In grade school, every Halloween was marked by a showing of Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman (and then playing it in reverse, to the tune of “The Monster Mash”). Now I just do horror films, trying to snatch up recent or older releases for the weeks leading up to 10/31. So…
I started with Lucky McKee’s The Woods, an ultimately-too-predictable take on the gothic: schoolgirls, families both redemptive and corrupted, the dangers of nature, and hints and allegations of sexualities outside of respectable range. Set in 1965, it follows a young, psychically-gifted rapscallion (Agnes Bruckner), sent away for pyromania to the strangely tree-infested academy run by Patricia Clarkson and a bevy of odd-bird women. What’s good about it: McKee has a gorgeous eye (and ear) for the spooky, and the film works despite itself in many instances. The cast is keen, especially Clarkson (and even has a very restrained Bruce Campbell), and there are touches of adolescent sarcasm and sexual agency that were smarter than your average bear.
But those touches were far more fully realized–and central to–McKee’s first very strong film May, about an alienated vet’s assistant who discovers her sexuality and her talent for homicide at roughly the same time. There the parodic elements are honed to a fine slasher edge; in Woods (scripted by someone else) it all seems like subtext, and eventually the film has nowhere to go but toward its conventional “reveal” and climax.
I have on deck in my queue Feast, Dust Devil, The Roost, and Jigoku. Anyone else prepping for the big scare with some fine and/or fun horror?
I just watched Jigoku. It’s really fun. The ethics behind it – the whole crime / punishment out of balance – is as bewildering as the moral payback of any current Japanese horror film. What exactly did the main character do wrong to put into motion such punishment? Not much. But as it rolls along, the bodies pile up like mad, and then it’s off to hell.
This is like an old Roger Corman film made in Japan by David Lynch. In fact, even the “mysterious stranger” of Lynch’s films (Robert Blake and so on) appears here to keep things moving if it looks like the characters are starting to head for redemption.
The Miike film that was too hot for Showtime to actually show and which has now been released on DVD in the Masters of Horror series is on my list. And Feast too, I think. And my duaghter is having a Halloween party and I’m going to screen Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein for 10 seven-year-old girls. Sweet. When they’re sixteen I’ll go straight to Audition.
Three quick reactions:
1. I finally watched The Hills Have Eyes remake, and was struck by how mere technical proficiency can drive fans of the genre into ecstasy. Oh, I guess I could talk in terms of plot and style and so forth: it was sad to see that bald mutant kid from The Goonies turn so mean here, and I wondered why the little girl in the red cape left Venice for the American Southwest. There’s a hint of intriguing sociopolitical lunacy (the nuclear family, as almost every reviewer spelled out) but it’s never more than a hint. I have no problem with the relentless brutality descended upon the hapless family at the center–can stomach, and even relish, the threatening of children and the pregnant, the killing of dogs, the burning of fathers, etc. etc. But … well, see one mutant hillbilly family killing the norms film, you’ve seen them all. There’s nothing–NOTHING–new here, and while (again) not hamhanded or incompetent as so many Hollywood horror films are, mere competence does not make a good flick. (Roger Ebert’s review is pretty damn funny.)
–Now competence coupled with a certain kind of glee (in generic conventions, in gore’s fluid potential, in the neat enclosures of the plot set-up) make Feast another in the string of really awesome NEW b-movie Horror pleasures this year (including Slither and The Descent). We’re not talking a revolution in style or cinematic significance, but for someone who grew up infatuated with Carpenter, King, Romero…. it’s great to see horror movies without Paris Hilton, teen stars du jour, or the easy tedious proliferation of remakes. I got nothing more to say: those of you who like this kind of thing will like this thing; those of you who don’t, move along. Heads roll, monster penises roll, maggots squirm, many limbs squirt, and there is more green and red and white fluid than could be found at your average Italian flag factory.
–Lastly, and calling this a Halloween flick may be unfair, the bleak gritty little indie Cavite is worth seeing. Maybe I ought to post this under our other terrorism threads: the plot, stealing liberally from Phone Booth, has a young Filipino-American man returning to visit family in Manila forced (by a brutal, often funny voice on the cellphone) into a terrorist act. The movie is almost all one character–the co-writer/co-director–and we follow him around the slums of Manila. The movie works as an exercise in fairly-gripping suspense; it works even better as an exploitation/interrogation of 9/11 anxieties, with a serious and provocative challenge to American assumptions about how to read terrorism; and it works with great style, despite being shot on the fly and on the go with a good cheap d.v. camera, wandering the streets of Manila. I recommend this to all.
I saw a movie. The Roost, a very low-budget and kind of predictable little vampire-bats-who-turn-people-into-zombies film.
What sets it apart from the unexceptional crowd is a sly sense of style–the film is framed by a tv “horror feature” host, of the Count Floyd variety, acted with real panache by Tom Noonan (who is so great in The Wife). The film is shot in very dark locations, with a real eye for lighting, and a sound design that makes the whole thing far more effective than it has any right to be.
This is probably only for the fans–i.e., me alone–but it is not bad and the director may pop up again, with a higher profile, bigger-budgeted project.
Does no one else watch horror movies at Halloween? (Mark, I have Jigoku coming from the library…)
The student Film Club is running a cult film series this semester, and tonight they’re doing a special Halloween double feature: Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space and Tod Browning’s Freaks. Seen both, but not in a long while. Maybe I’ll post something tonight. More twisted and campy I think than the kind of stuff you’re watching, reynolds.
Right now, I’ve got an obscure Count Floyd 45 spinning on my jukebox called “The Gory Story of Duane and Debby.” I suspect Joe Flaherty was trying to cash in on the Bob & Doug craze (their single, “Take Off to the Great White North” was a huge hit in Canada). Anyway, it’s classic Count Floyd: “This mutant see, oh his face is terrible…he has…his eyes aren’t…one of his eyes is halfway down his face, making it…hard for him to get fitted for glasses. Awroooo!!! Heh heh.”
Wolf Creek takes too long to get going, and is entirely familiar: three nice but still privileged and did I mention hot young adults (here given a little more presence and a little more maturity and a lot less arrogance) run into back-country evil and pay pay pay. But there’s a vigor and rigor to the sadism of the film once the villain removes his mask; some of the scenes are really gripping, and despite some serious grue, much more reliant on a contextual tension than on bodily fluids to provoke viewer anxiety. I wish that it had taken some leaps around or away from or right through its stock plot conventions, but I was still impressed by how uncomfortable it made me. Far far better than Hills Have Eyes, less intriguingly out there but scarier than Hostel.
Again, though–the recent films to see tonight, if you’re interested, are Slither or The Descent.
I would also note the small but reliable pleasures of the animated Monster House, which has some excellent character comedy for an animated film–particularly the “fat kid” sidekick, who is drawn in a manner that gives me hope for the high-tech future of animation. He’s easily the most nuanced and interesting creation since Gollum (‘though not really touching the hems of that performance–just as good a “human” drawing as I’ve seen; makes my hopes for Beowulf rise a bit…
Yup, small but reliable pleasures is the right way to describe ‘Monster House’ (which is about as scary a movie as I can handle). I would add that Steve Buscemi gives the old man some depth and Maggie Gyllenhaal makes a smart, surprisingly complex babysitter. Unfortunately, though, no one dies, not even the cops.
My Halloween was as disappointing as it has been for years. Bought 2 bags of candy: Got zero trick or treaters. Did nothing. No haunted houses. Watched nothing. Tried to flip channels and see something on cable, but AMC had some permutation of Halloween; a franchise I despise, except for #3, b/c it didn’t have Donald Pleasance and had nothing to do with the stupid knife-slasher.
Even though, I was prepared to watch it, but they dutifully ran commercials at every 2 1/2 minutes, so I’d flip the channel elsewhere. Sci-Fi was running Jeepers Creepers, and it did indeed make me scared – of today’s youth. The giant man-bat was on the right track trying to kill them all. More power to him. I wish to subscribe to his newsletter.
On a less self-pitying note: I didn’t know about Beowulf. I dig the combo of Roger Avary, Crispin Glover and John Malkovich. If I could produce a movie they’d all be on my list.
After I took Max out to a few houses, and avoided the scary skeleton-children, we had a few door-knockers but not so many. Then I graded papers. Scary, horrible papers! With the paper so dry, oh, man, you’re bound to be cut. And scared!
i watched slither last night and liked it a lot. a great script, and great performances by the entire cast, especially fillion and the guy who plays the mayor. i recommend.
checking the reviews on metacritic i was surprised to see how tepid ebert was about this.
the descent tonight. i’m glad that i did not watch this in the theaters, both because i would have been scared even more shitless, and because the dvd has the original uk ending, which carries on one more scene past where the u.s release ended–and it is a much better ending. i liked it a lot, as did sunhee, i think. gio, you should watch it–lots of interesting stuff about women, motherhood, sisterhood, monstrosity.
this film proves, once again, that exercise is bad for you.
really, how scary is it? if it’s too scary i don’t want to watch it.
gio, it is pretty scary, but i’m a notorious wuss. interestingly, it is scarier before the monsters show up (which isn’t till past the halfway mark). but for one such as you, raised on the horrors of italian football, this will be a walk in the park.
okay, i checked and the sheer scariness index (like monsters and all that) seems acceptable. what is totally unacceptable, however, is the claustrophobia index. i am afraid i cannot watch this without taking a couple of xanax, arnab. my throat would become very very tight, and then i would die. if i take the xanax, though, i won’t be able to stay awake. an insoluble problem.
(even before seeing your comment i knew it would mention italian soccer. in the meantime, the world cup is safely in our possession. take that, brazilophile.)