Prince of Darkness (1987)

"Hello? Hello. I've got a message for you, and you're not going to like it. ... Pray for death."

When a priest investigates the death of another priest, he discovers a hidden chamber in an abandoned California church. Known only to an ancient, secret order of priests called the Brotherhood of Sleep, this chamber has housed a terrible artifact for five-hundred years, keeping its existence hidden from the world, and even the Catholic Church itself.

It is pure evil, concentrated, and incredibly ancient. It is Satan, the son of an evil god who walked the Earth before time began. He was contained in this artifact millions of years ago to await a time when he will be unleashed up on the world to open the door for the return of his father. the Anti-God.

The priest consults with a physicist friend, and they bring together the brightest young minds in the fields of theoretical and applied physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, theology, ancient languages and texts, and other subjects to study the artifact. The goal is to prove scientifically what the priest knows through his faith - that evil is a real, fundamental force, and it is imprisoned in the artifact, working to find its way out and be reborn.

The evil force reaches out from its containment to infect those susceptible to its growing power and influence. Moving objects by its conscious thoughts. Causing the local homeless population to stand guard around the church, killing anyone who tries to leave. Controlling the creeping things that crawl upon the Earth. Preparing a vessel for the evil's return.

The priest and the assembled scholars are all that stand between the world and the incomprehensible evil within the artifact. Together, they must stay alive long enough to understand the evil force, unlock the mystery of the recurring dream shared by the Brotherhood of Sleep, and keep the Prince of Darkness from reigning over the Earth.

Prince of Darkness is one of John Carpenter's most underrated films. Some people may be put off by the "Satan in a jar" concept, which could seem silly at first blush, and fail to give the movie a chance. But if you go along with what the movie is telling you, and go a little deeper than the four-word elevator pitch above, you will find that it's a terrifying, cosmic-scale, Lovecraftian story with implications beyond our normal comprehension of evil, religion, science, and reality.

The movie is full of dreamy, atmospheric, creepy visuals, from the swirling green substance in the artifact, to the motionless homeless people standing vigil outside the church, to the insects crawling everywhere the evil touches, to the terribly unsettling VHS-quality recurring dream everyone experiences. And Carpenter's airy, bouncy, chorus-y synth score - possibly his very best work on the keyboards - is tailor-made to set you on edge and open you to possibilities you had never imagined.

Carpenter considers Prince of Darkness a part of a loose trilogy of apocalyptic films he has created, along with The Thing and In The Mouth of Madness. These films have very different mechanisms for bringing about the end of the world, but they share a number of commonalities. Each has themes of something alien and evil entering our world, an isolated few protagonists being the only ones who know what is happening, an unsettling, hopeless tone, and a sense of reality breaking down in some ways. And each of these movies is the work of a true "master of horror" at the top of his game. Highly recommended.

11/11/11 (2011)

My Netflix Instant Queue is getting out of hand. I don't know exactly how many titles are on there, but I can tell you that between the horror movies I keep stumbling upon for this month's viewing and the shows my lovely wife keeps putting on there to entertain our almost-one-year-old, it is literally a crap-ton of programming. Literally. My "Recommended For You" feature just suggested "A Nightmare On Seasame Street" and "Dora: Portrait Of A Serial Killer." I tell ya, it's getting out of hand.

Today I selected one that I hadn't heard much buzz about, but had nevertheless intrigued me. Last year, Darren Lynn Bousman, director of Saw II, III, and IIII (the Saws weren't known for their adherence to strict rules of Roman numerals - just ask Saw IIIIIII) put out an apocalyptic Devil-y movie that was released on and revolved around November 11, 2011. The idea was something akin to when Hollywood decided to remake The Omen (terribly) simply because they could hit a release date of June 6, 2006 --- 6/6/06, or 6/6/6 if you bought what the Hollywood machine was selling.

Okay, so put one out on November 11, 2011, tie in some other numerological mumbo jumbo and you've got yourself a horror movie. Let one of the Saw guys direct it? I'm in.

So here's the deal. I select 11/11/11 from the IQ. The credits fire up and we're on our way. I don't recognize any of the names here, but that's no real surprise. But wait - it's not even the right director. Uh oh. Oh no - there it is in black and white - An Asylum Films presentation.

Damn you, Asylum Films. You got me. I've been mockbustered.

If you don't know about The Asylum, they are the production company that swoops in just before a big Hollywood movie is released and drops their own very low budget version onto dvd (or SyFy) with a similar title and similar artwork. Transformers at the box office? Try our giant robot movie, Transmorphers. Snakes On A Plane? Meet Snakes On A Train. Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies, The Amityville Haunting, The Day The Earth Stopped... All of these can be yours from The Asylum if you don't care about good special effects, story, acting, and so forth. Somewhere along the way, The Asylum got the idea that Bousman's 11-11-11 (now I get it) would make some money at the box office (it didn't), so they beat them to the punch with 11/11/11. See what they did there?

But hey, a movie's a movie, right? I figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. So I resisted the urge to hit the ol' bail-out button and stuck with my knockoff.

As expected, it looked cheap. But at least with a movie about a neighborhood full of Devil worshippers trying to bring ol' Brimstone Britches into the world through a boy who turns 11 on a certain date, you don't have to worry about spectacular special effects. Honestly, the budget was plenty to pull off this story, convoluted and confusing as it was. It helps when you don't have to pay for real actors.

The biggest problem with 11/11/11 is that it was just unremarkable. Asylum films are frequently good for a laugh, such as in their so-bad-they're-good original productions Mega Pirahna and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Sometimes they even approach a quantum of competence like in the surprisingly solid 2-Headed Shark Attack. (Really!)  And sometimes they are so awful that you can derive a certain pride in having had the courage and willpower to sit through the whole thing. I'm looking at you, AvH: Alien vs. Hunter.

11/11/11 was none of these things. It was just there. It was the movie equivalent of the last game of the NFL preseason. It resembles the real thing in certain ways, but there's nobody you recognize involved and it feels entirely pointless. When it's over, all you can say is, "well, I'm glad we got that out of the way."

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Rosemary's Baby was adapted from Ira Levin's novel of the same name and produced by William Castle - the low budget auteur behind gimmicky movies like the original House On Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts. It is interesting to note that Castle brought the book to Paramount Pictures before the novel was officially released, and the studio bought the film rights with the stipulation that Castle could produce, but not direct, the movie. This is important because it led the way for director Roman Polanski to take the helm, kicking off his career in the United States with what could be his signature film. Had Castle directed, it would certainly have been a very different movie - likely a shlocky, forgettable bit of fluff rather than an icon of horror.

Rosemary's Baby is so well known and influential that even if you haven't seen the movie, you probably know the basic story. Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling actor husband Guy move into a new apartment and get to know their elderly, overly friendly neighbors, Roman and Minnie Castevet. Before too long, Guy's career starts to pick up and they decide it's time to have a baby. The Castevets take a overbearing interest in Rosemary's pregnancy, insistently providing help she doesn't want, like hooking her up with a famous obstetrician and making her a fresh herb concoction that Minnie makes up every day (per the doctor's orders).

As her due date approaches, Rosemary becomes more and more convinced of their sinister motives and that her husband is in with the Castevets on a plot against her and the baby. She comes to believe that the Castevets, the doctor, her husband, and untold numbers of others are part if a coven of witches who want to sacrifice her baby to Satan in exchange for power in the world.

And --- SPOILER ALERT --- she is mostly right.

Rosemary's Baby takes the normal anxieties of pregnancy and turns them up to 11.  It is hard enough to know how you will handle having a child under the best of circumstances. But if your child is the offspring of the Devil and the object of worship for a coven of old, frumpy witches, that presents a whole unique set of problems.  The finale gives us a good look at two things: a mother's natural strength and, in showing the gathered coven's very ordinariness, the banality of evil. These witches aren't black-robed, red-eyed monsters tattooed with the number of the Beast - they are your next door neighbors.

To The Devil A Daughter

"Absolutely the last time I do a book adaptation," thought Christopher Lee.

To The Devil A Daughter is Hammer Pictures' adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's novel of the same name. This effectively was the last of the Classic Hammer Horror series that had previously dominated the international horror market with Gothic films starring the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. With To The Devil A Daughter, Hammer went out with a bang.

Catherine, a nun in the heretic order, the Children Of The Lord, has been raised since birth to worship the demon Astaroth and has been groomed to be his avatar (not those blue things) in the world. The ritual to make this happen is going to go down on her 18th birthday. She innocently believes that Astaroth is good, just like her church told her. Her father, a former member of this same Satanic order, is terrified of what is going to happen to his daughter. To keep her out of the order's clutches, he asks his friend, occult writer John Verney, to pick up Catherine at the airport when she comes home for her birthday and hide her away.

Father Michael (Christopher Lee) of the Children Of The Lord uses his black magic powers to try to get Catherine back in time for the All Hallow's Eve ritual, while Verney uses the knowledge and contacts he has acquired from years of writing occult novels to keep her safe and put a stop to Father Michael's plans.

There are lots of good ol' devil-movie staples: snakes, blasphemous images, weird-sounding British telephones, blood orgies... All the things you look for in one of these flicks. But even with all the on-screen madness, it sometimes seems that some plot things have gone on just off-screen, or maybe just before we begin a scene, that we're missing. This may be a result of it being a book adaptation - perhaps the book fills in those blanks. The movie is suspenseful and creepy, but sometimes a little bit hard to follow.

The story is fascinating, the acting is pretty good, and the Satan-fu is fairly strong. There are some scary and shocking moments, but in the suspenseful vein of Rosemary's Baby moreso than the action-packed Exorcist or something. The Satanists have more of a complete plan and methodology than in many of these movies, although the final goal is still a bit unclear. I guess they just want Astaroth to be alive in the world. Maybe he wants to breathe the air, walk among the people, take in some cricket matches... The means are definitely more well-defined than the ends. But still, it beats just saying, "we want Satan to win the great eternal boxing match. Go Big Red!"

There are a lot of rules about where the demons will and won't go and what they will and won't do.  Again, a fascinating mythology that is probably better understood in the book than in the movie, where they simply state the rules when necessary and we just have to go along.

Christopher Lee makes for an excellent evil priest and Nastassja Kinski is good as the innocent tug-of-war victim Catherine.  Maybe this one should be in line for a "director's cut".  The facile, over-too-quick ending is a let-down after a good build-up.  Maybe they can restore the exciting payoff they allegedly filmed and then inexplicably cut.

Note: This movie is the source for the clip of some Latin and Christopher Lee's line, "It is not heresy...  and I will not recant!" from White Zombie's "Super-Charger Heaven."

The Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

We all know that, with but a few exceptions, a sequel will never live up to the beloved original movie in a series. But rarely does a sequel fall as short of the mark as did The Exorcist II: The Heretic.

The story is kind of the same old thing as before - a priest tries to drive the demon Pazuzu out of poor Regan MacNeil, now age 17. Problem is, this sequel gives us little reason to think that she is actually possessed before the priest arrives. No weird crab-walks, projectile vomitting, or channeling her inner Andrew Dice Clay (remember that guy?). Instead, she is seeing a therapist about some nightmares she has about her original possession, which she can't remember. But when Father Lamont shows up to ask her questions about what happened to Father Merrin, the priest from the first movie, she starts up a pseudoscientific hypnotherapy that helps her remember, and it all starts up again.

Or it would if it was one of those movies that strives to keep the audience's interest and make a bit of sense. But no, it turns out the demon and the priest pal around in the hypnotic state, fly off (spiritually) to Africa, and watch a flashback of Father Merrin exorcising Pazuzu out of this boy named Kokumo. (no Beach Boys songs at this time, please)

Father Lamont decides to travel to Africa to find this Kokumo guy, not so much to help rid Regan of a demon (again, she's probably not even possessed here), but to help clear Father Merrin's name with the Catholic church, who has labeled him a heretic posthumously. There's a lot of stuff about really fakey looking locusts and Regan practices her tap dancing and has a bad dream and can miraculously heal people (?) and the movie just drags through its nearly two-hour length.

Exorcist II's greatest sin is being interminably boring.  Boooring.  The first one was dripping with atmosphere, tension, and dread.  It messed with your head with shocking, scary images and sounds and almost subliminal flashes of demonic faces.  You feared for the innocent girl and the elderly priest charged with saving her soul.  This sequel replaces the scenes of unrelenting terror with scenes of milling around an African village, futzing with flashy-lights machines built for... psychiatry... somehow, and a general lack of demonic activity (unless you count Regan's tap dance recital).  And at the end, the psychiatrist tells Regan, "I understand now.  The world won't, but I do."  Well, she's right about that.  The world doesn't understand what the hell was supposed to be going on.  Boo. 

Häxan

Häxan (or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a silent documentary from Sweden that juxtaposes the perceptions of witches in the Middle Ages with the views of the "modern world" of 1922. At the core of Danish director Benjamin Christensen's narrative is a refreshingly skeptical point of view, from which the filmmaker suggests psychologically plausible explanations for the demonic visions and actions of supposed witches and those tormented by devils.

Beginning with a look at witchcraft and the Devil in the art of ancient and Medieval cultures (including a statue of the Assyrian demon Pazuzu that will be familiar to any fan of The Exorcist), Haxan informs us that the imagery of the demonic has permeated all of the "naive" and primitive cultures of the world for the entire history of mankind.

After the art history lesson comes the heart of the film: the dramatic depiction of witchcraft in the time of the Inquisition. The first vignette shows us the lives of self-proclaimed witches and the sad souls who seek their potions and spells. Then we see a typical Inquisition scenario in which an old woman is accused of witchcraft, tortured into a manufactured confession of her evil deeds, and subsequently levies accusations against the people in town who have wronged her. The cycle goes on until the village is scoured of witches and the judges of the Inquisition move on to the next town.

Finally, Christensen show us his hypothesis of the true causes of so-called demonic behaviors, playing the actions of the bewitched against scenes of modern psychological disorders such as kleptomania and somnambulism, which he lumps together under the term "hysteria." In this way, Christensen endeavors to teach the audience to put aside the superstitions of the "naive" past and try to solve real psychological problems with real-world treatments.

So, Häxan is a documentary, but is it a horror movie? Yes, yes it is. While the film as a whole may not be particularly scary to today's audience, it can certainly be unnerving.

The costumes are fantastic in all senses of the word: a terrifying Satan (played by the director), creepy imps, pig-men walking upright, a skeletal horse, and all manner of other grotesquery. Guillermo del Toro would be proud of the creature designs and effects.

The blasphemous imagery of the Witches' Sabbath scenes is shocking, particularly considering when Häxan was made. Demons drain blood from a baby into a brew the revelers drink, an old witch gives birth to man-sized demons, and witches literally kiss the Devil's behind to show their loyalty. Häxan is brimming with depraved acts we wouldn't think anyone would have put into a film in the 1920s, and all is depicted with a surreal weirdness that somehow makes it seem more real than the lifelike effects in modern movies.

Häxan came to the screen in the same year as F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, which was three years before The Phantom Of The Opera and nine years before Dracula or Frankenstein. This places Häxan among the foundations of cinematic horror. Unlike these other movies, Häxan tackles not literary monsters familiar to all as fiction, but evils that are considered all too real by much of the world. It portrays these horrors unflinchingly, while warning against letting superstition lead again to the kind of madness that shook Europe during the Inquisition.

If you're interested in one of the most fascinating horror movies of the silent era or simply want some freaky visuals to play on the tv in the background of your Halloween party, look no further than Häxan.