6 Weeks of Halloween

I have an inexplicable love for the movie Phantasm. It’s goofy and its low-budget origins really show, but it’s also undeniably creepy. It’s one of a handful of movies that I would just constantly throw in the VCR when I was a kid (see also: The Terminator, Star Wars), and I’ve seen it a ton of times. When I first started goofing around on the internet, I used the name “tallman” as my handle, not because I was tall, but because I loved this movie so much. This week marks the release of the newest entry in the series and along with that, all the other movies have been released in HD streaming for the first time (some even remastered), so I figured it was time I revisited the series. Let’s get to it:

• Phantasm Remastered – When I was a kid, I had this VHS copy of Phantasm that I’d watch, er, often. It was the bad old days of 4:3 TVs and pan-and-scan movies, but I feel in love with the film nonetheless. So it was a bit of a shock when it came out on DVD and I began noticing all sorts of stuff. Not just stuff that had been cropped out, but it turns out that the VHS copy wasn’t exactly a great transfer either. In particular, and I know this is a really bizarre detail to fixate on, the scene where the Morningside groundskeeper gets silver sphered to death and falls to the ground, you actually see that he, er, lost bladder control. So when I heard that J.J. Abrams was a big fan of the film and worked with Phantasm director Don Coscarelli to do a 4K restoration for the Butt-Numb-A-Thon marathon, I wondered what new details I would pick up on this time. Well, not much, but damn, that urine sure comes through crisp and clear! In all seriousness, though, the film has never looked better.

  

  For all the ridiculous low-budget special effects and hammy acting in the film (not to mention stolen bits like the Litany Against Fear from Dune), Coscarelli does have a keen eye and many of the visuals are well composed and effective. The Tall Man is a great villain and the ending is one of the best of all time (so good that Wes Craven sorta borrowed it for Nightmare on Elm Street). I always forget how great the soundtrack is as well. The intentionally nonsensical plot just gets under your skin and even if you’re not terrified while watching, you find yourself having weird nightmares. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve seen it so many times. I have to wonder what it’s like for new viewers. It can’t seem like much and I don’t blame anyone for not getting into it, but I love it and this restoration is great. It’s only on streaming right now, but a BD release is coming in the next couple months… I’ve often watched this movie during the six weeks of Halloween marathon and I expect this practice to continue, better than ever.

• JJ Abrams talks Phantasm Remastered @SXSW2016 (interview)
• Phantasmagoria (documentary)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (trailer)
• Phantasm II – The lone “big budget” studio entry in the series, this one has a distinctly less dreamlike quality to it and Coscarelli was forced to recast the Mike role with a real actor, James Le Gros (who famously beat out Brad Pitt for the role), but this film still represents straight horror comfort food for me. It’s got the best Checkov’s gun ever, literally, a four-barrel shotgun, one of the key, beloved components of the sequels (It takes a while before Reg gets the chance to use it, but when he does…)

  

  It’s got a very road trippy vibe to it that is a welcome addition (lots of great shots of the Hemi Cuda), and ups the stakes as it seems clear that the Tall Man has been destroying towns all throughout the country. Despite the recasting, there’s a great camaraderie between Reg and Mike and the new additions work too. Again lots of great visuals here of dead towns, emptied graveyeards, and of course more silver spheres and spooky cemeteries than you can shake a stick at. One thing I love: the shopping scene. Quintessential 80s stuff, like a combo of that scene in Commando with some A-Team improvised weapons flare. A lot of what became a mainstay in the sequels originated here and it’s hard not to enjoy because of that. Honestly, I don’t know that the sequels add that much to the series, but I kinda love them anyway, and this is no exception.

• Masters of Horror: Incident On and Off A Mountain Road (trailer)
• Werewolf Women of the SS (fake trailer)
• John Dies at the End (trailer)
• Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead – So we’re back in independent film territory, and it feels like Coscarelli went for an overcorrection with this one. More gore, more nudity, more silliness. I mean, this is really silly. You’ve got that annoying tyke, you’ve got Rocky, an Army vet who uses nunchucks… that don’t ever really do anything for her, you’ve got these three mooks who keep coming back as villains. It’s all a bit too zany, but fun in its own way.

  

  That being said, the Tall Man is effective as ever, and Mike’s relationship with the Tall Man gets some interesting new wrinkles. Also, Jody is back! So is the four-barreled shotgun! The Tall Man also has a great final line in the movie, perhaps the best in the series. There’s entirely too much pointless filler here, like they knew they could get away with a bunch of stuff because they were independent again… but it also takes the series in a different direction. One thing that struc me about this movie is that, basically, it becomes clear that the Tall Man will always win. I mean, he does in the first movie too, but by this point, it seems like the Tall Man will always get what he wants. And that’s fine!

• The Exorcist (amazing unreleased trailer)
• Unedited Footage of a Bear (Adult Swim)
• Videodrome (trailer)
• Phantasm IV: Oblivion – AKA, OblIVion, which I always pronounce Oh-bli-four-ee-on, this one picks up where III left off. The Mike bits continue the interesting revelations, but the Reggie bits remain tacky and kinda boring (I mean, in as much as silver sphere tits can be boring, I guess). The most memorable part are these quasi-flashbacks with Dr. Jebediah Morningside, aka the Tall Man before he was an interdimensional monster. Angus Scrimm feels completely different in the role, it’s an interesting opportunity for him to show some range (which he’s not given in the rest of the series).

  

  We also get a tantalizing glimpse of an desolate future. Other than that, we don’t get much in the way of road trip action, except for Reggie, but he’s relegated to a silly subplot that has him separated from Mike and the Tall Man for far too long. But he does get there, and we do get a decent enough finale, which in proper Phantasm style, resolves nothing and opens as many questions as it answers. The other fascinating thing about this movie is the incorporation of unused footage from the original movie, which actually works really well, even if it continues to contribute to the more nonsensical elements of the series. This is the entry in the series I’ve seen the least and I’m not really sure why. Oh, wait, it’s been out of print for a while and only recently came back because of the new movie, right. I should watch this more often, I’m sure it would grow on me.

• Screamers (trailer)
• Hell No (fake trailer)
• Bubba Ho-tep (trailer)
• Phantasm: Ravager – (aka Ra-five-ager?) This newest installment comes a decade after the previous entry and comports itself very well. The film has three threads to it, all focused around Reggie, the true hero of the series.

  

  One picks up after IV, another takes place at a mental hospital where Mike informs him that he has early-onset dementia, and the third takes place in the future, as the Tall Man’s power has grown and nearly destroyed the planet and a group of freedom fighters attempt to counter the final onslaught. Or something. Look, plot has never been a key Phantasm selling point, and this one really hits those dreamlike notes hard, making you wonder what’s going on for, well, most of the film. Still, the film continues Coscarelli’s examination of seldom explored areas of culture, like death, cemetaries, or old-folks’ homes. There’s CG, which I’m sure some folks will hate, but whatever. It’s worth it for seeing gigantic silver spheres destroying cities and whatnot. The ending does seem a bit anticlimactic and it kinda just happens, but it also seems fitting (the coda after the credits is a bit less successful, but hey, it’s fun). Ultimately, I enjoyed this as much as any of the sequels.

There you have it! Next up comes some 80s Halloween Episodes, followed by… I’m not sure what next week will be. Old school slashers? Blumhouse movies? Or maybe just a no discernable theme week. See you Wednesday!

For the first three weeks of last year’s Six Weeks of Halloween marathon, I had an Obscure Horror Auteurs theme covering the likes of Mario Bava, Larry Cohen, and Frank Henenlotter. Obviously the notion of “obscure” is a subjective one that has some of you wondering why I’d think of someone like Mario Bava as obscure (if you’re really into horror, he’s probably not that obscure to you), but one of the folks I was considering for that series last year was Tobe Hooper. Having directed the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist (rumors abound, I know, but still), he’s almost certainly not obscure, but he has a sizable filmography of more obscure stuff, which I figured I should check out sometime, so here we go:

• The Toolbox Murders (1978) (trailer)
• Salem’s Lot (1979) (trailer)
• The Netherbeast of Berm-Tech Industries, Inc. (Short)
• Toolbox Murders (2004) – We’ve been awash in remakes over the past couple decades, and one of the interesting things about this trend is the choice of movies to be remade. For obvious reasons, the “brand recognition” wonks always go for the classics, but that’s often overambitious and doomed to failure because they beg for comparison to the original (which in most cases are dramatically superior). For instance, Rob Zombie’s Halloween could have been a completely unrelated and thus passable neo-slasher, but instead it forced you to compare it to one of the perfect horror movies of all time.

  More interesting are the folks who remake obscure, flawed choices. Movies that have an interesting idea or premise but were never completely fulfilled. The original Toolbox Murders was a sleazy, brutal exploitation film that had a neat killer costume and concept, but faltered after a shocking and gross first act (with a slight uptick in the third act, but it never really recovers that initial energy). In other words, it was ripe for a remake, and when someone of Tobe Hooper’s talents comes onboard, that’s a good sign. It’s more artistic, consistent, and even slightly less misogynistic! Go team Hooper!

  

  A couple moves into a historic Hollywood hotel that is currently being renovated. Naturally, a series of disappearances leads our heroine, Nell, to investigate the building’s history and odd architecture. Lots of spooky, grungy atmosphere (a Hooper specialty), solid visuals, good sound design, and a much needed addition of history and even a maybe supernatural element make this an overall improvement over the original. It’s still a little slow at times, and our heroine could have used some beefing up as a character, but it’s otherwise a well executed thriller with a neat supernatural element. Made in 2004, this movie marked a return to form for the beleaguered Hooper, who had been languishing throughout the 90s on mostly unsuccessful movies and had been relegated to TV directing. Alas, a full blown reflowering was not in the cards, though he did make some other movies in the intervening decade or so (that did not seem to meet with much success). Altogether, this was a worthy effort and the sort of remake that is welcome, which is not something that can be said very often. ***

• Poltergeist (1982) (trailer)
• Critters (trailer)
• Invaders From Mars (1986) (trailer)
• Lifeforce – In Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, we learn a bit of backstory for this film, which is basically a reckless distribution of funds to a basically bonkers concept. The result looks, well, expensive (for a mid 80s movie, mind you). They clearly went all out on this story of space vampires infiltrating London and harvesting souls with their giant spaceship that had been hiding in Haley’s comet.

  

  Along the way, we get quasi-zombies, quasi-possession, and plenty of boobs. The plotting, for the most part, makes no sense. The acting, especially from the lead, played by Steve Railsback, is hammy and histrionic. Other performances are somewhat more restrained, and it’s always nice to see Patrick Stewart in cheesy movies like this. While they spared no expense, the whole thing still feels campy in the extreme. And yet, there is a certain energy here that is hard to deny. It’s an interesting project that probably never should have been so lavishly funded. Flawed, but fun. **1/2

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Murder (short)
• The Funhouse (trailer)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) (trailer)
• Eaten Alive – Grungy tale of a redneck who owns a crappy hotel in rural Texas and has a nasty habit of murdering his clientele (before they’ve paid for their rooms, mind you) and feeding the bodies to his monstrous pet crocodile. That’s basically it. The hotel gets a surprising amount of traffic during this one night, and he basically kills them all and feeds them to his crocodile. This was Hooper’s follow up to Texas Chainsaw and he stays true to that film’s grimy squalor. On the other hand, much of what made Texas Chainsaw work is not really present here. It’s decidedly darker and more gritty, and not in a good way. It’s also a bit repetitive and almost silly, though it does remain grounded enough to not be completely ridiculous.

  

  Honestly, the movie is probably most famous for its opening line (“My name is buck, and I rearing to fuck.”), which was appropriated by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Also notable is the presence of a young Robert Englund, who plays the aforementioned Buck, a town scumbag. Neville Brand plays our villainous hotel owner and is mildly compelling, if a bit opaque. Marilyn Burns, an alum from Texas Chainsaw, does her best in a limited role as a quasi-final-girl. Mel Ferrer and Stuart Whitman also turn in pretty good performances, and there’s Kyle Richards, who would go on to Halloween as Lindsay Wallace (and, eventually, secure her most terrifying role as a “Real Housewife of Beverly Hills”). Ultimately, this is only a movie for horror historians and completists, but there’s enough there to keep those folks sated. I wasn’t a big fan, but could appreciate it’s place in Hooper’s filmography as well as it’s place in horror cinema. Incidentally, this might make for an interesting remake. I mean, no name recognition, but there’s lots of meat on this bone that’s ripe for the taking. *1/2

So there you have it. I’m entirely unsure what’s up next for 6WH, so I guess we’ll see (right now, I’m thinking perhaps a “No Discernable Theme” week)…

One of the big surprises of the year was that Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s new movie, which was teased as “The Woods” for a long time, was actually a new Blair Witch movie. As someone who loved the original, I thought it would be an opportune time to revisit the franchise before watching the new movie.

• How the Blair Witch Project Should Have Ended (short)
• The Witch (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VIII: Easy-Bake Coven
• The Blair Witch Project – A trio of documentary filmmakers disappear from the woods near Burkittsville, MD whilst making a documentary about local legend, the Blair Witch. Years later, their footage was discovered in mysterious circumstances. I’ve always loved this movie. Back in the day, when I ran my campus movie theater, I actually organized a camping trip after a showing of the movie, and it was one of the highlights of my campus activities career. It’s not the sort of thing I trot out every year like some other favorites, but I’ve seen it several times since its release, and I feel like it gets better every time I see it.

  

  While there are complaints to be had regarding the camerawork and maybe how annoying the bickering in the second act gets, both elements nonetheless remain effective at conveying the situation. They are superficially annoying, but they get under your skin and work on you in ways that are not immediately obvious. The film has such a sense of verisimilitude that it’s hard to fault it for that stuff, even if it would be considered a detriment in other movies. Everything about the movie feels real, such that you can see why some people were fooled into thinking it was genuine footage discovered and reassembled by unscrupulous filmmakers.

  

  I’m generally not in the bag for improvised dialog and most mumblecore movies (which often rely on similar tactics as this movie, see Baghead, which works, but not as well as it could) drive me up a wall, but it works perfectly here. Everything about the construction of the Blair Witch’s history, everything about the interviewed townfolk, everything about the filmmakers’ reactions feels earned and genuine.

  

  When I first saw this, I found it terrifying. “The fear generated by this film is not the kind that has you jump out of your seat, but rather, it has you slinking back in your chair in the hopes that no one will notice you.” Upon subsequent rewatches, this feeling has perhaps mellowed out some. But familiarity has only increased my ultimate respect for the film. I can see why the ambiguity and lack of conventional action would turn some people off, but it hits my sweet spot. It’s influence is certainly undeniable. It may not be the Ur example of found footage, but it’s definitely the film that codified the tropes. Few attempts at found footage have succeeded anywhere near as well as this originator, though there have been some interesting spins. I remain convinced that this is a classic. (Incidentally, can you believe that review I wrote in 1999 holds up in any way? Most of the stuff I wrote from that era is cringe-inducing and while my thoughts at the time weren’t particularly deep or insigtful, I find my feelings mostly unchanged. (He says, as if this quick overview of the movie is any better written. (What, nested parentheticals are fine. (Just ask David Foster Wallace. (Oh great, he’s comparing himself to DFW. (Ok, I’ll stop now.)))))) ****

• Suspiria (trailer)
• Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows (trailer)
• The Blair Witch Report (short)
• Curse of the Blair Witch – One of the things I find frustrating about most found footage films is the lack of context. Who found the footage? Who is assembling it? What are we to make of whatever mysterious happenings that are portrayed? Could it be a hoax? And so on. It’s not so much a fault in found footage films as it’s surprising that there hasn’t been a movie that attempts to combine found footage with a more mock documentary approach (since I’ve not seen every found footage film, I suppose there could be, but I have not seen one). In the case of The Blair Witch Project, I’m certainly glad they saved the mock documentary talking head bits for this TV special, a neat little marketing ploy that actually managed to underline and reinforce the verisimilitude of the movie.

  

  This aired on the Sci-Fi channel (now SyFy) and features present-day (circa 1999) interviews with family members, local officials, and historians, interspersed with clips from the found footage. And it’s really interesting! The premise of the footage is explored, then the history of the Blair Witch is covered, and various talking heads comment and explain what’s going on. Even more interesting, they include a skeptic. Someone who looks at the historical incidents and pokes holes in them. Not holes so wide that you have to discount all the stories, but enough to provide doubt while still preserving the inherent ambiguity of the story. Again, I’m glad they relegated these talking head bits to the marketing, but I think this movie proves there is fertile ground for a more traditional documentary approach to found footage. Regardless, it’s well worth checking out. ***

• Witchfinder General (trailer)
• America’s Most Tragic Home Videos (Robot Chicken)
• The Last Broadcast (trailer)
• Blair Witch – Where to start? Ostensibly about Heather Donahue’s brother, who has found a video posted online that may indicate that Heather’s still alive, it’s basically just an excuse to get a bunch of kids back in the woods in MD (and not a particularly convincing one, but ok, I can go with it). It’s not long before weird stuff starts happening, and then things get really bizarre. Long story short: I did not like this movie. There are isolated moments that work, sometimes really well, but it’s too reliant on the original movie while also negating a lot of the original’s strengths. A few interesting ideas are tossed out there, but never really coalesce. The updated technology proves to be pointless and the camerawork (and editing) is even more annoying than the original (but without the original’s saving grace of verisimilitude). The characters don’t feel real and do all sorts of stupid horror movie things, like trotting off on their own in the woods. The filmmakers rely on cheap jump scares and audio stingers far too often. Their framing and frequent use of closeups, while perhaps meant to imply claustrophobia, only really serve to put you on guard for the numerous “Boo!” moments.

  I’m not sure what happened here. Director Adam Wingard and cowriter Simon Barrett have done great work in the past – I’m a big fan of You’re Next and The Guest, and even their bits in the V/H/S and ABCs of Death anthologies are really good. This movie was initially known as The Woods. It was only revealed at Comic-Con this summer that it was actually a Blair Witch movie (in an admittedly effective marketing ploy). Since I’m a fan of these guys, I think I can see the outlines of what they were going for and there’s some interesting ideas here. It’s just that the execution is totally off and frankly, I would have much rather had this be completely independent of the Blair Witch franchise. I’m not sure if it matters, but I’ll throw out a Spoiler Warning for the remainder of this post.

  So there’s a bunch of exposition basically explaining the Blair Witch phenomenon. It’s entirely redundant to the original movie, but I’m guessing that because this movie is being made 17 years later, they wanted it to work as a standalone. And I guess it kinda does, but the exposition is pretty clunky and if you had seen the original, it feels inferior to what you already know. They introduce the idea that time works differently in the woods, which is really neat, but it’s not really explored well. They overleverage the infamous Blair Witch stick figures and rock piles, and they even add the notion that the stick figures are kinda like voodoo dolls, but they discard that idea as soon as its introduced. This being 2016, they have lots of new technology (digital cameras, GPS, drones), but it doesn’t really add up to anything but better video quality. Indeed, I kept wondering about why the fictional filmmakers supposedly reassembling this footage would include so much of the shaky startup movements of the camera – there’s not benefit to it at all. The drone seemed like an interesting idea, but they almost immediately lose control over it and then it’s used for one of the more implausible set pieces later in the film. The most egregious problem is that they actually go ahead and show the Blair Witch. Or, at least, a long limbed monster of some kind (maybe they were going for some sort of alien abduction thing – lost time is a common feature of those narratives and there’s these bright lights that show up at the end of the film that seem otherwise out of place – but they don’t really do enough to establish that… and it would be pretty silly if they did). I mean, really? This whole movie seems like it was made to placate the people who hated the first movie because they didn’t see the witch and because it was ambiguous.

  

  There are some things I like about the movie, but they’re isolated moments or ideas that aren’t fulfilled. The look Peter gives when he sees the Confederate flag. The time distortion and time loop concepts are interesting. The sound design, while a bit bombastic, is really well done. There’s a great sequence where our heroine is crawling through a tunnel. Her performance is really fantastic there and throughout. Indeed, the last half hour of the movie is pretty tense, even if it’s a dumb idea to show the witch. Other performances are pretty good too and you generally like the characters (er, at least the ones you’re supposed to like).

  Ultimately, none of that is enough to win me over. This movie eschews most of what made the original special and doesn’t manage to replace what was lost with anything of consequence. I know I tend to be difficult on sequels and remakes (partly because it’s genuinely hard to do them really well), but I found this one especially disappointing because I had so much faith in Wingard and Barrett. I’m hoping this will be an aberration and that we’ll see more great stuff from them in the future. But this Blair Witch movie is simply not worth it. *

So there you have it. Up next: Tobe Hooper!

The killer animal sub-genre is a pretty goofy one, though some classics have emerged, notably the likes of Jaws and The Birds. But then, not everyone is Steven Spielberg or Alfred Hitchcock and most efforts come off less successfully. Let’s see if any of these filmmakers can step up:

• The Chickening (short)
• Cannibal Cows (Robot Chicken)
• Night Of The Lepus (trailer)
• Cujo – A rabid St. Bernard dog goes on a killing spree. A bit thin, but horror movies have been built around less. Of course, there is more to it than that, what with a marriage’s troubles and whatnot, but this is all basically an excuse to trap a mother and asthmatic child in a car in what is actually a decent set piece. It is mildly harrowing, I guess, but it all feels a little silly. Again, not particularly unusual for horror movies and this sort of goofiness often makes a movie more entertaining, but I found myself generally unengaged by the film. The craft is done well enough. Good performances from Dee Wallace and it’s always fun to see character actors like Ed Lauter and Jerry Hardin. Jan de Bont has a keen eye and does a good job with the photography.

  

  Adapted from a Stephen King novel of the same name, I can’t help but think that this is an object lesson in a concept working better on the page than the screen. Cujo eventually becomes menacing enough (once he gets smeared with blood and gore), but King’s choice of a St. Bernard, while a clever and ironic idea in a book, really saddled the film with something untenable. The filmmakers do their best and I wasn’t bored by the movie, but it never clicked for me. I understand this movie has a devoted cult following and I can see why, but it just didn’t work for me. **

• Jaws (trailer)
• Land Shark: Jaws II (SNL)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XI: Night of the Dolphin
• Roar – This movie really amps up the batshit insanity quotient of this year’s marathon. I guess there’s a plot: a doctor in Africa who allows dozens of lions and tigers and assorted animals to roam freely at his palatial estate. When his family arrives and he is unable to meet them, they are in for a surprise. The tagline of this film gets at its brilliance: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film. 70 cast and crew members were.” The movie is basically improvised around several dozen untrained (and very rowdy) lions, tigers, cheetahs, even the elephants get a couple good rampages in. It was so uncontrollable they decided to give the cats actual writing credits on the movie. Made over the course of 10 years and apparently meant as a lesson in the need for conservation and preservation, it has roughly the opposite effect. It’s not supposed to be a horror movie, but it kinda is… all the moreso because you can tell these actors are actually getting mauled by giant cats. It reminded me of Grizzly Man, though Roar has a less tragic ending (on the other hand, look at the number of reported injuries from the set of this movie).

  

  It’s almost comical how easily the family goes from being terrified to being in love with the big cats. I mean, the whole thing is comical, but that part especially. There’s no real acting to speak of here, though I suppose genuine terror shows up on the stars faces and there are some biggish names here like Tippi Hedren (famous for being in The Birds, another animals attack movie) and a very young Melanie Griffith. The film looks gorgeous, lots of great, almost documentary-like nature vistas, and would you look at that, Jan de Bont was the DP on this one too (he apparently got run over by some lions and had to have facial reconstructive surgery… and was back filming a week later). There’s so much bonkers stuff in this movie that it’s just impossible to look away. Great. Insane, but great. ***

• Black Sheep (trailer)
• Curiosity Killed Us All (Robot Chicken)
• Phenomena (trailer)
• Monkey Shines – George A. Romero is best known for his pioneering zombie movies, but I’ve actually been very impressed with his other, non-zombie efforts. Martin is a surprising and affecting take on vampires and Creepshow is arguably the best anthology horror film of all time. Monkey Shines is the tale of a man having difficulty adjusting to his new paralyzed state and becoming codependent with an experimental helper monkey that has psychic powers and murderous intent.

  

  I won’t pretend like this is some sort of untold classic or something, but I found it shockingly engaging and a whole lot of fun. Where Cujo‘s silliness fell flat, Monkey Shines‘ silliness just soars. It is unintentionally hilarious at times, genuinely interesting at others, and surprisingly entertaining if you’re willing to go with it. Again, not exactly fine cinema, but it’s a lot of fun. It doesn’t quite stick the landing at the end of the film, but I was still pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. **1/2

A fun week, for sure. Stay tuned for kids getting lost in the woods and some Tobe Hooper…

As sub-genres go, the slasher film is not particularly well respected. And yet it has its partisans, and I count myself among them. Longtime readers already know this, as I’ve written about slashers in a general sense many times, and covered lots of specific slashers during previous Six Weeks of Halloween marathons. While the sub-genre has fallen greatly from its heights in the early 80s and temporary revival in the mid 90s, the past year has inexplicably seen not one, not two, but three attempts to bring slashers to television. I was not terribly impressed with Scream Queens last year and never got around to the other two. Now that they’re both streaming on Netflix, I figured I should hop to it:

• Scream (trailer)
• How Scream Should Have Ended (short)
• Scream 4 (trailer)
• Scream – S1E1 – “Pilot” – After a viral video/bullying incident, the culprits are found dead in suspicious circumstances that recall a 20 year old tragedy. The best thing about this Pilot episode is just how different the particulars are from the Scream film series. Sure, there’s a masked killer, but even the mask appears to be different from the infamous Scream Ghostface.

  

  It’s definitely retained the cheeky, self-aware flair of the films, with characters openly discussing slasher movie tropes and brazeny declaring that, for instance: “You can’t do a slasher movie as a TV series… Slasher movies burn bright and fast. TV needs to stretch things out.” It remains to be seen whether the series will actually defy that notion, but this pilot shows a lot of potential and again, it’s distinct enough from the movies to establish it’s own identity (at least, in the pilot). There’s a very large cast of characters, nearly all of whom have something to hide. The amount of red herrings is a bit daunting at this point, but it’s got me hooked. The tragedy of the past being revisited upon the present (a favorite slasher trope) is actually a big improvement over the films, resembling a more old-school, golden-age of slasher incident. The kills were somewhat restrained in this episode, with a few false-alarms thrown in for good measure. The cast is young and attractive, as befits MTV’s stereotypical style, and does a reasonable job. Ultimately, it feels to me like this is succeeding where Scream Queens failed (that show basically felt like a schlockey comedy that never cohered more than anything else, honestly). Look, it’s not high cinema, but it’s fun and entertaining and I will most certainly be watching more episodes and could see myself finishing it off.

• The Prowler (trailer)
• My Bloody Valentine (trailer)
• Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Slasher – S1E1 – “Pilot” – This Chiller channel original series is notable in contrast to Scream (and Scream Queens, for that matter), which is a very good thing. We start out with the tragedy in the past, a pregant woman and her husband are brutally murdered on Halloween night, with the killer extracting the baby for extra-creepy flavor. Cut to a couple decades (and change) later and Sarah, the baby who survived, returns to her old house in order to make a life for herself… only to be confronted by a copycat killer wearing the same Executioner costume as the man who killed her parents.

  

  After visiting with the original killer, Hannibal and Clarice style, Sarah begins to investigate, finding out more about her parents in the process. The contrast here is that while Scream is very self-aware and humorous, this plays the story straight. There are a couple of jokes thrown around to spice things up, but the story takes itself seriously and that actually feels a bit refreshing. Ironically, the story here actually resembles the original Scream movie, though they put a decent spin on it, which is all you should ask for. Slasher stories aren’t particularly known for their originality; indeed, it’s their formulaic nature that makes them work. And this one seems to be doing its job well. The cast of characters isn’t as large here, but there’s a decent whodunit structure that shows promise. The red herrings are a little less obvious and not as bombastic, but they’re still lurking here. The cast is a little more mature and they do a pretty good job. Sarah is played by Katie McGrath, who is probably best known for her needlessly ornate death sequence in Jurrasic World, and does a pretty good job. The killer becomes surprisingly prolific, even in this episode, taking out several people. Once again, we have a show here that has a lot of promise, and I’m hooked.

I’m guessing I will finish both of these series during the Six Weeks, so I’ll be sure to keep you updated as I go. In the meantime, check out Zach’s progress over at Film Thoughts. The man, the myth, the legend, Kernunrex has not checked in yet, but I’m sure we’ll here from him soon enough… Anyways, up next: When Animals Attack!

The weather is turning, leaves are falling, decorative corpses are showing up at grocery stores, the pumpkin spice is flowing… it must be my favorite time of year! To celebrate, I always embark on a six week long horror movie marathon. That’s like two weeks longer than most Halloween movie marathons, because we’re awesome and Halloween totally deserves the extra time and attention.

This year we kick things off by returning to our Italian roots and watching some Giallo films. We’ve covered many Giallos before during the marathon, but I haven’t ventured far from the big names like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci, so I figured it was time. Giallos have their roots in pulp fiction and cheap crime novels which, when published in Italy, often featured yellow covers (hence “Giallo” which is just Italian for “Yellow”). They were prefigured by The German Krimi films of the 50s and early 60s and themselves presaged the Slasher boom of the 80s. It’s a pretty wide-open genre, generally a murder-mystery type, but with dense, complicated plots, lurid nudity (all three of the below feature frequent nudity), gruesome killings, and lots of other trashy components. Again, I’ve seen many of the most prominent examples, but not a lot of the obscure ones, so I took a swing at these three. The first is reasonably well known and widely available. The next two were out of print (or were only available in horrible pan-and-scan abominations) but just came out in a handsome two movie set with a great restoration and lots of special features (including fantastic commentary tracks). One thing I really love are the baroque titles, often very long and evocative. I wound up enjoying all three of these (admittedly flawed) movies quite a bit, so let’s dive in:

• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
• Friday the 13th (trailer)
• Alice, Sweet Alice (trailer)
• What Have You Done to Solange? – An Italian gym teacher has the hots for one of his students at an all-girl Catholic high school and takes her out for a romantic boat ride whereupon she witnesses glimpses of a gruesome murder. More bodies start showing up around town, and the teacher, at first a suspect, is determined to get to the heart of the matter. So. Where to start with this odd little bit of grindhouse? We could start with the rather bizarre acceptance of the teacher’s fling with his student. Other teachers don’t seem to have any problem with it (some having sleazy habits of their own), even his wife seems to tolerate it (oh, yeah, he’s married) and eventually joins forces with the teacher.

  
  A Bunch of Pervy Teachers

  The gruesome placement of the knives during the murders seems needlessly misogynistic. The titular Solange isn’t even mentioned until over an hour into the runtime and we don’t actually see her until the last 20 minutes. And yet? It all kinda works in the end. It turns out that the teacher never actually knocked boots with the student (alright, he’s still a creep, but this is a typical attempt at partial giallo fakeout). The placement of the knives actually has narrative significance (alright, it’s still gross). And once Solange shows up, the byzantine plot begins to actually take shape, ending on a solid note. It works stylistically too, prefiguring many slasher tropes (killer’s POV, tragedy of the past revisited upon the present, revenge plot, etc…) and features a good Ennio Morricone score. Perhaps not top tier giallo, it’s certainly in the top of the middle tier. **1/2

• Grindhouse: Don’t (Fake Trailer)
• Rebecca (Trailer)
• Les Diaboliques (Trailer)
• The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave – I don’t think I can do much better than IMDB for the plot summary: “A wealthy pervert lures beautiful young women to his castle so he can have his way with them.” Indeed, it’s implied that this guy is killing these women (there’s an attempt to soften this later in the movie, implying that maybe he didn’t do anything wrong, but again, it still seems unnecessarily lurid) and once again, all his friends and family seem to be mostly alright with it, even if they want him to get over his previous serious relationship with the titular Evelyn, which ended tragically. Soon, after being invited to an outlandish party (seriously, what are these people wearing?), he does take his friends’ advice and proposes to the first woman he sees. As he adjusts to married life, people start seeing Evelyn around the castle, and finally our, er, hero?, thinks he might be going crazy.

  
  Hi! I’m Evelyn!

  Alright, fine, giallo plots never make sense anyway. I know I didn’t make this sound particularly good, and once again I’m struck by an unlikable protagonist, but this is probably the most interesting of the three movies I watched this weekend. It has all the giallo tropes, but it mixes in elements from gothic horror as well (i.e. castles, crypts, the reading of a will, hauntings, and so on…), and that really works well. It seems like a particularly lurid version of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic Diabolique, with a dash of Hitchcock’s Rebecca for flavor. Lead actor Anthony Steffen isn’t perfect for the material, but he does his best. More notable are his female costars, especially Marina Malfatti and Erika Blanc, who both elevate the film from pure trash to, um, trash with a heart of gold. Or something like that. Director Emilio Miraglia gives some stylistic flourishes that work well, and the film looks great (I’m watching the recently released restoration on BD, but it’s more than just that – the compositions are well done and effective too). The plot is extremely convoluted and keeps trying to confuse you, but it all comes together in the Scooby Doo-esque finale of the movie. This is far from a perfect movie, but once it gets going, it really takes off and the last half hour is the best bit I saw all weekend. ***

• Black Sunday (Trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror IV: Bart Simpson’s Dracula
• Deep Red (trailer)
• The Red Queen Kills Seven Times – This movie has the best opening and setup of the three, though it is a bit goofy at the same time. Two young girls stumble upon an old, gothic painting and their grandfather explains that it is a family legend about a Red Queen who is murdered by her sister, and then rises from the dead to seek revenge. It happens every 100 years and is due to happen again in 14 years, which seems to perfectly align with when the little girls will grow up. Flash forward to the present and lo, the Red Queen is sighted at several murder scenes, cackling her head off. Once again, we’re thrust into a senselessly convoluted plot here, with tons of curveballs and twists and turns along the way. New characters show up that make no sense given the prologue, and yet, it all fits in the end. It turns out that the grandfather had set some sort of elaborate scheme involving adoption and isolation in order to foil the family curse… and it kinda works? I mean, lots of people still die, but some people survive, which is good, right? It’s a solid little mystery, and once again director Emilio Miraglia treats us to some great shots and gorgeous compositions.

  

  This is another successful melding of giallo with gothic horror, though perhaps a bit less than Evelyn. Many of the same beats are hit here, but in a completely different way (i.e. siblings wrangling over an inheritance, etc..) Also of note a great score from Bruno Nicolai, a contemporary and frequent collaborator with Ennio Morricone (though Nicolai never quite earned the same reputation). The ending doesn’t quite pack the punch of Evelyn, but it works well enough. **1/2

Those were indeed fantastic and I may just have to dip my toes into more giallos later in the six weeks. Up next, though, are killer animals. Stay tuned.

It appears that time flies when you’re scared out of your wits and the infamous Six Weeks of Halloween ended with the main event yesterday. As per usual, I have not covered all of the movies I watched during this glorious six week period, whether that be because it didn’t fit with a given week’s theme or perhaps I’ve already seen and written about it or maybe I just didn’t have that much to say about it. So here’s a quick roundup of things I saw that haven’t already been covered…

• The Babadook – Dear Lord, that kid is obnoxious. That’s kinda the point, I guess, but it’s the sort of thing that kept me bouncing off of this. It is wonderfully atmospheric, and when the horror starts creeping and crawling, it levels off into something that kinda works, but most of the runtime doesn’t seem to engage with the horror of the premise, instead focusing on themes of maternity and whatnot. I can see why critics love it, but again, I mostly bounced off it. **
• From Beyond – Stuart Gordon was on the shortlist for the “Obscure Horror Auteurs” theme that drove the first half of this year’s marathon, but it was not to be. However, I did catch up with this one, based on a Lovecraft tale (as is a lot of Gordon’s best work) about a “resonator” that allows you to see other realities… the problem is that they can see back! Some interesting ideas here and it’s reasonably well executed, but this just doesn’t hold together quite as well as Re-Animator. **
• The Monster Squad – Delightful as always, horror fun for the whole family. Especially effective when you’ve seen all the old Universal horror flicks this draws on and even expands (I especially like what they did with Wolfman, and not just the “nards” bits. Frankenstein is heart wrenching too.) Whatever happened to the director of this, Fred Dekker? Was Robocop 3 really that bad that he wasn’t allowed to work again? After Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad, you’d think he’d be able to weather a flop… Anywho, you should totally watch The Monster Squad, it’s great. ***
• Hotel Transylvania – I’m not really a fan of Adam Sandler, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. This is perhaps more due to the other talent involved, like Genndy Tartakovsky or Robert Smigel, but whatever the case, this is fun stuff, also drawing on old monster lore and it features some genuinely likable characters. I liked the ending. It’s a little bland, but as a kid’s movie it works, and it’s fun. There is, however, a rapping Dracula, something I just can’t fathom in this day and age. **1/2
• Hotel Transylvania 2 – No rapping Draculas, which is a plus, but also not much else to recommend it. Not bad, and there’s some nice bits (I like the intersection of the normal world and the monster world), but it doesn’t really go anywhere new. Still, decent for a kids movie. **1/2
• Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence – Kinda going for a Bride of Maniac Cop thing here, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards. Maniac Cop is brought back by voodoo and wreaks some havoc in service of a female cop who is wrongfully accused or somesuch. Robert Davi returns as the hard boiled detective, Robert Z’Dar is Robert Z’Dar, and Caitlin Dulany is the helpful doctor. It’s all in good fun, though it drags a bit more than previous iterations. **
• Vamp U – This movie is objectively terrible, it makes no sense, and yet, I had fun with it. Some interesting ideas here. A vampire who is impotent, meaning that he can’t “fang out” because he once accidentally killed his love. He now teaches history at a college and is surprised when a student comes to class who looks exactly like his long lost love. There’s a lot of fun stuff here. The vampire is named Wayne Gretzky for no reason, something that could have been endearing if the rest of the movie supported it, but it feels kinda tacky overall. Decent performances from Adam Johnson as Gretsky, and Gary Cole as his friend and confidant. Only abbout a third of the jokes actually land, so this isn’t quite calibrated or effective, but it’s the sort of thing that could maybe work if they took more time to develop it. *1/2 but I’d totally watch this again for some reason.
• The Visit – A little too uneven to be called a true return to form, but this does at least represent a reversal of course for Shyamalan, halting a long skid of mediocrity and outright bad films. There’s a lot to like here, but the dialogue and plot are a little too on the nose and hamfisted. The overarching story works well and contains enough thematic heft that things come out alright in the end though. On the other hand, there are three (count ’em, three) scenes in which a white kid does freestyle rap and it is more horrifying than anything else Shyamalan has ever done (in, uh, a bad way). Once again, I don’t understand how we’re still using rap from an unexpected source (like a white kid or Dracula) as comedy in this day and age. A middling effort, but given where Shyamalan has been for his past few movies, that’s a major improvement. **1/2
• Cargo – Probably more science fiction than horror, but this doesn’t really hold up in either genre. It’s fine, to be sure, but I had heard a lot of good things and thus my expectations were perhaps a bit too high. In the far future, earth is mostly destroyed and humanity lives in cramped space stations, awaiting a trip to new planet Rhea. Rich people can go there easily, others have to work menial jobs, etc, etc… you can see where this is going, right? And that is where it’s going. It’s fine, and reasonably well executed, but it’s not the SF or horror masterpiece I was lead to believe it would be. **
• Puppetmaster – Haha, this is way more trashy than I remember it being, but it’s still fun and you have to admit, those little puppets are supremely well designed and memorable. This is one of those movies I discovered as a youngin trolling cable at, like, 3 am or something, so there’s a tinge of nostalgia at work here too. Originally scheduled for the Killer Dolls and Dummies week, I just didn’t get to it in time. **
• Madman – I’m always surprised when I find yet another decent flick from the golden age of slashers, but I shouldn’t be, as there are, like, hundreds of them. This one is pretty fun, and I love the opening scene around the campfire. So glad I caught this one, I didn’t realize how much I was craving a good, old-fashioned slasher. Like a comfy sweater on a cold autumn day. Alright, so it’s not exactly “good” but I enjoyed the hell out of it. **1/2
• No One Lives – I wasn’t that excited for this movie, but it turned out to be one of my favorite discoveries of late. A group of petty criminals attempts to kidnap a wealthy woman… but all is not what it seems. As it was unfolding, I was thinking to myself that it would be cool if the husband was actually a serial killer or something, and then was surprised to learn that this was actually the case. I love stories like this, where bad people tangle with worse people and get their comeuppance. This one was fun. ***
• Ghostbusters – It’s a classic and you don’t need me to say anything more about it. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen it before, you need to watch it, whether you like horror movies or not. ****
• Trick ‘r Treat – This is becoming an annual tradition around here, and I think I like it better every year. ***1/2
• Halloween – Duh. ****
• Scream – I watched the previous three films on Halloween eve, saving Halloween day for a minature Wes Craven marathon. First up was Scream, which holds up great if you put it in the right context. The opening is still brilliant, and the self-referential bits are well done. It’s just a lot of fun watching this. I really wanted to watch Scream 4 again too, but I never got to it. ***1/2
• Deadly Blessing – One of the few Wes Craven movies that I’d never seen before and, well, let’s just say that there’s probably a reason for that. It’s not bad at all, actually, but there’s not a ton going on either. It’s set in Amish country (not technically Amish, they call them Hittites in the movie) and there’s some decent stuff here. You can certainly see some of Craven’s touches. For instance, he reuses a shot in the bathtub in Nightmare on Elm Street, but the latter is perfected while this one is less effective. Lots of stuff like that in this film, and a kinda bonkers final couple of scenes also remind of his later work. Worth a watch for Craven completists and horror historians. **1/2
• A Nightmare on Elm Street – Finished off the marathon with the classic, Craven’s most purely distilled horror. Yeah, sure, there’s some third act issues, but at this point, they’ve become charming, haven’t they? I still love this movie. ****
• Scream Queens – I watched the first two episodes of this and almost immediately forgot I even did so. It’s got some interesting stuff, but it feels overdrawn and too small for a full season of television. It’s definitely trying (and mostly failing) to channel that sorta Heathers-like gleeful dark comedy, but it’s too unfocused and blatant about it to work well. Some great performances, but there just wasn’t enough there to keep me engaged…
• iZombie – This show, on the other hand, engaged me way more than I’d have ever thought. Perhaps that’s because the Zombies in this are so different than your typical Zombies, and also the sorta procedural case-of-the-week stuff that tends to pull me in. Some neat ideas here, like the fact that Zombies are basically just normal people who retain their intelligence, but have really pasty skin and bleached hair. Oh, and they crave brains. And when they eat a brain, they take on that brain’s characteristics and even get some of their memories. This is a neat premise for a police procedural. Really enjoyed the first season and blew through it on Netflix in a couple weeks.

Phew, so there you have it, another successful Six Weeks of Halloween. Be sure to check out Six Weeks of Halloween and Film Thoughts for their final thoughts as well. See you for another six weeks next year!