There is no plot to speak of in Terror in the Aisles. It is simply a horror/thriller/exploitation clip-show hosted by genre veterans Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen sitting in a mocked-up movie theater filled with all sorts of 80s-looking people. That's it.
Pleasance and Allen use a wide variety of clips to illustrate different types of terror and to ponder why we gravitate toward these movies. Of course, this isn't some deep psychological and sociological discussion. It's just an excuse to show some crazy scenes.
Clips range from classic movies like Bride of Frankenstein to 80s staples like Friday the 13th and Halloween. Nothing is held back, including all the gore and nudity included in the scene in its original form. You get the head explosion from Scanners, the crazy shape-shifting monstrosities from The Thing, PJ Soles' death scene from Halloween, Jaws eating a bunch of people (yeah, I know that's not the shark's name - it's Jabberjaw), and all sorts of scenes from Ms. 45, Alligator, The Marathon Man. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and so on.
A lot of these were old favorites, and it was fun to revisit some of them in "highlight reel" form. But best of all, Terror in the Aisles introduced me to a number of movies I had never heard of or had not previously had a desire to see that I now want to track down, like Nighthawks (with Sylvester Stallone), Vice Squad (looks intense), and others.
If you want a look at the state of horror early in the 80s and how horror has changed over time, Terror in the Aisles has you covered. It's very investing that this movie - this clip show - actually got a theatrical release and made a very respectable $10 million back in 1984. I guess that just goes to show that audiences love their horror movies and want to revel in them whenever they possibly can. Some things never change.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Friday, October 31, 2014
Halloween 2 (1981)
Picking up immediately after the events of the first film, Laurie Strode is taken to the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to tend to the wounds inflicted on her by escaped psychopath Michael Myers. In the meantime, Dr. Loomis and the Haddonfield Sheriff's Department continue the search for Michael, who evidently survived being shot six times (or seven, if you're counting carefully in the recap in part 2) and falling from a second story window.
At the hospital. Laurie is stitched up, her broken ankle is wrapped, and she is given painkillers and sedatives. The hospital staff, consisting largely of inattentive teenaged nurses and a drunken E.R. doctor, are easy prey for Michael Myers, who has tracked Laurie down and intends to finish what he started.
Laurie herself is in no shape to face Michael, but face him she must. She has to use her wits and her will to overcome her near helplessness to finish off Michael for good. (Except not really, since there are a whole bunch more of these movies.)
Halloween 2 has almost entirely no story to it by itself. It is simply and entirely a continuation of the events of that same night presented in the first Halloween. There's only one new plot element - a revelation presented late in the movie - and it has no bearing on the action at hand. But I really don't see that as a problem.
Halloween 2 economically gets to the action, knowing that there is little need to re-explain the situation outside of a quick recap of the first movie shown right up front. Once that's out of the way, we can get right to the good stuff.
The first Halloween came at the forefront of the slasher subgenre, and as such, was more about the suspense than a body count. By the time Halloween 2 came out three years later, the slasher boom was in full effect and the imitators were piling up the corpses by the dozens. So it's no surprise that Halloween 2 ups the ante into the double-digits. Indeed, near the end a cop asks. "What's the count?" and the response is, "Ten, so far." which seems like a commentary on the perceived need for a high body count and possibly a nod to the idea that future sequels might be in the offing.
Of course, the story goes that they did not actually want to continue with Michael Myers in a sequel. Instead, they made a bat-shit movie about rubber Halloween masks that turned kids' heads into bugs and snakes and called it Halloween 3. When that failed to blow up the box office, they went back to the Michael Myers well and the franchise was off and running for years to come.
But while future sequels would expand on the Myers mythology to absurd degrees and create one of the most confusing and convoluted story-lines in horror, this first sequel maintains a welcome purity of concept. Michael's still out there from the first movie, he's still stalking Laurie, and she and Dr. Loomis have to survive and overcome.
Halloween 2 is really a lot of fun. It ups the body-count in a classic slasher sort of way, as well as amping up the craziness of the kills. But it doesn't stray too far afield from the original in tone (at least not as far as the rest of the sequels) and it feels nicely connected to the first movie. It's well worth your time if you enjoy the classic era of slasher movies. As for the other sequels - that's a story for another Halloween.
At the hospital. Laurie is stitched up, her broken ankle is wrapped, and she is given painkillers and sedatives. The hospital staff, consisting largely of inattentive teenaged nurses and a drunken E.R. doctor, are easy prey for Michael Myers, who has tracked Laurie down and intends to finish what he started.
Laurie herself is in no shape to face Michael, but face him she must. She has to use her wits and her will to overcome her near helplessness to finish off Michael for good. (Except not really, since there are a whole bunch more of these movies.)
Halloween 2 has almost entirely no story to it by itself. It is simply and entirely a continuation of the events of that same night presented in the first Halloween. There's only one new plot element - a revelation presented late in the movie - and it has no bearing on the action at hand. But I really don't see that as a problem.
Halloween 2 economically gets to the action, knowing that there is little need to re-explain the situation outside of a quick recap of the first movie shown right up front. Once that's out of the way, we can get right to the good stuff.
The first Halloween came at the forefront of the slasher subgenre, and as such, was more about the suspense than a body count. By the time Halloween 2 came out three years later, the slasher boom was in full effect and the imitators were piling up the corpses by the dozens. So it's no surprise that Halloween 2 ups the ante into the double-digits. Indeed, near the end a cop asks. "What's the count?" and the response is, "Ten, so far." which seems like a commentary on the perceived need for a high body count and possibly a nod to the idea that future sequels might be in the offing.
Of course, the story goes that they did not actually want to continue with Michael Myers in a sequel. Instead, they made a bat-shit movie about rubber Halloween masks that turned kids' heads into bugs and snakes and called it Halloween 3. When that failed to blow up the box office, they went back to the Michael Myers well and the franchise was off and running for years to come.
But while future sequels would expand on the Myers mythology to absurd degrees and create one of the most confusing and convoluted story-lines in horror, this first sequel maintains a welcome purity of concept. Michael's still out there from the first movie, he's still stalking Laurie, and she and Dr. Loomis have to survive and overcome.
Halloween 2 is really a lot of fun. It ups the body-count in a classic slasher sort of way, as well as amping up the craziness of the kills. But it doesn't stray too far afield from the original in tone (at least not as far as the rest of the sequels) and it feels nicely connected to the first movie. It's well worth your time if you enjoy the classic era of slasher movies. As for the other sequels - that's a story for another Halloween.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Splatter University (1984)
William Graham, a paranoid schizophrenic psychopath, kills an orderly and escapes from his psychiatric hospital. Three years later at nearby St. Trinian's College, a Sociology professor is stabbed to death. The next semester, Julie Parker takes the vacant position, and the killings start again. As her students and friends are stabbed, slashed, and sliced to death left and right, Julie must stay alive long enough to figure out who is...
Alright, screw it - it's the priest. You're not going to watch this stupid movie, so I'm spoiling it. The escaped killer (who they inexplicably call "Daniel" Graham when he's back in the nut house at the end of the movie) is the priest disguised in the super fakey grey wig, pretending to be confined to a wheelchair so he can stalk his victims without arousing suspicion. How he got to be Dean of this college in three short years with no resume to speak of, I'll never figure out. But yeah, there you go. Saved you 73 stupid minutes.
Splatter University is billed as a horror-comedy, but I think that hyphenated description only came about when the distributors saw how laughably incompetent this attempted slasher movie was. It's not like they don't prepare you, though - there's a big ol' credit at the beginning that says Creative Consultant - Lloyd Kaufman. Oh boy. When the head honcho of Troma Pictures is on your credit list, you know the movie probably won't be aiming too high.
(And for the record, I like a number of Troma movies. They're often gross, stupid fun. But even the biggest Toxic Avenger fans out there would have to admit that "quality" isn't exactly "job one" when Lloyd Kaufman gets involved in a project.)
So, Splatter University. First off, I was really hoping this would take place at something like "James Platter University" and the "Jame" part of the sign would fall off, leaving, "s Platter University." Alas.
For a movie that takes place at a college, the cast sure is populated by a bunch of dummies. Not a one of these people seem like they belong in college at all, not even our protagonist, the professor. There's always lots of cheap beer on hand, lots of "let's party!" dialogue in the most absurd New Jersey "youse guys" accents, lots of attempts to get out of doing schoolwork, and lots of ridiculous hijinks and shenanigans. It's like Animal House, but without all the grace, charm, and sophistication of Bluto and the Deltas.
It doesn't help that this is an amazingly cheap, amateurish, low-rent movie. The version on Amazon Instant streaming brought to mind the old days of renting worn-out VHS tapes, as it was in the 4:3 aspect ratio, the image was soft and muddy, and the audio sounded like it was recorded in a shoebox. I can't be 100% sure that was the fault of the streaming copy and not the original source material.
The soundtrack consists of a nice, fast, rubbery, bouncy synth rhythm for the chase scenes (one of the few positives I found in SU), a bit of lame synth noodling for the normal scenes, and this one crappy pop-rock song they keep going to the well on. I guess they paid for the song and they wanted to get their money's worth out of it.
The movie must have been shot and edited by somebody's nephew with his Fisher Price Make-My-First-Horror-Movie Kit. The camerawork is pathetic, there are continuity errors galore, you can see the reflection of one of the filmmakers in a car window in several shots, and some shots are in the wrong order. For instance, we see our protagonist having drinks at her boyfriend's house, where the boyfriend miraculously pours himself a bourbon on the rocks and her a red wine out of a single bottle, with one pour. Then we see them at work with the boyfriend saying, "hey, let's go to my place for some drinks." And this isn't the only time something is out of order.
In summary, this movie is a mess. It could have been a fun mess if it had bothered to be as over-the-top as its overblown name. (With a title like Splatter University, I was hoping for guts and gore all over the place, but it was not to be.) Instead, it was just kindof a pitiful piece of garbage that never really elevated its game past the slasher basics of stabbing people and slicing their throats. Oh, and stabbing dudes in the balls sometimes.
I'm giving Splatter University an exceedingly generous one-and-a-half stars, mostly because I liked the good parts of the score and because it's not hateful - just bad. If you're a slasher completist or you like to watch bad movies with beers and buds, you might have to include this one on your list. If you demand a certain level of competency in your movies, you should skip Splatter University. Oh, wait, you were going to skip it anyway. Good deal.
Alright, screw it - it's the priest. You're not going to watch this stupid movie, so I'm spoiling it. The escaped killer (who they inexplicably call "Daniel" Graham when he's back in the nut house at the end of the movie) is the priest disguised in the super fakey grey wig, pretending to be confined to a wheelchair so he can stalk his victims without arousing suspicion. How he got to be Dean of this college in three short years with no resume to speak of, I'll never figure out. But yeah, there you go. Saved you 73 stupid minutes.
Splatter University is billed as a horror-comedy, but I think that hyphenated description only came about when the distributors saw how laughably incompetent this attempted slasher movie was. It's not like they don't prepare you, though - there's a big ol' credit at the beginning that says Creative Consultant - Lloyd Kaufman. Oh boy. When the head honcho of Troma Pictures is on your credit list, you know the movie probably won't be aiming too high.
(And for the record, I like a number of Troma movies. They're often gross, stupid fun. But even the biggest Toxic Avenger fans out there would have to admit that "quality" isn't exactly "job one" when Lloyd Kaufman gets involved in a project.)
So, Splatter University. First off, I was really hoping this would take place at something like "James Platter University" and the "Jame" part of the sign would fall off, leaving, "s Platter University." Alas.
For a movie that takes place at a college, the cast sure is populated by a bunch of dummies. Not a one of these people seem like they belong in college at all, not even our protagonist, the professor. There's always lots of cheap beer on hand, lots of "let's party!" dialogue in the most absurd New Jersey "youse guys" accents, lots of attempts to get out of doing schoolwork, and lots of ridiculous hijinks and shenanigans. It's like Animal House, but without all the grace, charm, and sophistication of Bluto and the Deltas.
It doesn't help that this is an amazingly cheap, amateurish, low-rent movie. The version on Amazon Instant streaming brought to mind the old days of renting worn-out VHS tapes, as it was in the 4:3 aspect ratio, the image was soft and muddy, and the audio sounded like it was recorded in a shoebox. I can't be 100% sure that was the fault of the streaming copy and not the original source material.
The soundtrack consists of a nice, fast, rubbery, bouncy synth rhythm for the chase scenes (one of the few positives I found in SU), a bit of lame synth noodling for the normal scenes, and this one crappy pop-rock song they keep going to the well on. I guess they paid for the song and they wanted to get their money's worth out of it.
The movie must have been shot and edited by somebody's nephew with his Fisher Price Make-My-First-Horror-Movie Kit. The camerawork is pathetic, there are continuity errors galore, you can see the reflection of one of the filmmakers in a car window in several shots, and some shots are in the wrong order. For instance, we see our protagonist having drinks at her boyfriend's house, where the boyfriend miraculously pours himself a bourbon on the rocks and her a red wine out of a single bottle, with one pour. Then we see them at work with the boyfriend saying, "hey, let's go to my place for some drinks." And this isn't the only time something is out of order.
In summary, this movie is a mess. It could have been a fun mess if it had bothered to be as over-the-top as its overblown name. (With a title like Splatter University, I was hoping for guts and gore all over the place, but it was not to be.) Instead, it was just kindof a pitiful piece of garbage that never really elevated its game past the slasher basics of stabbing people and slicing their throats. Oh, and stabbing dudes in the balls sometimes.
I'm giving Splatter University an exceedingly generous one-and-a-half stars, mostly because I liked the good parts of the score and because it's not hateful - just bad. If you're a slasher completist or you like to watch bad movies with beers and buds, you might have to include this one on your list. If you demand a certain level of competency in your movies, you should skip Splatter University. Oh, wait, you were going to skip it anyway. Good deal.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949)
In a small village in New York, Ichabod Crane, stork-like itinerant school-master, woos the fair (and rich) Katrina Van Tassel with his charm, wit, erudition, and surprisingly competent dancing, much to the chagrin of his rival for her heart, Brom Bones. But Brom knows that Ichabod is a very superstitious fellow - a bit of a 'fraidy cat, really - so at a party for Katrina's father, Brom lays it on thick with a ghost story about a horseman who rides the nearby woods every Halloween night, looking to take a replacement for his missing head. Ichabod's fear of the story makes him lose face in front of his beloved Katrina, but he could lose a lot more when he meets the Horseman on his ride home.
This Disney animated short was a staple of my Halloweens growing up. It seems like every year this would come on TV and I would get myself nice and spooked by the real and imagined terrors of Ichabod's harrowing ride through the woods. The sky darkens, the woods seem to close in on him, voices seem to call out, "Ichabod..." and "Horseman..." And then the terrible phantom appears, riding a pitch black horse, cloak rippling in the wind, a long knife in one hand and a flaming Jack-o-Lantern in the other. Terrifying.
The first half of this cartoon is a bouncy, silly, cute romp with all the great animation that comes along with the Disney name. Ichabod, though a bit too scheming to be a fully noble protagonist, is a likable fellow, and it's fun to see him charming the ladies in town while in search of a good meal until he becomes smitten with Katrina. Then, amazingly, he bests his stronger, more attractive rival Brom at every turn, at least until the end.
I assume that this all pretty much jibes with Washington Irving's story (maybe I'll read it someday), so the credit can be given to the original author for subverting the trope of the put-upon underdog finally getting a chance to win the fair maiden's heart by using his wits to overcome his rival's strength. Here we have the opposite - despite being a creepy-looking, nebbish goof, Ichabod wins and wins and wins until Brom has a moment to find his one weakness and put him in his place. It's a great role-reversal.
(Wikipedia says that Katrina was only using Ichabod to make Brom jealous, but I never read that into the characterization. It's certainly possible, maybe even likely, and maybe I'm a naive dunce for thinking the nerd could be the big ladies' man, but I like to think Katrina isn't quite so conniving. Your mileage may vary.)
So indeed, the first half of huge cartoon is a fun, funny lark. But when the Halloween party starts, everything starts to change. It's nighttime. The colors are muted. The sky is overcast. There are, subtly, Jack-o-Lanterns on the scene. And from when Brom tells his ghost story on to the end, it becomes about as frightening as a kids' cartoon can get.
Despite the scrambling and clowning around with Ichabod's borrowed nag, the ride through the woods is relentlessly frightening. The Headless Horseman is one of Disney's scariest images, along with Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, The Ghost of Christmas-Yet-to-Come in Mickey's Christmas Carol, and The Jonas Brothers.
Tying together all of the humor, horror, and 40s-style music is the legendary voice of Bing Crosby. He croons, he scats, he narrates, and he delivers lines for the characters in his rich baritone that emphasizes both the frightening and the playful parts with equal aplomb. Bing is always a welcome presence, and here he gives his all for something that must have been an odd project for him - a cartoon where he plays all the roles and sings all the songs, and that goes from comedy to horror in a short 30-minute span. Bing is just great.
It was so much fun to revisit this memory from my childhood. I don't know if Disney Channel bothers to show it anymore on Halloween - after all, they have a million original television shows, both live action and cartoon, that they can create new, safe, not-at-all-scary Halloween episodes out of until the cows come home. But I will be happy to watch this classic piece of literary horror blended with brilliant cartooning with my family for many, many Halloweens to come.
This Disney animated short was a staple of my Halloweens growing up. It seems like every year this would come on TV and I would get myself nice and spooked by the real and imagined terrors of Ichabod's harrowing ride through the woods. The sky darkens, the woods seem to close in on him, voices seem to call out, "Ichabod..." and "Horseman..." And then the terrible phantom appears, riding a pitch black horse, cloak rippling in the wind, a long knife in one hand and a flaming Jack-o-Lantern in the other. Terrifying.
The first half of this cartoon is a bouncy, silly, cute romp with all the great animation that comes along with the Disney name. Ichabod, though a bit too scheming to be a fully noble protagonist, is a likable fellow, and it's fun to see him charming the ladies in town while in search of a good meal until he becomes smitten with Katrina. Then, amazingly, he bests his stronger, more attractive rival Brom at every turn, at least until the end.
I assume that this all pretty much jibes with Washington Irving's story (maybe I'll read it someday), so the credit can be given to the original author for subverting the trope of the put-upon underdog finally getting a chance to win the fair maiden's heart by using his wits to overcome his rival's strength. Here we have the opposite - despite being a creepy-looking, nebbish goof, Ichabod wins and wins and wins until Brom has a moment to find his one weakness and put him in his place. It's a great role-reversal.
(Wikipedia says that Katrina was only using Ichabod to make Brom jealous, but I never read that into the characterization. It's certainly possible, maybe even likely, and maybe I'm a naive dunce for thinking the nerd could be the big ladies' man, but I like to think Katrina isn't quite so conniving. Your mileage may vary.)
So indeed, the first half of huge cartoon is a fun, funny lark. But when the Halloween party starts, everything starts to change. It's nighttime. The colors are muted. The sky is overcast. There are, subtly, Jack-o-Lanterns on the scene. And from when Brom tells his ghost story on to the end, it becomes about as frightening as a kids' cartoon can get.
Despite the scrambling and clowning around with Ichabod's borrowed nag, the ride through the woods is relentlessly frightening. The Headless Horseman is one of Disney's scariest images, along with Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, The Ghost of Christmas-Yet-to-Come in Mickey's Christmas Carol, and The Jonas Brothers.
Tying together all of the humor, horror, and 40s-style music is the legendary voice of Bing Crosby. He croons, he scats, he narrates, and he delivers lines for the characters in his rich baritone that emphasizes both the frightening and the playful parts with equal aplomb. Bing is always a welcome presence, and here he gives his all for something that must have been an odd project for him - a cartoon where he plays all the roles and sings all the songs, and that goes from comedy to horror in a short 30-minute span. Bing is just great.
It was so much fun to revisit this memory from my childhood. I don't know if Disney Channel bothers to show it anymore on Halloween - after all, they have a million original television shows, both live action and cartoon, that they can create new, safe, not-at-all-scary Halloween episodes out of until the cows come home. But I will be happy to watch this classic piece of literary horror blended with brilliant cartooning with my family for many, many Halloweens to come.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Halloween (1978)
In an ordinary town in Illinois, a killer has broken out of a sanitarium and returned home to kill again on Halloween night.
There's no sense in doing any sort of recap of Halloween, as it is one of the best known, best loved horror movies of the last 35 or 40 years. The killer, Michael Myers, has become a horror icon for fans and mainstream audiences alike. Halloween led to six or seven sequels (depending on how you look at it), a remake, and a sequel to the remake. It also led to an endless parade of imitators, ripoffs, lookalikes, homages, and wannabes.
I love the look of the quiet, normal suburban neighborhood featured throughout the movie. It looks like the kind of neighborhood I grew up in in a lot of ways. It's a very real, very non-Hollywood look that creates a familiar, homey feel. Evidently it was shot in March in Pasedena, so the filmmakers had to supply their own autumnal leaves to place on the ground in each scene, but you'd never know it (unless you happen to look at all the green leaves up on the trees).
The movie is beautifully shot, with director John Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey making the most of nearly every frame. Continuous shots will have Michael subtly appearing in the shadows for a moment, then disappearing by the time the characters turn around. Michael's mask reflects just enough light to appear as a slightly bluer shadow among the black shadows. Those kinds of shots are creepy and effective.
Halloween has a number of great moments, and I fully agree with its place in horror history, but I have never put it on a pedestal like so many do. It has a ton of distracting little script and acting problems and goofy moments that strike sour notes every time I see the movie.
Lines like, "hey jerk, speed kills!" and "well, kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition" just don't make sense in context (John Carpenter agrees with me on the latter, according to the DVD commentary). Furthermore, the Lynda character's whole little improvised monologue about what books she doesn't take home while she waits for Laurie to watch Michael's car come down the street is just awful.
And I don't need to rehash the one frequent criticism people have of the movie, regarding Michael somehow knowing how to drive. My problem with that isn't that he knows how to drive, but that his driving all over the place is so much less scary than him standing and stalking in the shadows.
Despite doing nearly everything right in the actual scare sequences, the movie has never struck me as particularly scary. And, perhaps most damningly, I have never bought into the whole concept of Michael Myers as "The Shape," an inhuman killer that is "pure evil."
The circumstances of his first kill when he was a child, of his escape from the sanitarium (he skittered over the car pretty sprightly for a guy who never runs or anything), of his constant driving around, of his stalking and popping in and out of sight, of his apparent voyeurism, and so on all don't jibe with this idea of a near-supernatural force of death.
I can certainly buy him as a kid who couldn't handle his sister's sexuality (or some other unexplored problem) and snapped, killing her and then going catatonic for 15 years before breaking out to kill again. But none of that requires all of this hoosafudge about "the Devil's eyes," and "Death has come to your town, Sheriff," and the awful, "he's gone! He's from here! The Evil is gone!" out of Michaels's psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis. It makes him come off as a superstitious old fool, not a competent doctor.
This is blasphemy for many people, but in this way I appreciated what Rob Zombie did with his remake more than how the character is treated in the original. If he's a force of "pure evil," then fine, don't give us any insight into his character and motivations. But if he is a human being who has gone psychotic - and I have never been able to see him as anything but that in this first film - then I want to see the process and get to know who Michael is behind the mask. The Rob Zombie movies give that to us, while Carpenter's original does not. Take your pick.
Putting my complaints about the movie aside, the last ten minutes - from the "finding the bodies" scene until the end - are fantastically suspenseful and frightening. That last ten-minute sequence can make you forget about any problems with the first 80 minutes, and are largely where the movie made its fortune. I can totally see coming out of a theater in 1978 talking about how Michael almost got Laurie, how he just wouldn't die, how he really was the "boogeyman."
Without the mastery of that last reel, Halloween would have been a well-shot, well-intentioned exploitation movie with a few good moments that ultimately may have been lost in the shuffle of film history. Instead, it resonated with audiences to the point that the movie launched a franchise, a sub-genre, and an era of filmmaking that has yet to end.
There's no sense in doing any sort of recap of Halloween, as it is one of the best known, best loved horror movies of the last 35 or 40 years. The killer, Michael Myers, has become a horror icon for fans and mainstream audiences alike. Halloween led to six or seven sequels (depending on how you look at it), a remake, and a sequel to the remake. It also led to an endless parade of imitators, ripoffs, lookalikes, homages, and wannabes.
I love the look of the quiet, normal suburban neighborhood featured throughout the movie. It looks like the kind of neighborhood I grew up in in a lot of ways. It's a very real, very non-Hollywood look that creates a familiar, homey feel. Evidently it was shot in March in Pasedena, so the filmmakers had to supply their own autumnal leaves to place on the ground in each scene, but you'd never know it (unless you happen to look at all the green leaves up on the trees).
The movie is beautifully shot, with director John Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey making the most of nearly every frame. Continuous shots will have Michael subtly appearing in the shadows for a moment, then disappearing by the time the characters turn around. Michael's mask reflects just enough light to appear as a slightly bluer shadow among the black shadows. Those kinds of shots are creepy and effective.
Halloween has a number of great moments, and I fully agree with its place in horror history, but I have never put it on a pedestal like so many do. It has a ton of distracting little script and acting problems and goofy moments that strike sour notes every time I see the movie.
Lines like, "hey jerk, speed kills!" and "well, kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition" just don't make sense in context (John Carpenter agrees with me on the latter, according to the DVD commentary). Furthermore, the Lynda character's whole little improvised monologue about what books she doesn't take home while she waits for Laurie to watch Michael's car come down the street is just awful.
And I don't need to rehash the one frequent criticism people have of the movie, regarding Michael somehow knowing how to drive. My problem with that isn't that he knows how to drive, but that his driving all over the place is so much less scary than him standing and stalking in the shadows.
Despite doing nearly everything right in the actual scare sequences, the movie has never struck me as particularly scary. And, perhaps most damningly, I have never bought into the whole concept of Michael Myers as "The Shape," an inhuman killer that is "pure evil."
The circumstances of his first kill when he was a child, of his escape from the sanitarium (he skittered over the car pretty sprightly for a guy who never runs or anything), of his constant driving around, of his stalking and popping in and out of sight, of his apparent voyeurism, and so on all don't jibe with this idea of a near-supernatural force of death.
I can certainly buy him as a kid who couldn't handle his sister's sexuality (or some other unexplored problem) and snapped, killing her and then going catatonic for 15 years before breaking out to kill again. But none of that requires all of this hoosafudge about "the Devil's eyes," and "Death has come to your town, Sheriff," and the awful, "he's gone! He's from here! The Evil is gone!" out of Michaels's psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis. It makes him come off as a superstitious old fool, not a competent doctor.
This is blasphemy for many people, but in this way I appreciated what Rob Zombie did with his remake more than how the character is treated in the original. If he's a force of "pure evil," then fine, don't give us any insight into his character and motivations. But if he is a human being who has gone psychotic - and I have never been able to see him as anything but that in this first film - then I want to see the process and get to know who Michael is behind the mask. The Rob Zombie movies give that to us, while Carpenter's original does not. Take your pick.
Putting my complaints about the movie aside, the last ten minutes - from the "finding the bodies" scene until the end - are fantastically suspenseful and frightening. That last ten-minute sequence can make you forget about any problems with the first 80 minutes, and are largely where the movie made its fortune. I can totally see coming out of a theater in 1978 talking about how Michael almost got Laurie, how he just wouldn't die, how he really was the "boogeyman."
Without the mastery of that last reel, Halloween would have been a well-shot, well-intentioned exploitation movie with a few good moments that ultimately may have been lost in the shuffle of film history. Instead, it resonated with audiences to the point that the movie launched a franchise, a sub-genre, and an era of filmmaking that has yet to end.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Hellraiser: Bloodline (1997)
On a giant cheap-ass CGI space station in THE FUTURE, a man named Paul Merchant summons Pinhead and the Cinobites. He is interrupted in his actions by a military unit who are there to take the space station back from its designer. As they question what he is trying to do, he tells the story of his family's history, and the history of the infamous puzzle box.
Beginning in 18th century France (featuring some of the worst French accents ever captured in film) with the toy maker who created the box, Philip LeMarchand. He delivers the box to Duc de L'Isle, the patron who requested it be built. He, in turn, uses the box, a skinned-alive prostitute, and arcane magic to summon the demoness Angelique, brought forth to do his bidding.
We then see Angelique in the 1990s as she tries to put an end to the bloodline of the toy maker, the one family who could create a new box that could send her and the Cinobites back to Hell and bind them forever.
The uneasy alliance between Angelique and Pinhead leads to arguments over the best way to achieve their nefarious goals - temptation or suffering. On the one hand, this leads to too much talky-talky between the two demons. On the other hand, it leads to Pinhead's pronouncements about pain, which are some of the best things in the movie. Doug Bradley still brings his "A" game in this fourth installment, even if the material is a step down from his character's origins.
The set dressings, with all sorts of hanging chains and bloody body parts on the walls, are also plusses here. The blending of our world with the Hellscape had always been an intriguing and entertaining aspect of these movies, and it continues to be so here.
Where this movie falls down, other than in the cgi budget for the parts in THE FUTURE, is the script. Other than some of Pinhead's dialogue, this is just a terrible script. It's confusing and frustrating trying to follow along with the leaps the movie makes, to understand what the Cinobites are actually after, to know how it is that some characters manage to know what's going on and how to proceed when they haven't previously been privy to any of the necessary information.
It's my understanding that this went through a lot of scripts, so some things may have been left in that shouldn't have and some things have been left out. Between the multiple scripts and multiple directors (the final film being credited to the infamous Alan Smithee), I guess it's a bit much to ask to have a fully coherent final product. It's obvious the studio didn't care and just wanted it finished.
Still, I remember hating this a lot more than I did this time. It's cheap and dumb, but Doug Bradley is great as always as Pinhead, and it's bloody, gory, and gross. That's all I ask for at this point in this franchise, so I guess I can't complain.
Note: This is the last of the theatrically released Hellraiser movies. The next five movies (for a total of nine!) are straight-to-DVD cheapies where apparently Pinhead is just kinda slapped onto some script the studios had lying around and are terrible. I have zero interest in bothering with any of those, so this is the last Hellraiser movie in my book, at least until the inevitable remake.
Wolf Creek (2005)
Kristy and Liz, two British tourists, are traveling through the Australian Desert with their new Australian friend Ben, when they stop at Wolf Creek Crater - an enormous crater formed when a meteorite hit millennia ago. After a hike to the top of the crater and a view of its natural beauty, the trio return to their car to find that it won't start.
Stranded in the rain, it looks like they might be in a little bit of trouble until a man named Mick shows up in a tow truck. From that point on, they're not just in a little trouble - they're in whole lot of trouble.
Wolf Creek falls into the category of Hillbilly Horror, which I'm happy to see is not just an American thing. Hollywood (or in this case, Aussie-wood, I guess) tells us that wherever there is a wide-open space with no civilization around for miles, there will be creeps living off the grid, preying on anyone unfortunate enough to pass through. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek... I get the hint, movie-makers. I ain't going out there. Not for all the kangaroos in the Outback.
Wolf Creek brings some real tension to the table. You don't go into this movie thinking its just a travelogue showing the natural beauty of a foreign land. You know that at some point, something bad is going to go down. Wolf Creek takes its time getting to the horror, developing the three leads - not fully, but well enough to make us want them to live, even though a savvy audience knows that is an unlikely outcome.
Wolf Creek is a harrowing experience. There are tantalizing moments when escape seems possible, and there is a palpable sense of dread and inevitability when freedom is taken away again. And it's made worse by the murderous Mick putting on a friendly voice and an "aww-shucks" attitude as he explains just how he's going to treat our protagonists. He's an unlikely looking and sounding villain, and that makes him all the more frightening.
While movies like the Hostel series involve very elaborate machinations that put tourists into the clutches of the murderers, Wolf Creek keeps it simple. You unknowingly catch the eye of a killer. Your car breaks down. You find yourself forced to accept help from a stranger. Next thing you know, ropes, gags, torture, death. This is a kind of horror that could happen in the real world - the kind you'll think about next time you're driving in an unfamiliar area. That's a sign of an effective horror movie.
Stranded in the rain, it looks like they might be in a little bit of trouble until a man named Mick shows up in a tow truck. From that point on, they're not just in a little trouble - they're in whole lot of trouble.
Wolf Creek falls into the category of Hillbilly Horror, which I'm happy to see is not just an American thing. Hollywood (or in this case, Aussie-wood, I guess) tells us that wherever there is a wide-open space with no civilization around for miles, there will be creeps living off the grid, preying on anyone unfortunate enough to pass through. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek... I get the hint, movie-makers. I ain't going out there. Not for all the kangaroos in the Outback.
Wolf Creek brings some real tension to the table. You don't go into this movie thinking its just a travelogue showing the natural beauty of a foreign land. You know that at some point, something bad is going to go down. Wolf Creek takes its time getting to the horror, developing the three leads - not fully, but well enough to make us want them to live, even though a savvy audience knows that is an unlikely outcome.
Wolf Creek is a harrowing experience. There are tantalizing moments when escape seems possible, and there is a palpable sense of dread and inevitability when freedom is taken away again. And it's made worse by the murderous Mick putting on a friendly voice and an "aww-shucks" attitude as he explains just how he's going to treat our protagonists. He's an unlikely looking and sounding villain, and that makes him all the more frightening.
While movies like the Hostel series involve very elaborate machinations that put tourists into the clutches of the murderers, Wolf Creek keeps it simple. You unknowingly catch the eye of a killer. Your car breaks down. You find yourself forced to accept help from a stranger. Next thing you know, ropes, gags, torture, death. This is a kind of horror that could happen in the real world - the kind you'll think about next time you're driving in an unfamiliar area. That's a sign of an effective horror movie.
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