with her cheating husband, both of them brutally murdered (and covered in hair).  The sisters are plagued by spectres and visions of violent demise, all involving some hair-based imagery.  Under the influence of the wig, Su-hyeon tries to seduce her sister’s ex-boyfriend (on whom Ji-hyeon is still emotionally reliant, by the by) and nastily insults her.  Finally sensing the evil presence and witnessing a ghost of sorts hovering about it, Ji-hyeon finally takes action, snatching the wig from her sister, locking her out of the room, and cutting the wig to pieces.  Now devoid of the wig’s aid, Su-hyeon’s cancer comes roaring back, necessitating a return to the hospital, where she’s bed-ridden and adamantly refusing her sister’s company.  Her stay is brief, though, as she breaks out and heads back for another shot at Ji-Hyeon’s ex, Ki-seok.  [Spoilers to follow]  As it turns out, the wig is haunted by the spirit of Ki-seok’s one-time gay lover, who was brutally beaten by some teenagers because of his homosexuality, and this spirit has now taken full control over Su-hyeon.  It’s up to her sister to battle the spirit and rescue her sister from it’s clutches.  [End of spoilers]

Sounds a little familiar, right?  I mean, I’m not gonna say this film is a rip-off of the “Hell Toupée” segment of Treehouse of Horror IX – wherein Homer receives a hair transplant that comes from the recently-executed Snake, which proceeds to take over Homer’s personality, leading him to go on a killing spree – but it’s pretty damn similar, no?  The initial silliness of the premise (“haunted wig possesses girl”) is tossed out the window with the almost severe seriousness with which the filmmakers treat the main characters.  The tone is as dark as possible without reaching near-parody levels, and all of the apparitions are fittingly harsh and unsubtle.

All of that taken into account, I can’t fully endorse this film.  It’s fine, I suppose, but there are plenty of better Korean horror flicks out there.  This one has its moments, like the staging of Ji-hyeon’s accident fading into a shot of her lying on the couch (shout out to editor Kim Sun-min here) and the generally solid performances of Chae Min-seo and Yu Seon as Su-hyeon and Ji-hyeon, respectively, but the pacing tends toward the drawn-out, the atmosphere is more dour than chilling or thrilling, and the ostensibly frightening bits are too quickly-shown to have any real or lasting impact beyond an advanced jump scare.  It’s an okay film, but it’s not something I’d run out to see for the Hallowe’en season or anything.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 11 – Nosferatu the Vampyre

Eleven days into Nightmare Fuel and we’re heading back into remake territory.  Fret not, though, kids, this one is actually kinda lauded by critics.  I know, right?

Way, way back in 1922, German director F.W. Murnau and his crew gifted to the world Nosferatu.  They very much wanted to adapt Bram Stoker’s Dracula to the still relatively young silver screen, but they couldn’t quite obtain the rights, so they figured they’d just change a couple details – like character names, locations, things like that – and they’d be fine.  Nope.  The Stoker estate sued and got the majority of the film’s prints destroyed, though at least one print survived (the usual narrative is that that print was the lone survivor of the purge, but I’ve heard in a couple places that others somehow made it through the affair as well).  Decades later, director Werner Herzog (you might remember his work on Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn, among many others, or even as the villain in Jack Reacher), very enthusiastic about Nosferatu‘s place in German film history, wanted to craft an homage to it.  Luckily for him, the rights to Dracula had slipped into the public domain, so he was able to not only pay tribute to Murnau’s work, but he was also able to reinstate the proper names and whatnot to the story.  Nosferatu the Vampyre was born.

The basic plot is mostly that of Dracula:  Real estate agent Jonathan Harker heads off to Transylvania to close an estate deal for the reclusive Count Dracula.  The local Romanian population (especially the area’s Romani) try to stop him, believing Dracula to be a malevolent vampire.  Harker ignores the warnings, taking them to be merely backward superstition, and continues on.  Turns out he’s wrong, Dracula’s actually a vampire, he’s trapped in Dracula’s castle, and the Count is headed to Wismar (in these versions, London is replaced by Wismar, Germany, FYI).  There, he stalks the innocent Lucy and generally behaves like an evil vampiric force in new, blood-filled surroundings.

Herzog’s vision is highly reminiscent of Murnau’s work, maintaining some similar camera angles and presentation, as well as atmosphere.  DP Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein even went so far as to utilize some harsh, centralized (read: spotlight-style) lighting techniques, seemingly in order to recreate the early-20s silent film aesthetic.  I will say that the attention to detail here is both exceptional (even with the newer, color film stock, the lighting is effective and evocative) and a touch debilitating, as the film’s pace suffers from some staging-based lag, especially in scenes that have more dialogue than one would find in silent pictures: these scenes come across even more stage-y than usual, with plenty of dead air between lines, as though the editor just took out the title cards without trimming the surroundings accordingly, and oddly stilted or awkward theatrical acting, particularly from the almost operatic stylings of Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy at times.  (I feel it necessary to note that I saw the English version, and I know that Herzog feels it’s the inferior of the two versions, but it was the one I could most easily get my hands on with little notice.  I’ll try to see the German version some time in the future.)

Still, Klaus Kinski does his thing and does it very well as the titular blood-sucker.  His visual demeanor (heavily impacted by Schmidt-Reitwein’s lighting helping his black clothing fade into the surrounding shadows and makeup artist Reiko Kruk’s work helping Kinski’s head to seemingly float in the dark emptiness.  The hotheaded actor keeps his performance relatively low-key (for him, anyway), but his creepiness can be felt across the decades.  I especially dug his early scenes, where he somehow simultaneously succeeded at being quietly withdrawn and straight-up forcefully imposing.  Talented man, that.  The same can be said of our Harker here, Bruno Ganz (whom you likely remember more from Wings of Desire or Downfall (y’all know that angry Hitler meme, right?)).  Mostly keeping things stoic and straightforward, Ganz is nevertheless highly engaging as Harker, and I had to look the film up on IMDb to make sure I wasn’t imagining his presence here (I’d only known him from the aforementioned Wings in the late 80s, so I’ve never been sure when his career really got going).

As well as most of the production comes through, I couldn’t help but feel the lag I mentioned earlier throughout, as well as a surprisingly distinct lack of oomph, of chilling-ness (outside of Kinski, anyway).  The film felt very cold and clinical to me quite often, and though well-made and well-executed for the most part, it just never grabbed me.  It’s certainly worthy of a watch, especially if you’re a fan of the milestone original, but personally I don’t see the same classic cache being attached to this version.  Maybe I’m just weird, I dunno.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 10 – We Are Still Here

A lot of ground has already been covered thus far in Nightmare Fuel, and Day 10 here is just gonna keep things a-chuggin’ with 2015’s We Are Still Here.

We find ourselves looking onto the lives of married couple Anne and Paul as they move into a new house in semi-rural New England following the untimely death of their college-age son.  The house is an old one and seems simultaneously creepy and homey.  An odd odor of smoke and some unexplained heat emanate from the cellar.  A visit from some new neighbors adds another wrinkle to the situation:  Turns out the house was the site of some ghastly mortuary shenanigans decades ago, with accusations of corpse-selling and other inhumanities rampant, leading to a mob from the town running the proprietor out of the area.  Some odd happenings convince our couple to bring in a friend of theirs, who happens to be sensitive to supernatural forces, as the couple believes their son may be trying to make contact with them from beyond.  One is able to imagine how things play out, I think.

The first thing that struck me about the film is the tone and atmosphere.  The isolated feel of the area and the house’s understandably behind-the-times decor, along with the general feel of things, give a firm sense of the 70s, almost making the film’s cyclical occurrences feel somehow displaced in time.  This idea is furthered by cinematographer Karim Hussain’s emphasis on the mildly snowy expanse surrounding the house, underlining the isolation and desolation.  Director Ted Geoghegan favors long, lingering sweeps here, both inside and outside the house, allowing us to take in not just the physical surroundings but also the emotional and preternatural topography as well:  Not only are we brought into the minds of a pained and fractured family, but we also understand the townspeople’s perspectives, with plenty of darkness around for everybody.  The seemingly desperate hope of the couple and the foreboding anxiety of the town are illustratively juxtaposed with the apparent serenity and emptiness of nature around them, a twisted pastoral idyll that is patiently communicated to us with care.

Adding to this general atmosphere of downtroddenness and unease is a solid performance from veteran scream queen Barbara Crampton (famous for her extensive resume that includes such genre gems as Re-Animator, From Beyond, Chopping Mall, and Puppet Master), who echoes the desolate surroundings with a character who’s visibly damaged and aching from her loss.  Veteran character actor Monte Markham seems to be channeling Richard Crenna in his role as an outwardly supportive neighbor with dubious motivations, and some fun turns from Lisa Marie (of Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! fame) and Larry Fassenden help liven things up a bit.

Though a bit slow at times and a bit obvious at others, Geoghegan, Hussain, and the cast really elevate this relatively low-budget creeper.  The effects work is nicely varied, the concept is interesting, and even a couple of the included jump scares actually got to me (a rarity in this day and age, what with the over-reliance and poor execution of the fright tactic). It’s a film that requires some patience, and if enough is brought to bear, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be gleaned.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 9 – Tenebre

Alright, so I know things didn’t exactly go very well with Suspiria a couple years ago, but I’m not giving up on ol’ Dario.  Day 9 takes us to another of his most well-known efforts, and a film I’ve been putting off for far too long now, Tenebre.

A very straightforward giallo film, Tenebre (coming from the Italian for “darkness”, fittingly) introduces us to novelist Peter Neal.  He’s arrived in Rome to promote his newest novel, which shares the film’s title, natch.  While there, he is informed that murders are taking place following the M.O. found in the book, and he’s taunted by the killer with notes and threatening phone calls.  The bodies continue to pile up, including several people involved somehow in the making of the book, all while a police investigation ensues.  Interspersed with all of this luridness is a flashback sequence showing a flirtatious woman being struck by a potential suitor, who then finds himself assaulted by her, everything culminating in his murdering her.

All of that just bleeds textbook giallo, a subgenre Argento helped popularize in his early career, building on the works of Mario Bava and the like.  But the film seems to be trying to escape such a pigeon-holing, interestingly by indulging heavily in the very tropes that define the subgenre.  Argento has noted that the film was partially inspired by his own career, with many accusations of misogyny and the like and even a stretch of threatening phone calls and death threats.  In something of a wry tables-turning, Argento goes right ahead and loads his film with everything he’s been insulted for, two fingers straight up, and then winks at the camera himself, insinuating that what we’re seeing is how the world would look if his detractors were spot on about him (a point that’s driven home with the revelation of the killer’s identity).  Themes of “dark doubles” (characters and settings exhibiting mirrored contrapositioning), sexual deviancy, and the fetishization of violence are all on display with Argento’s characteristic cinematic flair.

Thing is, though, I just couldn’t get into the film at all.  As mildly clever as the plot turns out to be, it still just rings hollow for me, a standard giallo going through the motions with meek pretensions toward grander heights.  Much as with Suspiria, the score put me off right away; though not as obnoxious as before, Goblin’s score (well, it’s a few members of the group, anyway) just sounds goofy to me, almost a synth rip-off of “Forever Autumn” from Jeff Wayne’s prog-rock War of the Worlds musical at times.  Though certainly stylish, nothing about the film’s look really stood out to me, a first for an Argento picture thus far.  I did appreciate that none of Rome’s traditional landmarks are employed to provide a sense of place, despite the fact that the film was shot on location in the Eternal City, but the highly modernist architecture and design just rang dully for me.  None of the characters felt alive to me (admittedly, part of this may stem from the dubbing), neither did any of the actors feel all that engrossing or interesting (and this includes omni-badass John Saxon, who plays Neal’s agent with plenty of energy to spare).

All in all, Tenebre isn’t a bad film, really, just not something I can readily recommend or tout with any verve.  It’s worth a go if you want to see a solid giallo picture that pretty much exemplifies the genre, but beyond that there isn’t all that much to see here.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 8 – Fade to Black

We begin our second week by dipping back into the earlier parts of the early-80s slasher boom scene with 1980’s Fade to Black.  Much like The Funhouse, though, there’s more to this flick than just a simple slasher.

The plot revolves around young Eric Binford.  Working at a film distributor, Eric lives a pretty dismal life, constantly barked at by his salty co-workers and abusive (and arguably very skeevy) wheelchair-bound aunt and unable to really relate to other people.  He tends toward the obsessive when it comes to classic films, from which he derives a good amount of escape, be it in the theatre or projected on the wall of his darkened room.  One day, whilst lunching at a diner, he runs across Marilyn, an aspiring model from Australia who, oddly enough, resembles Marilyn Monroe.  Eric’s instantly smitten, and even manages to finagle a date with Marilyn; things begin to go sideways for him, though, when she unintentionally stands him up (which also leads him to be turned down by a hooker).  Back at home, his aunt rails at him again and breaks his projector.  The snapping has commenced, ushered in with a bit of homicide via wheelchair down the stairs.  From here on out, Eric’s hold on reality is tenuous at the best of times, and he acts out various movie roles – going so far as to paint his face to make it look like a monochrome image – as he goes on something of a killing spree. Meanwhile, a criminal psychologist, with the help of a policewoman, is trying to track Eric down before the rest of the police force, led by a belligerent captain, gets to him first.

Like I said, there’s more to this than just a straightforward slasher.  We get a decent glimpse inside Eric’s dark mind for a good while before the tits go up, and his peculiar methodology is entirely understandable, given his home life and habits.  It’s clear writer/director Vernon Zimmerman (who would go on to pen the gloriously inane Teen Witch almost a decade later) has something to say about the impact of so much violent media on a generation of media-hungry youths, but, admittedly, that something is rather obvious and kinda shallow, namely that violence in media begets violence in life when one becomes unhinged.

Dennis Christopher is mostly solid as Eric, definitely getting the creepy loner vibe down, but his impressions of classic film actors are pretty off, particularly his Lugosi and Cagney (though that may actually have been the point, his poor impressions being manifestations of his delusional psychosis or something, I dunno).  If nothing else, though, he is enjoyable here.  Playing somewhat against type is Tim Thomerson as the psychologist: better known as a crag-jawed tough guy in flicks like the Trancers and Dollman series, he’s surprisingly entertaining as a more touchy-feely type (of course, he did start out as a stand-up comic, so maybe it’s not so much of a stretch).  And the keen-eyed will be able to spot a very young Mickey Rourke in only his second film role as one of the co-workers who bullies Eric until he gets his just comeuppance.

Though much of the film resembles a multitude of cheap slashers of the era, including the slightly rough-looking cinematography and the ample use of hand-held cameras (not really for effect, mind you), the richer characters and underlying message elevate it slightly above the rest of the rabble.  Give it a go for a fun, dark flick dripping in cinematic references.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 7 – The Innocents

We just keep plugging away at these “The _____” films as the first week comes to an end with the 1961 classic, The Innocents.

Based on the 1950 play of the same name (penned by screenwriter William Archibald), which was itself based on the 1898 Henry James book The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents tells the story of new governess Miss Giddens.  She’s hired on for her first governess-ing assignment by a wealthy man who is far too busy doing businessy business things to care for his niece and nephew.  She heads off to his estate and meets the staff and the overtly pleasant little girl, who is soon joined by her brother when he is expelled from school.  The two are insufferably sweet at times, though the boy keeps tightly mum about his expulsion; as time goes on, though, the kids’ saccharine nature takes on a dark, shadowy appearance to Miss Giddens, who believes she has seen spectres on the premises.  Her suspicions of the children and the spirits begin to compound, and her sanity looks to be slipping away.  …Or is it?

Having not read the source novel (nor seen (or heard of before now) the stage play), I can’t speak to the quality of the adaptation, but the film’s quality is pretty top-notch.  The opening creepy song, sung by what sounds like kids from The Village of the Damned, plays alone over a screen of nothingness for what seems like almost too long, sets the stage for the very type of skin-crawling the film trades heavily in: the kind predicated on creepy kids.  And these kids are the archetypical creepy kids, what with the outward treacly demeanors, the hardly-hidden darkness within, and the cryptic manner of speaking, both to Miss Giddens and amongst themselves.  Young Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens play this tune to a T, often really leaning into it without seemingly much effort.  Two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Francis (whose skills are on full display in The Elephant Man, Glory, Return to Oz, and Scorsese’s Cape Fear) puts on a damn show of tenebrist shadows and light, the stark chiaroscuro created through the use of an overabundance of bright lamps.  A nicely undulating mood that oscillates between tense, nightmarish fright and bright pastoralism is maintained throughout thanks to the able direction of Jack Clayton (who would later go on to direct such films as The Great Gatsby (the one with Redford, of course) and Something Wicked This Way Comes) and the not-altogether-subtle script from the aforementioned Archibald and co-writer Truman Capote.

What’s interesting are the underlying themes at play, namely depression (maybe ennui is a better term here) and sexual repression:  The former is made manifest in the children, brushed to the countryside by an uncaring uncle (y’know, I honestly can’t remember why the parents aren’t in the picture, but I assume they died in the past) and sequestered with veritable strangers and their imaginations.  The latter finds an expression in Miss Giddens, a single woman who’s constantly told how lovely she is yet seemingly has no aspirations toward a lover or a family of her own (and then there’s the icky interactions between her and the particularly saucy young lad…).  These concepts act as virtual lightning rods attracting ghosts and sinister happenings from the great beyond, all caught in gloriously sharp monochrome.

The Innocents is quite the film and certainly deserves its heady status, cemented in praise from Guillermo del Toro (definitely some influence from here on Crimson Peak) and Joe Dante, among many others.  Give it a go, and let those contrasts readily wash over you.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 6 – The Funhouse

For the sixth day of this here Nightmare Fuel, I finally got around to watching an earlier effort from the late, great Tobe Hooper.  Though not generally considered one of his finest outings, especially compared to films like Lifeforce and Poltergeist, The Funhouse still holds plenty of panache among horror fans.

What we have on our hands here is almost your typical early-80s style of slasher flick:  A group of young people (we’re talking very late teens here) head off on a double date to a traveling carnival.  They see the sights, ride the rides, get a little frisky at times, the uzh.  At one point in the evening, they decide it’s a good idea to shack up for the night in the spookhouse.  Naturally, why wouldn’t they?  While there, they witness a deformed carny (who’s been otherwise wandering about dressed like Frankenstein’s monster, mask and all) murder the carnival’s resident fortune teller (this comes almost as a result of her saying “It happens to everyone”, so extrapolate to your heart’s content) and his father work to cover it up.  The teens are discovered, though, and proceed to be hunted down by these ne’er-do-wells.  You can probably imagine the rest.

Now, I said this was almost a typical slasher, and I stand by that.  The opening simultaneously homages Halloween and Psycho with a first-person POV bit that results in a shower stabbing.  Wholly two thirds of the film are taken up by character development, giving us quite the glimpse into the minds and motivations of our primary quartet – as well as of our pair of antagonists.  Indeed, I was getting worried that the mayhem would never begin when I spotted the runtime cross the hour mark, but things never got truly boring (a touch dull, though, I’ll admit), and all of this setup work allowed for the characters’ actions and reactions during the climax made a whole lot o’ sense.  Plus the movie just plain looks better than most slashers of the time, and the score seems just a tad bit fuller, lusher, more nuanced, as well (though whether or not it actually is eludes me at the moment). This is a slasher with pretensions of being a full movie.

Hooper’s skill at the helm is evident here, keeping the pace leisurely moving along and helping the cast deliver some quality performances.  Of note for me are lead girl Elizabeth Berridge (best known to me as Mozart’s long-suffering wife in Amadeus), who brought some quiet dignity and aplomb to the group of rowdy teens;  Kevin Conway (who I will always prefer to remember as SAC head Curtis LeMay in Thirteen Days), who pulls extra duty as a trio of barkers – one of which is inexplicably British, and all three carry a healthy layer of carny sleaze – as well as the deformed man’s father, ostensibly one of said barkers; and former mime Wayne Doba, whose amazing physicality helped him play the deformed man very effectively, even through the thick, stiff, and clearly unwieldy makeup.  DP Andrew Laszlo was brought on because Hooper liked his work with shadows on The Warriors. and that skill is on display here, deftly making everything in the carnival – and especially in the spookhouse – seem both approachable and off-putting, depending on when and how you looked at it.  And, as stated before, John Beal’s score is more than up to the task of accompanying the various on-screen shenanigans.

While it is stronger than most slashers, I did find the middle a bit flabby and dull, and I just couldn’t fully get invested in our protagonists, aside from Berridge.  (They’re not really annoying or anything, just people I couldn’t get behind for some reason.)  Still, it’s a strong effort worthy of Hooper’s name.

Nightmare Fuel 2018: Day 5 – The Wailing

Day Five of Nightmare Fuel once again takes us overseas, this time to semi-rural South Korea.

The Wailing tosses us into a small town and into the perspective of a local policeman.  Much like in the early goings of Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder, this cop isn’t some overly athletic or even necessarily fully engaged movie cop, but rather a slightly lazy and cowardly one.  We follow him along as his village increasingly falls under the sway of a mysterious disease that seems to cause murder-inducing rage in its victims.  As time goes on, it becomes apparent that this so-called disease may actually be the result of demonic activity.  When his daughter becomes “infected”, a shaman is sought, and a sort of interdimensional duel of supernatural beings gets underway.

Unlike other similarly focused films, The Wailing takes its time in developing the ever-expanding narrative and the characters we follow therethrough.  Much time is devoted to showing the spread of the “disease”, how it affects the “infected”, and how our protagonist responds to the constantly ramping madness around him.  Every bit of the film’s 156-minute runtime is squeezed for effect, giving the slower early scenes some spectacular and effective payoffs in the end, a tactic writer/director Na Hong-jin employed to harsh effect in a previous outing, The Chaser.

Much of this success can be attributed to lead actor Kwak Do-won.  He gives our everyman policeman plenty of foibles with which we can readily identify, and every action he takes comes as no surprise, as his character is very well developed and explained throughout.  Kwak brings an understated realism to the role, allowing us to watch how an ordinary Joe deals with being toyed with by supernatural forces.  Similarly deserving of praise is Kim Hwan-hee, who plays Kwak’s possessed daughter with a stark viscerality, intensity, and a surprisingly wide range of screams and affectations.

But as much as Kwak and Kim and the rest of the cast bring to the table, the strongest force the film wields is its visual grandeur.  From basically frame 1, cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo (the DP for Mother and Snowpiercer, both from the aforementioned Bong Jun-ho, and Tae Guk-Gi) wraps us in a thick quilt of lush scenery and vivid colors.  His wide-angle lenses capture an almost intense amount of panoramic landscapes, while simultaneously – and paradoxically – collapsing the space between the audience and the distance, physically crafting a strange, wide world full of potentially dangerous spirits and beings.  The attention to detail is great, down to opposing chicken colors during a scene of dueling spiritual rituals.  Just about every frame of this film – and there are a lot of them, remember – had me commenting under my breath about its beauty.

Because of all of this, I was actually surprised by how much I ended up enjoying the film.  I had heard some conflicting opinions beforehand, and the tiny synopsis provided by IMDb and Netflix didn’t speak to anything particularly grand about it.  Thankfully my expectations were demolished, and I can’t recommend The Wailing enough.