The Scope

Blogoween: Haxan (1922)

“The belief in sorcery and witchcraft is probably as old as mankind”

Directed by Benjamin Christensen

What kind of horror movie is it? Silent Satanic Nunsploitation Pseudo Documentary

Haxan is a Swedish/Danish silent film that attempts to detail the history of “Witchcraft Through The Ages” (as it was re-titled in its 1968 re-release). The film first examines the belief systems that lead to a belief in witchcraft, then illustrates through a series of vignettes the ways witchcraft was practiced, and persecuted in the middle ages. Finally in the weakest part of the film, Christensen offers a view of witchcraft from the perspective of (then) modern psychology.

While director Benjamin Christensen’s often condescending views on the subject can be off-putting, Haxan is an absolute masterpiece of the macabre and the grotesque.

It’s hard to put into words just how awesome this movie is.

Christensen may have had his own Freudian issues going on here, because while he seeks to distance himself from the subject matter by taking a very rational scientific view, he also recreates scenes of witch’s Sabbats, and demonic tomfoolery, with obvious glee. Going so far as playing the role of the Devil himself.

Haxan is available in two versions. The first being the original 1922 silent version, and the second being the 1968 re-release, featuring a narration by William S. Burroughs. The original is longer, clocking in at 87 minutes, and offers a classical music score, and is more informative. The ‘68 version is faster paced, at 76 minutes, has a jazz score (which I loved, but some people can’t stand), and to be honest, it’s more entertaining. The good news is that you don’t have to choose! Criterion have released both versions as a set.

This is a good movie if you like fantastic imagery. The costumes are great, and some of the special effects are amazing for 1922. In particular, there’s one scene of witches flying on broomsticks over the rooftops of houses which is wonderful. This would make a perfect Halloween party film — just turn the sound down and let the pictures speak for themselves. If, however, you want to pay more attention, it works fine that way too. I’ve watched it a number of times now, and have found new things on each viewing.

Availability: Haxan is available on DVD from the fine folks at Criterion.

Blogoween: Deranged (1974)

“I’m sorry I called you a hog, ma.”

What kind of horror movie is it? Pre-Halloween proto-slasher.

Before the various “true crime” documentary-style programs that Bill Kurtis would produce for the A&E network, people experienced serial killer stories the way God intended: fictionalized movies! Why dwell, polish and streamline reality when writers could take the info and legends about a serial killer and weave them into entertainment?

Names changed to protect the innocent and all that. This was entertainment, not news, after all.

The most famous and recurrent example of this would be the many fictionalized accounts of the notorious Ed Gein. Gein was a necrophile, cannibal and killer of women who wore his victims skin among other disquieting thing. From the notoriety of his activities and arrest sprang a mini-genre of horror movies that latched onto aspects of Gein’s habits and retold them. These Gein-sploitation pictures fashioned a pathetic, disturbed creature into a modern boogieman. He would go on to inspire Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill and other cinematic slashers with his revolting deeds.

Deranged is a dramatization of the Ed Gein murders overshadowed by its more famous, Gein-inspired brethren: 1960’s Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which came out the same year as Deranged. Deranged was truer to the Gein case than either Tobe Hooper’s film or Alfred Hitchcock’s.

In this depiction, Gein is Ezra Cobb (Robert Blossom), a simple resident of the sparsely populated town of Woodside, tending to his dying, lunatic mother (Cosette Lee). The docile Cobb listens to the furious exclamations of his mother as she warns him about women who are carries of the three great evils: “Syphilis! Gonorrhoea! Death!”. While he is to be wary of the opposite sex, she advises her son to trust only family friend Maureen Selby (Marion Waldman) because she is obese and a “heifer” is an exception to the rule. When Ma Cobb finally gives up the ghost, Ezra is devastated. He spends all his time at home crying and talking to himself. He also begins writing notes to his ‘vacationing’ parent, where he repeatedly asks when she’s finally going to return to him.

Finally, he decides that if the late Ms. Cobb isn’t coming home on her own two feet, he’ll have to dig her up himself, smuggling the body under the cover of night and laying his mother’s remains on her deathbed. However, a few nights of decomposition have been Hell on Ma Cobb, so Ezra takes it upon himself to not only preserve what’s left of his mother and prevent further decay, but to seek new flesh to restore her body, starting with Maureen Selby…

Deranged had initially disappointed me when I first watched it. Indeed, there is a clumsiness to the film that is hard to ignore, largely in the form of a reporter who functions as the film’s narrator played by Leslie Carlsom. Yet, instead of relying on voice-overs, film uses a remarkably goofy framing device of having the reporter just pop into frame throughout its running time. So, poor Ezra will be babbling to his dead mom or making his first kill and suddenly this Les Nesman-type will pop into frame to remind us about the horror of it all. The camera’s sudden pans to this guy are influenced by Rod Serling’s onscreen bookends in The Twilight Zone, but have no power here. Carlson’s not so much Sterling as he is Count Floyd, giving the film a very hokey vibe.

Unbelievably, this actually improves the film if you know its coming. Its a nasty combo of lazy writing and bad acting, but the surreality of Robert Carlson popping into frame like some kind of crime-reporting elf gives the film an unpredictable quality. You’re never quite sure when Carlson will show up next, but his appearances (and the Ezra’s ignorance of them) give the film an unintentionally lunatic quality that enhances the portrayal of its killers insanity. Similarly, when the film tries to derive horror from someone other than Ezra, it results in unintended laugh. When Ma Cobb’s “Syphilis! Gonorrhoea! Death” is looped on the soundtrack, I nearly peed my pants. Still, these failings, combined with the film’s stagy, matter-of-fact direction make Ezra’s degeneration all the more frightening.

The one thing that always stayed with me from Deranged was Robert Blossom’s stand-out performance as Ezra. Most of the acting ranges from unconvincing ham to am-dram theatrics, but his performance is so slight, it’s invisible. Blossom effortlessly weaves the bashful, childlike nature of Cobb with his demented compulsions. In a film that almost drowns in its artificiality, Blossom’s quietly determined, lonely madman creates a very real sense of menace. One can only hope that the late John Hughes cast Blossom as the creepy neighbour in Home Alone based on his performance here.

If you’re intrigued by Gein, or the real story behind that creepy guy who terrorized Macauley Culkin back in ‘1990, Deranged is a must-see.

Availability: Once available as a double-feature with Motel Hell, Deranged has fallen out-of-print, but used copies of that DVD aren’t hard to spot.

Blogoween: Doomwatch (1972)

“Without this island, we would have no life. We’d all be scattered.”

Directed by Peter Sasdy

What kind of horror movie is it? Environmental Monster Movie

Dr. Del Shaw is sent by Doomwatch, a government sponsored environmental agency to investigate damage caused by an oil spill on the bird life of a small, sparsely-populated island on the west coast of Britain.

When he arrives, he finds the islanders to be a secretive and unfriendly lot. While collecting gull eggs, he notices that he’s being followed by an armed stranger. The unusual behaviour arouses the curiosity of the good doctor. So do the initial findings from his samples: It appears that bird, and fish life in the area, have large quantities of some kind of chemically altered growth hormone.

Dr. Shaw discovers the shallow grave of a child in the woods, and fetches the constable, only to find the body missing upon his return, and the constable unwilling to investigate further. Shaw tries to make an alliance with a young school teacher, who admits that something strange is going on, but won’t say what it is.

When Shaw is attacked and almost killed by some sort of misshapen creature, it brings exactly the kind of attention to the island that the inhabitants had been trying to avoid.

Doomwatch was a film made by Tigon Productions, based on a BBC television show. Fans of the show were annoyed that the shows main characters were given small roles and new characters were created to focus on stars Ian Bannen and Judy Geeson. It’s too bad that the controversy about casting has overshadowed what a fantastic little film this actually is.

The set up of the film is superficially very similar to The Wicker Man, which came out a year later, with the mainland official coming to the small island, the death of a young girl, and the discovery of a terrible secret. Also, like The Wicker Man, Doomwatch builds slowly toward an unusual climax, but while The Wicker Man justifies the main character’s suspicions of the islanders, Doomwatch is far more sympathetic to its small town folks.
Newfoundlanders will find many parallel themes in this story to our own history of forced resettlement. If you always wished John And The Missus had more mutants, then Doomwatch is the movie for you. Even if you just like downbeat science fiction, or atmospheric horror you will find much to enjoy in this film.
The lead actors are fine, but I found the islanders themselves to be wonderfully presented, and it’s not often you can say that about rural-based horror films. The look of the film is dreary in a way the British seem to be masters. The dreariness only adds to the melancholy atmosphere.

Also, I must mention the wonderful “action” music that plays when we see the Doomwatch scientist lifting test tubes, and scientifically fighting pollution. It almost makes me believe in progress!

Availability: Doomwatch the movie is easily found on DVD. Unfortunately the TV series is another story, with many episodes having been erased by the BBC.

Blogoween: Zeder (1983)

“His face on the screen, it was white, cadaverous….he looked dead to me.”

Directed by Pupi Avati

What kind of horror movie is it? Art-House Zombie Movie

Stefano is a writer who’s wife gets him a typewriter for their anniversary. On the first night he uses his gift, the machine jams, causing him to discover a mysterious letter written by the previous owner on the unspooled ribbon.

The letter describes scientific experiments on places called “K-Zones” which are areas that exist outside of time, and where the dead may return to life.

Thinking that this may be an interesting premise for a novel, Stefano begins his own research. He soon learns two things: One is that the scientific experiments into “K-Zones” are real and a scientist named Paolo Zeder had written extensively about it before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The other is that his typewriter had been previously owned by a man named Luigi Costa, a former priest who seems to have been a mysterious figure himself.

Stefano’s inquiries soon bring him to the attention of a group of fringe scientists continuing Zeder’s work. These folks are well-funded, and would prefer to remain out of the spotlight.

Stefano, though, like the best horror protagonists, just can’t take a hint, and things get dangerous.

When Zeder was brought to the United States, it was re-named Revenge of The Dead, and pawned off as typical Italian gore fest. I can only imagine the disappointment that so many teenage horror fiends felt as they watched this slow moody film. Not a single eyeball punctured! Not an intestine in sight! Instead, what they got was a creepy parable on the dangers of obsession.

Nobody in Zeder gets what they want!

Fortunately Zeder is now readily available under its proper name and has gained a reputation as one of the best of the early 80s Italian horror imports. One thing that has come up time and time again, as I’ve written these Blogoween entries, is atmosphere. It’s what sets the great horror films apart, and it’s what Zeder has in spades.

Pupi Avati, who directed this odd little zombie movie, had previously made a name for himself with the equally atmospheric (and odd) Giallo, The House of the Laughing Windows. He’s a bit of a hidden gem, and is finally getting the respect and attention he deserves.

This movie is also interesting for fans of Steven King, as some of the concepts that appear here show up again a few years later in King’s book (and later movie) Pet Cemetery.

Availability: Zeder is easy to find on DVD

Blogoween: Deadgirl (2008)

“What are you, eight?”

What kind of horror movie is it? Undead social commentary

Before you read a paragraph of this review, I must warn you that it deals with very strong subject matter and, if you’re sensitive, you don’t want to read about Deadgirl, much less watch it.

Ricky (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Noah Segan) are cutting class to let off some steam, to engage in some petty vandalism and to tell sub-stupid jokes. Soon they find a condemned hospital, which they explore as much as they destroy. Meanwhile, J.T. labels everyone at school “gay” (and other variants on same while encouraging Ricky to take out his aggression on the building. J.T. has all the power in this friendship and by reminding Ricky that JoAnn (Candice Accola), the girl he’s been crushing on, is way out of his league.

After a close call with a rabid dog skulking through the hospital, the two teens lock themselves in the basement as a temporary refuge. Soon, they realize they’re not alone. But Ricky and J.T. have found something that dictate the course of their lives: There’s a naked woman chained up in the basement, either forgotten or ineffectually sealed away by whoever last encountered her.

Ricky is horrified. He knows they have to get out of the building, but as for calling the police or taking the woman to a hospital, he leaves the thinking to J.T.

J.T., being an emotionally stunted CHUD, thinks about the possibilities of keeping this discovery a secret. Well, mostly he’s just thinking “naked girl = awesome”. After all, if nobody knows she’s there and she’s restrained, semi-conscious and fully-nude, whose to stop an enterprising young sociopath like J.T. from having a bit of fun?

Ricky is disgusted, but he can’t convince J.T. not to rape the girl, and is suckerpunched for even suggesting that his friend think twice about his plans. Defeated, Ricky returns to his home not to find his mother, but her beer-swilling, seemingly unemployed boyfriend, Clint (Michael Bowen). Clint notices that Ricky’s been beat up and slurs out some cliches about “takin’ care of business” and defending one’s self. Like the rest of the adults we briefly see in Deadgirl, Clint is hopelessly out-of-touch with the current generation. Worse still, he’s just as much of an unthinking goon as J.T.

Soon, J.T. seeks out Ricky with some rather upsetting news. It seems that the “deadgirl” didn’t take too kindly to this young idiots advances and, in a rage, J.T. beat her to death. Except, she didn’t die. He later strangles her and even shoots the woman to prove a point to J.T.: the woman they found is a zombie. This changes everything. Since his victim can never starve and die, the feral “deadgirl” can now be used as J.T’s living blow-up doll for all eternity.

Cue Ricky’s renewed disgust and continued impotence in dissuading J.T. from evil. End scene.

With Ricky out of the picture for J.T.’s pathetic activities, word gets round at school that the loathsome teen has been gettin’ some. When a pea-brained jock (Andrew DiPalma) threatens to kill them unless he sees the chained woman, he ends up with a rather unfortunate bite from the undead sex slave. He retaliates by beating the “deadgirl” until her face is almost unrecognizable, but it’s too late. As per traditional zombie tales, bites are contagious and this jock’s sudden comeuppance (during class, no less) is as fitting as it is revolting.

Still, the zombie’s face has been so thoroughly brutalized that J.T. can no longer satisfy his needs with it. But, with its infectious bites offering the prospect of a new “deadgirl”, J.T. devises a plan that will not only fulfil his urges, but perhaps mend the rift between him and Ricky.

Growing from the roots of rape-revenge flicks like I Spit On Your Grave, Deadgirl is a powerful piece of feminist horror cinema. Grave and its ilk are overshadowed by unwatchably tasteless and punishingly lengthy rape scenes, which destroy any statements its filmmaker was attempting to make. Deadgirl explores new territory here by shying away from depicting gratuitous sexual — and non-sexual — violence, and crafts a masterful character piece that is as much about why rape happens as much as it is a horror story.

Deadgirl is notable for coming on the heels of the 2007 horror-comedy, Teeth. Unlike Teeth, which was largely a vehicle to show two-dimensional twerps get their penises bitten off by the protagonist’s toothy vagina, Deadgirl is interested in finding a possible explanation for sexual violence. The male characters are all driven by an irrepressible sense of self-loathing. J.T. encourages Ricky and others to commit rape because he thinks it’s the only way guys like himself and his friends could have sex in the first place. For J.T., this is the best possible alternative to trying to date. As such, Deadgirl posits that sexual violence is motivated by self-pity. That and stupidity, of course.

Furthermore, unlike the middling Teeth, JT and Rickie don’t feel like stock characters. Their relationship dynamics are very real with Ricky as the passive male and JT tending to not only set the tone of the friendship, but to be its leader and general alpha-male. At the risk of sounding like your mom, J.T. is a terrible influence on poor Ricky.

Granted, Ricky isn’t a hero or even that nice a guy. Any non-scuzzy person would’ve reported J.T. and the “deadgirl” to the police immediately. Ricky doesn’t even come close to turning in his sociopathic best bud. Nonetheless, as we can see in the way he handles the moronic Clint, Ricky’s I.Q. practically triples when he’s free of his loathsome friend.

Even J.T. is given a bit of depth. As heinous as his actions are, he genuinely thinks that “sharing” this zombie is a means to provide Ricky with what he so desperately wants. It’s revolting, but it’s plausible for someone so amoral could believe that two friends raping one girl is a rite of passage.

Though I must deduct marks for its soundtrack, which nakedly apes the masterful score from Donnie Darko, that is the sole misstep made in this unforgettable movie. Deadgirl benefits from an able cast, focused direction, and a script that refuses to follow a predictable route. It’s a ground-breaking film that marks the emergence of the first great feminist horror film, and certainly one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

Blogoween: Mad Love (1935)

“Yes they cut off my head, but that Gogol, he put it back.”

Directed by Karl Freund

What kind of horror movie is it? Mad Scientist/Expressionistic Horror

Doctor Gogol (Peter Lorre) is a brilliant surgeon, able to perform miracles in the operating room, but unable to make personal connections. Every night he goes to Le Theatre Des Horreurs to watch Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) star in short graphic horror plays. From the safety of his theatre box, Gogol can gaze upon the young woman whom he has fallen in love with. On the night he gets up the courage to meet her and tell her about his feelings, he is crushed to discover that not only does she not love him in return, but that she is married, and about to move away to England!

His hopes dashed, Gogol purchases a life size wax figure of Yvonne that had been used to promote the theatre. This statue he brings home to his lonely mansion, and serenades it on the organ.

When Yvonne’s pianist husband, Stephen (Colin Clive) has his hands smashed in a train wreck, she begs Doctor Gogol to save him. Gogol would do anything to please Yvonne, so he performs an experimental operation where he transplants the hands of a recently executed murderer onto Stephen. At first things seem to be fine, but soon the hands begin acting on their own, and as Gogol realizes that Yvonne can never love him as long as Stephen is around, he begins to lose touch with reality.

Director Karl Freund made his name in Europe as a cinematographer, working on expressionistic films like The Golom, and Metropolis. He directed 10 films after coming to America, the first being the Boris Karlof classic, The Mummy, and Mad Love being the last.

It’s not surprising then that Mad Love feels more like a European film than an American movie. There are expressionistic touches throughout the film, and an atmosphere of bizarre psychology dominates.

As obvious as the plot appears today, the movie lurches in unexpected directions, and is as beautifully melancholy as it is horrific. This is in no small part due to the incredible nuanced performance delivered by Peter Lorre. This was Lorre’s first American film, having become an international star based on his starring role in Fritz Lang’s M. Lorre brings much more depth to the Gogol character than one would expect from reading the plot description. At first, Gogol is terribly sympathetic, as he struggles to prove his doomed love. Later, even as he becomes more and more unhinged, there remains an underling sympathy. Gogol never seems evil, he seems pathetically and dangerously mad.

The other actors do a good enough job, for the most part. I could have done without the tedious comic relief in the form of a drunken housekeeper, but watching Colin Clive (you may know him as Dr. Frankenstein) is good fun. Lorre steals the show though, dominating every scene he’s in.

Mad Love deserves its status as a horror classic, and, if anything, is underrated. It is spooky, and beautiful, and more than a little sad.

Availability: Mad Love is available on DVD as a part of a double feature with the The Devil Doll

Blogoween: Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (1974)

“You see, doctor, there are as many species of vampire as there are beasts of prey. Their methods and their motive for attack can vary in a hundred different ways.”

What kind of horror movie is it? Vampire swash-buckler.

Hammer Studios, a profitable empire in the 50’s and 60’s, had hit the skids in the 70’s. With their immensely popular franchises with Dracula, Frankenstein and the heroic Professor Quatermass behind them, the studio needed a new flagship character. While some point to the success of satanic horror like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist as the source of their troubles, the answer isn’t quite that simple. The studio didn’t need the devil or even added blood and gore to turn a profit. What Hammer really needed was to be scary again. The element of fright had been missing since 1967’s Quatermass & The Pit and attempting to bring Christopher Lee’s Dracula into the modern era was not going to cut it.

Since terrifying audiences had never been the main focus of Hammer’s output, the producers altered their formula somewhat. They continued with their modus operandi of making entertaining movies featuring traditional monsters, but they bent the rules and re-envisioned the settings a bit.The results were mixed, as the uninspired Satanic Rites of Dracula was met with more interesting fare like Vampire Circus and Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter.

In the proud tradition of Hammer Horror’s previous offerings, late 19th century England is besieged by vampires. These vampires are a more unusual threat than Christopher Lee in fangs, as they drain youth, not blood from their victims. So, teenagers across the countryside are being aged to near-death at the hands of the undead.

(We have those in modern-day Newfoundland, too. We call them “call centres”.)

Enter Captain Kronos (Horst Janson) and his hunch-backed sidekick Professor Grost (John Cater). The two are unlikely friends who combat vampires. Unlike the prim and proper Van Helsing and Helsing wannabes of old, the two are a cheerful lot and don’t have all the answers. Since vampires have evolved into various sub-species with different powers, the methods of killing them vary among the many types of vampire.
Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter is one of the most enjoyable of all the Hammer cycle. This is an impressive feat for two reasons. Obviously, the Hammer catalogue is full of memorable horror hits. More importantly, Kronos succeeds despite having an albatross around its neck in the form of its lead actor.

Now, I don’t want to say Horst Janson is awful, but he’s the kind of actor that really makes you appreciate the thespic skills of David Hasselhoff. I swear, there could be scenes where Janson is replaced by a plank of wood with a face drawn on it and I wouldn’t even notice. Janson is abominable, as his flat delivery sinks the fact that he acquits himself so well as an action hero. Fighting the undead? He looks great. Acting? Not so much.

In fact, there’s a rather disappointing contrast mid-way through the film where Kronos runs afoul of a local troublemaker played by Ian Hendry (Theatre of Blood). Hendry is so gruff and full of screen presence in his small role, that he would’ve made the perfect Kronos. Disappointingly, Hammer went for a pretty-boy who could barely speak a word of English.

In lesser hands, this would completely sink a promising movie. Yet, discerning pop culture geeks will note that this movie was scripted and shot by none other than Brian Clemens, the head writer of the brilliant 60’s spy series, The Avengers. Naturally, Kronos has all the wit, charm and invention of that beloved British series at its peak. The story does some rather creative tweaking with vampire traditions, while the characters are well-drawn and very funny. At least, everyone save Janson.

Special mention must be made of John Cater who portrays the likeable Prof. Grost. He, too, is a key element of the film’s success. Since there’s a conscious choice to focus on wit and charm rather than scares or atmosphere, the character interplay is key to the film’s success. Luckily, Cater is so buoyantly charming that he recalls (and even resembles) the great Donald Pleasence at his best. His scenes with Janson are a particular triumph, as he manages the near-impossible feat of making the wooden star seem interesting. By acting as though Janson were worth our attention, he actually fools us a little bit and makes the Kronos scenes quite fun.

You know you want to give this Hammer offering a try. Kate Bush once sang about the studio as a reflection of their awesomeness. Kate Bush wouldn’t lie, would she?

Availability: Out of print!

Blogoween: Left Bank (2008)

“One day she was just gone”

What kind of horror movie is it? Staggeringly good Psychological/Supernatural Thriller

Marie (Eline Kuppens) is a runner in training for the European championships. She has an awkward relationship with her mother, and pushes her self too hard.

She seems lonely, and welcomes the advances of Bobby (Matthias Schoenaerts) a handsome Archer she meets at the athletic center, and when she discovers she has an unknown illness that will keep her out of competition, she throws herself fully into the new relationship. Eventually, she moves into Bobby’s large apartment in a seedy housing project known as Left Bank.

At first things seem to be going okay. Bobby is kind, and the two can’t keep their hands off of each other. The other inhabitants of Left Bank seem strange, but friendly enough. Marie is disturbed to discover that the previous tenant of the apartment disappeared without a trace 8 month’s back. She makes contact with that woman’s ex-boyfriend, Dirk, and becomes obsessed with the mystery.

Meanwhile Bobby starts to reveal his jerkish tendencies, and Marie starts to wonder if she might be pregnant.

The woman who disappeared was in the process of doing research on the area where Left Bank was built. With too much time on her hands now, Marie picks up where she left off. It turns out the area has had a dark reputation, dating back to the middle ages, and before, when the Celts used it as a part of their Samhain rites. In the basement of the building is a hole were girls were sacrificed to a dragon who lived beneath the earth. And what, if anything, does this have to do with Bobby’s archery guild?

I think you can guess where this is starting to lead.

The thing is, Left Bank does what you expect one minute, and the next it veers off into unexplored territory. It manages to be familiar and surprising at the same time. This is one of its many joys.

I read about this movie a few months ago on the Cinebeats blog, and it sounded fascinating. Kimberly compared it favourably to Let The Right One In, the Swedish art house horror mega hit. Now, having seen it myself, I can say it holds up quite well. Like Let The Right One In, Left Bank treats it’s horror movie plot with all seriousness. It explores in realistic terms the emotional depths of its characters, delivering a film that will appeal to horror fans looking for a truly creepy tale, but it’s also a film for folks who would never usually go for this sort of thing. The plot is reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man… but don’t be so sure you know what’s coming next.

Eline Kuppens is wonderful as Marie. She gives a very believable understated performance, that keeps the viewer emotionally grounded, even as the situation becomes more and more fantastic. Matthias Schoenaerts is great too. He gives Bobby an easygoing charm that makes it easy to see how he won over Marie so quickly. I found it difficult to believe him capable of the things the plot seemed to suggest.

Director Pieter Van Hees makes good use of moody establishing shots to build atmosphere, and the cinematography is simply beautiful. This is a quiet little movie that really works its way under your skin. And it deserves much more attention than it’s gotten so far. Give it a try, and get in on the ground floor of what will no doubt be a future classic.

Availability: This just got a DVD release in North America on October 13th. Definitely our lucky day.

Blogoween: Pieces (1982)

Directed by J. P. Simon. Written by Simon, Joe D’Amato and Dick Randall.

What kind of horror movie is it? Staggeringly moronic slasher.

Twenty-seven years after its release, Juan Piquer Simon’s Pieces is one of the most entertaining films of all time and you’d be a fool to think otherwise.

Note, I mean “most entertaining”, not “best”.

Pieces represents the best of times and the blurst of times, as it is one of the most riotous pieces of crap I’ve ever laid eyes on. We’re back in Truth Or Dare territory again, as we have yet another case where filmmakers fails to live up to the meager standards set by the slasher genre. This is a movie to sit back with friends and enjoyed with a glass of off-brand Scotch.

The tagline for Pieces promises viewers that the film is “exactly what you think it is”. Naturally, I should let you know what to expect.

Our story begins with the subtitle “BOSTON 1942″, as a shorthand way of dispelling any suspicions that the movie was filmed in Spain. A young boy is assembling a jigsaw puzzle of a nude woman in his bedroom when his mother enters unannounced and, on first glimpse of the aforementioned puzzle, proceeds to chastise the boy about how he’s just like his lecherous father and is a terrible burden on her shoulders. As she continues her tirade against sleazery, her son produces an axe behind his back, sending it directly towards her neck. The commotion caused by this brutality does not go unnoticed, but the single policeman and the nosy neighbor investigating the house only find the woman’s head, a boy in tears and a blood-stained puzzle.

We then skip ahead forty years, American flags and pictures of Ronald Reagan are ever-present to assure viewers that they are not in Italy or Spain in any way. The first thing we see are university students getting high. As they light up a doob in the crowded hallway (with teachers passing by, no less), they discuss the subject quoted at the beginning of this blog entry. The response to this question is so inspired in its clunkiness that John Waters would be proud.

This public exhibition of their particular blend of joie de vie comes to a halt when one of the students sets her sights on her sheepish biology teacher (Jack Taylor). Immediately, we have our first red herring for the murder spree to follow. That his moustache and gaudy wardrobe recall Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy only adds to the fun.

Any further Porky’s-esque hijinks are interrupted by a dude in a trenchcoat lurking outside campus. While an innocent teen lays in the sun, our mad killer whips out a chainsaw and cuts her head clean off. A geyser of blood explodes from her lifeless body, as the killer steals her severed head.

It isn’t long before news of a chainsaw-wielding killer is lurking around the school, killing young women and stealing specific body parts. Yet, despite operating at daylight in a crowded area, the police are baffled as to who this monster might be. Is it the chubby, bearded groundskeeper who seems to be in love with his chainsaw (Paul Smith)? The prissy principle (Edmund Purdom)? The aforementioned Ron Burgundy? Only a standard issue, b-movie detective (Christopher George), an undercover cop disguised as a tennis star (Linda Day George) and the wannabe sleuth/campus stud (inexplicably played by the repulsive, Greg Brady-ish Ian Sera) can solve this mystery!

Each moment of the film recapped thus far occurs within the first 20 mins of Pieces. It’s all part of a shaggy-dog story that proves Juan Piquer Simon, not Ed Wood, is the worst filmmaker of all time.

That he made a horror film about killer slugs, not to mention the infamous horror/sci-fi/kids film Pod People should cement him in the history books as Wood’s rightful successor, provided anybody bothers to see them.

I know it may not be a popular choice, but when it comes to so-bad-it’s-good cinema, Pieces is one of my absolute favorites. Thinking about some of the film’s more gruesome moments, I can see why this little vapid epic may not be for everyone. The film is very gory, and its overall tone is dour, despite being laughable in all respects. Worse still, the most tasteless moments are directed at women, save the film’s puzzling final moments, which will probably make you feel like you need a hot bath afterwards.

Bear in mind that Pieces is so absurd and over-the-top in its construction that the violence and sleaziness is just too goofy to provoke anything other than a giggle fit from viewers. How else can you react to its doozy of an ending but to laugh yourself to tears?

Case in point, the murder of a woman doing aerobics in a near-abandoned building at midnight, which occurs half-way through the movie. Not only is she exercising in an abandoned building when everyone knows there’s a killer on the loose, but the killer manages to sneak a chainsaw under his trenchoat (!) and start it without her noticing. I’d like to imagine how that scene could’ve played out differently. Picture our the killer and his potential victim are in a descending elevator. The killer attempts to start the concealed-by-coat chainsaw but the loud, whirring sounds earn a concerned glance from his potential victim…

WOMAN: Are you all right?
KILLER: Oh, it’s nothing [vrrrrrrr...*sputtering*]…(he fakes a cough to cover up the noise)
WOMAN: You should really see a doctor about that. H1N1, you know…
KILLER: Well, it is that [vrrrrrrr...rrrr...*wheeze*] *cough* time of year
WOMAN: Look, you can have this echinacea, I’m almost out and I was going to buy a new bottle anyway…[drops small echinacea bottle in right breast pocket of the killer's trenchcoat]
KILLER: Well ma’am [vrrrr*sputter*], that’s very kind of you [vrr...vrrbbbb...] but you should savour your herbs while you can as…[VRRRRRRBBBBBB] It WORKS! Now I will kill you! I…[His potential victim is gone, the elevator is now empty and the doors are starting to close]
KILLER:…ohhh, I can’t have nice things…

In addition to the improbable violence in this flick are the downright surreal moments. In one, a woman rollerskates into a plane of glass, carried by two men, and is promptly forgotten for the rest of the film. Same thing goes for a karate teacher who unwittingly attacks a woman in broad daylight. Or when Kendal, our Greg Brady lookalike hero, refuses to continue sex with a woman because she’s moaning too loud. Naturally, this prompts her to beg him to keep going, even going so far as to offer to gag herself so her climaxing won’t upset him!

Pieces is my guilty pleasure, an awful film I should loathe that I’ve seen more times than The Godfather. Given the choice between a beloved masterpiece and Spanish-Italian horror with an ending that rivals Christmas Evil on the stupidity scale, which would you come back to again and again?

Availability: Uncut on DVD courtesy of Grindhouse Releasing.

Blogoween: Rituals (1977)

“Looks like somebody tried to pull your asshole out through your armpit.”

Directed by Peter Carter

What kind of horror movie is it? Backwoods slasher

Five doctors go on a back woods camping trip for their annual get together, and get more than they bargained for.

After an night of drunken buffoonery they wake to discover that someone has made off with their boots. This is more than a simple prank, as it’s a 12 mile hike through dense bush to civilization. The ringleader, D.J., who was the only one who thought to bring extra shoes, volunteers to hike to a relatively near hydro dam to get help. Things take a turn for the worse when that night someone puts a deer head on a stick just outside the doctors’ tents. The city folks decide they can’t wait for D.J. to return with help, and so they head out for the dam themselves.

But the mysterious person who’s been terrorizing them has other plans and soon the body count starts.

Director Peter Carter is best remembered for 1972’s The Rowdyman, written by, and starring Gordon Pinsent. When the time came for him to deliver a cheap Deliverance rip-off, he went above and beyond the call of duty. Not only is Rituals an effective slow-building horror film, but it’s an interesting look at the strength (and lack there of) of friendships, and a sly condemnation of violence. When our put-up-on hero has finally taken enough and strikes back, it’s an innocent that gets hurt. It all leads to an intense and brutal climax — both physical, and emotional — that you won’t soon forget.

The acting is pretty good, in a very Canadian Movie sort of way. Hal Holbrook, and Lawrence Dane are great as they bicker their way from one death-defying situation to the next. The Canadian wilderness is used quite well too, managing to be beautiful and menacing at the same time. Sometimes while watching this it feels like an episode of Adventures In Rainbow Country has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Gore hounds will be excited to find out that although Rituals isn’t excessively gory, it does feature early work by Carl Fullerton, who went on to do effects for Friday the 13th parts 2 & 3.

Availability: This movie has been hard to find in an uncut form, but that is about to change. Code Red have a new DVD edition coming out in November, that promises to be uncut, and shot from a pristine print.

The Newly Released Deceased

Want something new to watch this Hallowe’en? There’s only so many times you can watch Fright Night or John Carpenter’s The Thing. Adam Clarke and Rodney Wall have heard your screams and moans for some fresh meat in the horror genre. These are the new cult classics, the fresh video nasties and, best of all, they’re all readily available on DVD.

Blood Car

(2007) Mike Brune plays Archie Andrews, a vegan kindergarten teacher who’s working on building a car engine that runs on wheat grass in this very funny horror comedy. Blood Car is set in the near future where gas costs nearly 40 dollars a gallon. The wheat grass engine never quite works—until the day Archie ACcidentally cuts his hand and bleeds into the fuel. Things take a predictably Little Shop Of Horrors turn as Archie gets a taste of the elevated social status that comes with car ownership. Things are further complicated by two potential love interests (One being My Girl’s Anna Chlumsky), and a shadowy government agency. While it lags a little in the middle, what makes this no-budget movie work is the sly social commentary, an understanding of it’s own limitations, and the knowledge of when to take things way too far. RW

Crowley

(2008) What if I told you there was a fairly new horror movie out, about the high tech reincarnation of Alister Crowley, The Wickedest Man In The World? Would you be excited? What if I told you it was written by Iron Maiden? …Well, by Bruce Dickinson anyway. Chemical Wedding, as this is known in Britain, is a delightful throwback to the kind stories that might have shown up on Hammer’s House Of Horror, or a particularly scary episode of Doctor Who. The convoluted plot is goofy, and watching Simon Callow who plays the title character is gobs of fun. Keep an eye out for Dickinson in a cameo. RW

Deadgirl

(2008) In this off-beat, grotesque story, Ricky (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Noah Segan) are two emotionally-stunted teenaged CHUDs who can’t talk to girls. When they happen to find a nude, semi-conscious woman chained up in a condemned building, J.T. instantly wants to make her a sex slave, much to Ricky’s disgust. Eventually, J.T. realizes the feral “deadgirl” is an immortal zombie, thus allowing his sordid indiscretions to go on forever. Things get complicated when news of J.T’s prisoner makes its way ACross the high school. Deadgirl, like the 2007 film Teeth, is a provocative, feminist take on horror. Deadgirl benefits from a thoughtful script. Equal parts sad, funny and gory, this is an astute film that will make you really uncomfortable. Given time, it will rightly earn its place as a celebrated film in the horror genre. AC

The Host

(2006) When a giant sea monster shows up to terrorize the people of Seoul, it’s up to the American military to save the day! Oh, wait a minute, they have no idea what they’re doing or what they’re dealing with and have invaded a foreign territory solely on misinformation. What’re the chances? This Korean monster movie is the true successor to the original Gojira/Godzilla crown. It tells a memorable, unpredictable story and offers up some audaciously funny political satire to boot. AC

Otto

or Up With Dead People (2008) Toronto porn artist provocateur Bruce Labruce turns the zombie genre on its head with his newest film. Follow the adventures of a gay zombie as he tries to figure out the meaning of death while starring in an underground zombie movie. Many of the usual Labruce themes arise, such as revolutionary chic, and dude-on-dude sex, but more attention is spent on building an ACtual story than in his past movies. Definitely less porn on display here, but by the end you might just feel touched. RW

Pontypool

(2008) From the always-excellent Canadian director Bruce McDonald (Highway 61, Hard Core Logo), comes this inventive tale of a washed-up radio personality (Stephen McHattie) who breaks the story of an unusual disease that grips Pontypool, Ontario. The infected are transformed into hyper-violent maniacs who parrot the last words they hear. The cause of this pandemic? The English language itself. Pontypool is reminiscent of George A. Romero’s The Crazies and the famous BBC special, Ghostwatch. AC

Session 9

(2001) Sanitation workers must contend with forces out to drive them mad as they remove asbestos from a condemned mental institution. Yes, it stars David Caruso and the presence of CSI Miami’s Horatio One-Liner is a little off-putting—especially since he appears alongside CSI’s Paul Guilfoyle. That said, the ACting is very low key and natural, which works very well with the eerie script and direction of Brad Anderson. Best of all, this is a modern horror film without a partying teen or ghostly child. That alone is a triumph. AC

Three Extremes

(2004) This film, like the recent Grindhouse, is an anthology film that is very much a star director attraction. Korean director Park Chan-Wook (of Oldboy fame) directs “Cut”, in which a loathsome extra kidnaps a famous film director. From Hong Kong, Fruit Chan directs “Dumplings”, in which a vain ACtress keeps herself looking beautiful by eating the unborn. The last and best segment, the beautiful and terrifying “Box”, comes from the infamous Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi The Killer). AC

Tokyo Gore Police

(2008) Sometimes a bitten off penis is just a bitten off penis, but other times it grows into a powerful weapon! Tokyo Gore Police is one of those times. Set in a dystopic future, where the Japanese police force has been privatized and dangerous mutants prowl the streets, Tokyo Gore Police (which more than lives up to its name) is somewhere between Evil Dead 2, Testsuo The Iron Man, and a Gwar concert. I guarantee you’ve never seen anything quite this gleefully gross—and it’s that gleeful quality that sets it apart from other gore-fests. Turn off your brain and enjoy the ride. RW

Trick R Treat

(2008) Trick R’ Treat is a good old fashioned horror anthology that proudly wears it’s influences on its sleeve. It features five interlocking stories that take place on Halloween night in a small middle American town. All the stories involve people who break the traditions of Halloween and pay the ultimate price for their lack of holiday spirit. Find out what happens if you blow out your Jack O’Lantern before Halloween is over, and see how great non-CGi special effects can look. It’s a mix of genuine scares, and genuine laughs made by people having genuine fun. RW

For more horror movie reviews visit our website. Throughout the month of October, Rodney and Adam are reviewing 31 fantastic horror movies you’ve never seen. Only at thescope.ca/blogoween

Blogoween Double-Feature: Ghostwatch (1992) and Pontypool (2008)

Ghostwatch: Written by Stephen Volk. Directed by Lesley Manning.

Pontypool: Written by Tony Burgess, based on his novel “Pontypool Changes Everything”. Directed by Bruce McDonald.

Much though we hate to admit it, mass media have an unshakable hold on us. Any form of communication is dominated by the influences of what we read, see and hear in various media. Our televisions, cinemas, radios, books and computers all present a funhouse mirror view of reality and it takes knowledge of one to understand the other.

I’ve been immersed in pop culture for as long as I can remember. As a result, I’ve been thinking in those terms since I was a kid. Whenever I saw Fox News during the Bush era, it was akin to watching Cliff Robertson’s character in John Carpenter’s Escape From L.A.

A lot of tele-journalism–especially the brand embodied in To Catch a Predator–is so overstated that it loses all touch with reality. In Predator Chris Hansen’s is either consciously or sub-consciously attempting to embody the stock character of the crusading journalist–as seen on the big screen with Darren McGavin’s Carl Kolchak or the Hildy Johnson character from The Front Page/His Girl Friday.

So how can we tell reality from fiction when reality is being remade into fiction?

Today’s two horror entries play around with the use of media and our perceptions of it. Each one is definitely a product of its particular era, so let’s jump in the WABAC Machine and set the dial for 1992 and the BBC1 TV special, Ghostwatch.

Yes, a TV special.

Ghostwatch captures the look of the “infotainment” programs of the 90s and wouldn’t look out of place next to Hard Copy or dubious TV specials like Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction. It must be said that Ghostwatch isn’t a telemovie, but is every bit as real as the aforementioned specials. When BBC kids show presenter Sarah Greene is threatened by a malevolent spirit, she’s every bit as terrified by its mind-bending presence as Jonathan Frakes was for Alien Autopsy.

Our host for the evening is Michael Parkinson, a very real presenter and journalist (he retired in 2007, after about 30 years of television work) best known for a long-running talk show. Joining him are Sarah Greene and Craig Charles (of Red Dwarf and Eastenders fame), who are out interviewing people about supernatural experiences while Parkinson remains in the studio. It’s all very cozy and twee until one of the hauntings reported on the program begins to manifest before our very eyes.

Throughout Sarah Greene’s reports from a London home, there are little glimpses of a figure that seems to be in the house with them. The children of the house, claim that they hear a ghost named “Pipes” banging on their water heater. Then, strange accidents begin to befall Sarah and the crew, accompanied by caterwauling and visual hiccups.

As the broadcast continues, more information is uncovered about Pipes, but things begin going awry in the BBC studio. The very act of searching for the ghost has become a kind of televised seance between the presenters and everyone watching at home.

Shortly after its first and only broadcast on Hallowe’en night in Britain, Ghostwatch became the subject of a multitude of complaints from irate BBC viewers. It was blamed for being a “malevolent” program designed to inflict harm on viewers and accused of causing a teen’s suicide.

The television special was subsequently banned from broadcast, though it was released on DVD in the UK in 2002 (its only home video release), Ghostwatch has never since been re-aired by the BBC. Eventually it finally made its way to Canada via the horror network, Scream (since renamed Dusk) and I caught it on April Fool’s Day in 2006.

I had had a fascination with Ghostwatch since I’d heard about the controversy that followed. When I read the plot synopses by people who had bootleg copies of it in the late nineties, I was determined to see it. The clips from the appallingly scanty official site on BBC Cult suggested a masterpiece.

And it’s true: Ghostwatch is one of the most eerie things I’ve ever seen.

Since that time, the relationship between viewers and television has changed a bit. There are still programs like the ones Ghostwatch was mimicking–Ghost Hunters being the most obvious example–but the bogus quality of these programs are glaring when compared to Family Jewels (a “reality show” that plays like a sitcom) or Glenn Beck (a news program that plays like a sitcom).

In Ghostwatch, television has unimaginable power in both its scripted conceit (mass-media seance) and the ridiculously outraged reaction that followed.

—

By contrast, Pontypool depicts a world where neither TV, nor any other media, could offer any help in a crisis.

We open as a middle-aged man is stopped in the road by a wide-eyed young woman. When he rolls down his window to ask her what’s wrong, she simply parrots his word and scarpers off. With no explanation forthcoming and no signs of trouble, the man continues his drive to work, arriving at a local radio station in Pontypool, Ontario.

This is Grant Mazzie (ubiquitous Canadian character-actor Stephen McHattie), a former bigshot radio personality who no longer calls Toronto his home. We won’t get much insight into his past beyond the fact that he was fired from his last job, but his mannerisms tell us everything we need to know about him. Mazzie isn’t content to do local news and whether, but wants to editorialize and antagonize his listeners. That’s what he considers “building a relationship” with the public.

So, Grant Mazzie is a jerk of the Don Imus variety. He’s not completely irredeemable, as he’s not above apologizing to his weary producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) for his more outrageous slips of the tongue both on and off the air. Still, you get the sense that he might be too full of himself and too neurotic to change completely.

Not that we’re going to find out, of course! This is a horror movie, dammit! Bring on the monsters!

Courtesy of Ken Loney (Rick Roney) in the station’s “sunshine chopper” (which is amusingly just a Dodge Dart) there’s news of huge gatherings of people attacking a doctor’s office. As Loney struggles to find a safe refuge from the growing number of inexplicably violent people, he reports that the people seem to be afflicted with some shared disorder. All are phrases that they hear repeatedly as they engage in a violent frenzy.

Soon Mazzie is being phoned by BBC television for an interview, but they just seem to be making up details for all the ones they don’t have. Online searches prove useless for finding out any info on what’s happening. All Mazzy, Briar and fellow staffer Laurel Ann (Georgina Reilly) can do is continue broadcasting as they wait for more info.

When a French signal interrupts their broadcast, the three of them struggle to interpret the message, which Mazzy reads out to the listeners. Once translated, Mazzy hastily reads out the message, announcing that “a virus has infected the English language and only the English language. Do not translate this message” live on the air.

Canadian director Bruce McDonald (Highway 61, Hard Core Logo) has made a low-key, creepy masterpiece that instantly recalls John Carpenter’s The Fog and George A. Romero’s best work. Like Romero’s The Crazies, the mood is grim and the threat, though bizarre, is still human. These may be people who are driven to kill by outside factors, but they’re still people.

It is also reminiscent of Romero’s earlier Dead films, as the outbreak not only satirizes the pomposity of blowhards like Grant Mazzy, but the general impotence conveyed by all media. In Pontypool, nothing can save us without rethinking what we already know. Computers, radios and television only provide us with what we can see for ourselves, only glossed up through the miracle of exciting music and editing.

Fortunately, unlike Romero’s lazy later films or the dreadful remakes, Pontypool never forgets to thrill while delivering social commentary.

Availability: Pontypool is newly out on DVD. Ghostwatch is only available on Region 2 (UK) DVD, but is readily available on YouTube. So, too is a talk-back program, depicting the Ghostwatch controversy.

Blogoween: The Last Winter (2006)

“What if the very thing we were here to pull out of the ground were to rise willingly, and confront us.”

What kind of horror movie is it? Nature Strikes Back/Supernatural Eco Thriller

Wouldn’t it be scary if the Arctic began to thaw, and weather systems around the world started going haywire?

Hell yeah!

Anyway, that’s the premise of this wonderfully creepy eco thriller. That, and what if oil was haunted?

Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) works for an American oil company. It’s his job to get a new drilling project off the ground in Northern Alaska. He returns to the drilling station from five weeks of wheeling and dealing down south to find a number of problems–both personal, and professional–waiting for him. The biggest problem on both counts is James Hoffman (James LeGros), an environmental scientist hired by the company to conduct preliminary environmental assessments. Not only is Hoffman very concerned by rising temperatures and thawing permafrost, but he’s shacked up with the company second in command, Abby (Connie Britton), who is also Pollack’s ex.

Soon heads are butting. Meanwhile, temperatures are rising.

To make matters worse, some members of the crew are beginning to act rather oddly. Hoffman thinks the strange behaviour and environmental changes he’s noted may be related somehow, but no one pays him much mind ’til the youngest crew member, Max (Zach Gilford), takes off all his clothes one night and wanders off into the tundra.

Paranoia starts to take hold of the group, and questions demand answers.

Did Max really see something out there, or is it possible as Hoffman believes, that the melting permafrost could be releasing low levels of “sour gas” which are causing hallucinations?

Finding out is half the fun.

Larry Fessenden, who also co-wrote the script delivers a criminally underrated gem of a movie. You can’t help but think of John Carpenter’s The Thing as you watch The Last Winter, but while there are similarities in setting and the building paranoia, this film is much more a ghost story than a monster movie. Though Like The Thing ,I’d describe this film as what Lovecraft called “cosmic horror”. The Last Winter asks a lot of questions, and for most of its running time wisely refuses to answer them. The audience must pay attention and piece things together as it goes. Unfortunately in its climax things become far more explicit, and some of the impact that the film has so brilliantly built up is lessened somewhat.

Ron Perlman, though, as the gruff company man, is great as always. And the whole cast is worthy of praise. One thing this movie does really well that I wish more horror attempted is it builds complicated relationships between its characters. Pollack and Hoffman are in conflict over who will be alpha male, but while Hoffman is the one we’re encouraged to identify with, Pollack is far from the one-note “bad guy” he might have been in a lesser film–or with a lesser actor. Though he really cares about his crew, in the end he’s too pig-headed to do the right thing.

Even with the flawed ending, I would rate this as one of the best horror movies of the last decade. On IMDB, it seemed like the only people who really hated it were hardcore disbelievers of global warming, who saw this movie as propaganda. If this describes you, then maybe you should pass on this one. If, on the other hand, you like nicely constructed thrillers with plenty of tension, good acting, good cinematography, good music, and an atmosphere that stays with you long after the movie’s over, then this gets my highest recommendation.

Availability:You can not only find this on DVD, but also as a comic co-written by director Larry Fessenden.

Blogoween: Brain Damage (1987)

“He ate a little while ago, but he’s hungry again…and when he gets hungry, someone gets killed…he needs the brain, but I need his juice, it’s as simple as that…I can’t cope with knowing I’m going to kill someone, so I’ll just take his juice and I’ll never have to know. But then I also won’t know if it’s you or not. If I’m high, I won’t know the difference. I don’t want it to be you.”
“When it comes to blood in my underwear, I want to know how it got there.”

Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter

What kind of horror movie is it? Psychedelic anti-drug horror complete with singing, talking, brain-eating phallus.

Amidst the squalor of pre-Giuliani New York, Brian (future soap opera star Rick Hearst) is holed up in his dingy apartment and sleeping off a hangover he can’t explain. When he tries to get up, Brian is overcome with visual, tactile, and auditory hallucinations, punctuated by explosive giggle fits.

Three guesses as to what’s up with Brian!

If you guessed he’s come into contact with a veiny, blue worm that excretes a psychedelic resin from its mouth, you’ve earned a Stan Lee-approved No-Prize.

And how do we discover the source of Brian’s delirium? Well, he tells us. Aylmer (voiced by retired horror movie host John Zarchele, aka “the cool ghoul”) is a jovial, talking phallus that burrowed a small hole through Brian’s neck and straight to his brain. One drop of Aylmer’s blue goop sends Brian into fits of ecstasy and he doesn’t want to come down. So Aylmer strikes a deal with Brian: he’ll get the boy high, if Brian agrees to take him for walks.

Little does he know that Aylmer feasts on the brains of the innocent while Brian is busy tripping out.

Frank Henenlotter’s Brain Damage represents the peak work of one of horror cinema’s weirdest and least prolific auteurs. After debuting with the cult smash Basket Case in 1982, Damage represents his sophomore effort, and its his most compelling film by far. While Basket Case was more widely seen, and 1990s Frankenhooker is definitely the goofiest (since it involves pimps, a mad scientist and a new street drug called “super crack”) Brain Damage is the real pick of his seedy litter. When Brian develops a monkey on his back in the form of the giddy Aylmer, the serious overtones of the film’s anti-drug message takes on a kind of weight that few “straight” films about drug abuse have.

While a case could be made, as with all of Henenlotter’s micro-budget epics, that the acting is uneven, Brain Damage hangs on the risky, engaging performance of Hearst. In lesser hands, Brian could’ve become a non-entity, a jerk or too over-the-top to be taken seriously. Yet Hearst never puts a false step in the role, and, by the time he delivers that lengthy ramble quoted atop this review, he evokes tremendous pathos. Not bad for a movie about a brain-eating worm that pacifies you with psychotropic Kool-Aid.

The great Zacherle deserves a nod, too. Though Aylmer (thankfully) didn’t inspire any sequels like Henenlotter’s disastrous two follow-ups to Basket Case, his mellifluous tones and off-beat vocal performance really sells Aylmer. You may even find yourself liking the malevolent little worm for all his charm, sophistication and the matter-of-fact way he handles being a drug-pusher and eater of brains.

Recommended for fans of genre cinema, psychedelia and anyone interested in seeing the grimy side of New York, back when it had an actual grimy side.

Here’s a fun clip:

Availability: On DVD! Beware VHS copies, as the North American tapes are cut by two minutes.

Blogoween: “The Ash Tree” (1975)

“The dead are dead.”

Directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark

What kind of horror movie is it? Made-for-TV Victorian Ghost Story

Sir Richard is the new Squire of Castringham, and sets about moving into his new house. The locals are excited, because Sir Richard’s wife is soon to arrive, with the promise of children to follow. It seems Sir Richard’s great uncle Sir Matthew died under mysterious circumstances, and no children have been born to the household ever since.

Sir Richard begins to find it difficult to concentrate. He sees shadowy figures appear and eventually he starts reliving parts of Sir Matthew’s life. We learn that Sir Matthew was involved in the trial and execution of Mother Soul, a local woman accused of witchcraft. Before she is hanged, Mother Soul swears: “Mine will inherit,” and “No sweet babes shall now mine be.”

The land fell into decline. Besides the fact that no heir was being produced, the animals were being afflicted by a strange disease.

Soon after she is hanged, one morning Sir Matthew is discovered dead, his body blackened. No poison is found in his body, but those who touch him are afflicted by pain and swelling of the limbs.

Sir Richard, in the present, is finding it difficult to sleep in his current bedroom, so he moves into the room where Sir Matthew was originally found dead. Outside the bedroom’s window there grows an ash tree. Sir Richard plans to have the tree cut down, “for fear of what the roots may be doing to the foundation of the house”.

Sir Richard never gets the opportunity to carry out that plan.

“The Ash Tree” was produced by the BBC in 1975 as a part of a series of annual telefilms called A Ghost Story at Christmas. Eight of these films were produced between 1971 and 1978, with five of then being (like “The Ash Tree”) adaptations of short stories by M.R. James, the British master of the literary ghost story. The series may have been inspired by James’ habit of reading newly-written ghost stories aloud to gatherings of friends at Christmastime. But the stories themselves feature no direct reference to Christmas.

Of the films that I have seen in the series, “The Ash Tree” is my favorite. It builds its weird atmosphere slowly, becoming increasingly creepy as it goes along, and turning downright terrifying for its climax. It’s a beautiful thing to see what Lawrence Gordon Clark, and the BBC are able to accomplish on a shoe-string budget. The monstrous children of Mother Soul are simply constructed, but very effective.

This is one of the most unsettling short films I have ever seen, and I can’t recommend it enough to fans of the macabre.

Availability: “The Ash Tree” is unavailable on video or DVD, at least in an official capacity, but those who want to track down this wonderful little film can find it online if you know where to look.

Blogoween: Motel Hell (1980)

“Sometimes I wonder about the karmic implications of these actions.”

Directed by Kevin Connor. Screenplay by Robert and Steven-Charles Jaffe

Every now and then when I was a lad browsing through the once monstrously large horror sections of any video store (those were the days!), you’d get a video cover that would just burn itself into memory.

I can clearly recall being tempted to rent an Elm Street movie on the basis of the cover for A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. I still remember getting nightmares when I saw the posters for The Howling, John Carpenter’s Prince Of Darkness and, of course, Motel Hell.

Despite being given some lurid artwork for its theatrical poster, it’s the static promotional shot used on the VHS release that I associate with the film and my childhood. There was just some unusual fascination I had in seeing the two grinning farm-hands–one armed with a chainsaw and the other armed with a cleaver–looming under the title in garish red letters. It seemed to strike a cord between goofy and creepy.

Despite the film’s comedic reputation, there are a lot nice, eerie moments scattered throughout.

The genial, rugged Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) and his sister Isa (Nancy Parsons) run the “Motel Hello”, where, as the old saying goes, people check in… but they don’t check out. They’ve also made quite a name for themselves with their popular brand of fresh smoked meat and “Farmer’s Fritters”. Could these two plot elements be related?? It seems like no one else in the whole world has meat that tastes half as good as the kind Farmer Vincent culls together.

The secret is said to be that he uses “secret spices”, but while the meat is certainly fresh, the only spice Vincent employs… is terror!

Okay, I’m being needlessly hammy, but it’s impossible to review a movie like Motel Hell without giggling at it’s deliciously macabre premise. Sure, the concept of loonies carving up and selling human meat has been done umpteen times before, and again after this film was made, but Hell simply has a whimsical panache about it that recalls the similarly cheeky horror romps of Vincent Price, like Theatre Of Blood.

You’re either going to love this film or hate it, but it’s one of the most enjoyable horror comedies I’ve seen in a long time.

And Wolfman Jack plays a priest! Does it get any better than that?

The rest of the story, such as it is, unfolds with the entrance of a couple–Bo (Everett Creach) and Terry (Nina Axelrod)–on motorbike. In the woods, they come head to head with one of Farmer Vincent’s many traps set up along the road. While Bo is scheduled to become the latest fritter, Vincent takes an interest in the unconscious blonde and takes her back to the Motel Hello, which he and his sister run on the side. There, Vincent tells Terry that their motorbike had crashed and only she survived and there was no point in calling the police or such because there was nothing they could do to save him. While shocked to lose her lover, dippy Terry quickly begins to like a simple life doing chores on the farm and living in the tenant-free motel and shaking off the affections of the youngest Smith and the town’s deputy Bruce (Paul Linke).

It all seems to be going so well…

Sure, Vincent “burying” Bo without contacting the police is a bit unorthodox, it’s a small enough town and he’s a respected enough figure to get away with it. The perfect cover. The truth is that Vince and Nancy are keeping the bodies of their prey alive, but buried up to their necks in soil in a small section on their farmland. Here lies Bo, along with the other Smith victims whose faces are concealed by tiny woven sacs and, since their vocal cords have been severed, their garbled rasping is the only scream they can muster.

But one can only kill so often before somebody takes notice and Nancy begins to regret allowing Terry into her home and the Smith way of life.

Motel Hell is a memorable film for many reasons. It has excellent performances from the villains (Calhoun is especially good: genial, gentlemanly and insane), genuinely funny material, confident direction, the sight of John Ratzenburger (Cheers’ Cliff Claven!) as a punk rock drummer, a surprising amount of atmosphere and horror amidst the gags, etc., etc.

But the thing that really makes it above-average is that it handles the material with a surprising subtlety and panache (well, save a the scene where an “alternative lifestyle” couple checks into the motel) rather than just settling for a campy gross-out flick disguised as a horror film like the similar, yet completely awful first sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Motel Hell wants to please both audiences and just be as entertaining as can be.

There are a few lapses, to be sure. How did Terry not know about Bo? Where do all the potential fritters go when they inevitably free themselves and attack their cannibalistic kidnappers? What’s the deal with the gigantic pig’s head and how the hell does Vincent see out of it? Nonetheless, the filmmakers have delivered a damn fun yarn that’s perfect for the B-movie lover looking for a black-humoured romp for Hallowe’en.

Blogoween: El espejo de la bruja/The Witch’s Mirror (1962)

Directed by Chano Urueta

“The Satanic rays of this Moon will return to death what belongs to death”

What kind of horror movie is it? Ghost Story/Witchcraft/Mad Scientist

The late 50s and early 60s saw an international resurgence in gothic horror movies.

Hammer came out of Britain. Roger Corman’s AIP led the way in the United States. And Italy had the emergence of the likes of Mario Bava, and Riccardo Freda.

Mexico also took part in this cinematic movement, producing films like La bruja (1954), El vampiro (1957), and today’s Blogoween entry, El espejo de la bruja, or The Witch’s Mirror as it is known in the English speaking world. These films were extremely popular with Mexican film-goers, and many of them were dubbed into English and released Stateside by producer K. Gordon Murray.

The Witch’s Mirror begins with a voice-over history of witchcraft, laid over with images of Goya prints. We then meet Sara, and her God-daughter Helen. Sara is the housekeeper in Helen’s castle, but also a powerful witch. Using her magic mirror, she discovers that Helen will be murdered by her unfaithful husband, Eduardo. Helen is still very much in love with her husband, and refuses to believe he could mean her any harm. When Sara tries to intervene on Helen’s behalf, she is told by her demonic masters that the decision has already been made. Her God-daughter is fated to die.

It turns out that Eduardo does have murder on his mind.

He wants to marry his new love, Deborah, and so kills Helen to clear a path. At this point the plot gets even more complicated, as Helen’s ghost shows up, leading to disfigurement, grave robbing, and mad science. As is often the case with Mexican B-films, the plot of The Witch’s Mirror has a “making it up as we go along” feel. It also features elements that will be familiar to viewers who have seen Georges Franju’s Eyes Without A Face.

It’s all in good fun though, and things never get boring.

All in all, this is a well-made horror film, with nice black and white photography, and a strong cast. Given the budgetary restraints, the special effects are never elaborate, but they are mostly effective.

I personally love exploring the cinematic traditions of different parts of the world. Mexico has a rich and varied B-movie history, and The Witch’s Mirror makes a nice entry point.

Availability: The Witch’s Mirror is available on DVD from Casa Negra Entertainment

Blogoween Asian Anthology Double-Bill: “3 Extremes” (2004) and “Zoo” (2005)

Zoo and Three Extremes (and Three Extremes II) are unrelated. However, Three Extremes is actually the sequel to Three Extremes II (which was originally titled Three), but they were released in reverse order in the West.

Also, between the release of both Extremes in North America, an expanded version of Fruit Chan’s Three Extremes entry, “Dumplings”, was released as a stand-alone 90 minute movie.

Confused yet? You won’t be, after this next installment of Blogowe’en.

Three Extremes: Directed by Fruit Chan, Park Chan-Wook and Takashi Miike

What kind of horror movies are they? Asian horror; anthologies of the macabre.

Last week, the unthinkable happened: Blogowe’en was offline for all of Thursday, October 8th, 2009. Millions panicked, lives were lost and the very fabric of polite society seemed poised to explode without even saying goodbye or offering to split a cab.

How sad we all were.

To compensate, this entry will cover two birds with one stone. If you look carefully, that stone has a tag on it that reads MADE IN JAPAN.

With the release of high-profile remakes of Ringu and Ju-On, those films’ producers had done what most producers set out to do: successfully popularize (and get rich off of!) a not very new phenomenon. The Ring and The Grudge ushered in a mainstream interest in Asian horror and, before long, it seemed that every American horror movie made in the 2000s had genteel protagonists pursued by dark-haired, drippy, dead kids. Whether they lived in TV sets, wells, houses or computers, they were all pale, they were all wet, they were all unpleasant and they were all going to kill you in a grotesque fashion.

It was lazy and formulaic. But anything’s better than torture porn.

Most of the American-influenced horror films are pretty disposable. They’re little more than the latest from an endless string of sausages from the Hollywood abattoir. Mere products made by filmmakers who didn’t know or care much about the themes or social commentary that made the most popular Asian horror films work in the first place.

Take last year’s Blogowe’en entry, Suicide Circle, for instance. It worked not only because it told an engaging, creepy story, but because it had so much personality. For one, it was a moody, off-beat film, unafraid to stray from the mood of gradually building dread to play a scene for laughs, or to get the audience to empathize with its characters.

This style of storytelling is in sharp contrast to American horror cinema’s mono-thematic, mono-stylistic efforts, which try to engender such a sense of gloom and foreboding — from their first frame onward — that they do little to excite or engage the viewer, and they resort to endless jump-scares that seem to be more in tune with prank flash animations than true horror. The worst offenders in recent memory are The Unborn, Hostel and its sequel and, of course, the unbelievably lame Saw series.

Most importantly, Suicide Circle is undeniably the work of filmmakers with a vision. It speaks of loneliness and an increasingly impersonal world with an eerie prescience. To say, as the film does, that we know more about manufactured pop groups, ringtones and Internet memes than we do about our neighbours is an accurate condemnation of life in these times. These horror films are rich in directorial vision and theme, attracting modern horror fans to the likes of filmmakers like Japan’s Takashi Miike, in place of John Carpenter, George A. Romero or David Cronenberg in their respective genre heydays. Miike is the latest notable in a genre that makes stars out of its directors.

Three Extremes, like the Romero/Dario Argento double-feature Two Evil Eyes or the recent Grindhouse, is an anthology film that is very much a star director attraction. Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan had risen to prominence following his impressive, low-budget debut Made In Hong Kong, while Korean director Park Chan-Wook’s Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy earned him international acclaim. Miike, representing Japan in this trilogy, is one of the most prolific and misunderstood directors of the bunch. Many fanboys seem to follow him for being oh-so-gory and extreme in films like Ichi The Killer without understanding the depth of his work. Takashi Miike, like Chan-Wook, is not just in it for brainless stimulus like perpetually-annoying hack Eli Roth. Miike is insanely prolific and is just at home directing goofball, delirious comedies like Zebraman or the David Lynch-like Visitor Q and Gozu.

The segments in Extremes all have simple, juicy set-ups.

Chan’s “Dumplings” depicts an aging actress who dines on fetii to retain her youth. Chan-Wook’s “Cut” turns torture porn on its head, as an embittered film extra (Won Hie-Lim) holds a beloved film director (Byung-hun Lee) hostage on a horror movie set. Finally, Miike’s “Box” is an eerie revenge story, as a former circus darling is haunted by dreams of a death she may have caused.

Miike’s story has the most straightforward plot line. The young Kyoko (Kyoko Hasegawa) has endless troubling dreams about the death of her young sister, whom she was always jealous of. Yet, there’s a lot of scripted and directorial flourishes that muddy the waters more than your average E.C. comic, as we learn more about the girls relationship with each other and the incestuous overtones regarding their father. Like the restrained, sombre horror of Miike’s 2002 film Audition, “Box” is the least bloody of the three stories, with much of the horror coming from its crisp winter atmosphere and its muted soundtrack. Rather than driving up the soundtrack to imbue menace, Miike the short film plays out as a near-silent, with only the occasional chiming bell to remind us that our TV set isn’t on the fritz.

I would welcome more of this kind of restraint in horror films. The segment near the end of “Box” — when Kyoko is confronted by her father and the titular box finally opens by a crack — is more unsettling than anything coughed up by Miike’s American counterparts.

Since “Box” is so restrained, it’s up to “Dumplings” and “Cut” to live up to the film’s promise of extreme horror.

For the former, its outlandish premise references issues like abortion and stem cell use without ever equating them with the evil of, well, eating fetuses. Fruit Chan’s film only depicts the pathetic actress Lei’s rabid consumption of dumplings as an indictment of vanity. She doesn’t care who she hurts in order to acquire fresh specimens, even when the process used results in the death of a young girl.

“Cut”, like “Dumplings”, pushes the boundaries of good taste to tell a story.

Whereas Fruit Chan’s segment relies mostly on the quiet horror of the central plot’s depravity, “Cut” is over the top, gory, dark and very, very funny. Like the other directors, Park Chan-Wook upstages his contemporaries at their own game.

Filmed in 2004, Korea had doubtlessly been exposed to the mentally bankrupt Saw series, which purported to have a grand, moral modus operandi, but was mostly about watching vacuous non-entities die at the hands of another (villainous) non-entity in the most tedious ways possible. By contrast, “Cut” transforms the black-and-white moralizing of Saw into something a little more cerebral…

“Cut” outdoes its ilk with style, humour, and a less dubious sense of ethics. The director’s abductee/torturer speaks at length about the nature of good and evil, but is blind to his lengthy list of shortcomings, not the least of which being a deranged stalker. Chan-Wook’s film doesn’t fetishize or worship murderer-torturers like the Saw and Hostel films do, but rightly reduces them to what they are: snivelling failures who are deserving of nothing but our contempt.

The directing in Three Extremes is incredible across the board, with not one weak moment in any segment. Chan, Chan-Wook and Miike are all top-notch filmmakers and are beautifully aided by strong scripting and casts. Of the latter, special mention should be made of Miriam Leung, who plays the petty Mrs Lei in “Dumplings”, and the equally brave work done by Won Hie-Lim in “Cut”.

Still, despite the names involved, Three Extremes seems to have vanished by the wayside, eclipsed even within the cult followings of its individual directors.

It should perhaps come as no surprise that the DVD release of the 2005 horror anthology Zoo, made by comparative unknowns, is even more of a non-entity among horror fans.

Just as Three Extremes was so full of directorial vision and engaging, horrific parallels to our modern lives, Zoo is a less-polished, but thoroughly engaging meditation on life and death. Naturally, given the genre we’re in, we have a lot of death on our hands, but there’s a lot of wonder and warmth to be found in this hidden gem.

The strongest of these segments are its first (about a ragamuffin of a girl named Yoko) second (in which a chainsaw killer traps a brother and sister in an underground jail) and the fourth, an animated story about a robot with a built-in death date. The former may actually be the best of the bunch, though it is the lightest on overt horror, as an awkward teen deals with her abusive mother and peers, and excruciating in its exaggerated take on teenage awkwardness and sibling rivalry.

Throughout four of the five segments, Zoo’s focus is exclusively on family dynamics through the lens of fantasy and horror.

Indeed, only the titular last segment disappoints, not only because it abandons this theme, but the story grinds to a halt with a clumsy non-ending before it can really go anywhere. It’s not the only gaffe the film makes, as the third segment (in which a boy’s parents exist in separate realities, each one ignorant of the other), starts off as an effective metaphor for divorce before switching gears in its denouement.

Still, those missteps only reinforces the strength of the surrounding stories, as the protagonists of each mature and find strength by using or escaping their relatives. Zoo is ultimately a film about optimism, love and hope, which, despite its faults, makes it all the more unique and interesting among the screams and grue of your average horror pic.

Availability: Zoo and Three Extremes are both available on DVD.

Blogoween: Lady In White (1988)

“What is the good of living when all you love is gone?”

Directed by Frank LaLoggia

What kind of horror movie is it? Ghost story.

In the small town of Willowpoint Falls in the early 60s, 9-year-old Frankie Scarlatti is preparing for Halloween.

Two jerky classmates lock Frankie in the school cloak room as a practical joke, and he’s forced to spend the night. At ten o’clock, Frankie witnesses the ghost of a young girl reenacting her own murder. If that wasn’t scary enough, then a dark figure shows up looking for something, and chokes Frankie half to death.

We soon learn that a little girl was murdered in the cloak room ten years ago, and since then ten more children have been killed with the same M.O.

The ghost of the first murder victim continues to appear to Frankie, and wants him to help her find her mother, the mysterious “lady in white”.

This is an ambitious little film. It attempts to present a charmingly nostalgic ghost story while also dealing with child murders, and small town racism during the civil rights era. It doesn’t always succeed, but is still well worth your time.

Lukas Haas brings a non-annoying, wide eyed innocence to his portrayal of Frankie Scarlatti. He’s a likable, curious little kid, and he keeps the film light even when it gets scary.

And that’s the other thing: This movie is scary. It delivers the scares without gore (and sometimes despite the special effects) but often it manages to be quite creepy.

If atmospheric ghost stories do more for you then stalk and slash bloodbaths, then this might be just the movie for you.

Availability: Lady In White is easy to find on DVD

Blogoween: Someone’s Watching Me (1978)

“Rape is when a man consciously keeps a woman in fear.”

What kind of horror movie is it? Made-for-TV thriller.

In the vast domain of geekdom, is there a more commonly uttered proclamation than “I love _insert name here_, but only his/her/their early work”?

I can’t begin to list the bands/singer-songwriters I’ve heard that comment lobbed at.

Fan love is awfully fickle. Once you make a name for yourself as an artist, you’re expected to maintain a recognizable style while still keeping up with the times at a frantic pace, lest your career be derisively revised as a mere one-hit wonder. Y’know, like how Devo are a one-hit wonder, except they had several Billboard-charting singles and albums in their active years.

It’s true what they say: nobody loves you when you’re down and out (definitely the work of another one-hit wonder). Still, you can’t help but wonder about whether the fate of most artists is to peak in a selected craft only to inevitably decline in later years.

Does genius have an expiry date?

John Carpenter, the subject of today’s Blogowe’en, is an exceptionally frustrating figure.

From his feature-length debut with the 1975 sci-fi comedy Dark Star to 1988’s satirical They Live, Carpenter almost never took a wrong step. This thirteen year period displayed considerable range from the director, as he segued effortlessly from drama (Elvis), romance (Starman), action (Assault On Precinct 13) and the many genres fused together to make Big Trouble In Little China. The horror films made during this period—Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982) and Prince of Darkness (1987)—are some of the creepiest in the annals of cinema. There were missteps, like his flaccid take on Christine or his weak script for Halloween II. In spite of these two, John Carpenter was still responsible for some of the most entertaining movies made in the seventies and eighties. Of which, the 1978 telemovie Someone’s Watching Me is a welcome addition to its better-known brethren.

Someone’s Watching Me follows TV producer Leigh Michaels (the gravelly-voiced Lauren Hutton), as she moves into a state-of-the-art, high-rise apartment in Los Angeles. Trouble is, she’s become the focus of an unseen figure who spies on her from another high rise apartment who begins calling her every night, arranging items to be delivered to her room, and leaving messages inside her apartment while she’s out.

Michaels’ stalker will stop at nothing until he has exerted complete power over her and soon shows that he’s unafraid to kill just to get to her.

Someone’s Watching Me was made the same year as Halloween, yet Carpenter shows no sign of exhaustion. He’s in top form here, with fluid, graceful tracking shots, and a tense, smart script full of pithy dialogue and populated by well-rounded, likeable characters. The script is one of Carpenter’s best and is really given life by a game cast head by Lauren and featuring B-movie vets Adrienne Barbeau (whom Carpenter married not long after filming) and Charles Cyphers (who appeared in a handful of John Carpenter films and was the evil gym coach on the episode of Buffy where the swim team turned out to be murderous fish-men). The main cast of characters are likeable, funny and thoroughly charming.

That Carpenter could go from writing the memorable female characters played by Hutton and Barbeau to the dim non-entities of Ghosts Of Mars is astounding.

Someone’s Watching Me is, like most Carpenter films, superbly-shot. With nicely understated photography that balances day-to-day mundanity with underlying menace, this isn’t the burnt out, who-gives-a-shit John Carpenter that indifferently helmed Vampires in ‘98, but a brilliant filmmaker at the top of his game.

So what happened?

Unfortunately, Carpenter’s output in the last two decades suggests that he’d rather be a hired gun than a proud auteur. It seems that years of undeveloped projects, like his proposed remake of Creature of the Black Lagoon or a biopic of Howard Hawks, and the initial critical drubbings he received for the now-beloved Thing and Little China have broken the man’s spirit.

Of his later work, only the terrific In The Mouth of Madness and the misunderstood Escape From L.A. are worthy. “Cigarette Burns” and “Hair” for TV anthologies Masters Of Horror and Body Bags were occasionally inventive, but mostly inessential. The rest of his output from the past two decades has been pretty dire, and seldom seen.

And I mean seldom seen. I was one of three people who went to see 2001’s Ghosts of Mars for its opening weekend. I can only assume the other two were also going out of loyalty to either Carpenter or star (and once-exceptional rapper) Ice Cube. Again, I ask, what happened?

Someone’s Watching Me’s recent DVD release includes an interview with Carpenter where he speaks of his fondness for this forgotten telefilm. The 61-year old director speaks with a passion that’s been noticeably absent on recent commentaries where he seems more interested in talking about his film scores or telling Natasha Henstridge why he loves smoking weed. Great work doesn’t happen by accident and John Carpenter was once a smart, young kid who was eager to get a certain kind of performance from actors and frame sequences in an interesting way. In his later years, it seems that the lazier tendencies that lead to the likes of Christine have overcome the man’s storytelling skills. It’s a damn shame, too. For him to make another nice, quiet surprise like Someone’s Watching Me would really be something.

Hey, Devo’s new album looks promising. Could a John Carpenter comeback really be so impossible?

Availability: Wherever fine DVDs are sold!

Blogoween: Communion (1976)

Also known as

Alice Sweet Alice

What kind of horror movie is it? Proto-Slasher/Murder Mystery/Killer Kids

Alice is a troubled young girl on the brink of puberty. Her nine year old sister, Karen (Brooke Shields) is about to receive her first holy communion, and gets all the attention, causing Alice to act out. When on the day of her communion, Karen is strangled and set on fire, right in the Church. And everyone wonders just how far Alice’s jealousy has gone.

Her mother and estranged father refuse to believe their daughter is capable of such violence, but neighbors, relatives, and the police aren’t convinced. Soon there are other attacks… and the killer is wearing a yellow raincoat and mask, just like the ones Alice owns.

Can the parents find the real killer, or will Alice be locked away?

Communion, or Alice Sweet Alice as it’s more commonly known, is saturated with Catholic imagery. It permeates the film. Sometimes up-front, as in shot after shot of religious statues, and sometimes in the background, like a plastic Mary on the dashboard of a car. But it’s never absent. It gives the film an almost supernatural atmosphere, even though the plot stays grounded in reality. Set in early 1960s New Jersey, it’s easy for Newfoundlanders to appreciate the power the church holds over the characters in the film, and even the fear that it represents. Child murder is a horrific thing in itself, but that such a thing should happen in a church seems unthinkable. Given the recent history of the Catholic church here and elsewhere, these themes are even creepier now than when the film was first released.

Released originally in 1976 (as Communion) this was one of the earliest of the American proto-slashers. It had only been two years since Bob Clark’s Black Christmas. John Carpenter’s Halloween, which opened the floodgates of these stalk-and-slash type flicks, was still two years in the future. Once those floodgates opened, Communion movie was renamed Alice Sweet Alice, and released again in 1978.

In 1981, after Brooke Shields had emerged as a genuine superstar, the movie was renamed again as Holy Terror, and a toned down version was released.

There are many things this movie has going for it. Paula E. Sheppard, the actress who plays Alice gives a wonderful unhinged performance. Never taking it too far. Alice is certainly an unlikable child, in many ways, but the audience is never quite sure if she’s actually capable of murder. Paula only appeared in one other film, the 1983 new wave sci-fi movie Liquid Sky, where she not only acts, but sings one of the songs on the soundtrack!

The cinematography is great. The whole film has washed out look that adds to the bleak working class atmosphere. The director makes good use of awkward camera angles that keep the audience constantly off kilter. There are many things about the movie that remind me of a Giallo, but where as a Giallo would focus on surface beauty, this film places the focus on all things dreary. Fans of Giallo will however find much to like.

As opposed to later slashers, there is far more emphasis placed on the murder mystery aspects of the plot. And much like in a Giallo, the police are all but useless, leaving it up to civilian characters to solve the crime. Also, when the violence occurs it is often shockingly brutal.

Director Alfred Sole returned to the slasher in 1982 with the genre spoof Pandemonium featuring Judge Reinhold, Phil Hartman, and Carol Kane as the final girl.

Availability: Communion is easy to find on DVD under the Alice Sweet Alice title.

Blogoween: The First Power (1990)

“The Beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them and their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city.”

“Sister this is the 20th century, so one mustn’t mention Satan in polite company.”

Directed by Robert Resnikoff

What kind of horror movie is it? Cop/Satanic/Serial Killer Thriller

Did you know that God and Satan can bestow three powers on their disciples, and that the first power is resurrection?

No, neither did I.

But it’s true. A nun said so.

Also: Jesus left us magic weapons to fight the minions of Satan.

These are the sorts of lessons you will learn while watching The First Power.

Lou Diamond Phillips is a cop who doesn’t play by the rules on the trail of a serial killer who carves a pentagram on the bodies of his victims. The cop is getting help from a mysterious informant, who seems to know where the killer will strike next. The informant demands that when the killer is caught he must not be killed, or given the death penalty. Phillips agrees, but once the killer is in his hands the promises are forgotten.

“The Pentagram Killer” is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

If this were a regular film, that would describe the entire plot, but that’s just the first twenty minutes of The First Power.

Soon the killer is back from the grave and people involved in the original investigation are turning up dead. The mysterious informant turns out to be a beautiful psychic, and now it’s up to her, Phillips, and a renegade nun to stop Satan.

This is a very fun movie.

The plot is ridiculous, and the story logic goes out the window towards the end. I think they even made up the Catholic mysticism that forms the premise, but who cares? What we get is 80s-style cop action, with the added bonus of a satanic villain with super powers! Watch as a possessed bag lady kung-fu fights Lou Diamond Phillips after crashing through the window of his high rise apartment and just try not to smile.

This was director Robert Resnikoff’s only feature length film — though he also wrote a cop/buddy/comedy starring Mr. Miyagi, and Jay Leno — and from what imdb tells me he never worked again.

It’s too bad, I enjoy his style of wackiness.

Lou Diamond Phillips is from the Keanu Reeves school of acting, but has a little more charm. He brings just the right amount of “I don’t believe for a second that this pretty boy is a cop” to the screen. Nobody else is particularly good either, but like I said, with the plot it just doesn’t matter. It seems nothing can stop this movie from being a good time.

Availability: The First Power is available on DVD from MGM.