13 Nights of Shocktober: Matinee

by A. J.

Happy Halloween! The countdown is over and Halloween is finally upon us. Tonight, hopefully, you'll be relaxing, eating some candy, and watching a scary, or not-so-scary, movie. There are a lot of options for tonight and I hope I've been of some help. Here is my final recommendation to help bring an end to Shocktober:

Night 13: Matinee
Theater Manager: “The country is on red alert. People are already scared.”

Lawrence Woolsey: “Exactly! What a perfect time to open a new horror movie.”

Matinee, directed by Joe Dante begins with real images of actual horrors: stock footage of nuclear blasts annihilating a house, bending and breaking trees. This is what was on the minds of Americans in October of 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, especially those in Key West, Florida where Matinee takes place. Film producer and showman Lawrence Woolsey comes into town to test screen his latest movie, MANT, a cheesy B-horror movie about a man turning into a radioactive ant monster. Woolsey thinks the atmosphere of nuclear hysteria that the town is feeling is perfect for the premiere of his film. He needs it to be a big success to impress a big time theater owner and get nationwide bookings. Luckily, Woolsey has a few tricks up his sleeve.

The other main character is a young teenager named Gene Loomis. His family just moved to Key West because his father is in the Navy and is serving on one of ships surrounding Cuba. Gene and his little brother, Dennis, spend their free time at the local movie theater watching low budget horror movies. When another boy that lives on naval base asks if they want to shoot frogs with an air gun, Dennis is excited until Gene politely tells the boy no and whispers to Dennis, “that’s disgusting.” Dennis immediately agrees. These boys only like horror and death when it is fake and on a screen.

The boys are both big fans of Woolsey and get to meet him outside of the movie theater when Woolsey shows up to address some men protesting his upcoming movie. Gene recognizes one of the protesters from Woolsey’s previous movie and realizes the protest is staged. When he brings it up to Woolsey in a later scene, Woolsey is impressed and befriends Gene. As they walk around town Woolsey talks to Gene about the appeal of horror and monster movies. He tells him that people that put their hands over their eyes for the scary parts aren’t getting the full experience of the movie. When the scare is over you feel safe and alive, you know you are alive. That’s what horror movies are all about.

Matinee is inspired by horror movie producer/director/promoter William Castle and the kitschy, but loveable, movies he made in the 1950s and 60s. John Goodman is great as the kid-at-heart Lawrence Woolsey, who is based directly on Castle. The first time we see Woolsey is in a trailer for his upcoming movie. He is in a pose recreating William Castle's famous silhouette (the second most famous silhouette in movies): sitting in a director’s chair with a cigar and looking up. Castle’s films succeeded largely because of the gimmicks he used to enhance the viewing experience and scare the audience. Perhaps his most famous gimmick is from The Tingler starring Vincent Price. Certain theater seats were rigged with buzzers to give the moviegoers in those seats a jolt, at just the right moment, and scare them out of their seats. Woolsey uses the same effect for MANT, along with a few others. He also hires someone to run out into the audience in an ant suit during certain scenes and requires everyone seeing MANT to sign a waiver in case they are scared to death (another gimmick Castle used for one of his movies).

The screening for MANT is the climax of Matinee and is over the top, to say the least. It’s the kind of showing that William Castle would’ve dreamed of having. However, the real heart of the climax is what is happening between Gene, his friend Stan, and their respective dates. Matinee does a great job of showing us the romanticized version of life in the early 1960s, but also the real fears and dangers of the era. The kids are just as worried about nuclear war as the adults, but they also have average teenage worries that keep them from slipping into hysteria.

Matinee is not just a movie about movies, a genre I happen to love, it is about moviegoers and storytellers. It is about how movies can be a type of catharsis and help us escape from reality, even if that reality is impending nuclear war. It is a rare love letter to horror movies and why we go to them, even bad ones. It does its best to try to show us the intangible experience of going to the movies. William Castle did his best to give his audiences a true and memorable experience and Matinee is a fitting and loving tribute to him and his movies.

 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Tales from the Hood

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 12: Nightmares and reality meet on the street: Tales from the Hood

Since I could not find an acceptable werewolf movie this Shocktober, I’ve decided to include a second horror anthology movie. At first, I was reluctant to do so until I saw the ridiculously entertaining and spooky Tales from the Hood, written and directed by Rusty Cundieff. This horror anthology from 1995 presents four stories all dealing with African-American characters or issues. This film may not be directly related to the HBO series Tales from the Crypt, but it is certainly influenced by the EC Comics, on which Tales from the Crypt was based, and anthology horror films of the 1960s and 70s. Tales from the Hood takes its title from the 1972 Tales from the Crypt film.

The film begins with three young criminals entering a funeral home where they expect to buy some high quality drugs from the mortician. The mortician, Mr. Simms, played with wonderful subtle eccentricity by Clarence Williams III, is supposed to have very “good shit.” As he takes them to where “the shit” is, they tour the funeral home and Mr. Simms tells them stories about his previous “customers.” In the first story, “Rogue Cop Revelation,” a respectable black community leader is murdered by corrupt police officers who later face the consequences of their reprehensible actions when the murdered man comes back from the grave. It is probably the weakest of the four stories, but by no means bad. It is a good place for the film to start.

The second story, “Boys Do Get Bruised,” is by far the best and would be an outstanding short film on its own. It is about a shy, quiet boy named Walter that reluctantly confesses to his teacher that the bruises he has are not just from the school bully, but from the “monster” in his house. His teacher sees drawings Walter made of the school bully and the monster; Walter draws the monster as a horned beast with glowing eyes. Later the school bully is sent to the hospital for unexplainable, spontaneous injuries. Walter’s drawings might be the key to stopping the monster. David Alan Grier, known best for his comedic work, has a role in this story that is far from light. His character is cruel and severe, and Grier plays it so well that you’re amazed by his performance, while also being shocked and scared by his character. The whole film is worth watching just for this chilling story alone.

In “KKK Comeuppance” Corbin Bernsen plays Duke, a former, but unreformed, Ku Klux Klan member running for political office despite protests from black and Jewish community groups. To make matters worse, he has moved into a former plantation that was the site of a slave massacre. There is a painting in the house of Miss Cobbs, a voodoo priestess, surrounded by dolls, each one representing a victim of the massacre. Strange things begin to happen as dolls disappear from the painting. This story is the most ridiculous, but also the most fun. 

The final story Mr. Simms tells is a chilling psychological freak-out. “Hard Core Convert” is about a violent gang member named Crazy K who survives being shot only to end up in prison. Once there, he is transferred to a facility deep underground where he is subjected to radical experimental rehabilitation treatment inspired by A Clockwork Orange. In the next cell is a white supremacist who says he likes Crazy K because they both like killing the same kind of people: black people. The final phase of Crazy K’s treatment involves being put in a sensory deprivation chamber where he is confronted by the ghosts of his horrible, reckless actions. The film ends back in the funeral home with Mr. Simms and the drug seekers. The final scene might not be a big surprise, but it is a perfect fit and ends the movie with a bang. 

There is a lot of blood and gore and monsters in Tales from the Hood. For the most part the special effects hold up well and are extremely effective, except for the ones that are wholly CGI; however, those dated images only last for a moment and don’t diminish the rest of the movie. Tales from the Hood succeeds at what The Twilight Zone managed to do so well: delivering scares and chills while also giving us heavy social commentary. The moral messages do not hinder entertainment value, they enhance it along with our overall enjoyment. This movie finds the right balance between spooky fun ("Rogue Cop Revelation" and "KKK Comeuppance") and real horrors with a supernatural twist ("Boys Do Get Broken" and "Hard Core Convert"). The ultimate result is a movie that is loads of fun, incredibly entertaining, and just the kind of movie you want to see come Halloween time.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Suspiria

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: The iris is the flower that will be the end of you! Suspiria

Suspiria, released in 1977, is considered by many to be Italian director Dario Argento’s masterpiece. It is certainly his most well-known film. Up to this point in his career, Argento had worked mostly in “giallo” film genre, which were usually violent pulp murder mystery stories. The level of violence had been increasing in his previous films and Deep Red, the film he made before Suspiria, dealt with some supernatural elements. Suspiria is his first full bore supernatural horror movie and it is a great one.

Jessica Harper plays Suzy, an American ballet student who arrives in Munich, Germany on a very stormy night to attend a prestigious ballet academy. When she tries to enter the front door of the academy another student runs out in a panicked state shouting to someone inside but the storm makes her words hard to hear. That student is murdered a short while later in one of the most lavish and gruesome first kills in a horror movie (it involves being hung and thrown through stained glass skylight). Suzy is questioned about her run-in with the murdered student, but can only remember the words “secret” and “iris.” Other violent, grisly deaths occur along with strange happenings, like maggots falling from every ceiling in the academy. The cause for all of the murders and the sinister nature of the ballet academy lies within what Suzy heard the night that she arrived -- but will she remember it?

Suspiria is heavy on style with its rich, vivid color palette and bold production design.  Several scenes are bathed in blue or red light. The death scenes are extravagant, but fit with the film’s aesthetic. The blood, which is bright red, sometimes almost orange-red, and gore are too stylized to be realistic, but realism is not the aim of Suspiria. The production design, visual effects, and cinematography combine to create a film that is visually pleasing even while being violent and scary. It’s an unusual, but interesting experience. The rock soundtrack by The Goblins is another important, and memorable, element in the spooky, surreal lavishness of the movie.

There are odd touches that make this a unique film. Argento originally wanted the girls attending the academy to be no older then 12 and wrote the script with preteen actresses in mind. When he was convinced that such a violent film starring children would likely be banned, he changed the age of he girls to 20, but did not change the script to reflect their age. This explains why the girls at the school seem extra naïve and sometimes act like children. Another unique touch is that like many Italian productions, the dialogue was recorded and added in after filming. Since the film had an international cast, the actors spoke their native languages while shooting even though their dialogue would be dubbed with English. The result is that not every character’s voice matches her lips and even the voices of actors actually speaking English don’t seem completely natural.

My favorite peculiar moment in Suspiria is an outdoor scene in which Suzy sits on a bench with a professor who explains the dark occult history of the academy. The wind gusts Jessica Harper’s hair over her face, nearly covering it completely, for almost the entire scene. It’s oddly the most realistic moment in the entire movie. You would not see that happen in a Hollywood movie.

This is one film that truly delivers on enveloping you in an experience. Jessica Harper, with her wide doe eyes, does well in the role of the new student trying to make sense of this strange school. Suspiria uses its stylistic elements to create the same creepy, mysterious, and disorienting feeling for the audience that Suzy is also experiencing. While not all of the effects hold up, Suspiria is not reliant on special effects for its mood and scares. This film walks a tightrope between art-house horror and schlock, and never misses a step.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Stoker

by. A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 10: Do Not Disturb the Family: Stoker

Stoker is a film with unlikely credentials. It is the only writing credit for actor Wentworth Miller, of the TV series Prison Break. It is the first English language film from Korean director Park Chan-Wook, famous for his ultra-violent revenge trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance). It borrows the premise of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 film Shadow of a Doubt: Uncle Charlie, equal parts menacing and alluring, enters and disrupts the idyllic home life of his teenage niece. But Stoker is not a remake of Hitchcock’s movie, it begins with that premise then takes off into a creepy family drama and psychological thriller.  

Matthew Goode plays Uncle Charlie Stoker, Nicole Kidman plays Evelyn Stoker, his brother’s wife, but the subtle star of this film is Mia Wasikowska as his niece, India Stoker. On India's 18th birthday, her father Richard (Dermot Mulroney) dies in a car accident. On the day of the funeral Uncle Charlie, whom India did not know existed, returns from traveling the world and moves in with her and her distant, unstable mother. While India remains cold to her Uncle Charlie, her mother warms up to him nicely, perhaps too nicely. For her 18th birthday she received a key. We wonder with her who it is from and what it unlocks.

India wonders about things teens often ponder over. Are you in control of your nature or has it already been decided for you? The film opens with a narration by India telling us that she hears things other people don’t hear and sees things others don’t see. We hear exposition from characters whispering so that India won’t hear, but she still hears. Her watchful eyes and quiet nature allow her to spy on characters that think they’re hiding their actions, but India already knows what others are trying to hide. They just confirm her suspicions. She slowly warms up to Uncle Charlie as they learn each other’s secrets. We see them play the piano together in a creepy and uncomfortable duet.

Stoker has a distinct, effective sound design. The sound of hair being brushed turns into the rustling of tall, dry grass. The beautiful, bold production design and cinematography makes every scene feel like an uncanny painting. All of this emphasizes India’s heightened senses and gives the film an unreal, dreamlike tone. India’s home is upper class and impeccably kept but its aesthetic seems unlike an actual home. The other teenagers she goes to school with don’t act quite like average teenagers. The trees and the grass and flowers are idyllic like a pastoral dream. There is something disquieting about all of this that adds to the underlying and unspoken menace surrounding the characters

Stoker feels like it is an adaptation of a Gothic novel. It takes place in a seemingly normal environment that feels like a fantasy. This is a film that, like its main character, is quiet and does not directly tell us much. We learn about the characters and plot, like India, from listening and watching. There is a lot that Stoker does not show us forgoing the shock value other films seize upon with misguided eagerness. Stoker shows us static images of seemingly benign things that we know carry heavy implications. When violence finally happens it is striking, but underplayed. This is a film shot and staged with meticulous care and sharp skill. Stoker may be a slow burn thriller, but this character based story builds to a satisfying, but perhaps unsettling, ending.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Psycho II

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 9: Welcome home, Norman: Psycho II

How could anyone dare to make a sequel to one of the greatest films ever made by one of the greatest directors that ever lived? How could a sequel ever live up to the original Psycho, especially when it’s made 22 years later? Would it be just a schlocky 80s slasher embarrassment? Well, no. It’d be impossible for any film to live up to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, but when taken on its own Psycho II is a very good, solid, and satisfying movie. In the shadow of Psycho, Psycho II is a successful sequel.

Anthony Perkins reprises his role as Norman Bates. Norman has been found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murders in the first movie, and now, 22 years later, he has been declared sane and released into normal society. Vera Miles also returns as Lila Loomis, formerly Lila Crane, the sister of Marion Crane who was murdered so famously in the shower. Lila strongly objects Norman’s release, protesting in court that he is still a homicidal maniac.  However, Norman moves back home and takes a job as a cook at a local diner where he meets and awkwardly befriends Mary, played by Meg Tilly. When Norman finds out that she has nowhere to stay he offers her a room in his house; it’s as awkward as you might expect, but they become unlikely friends.

 

Anthony Perkins, who was so memorable in the first movie, is still great in the role of Norman, but this time he gets to play a different take on the character. This Norman is aware of his troubled past, that Mother was all in his head, and is doing his best to be a normal, regular citizen. However, it seems that no one else is ready to have Norman back, everyone still sees him as a psycho. Suspicious things start to happen almost as soon as he arrives back home. He receives mysterious notes and phone calls from “Mother.” Is he slipping back into insanity? Is someone playing a mean prank on him?

Norman finds out that while he was away a sleazy motel manager, played by Dennis Franz, turned the Bates Motel, which Norman still owns along with the house, into what he sheepishly refers to as “an adult motel.” He fires the manager who is murdered shortly thereafter by a mysterious figure.

Psycho II is a full blown slasher movie. There is a body count and a kills are graphic, but unlike other 80s slasher movies, there is more than just the kills to this movie. There is a real mystery and intriguing plot. A lot of care and thought went into this slasher sequel; which is a rare statement to make. Norman is the prime suspect as more bodies pile up and people go missing. Though she can’t account for where he was for every murder, Mary believes Norman is innocent. She also believes there is someone hiding in the house with her and Norman. We want to believe he's innocent too, not only because Mary trusts him, but because Anthony Perkins is such an amazing actor that we just cannot believe that shy, polite, sweet, meek Norman could ever hurt anyone (again).

Psycho II succeeds because of the smart script by Tom Holland and an extraordinary performance by Anthony Perkins. Perkins was so good in the first movie as Norman Bates that audiences couldn’t see him as anything else. Though he’s playing the same character, Perkins hits so many different notes perfectly as Norman that Psycho II feels like a showcase to remind you that he is a great actor. Psycho II plays with your assumptions about Norman and expectations, or lack thereof, for sequels to deliver a sequel that is a thrilling mystery with a twist (or two) of its own. There are many, many sequels that are uninspired rehashes of the original film, but Psycho II is one sequel that should not be underestimated.

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Loved Ones

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 8: "Will you go to the dance with me?" The Loved Ones

Released in 2009 from Australia, The Loved Ones is the best horror films I’ve seen in recent years. The story is simple: a psychotic teenage girl kidnaps the boy that turned down her invitation to the school dance. The execution by first time director Sean Byrne is excellent. It would be easy to describe The Loved Ones as a torture porn movie, but it would also be wrong. In the deplorable torture porn genre the sadistic acts of torture and the gruesome, gory effects are the main event, and everything else (characters, plot, and motivation) is superfluous. Spectacle becomes the focus instead of adding to the impact of the narrative. Torture happens just to show you gore and the result is not a movie, but a geek show, one with a hopeless feeling of dread. The Loved Ones has a sense of dread, but it never feels hopeless. It is a tense, disquieting horror film that is also brutally violent. 

This movie shows us two bad dates, one far more nightmarish than the other. Brent is a quiet, brooding teenager in a rural Australian town. He’s trying to come to terms with the death of his father who died in a car accident while Brent was driving. His mother is hesitant to let him go to the school dance because his girlfriend, Holly, will be driving. A shy looking girl named Lola asks Brent to the dance. He says no, politely, he’s already going with Holly. Brent’s extroverted friend Jamie, asks the pretty but intimidating Goth girl Mia to the dance; she says yes. Before Brent can even go the dance, however, he is abducted. He wakes up bound to a chair and what follows is the date from hell. He is tortured by Lola, now referred to only as Princess, and her Daddy. Yes, Princess Lola uses that power drill.

Robin McLeavy is superb and memorable as the cute, but psychotic and sadistic, Lola/Princess. She listens to the angst filled ballad Not Pretty Enough by Kasey Chambers like it is her anthem. That pop song juxtaposed with scenes of psychotic violence brings to mind Patrick Bateman butchering a victim to the Huey Lewis and the News song Hip to be a Square in American Psycho. John Brumpton as Lola’s subservient father, referred to only as Daddy, is at once equally meek and sadistic. The dinner scene with all of them around the table, including Bright Eyes (presumably Lola’s lobotomized mother), is heavily influenced by Texas Chainsaw Massacre in that the horror comes from the bizarre nature of this family.

Princess and Daddy are without a doubt the stars of this movie, but they are not the protagonists. We’re never rooting for them or for the next round of bizarre torture Brent must endure. We’re always with Brent looking for a method of escape, anxious about how and when Holly will figure out where he is being held, but The Loved Ones is not all torture and psychotic family members. It also has a sense of humor. We get unnerving humor in the scenes with Princess. We get awkward humor in scenes of Jaime on his much more traditional bad date with Mia. Jaime stumbles as he tries to be suave and doesn’t know how to handle his disinterested date, who gets so stoned she is staggering by the end of the night. Those scenes break up the tension of Brent’s storyline and give us a break from the violence and torture Princess is inflicting on him. Those scenes also expand the world of this film from a house of horrors to a real place populated by normal people.

The Loved Ones does take one very dark turn when Brent is thrown into the cellar which has a pile of bones amid other horrors. Even with the cellar scene and all of the blood and torture this movie is nowhere close to the gruesome gore of movies like Saw and Hostel. The Loved Ones transcends the trappings of psycho killer movies and gory spectacle to become a true horror film; one that unsettles, scares, and satisfies.

  

13 Nights of Shocktober: Diabolique

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 7: "Don't be a devil. Don't ruin the interest your friends could have in this film. Don't tell them what you saw.'' Diabolique

Diabolique is a superb and masterful psychological thriller and mystery from France released in 1955. Almost right away you feel like you’re watching a top-shelf Alfred Hitchcock film. It has a deliberate style, skill, and humor that rival the best of Hitchcock’s work. In fact, legend has it that director Henri-Georges Clouzot secured the rights to the novel the film is based on only a half-hour before Hitchcock attempted to do the same.

The story is about Christina and Nicole, the equally abused wife and mistress of Michel, who plot the cruel man’s murder. The film is set largely at a boys' boarding school which Christina owns, but Michel runs poorly. He is rude to the staff and boys and saves money by buying cheap wine and spoiled fish. Christina is frail and reluctant to go along with Nicole’s plan to murder Michel. However, they drown him in a hotel and then dump his body in the school swimming pool. None of that is spoiler material because the movie really takes off once the body of Michel disappears. Then the game begins. Cryptic clues find their way to Christina and Nicole. Christina becomes remorseful and wants to turn herself in. Nicole won’t allow that.

To add to the stress Christina is feeling is the incredibly enjoyable character of retired police commissioner Fichet who, unasked, volunteers to take the case of finding the missing Michel. Fichet surely must be the blueprint for the rumpled, seemingly absentminded TV detective Columbo. Fichet seems to be more of a pest than a threat and comes off like a bored, old man playing detective, but if you pay close attention to the performance of actor Charles Vanel you know that Fichet is actually an excellent, but subtle detective.

Diabolique is not technically a horror movie, but it does have one of the most famous and most terrifying moments in film history. That scene is so notorious you might already know about it, but regardless of whether you know what is coming or not, it is still shocking to see with your own eyes. There is beautiful black and white cinematography and the scenes are staged with care for maximum suspense. There is a lot of humor in the movie, too. Nearly every minor character is comic relief, especially the boarding school staff and the boys with their gossip about Michel. This movie is a spooky mystery that will deliver that familiar unease and excitement you get from a great horror movie but without blood or monsters.

13 Nights of Shockotber: The Night Flier

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 6: Death From Above: The Night Flier

The Night Flier is a little seen adaptation of a Stephen King short story published in the collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes. It was shot for a theatrical release, but premiered on HBO in 1997, before receiving a short-lived run in theaters, giving it the stigma of a made-for-cable movie which in this case is undeserved. The Night Flier is a good, solid, and scary movie with a fresh take on the most classic of movie monsters: the vampire.

Miguel Ferrer plays Richard Dees, a cynical and bitter star reporter for a supermarket tabloid called Inside View. He’s made his name covering gruesome stories and getting equally gruesome photographs, which he likely fakes. He is assigned to investigate a series of vampire-like murders that are linked to a serial killer that flies into rural airports at night. Dees is also assigned by his editor to mentor a new reporter named Katherine who is helping him with the story, which he hates and resents to say the least. Dees is also a pilot so he flies into the same airports as the “Night Flier” to question the locals and get pictures of the corpses at the morgue. The neck wound on the victims is not the traditional two small red dots of other vampire movies. This wound is a large single hole, like a railroad spike stabbed into the neck.

Despite how harsh he is towards her, Katherine still want to help Dees track down the "Night Flier." She’s looking for her big break and sees this as an opportunity. Dees finds himself just a step behind the killer. He finds a mysterious black soil on the runway of an airport where the black airplane was recently seen. The movie shows us scenes of the mysterious caped pilot with victims he seems to have cast a spell over. The mystery element of this story is the big driving force behind the movie. Though Dees remains a mostly unsympathetic character we stay with him because we want to know the answer to the mystery of the "Night Flier." Horror is probably the only genre where you can spend so much time with an unlikeable character since a supernatural or ironic comeuppance is probably in order for them. It also helps that Miguel Ferrer is great in the role of Dees. He plays the character with a bitter contempt that feels real and never goes over the top.

The Night Flier is a movie that never quite does what you expect. When Dees finally tracks down the “Night Flier,” their confrontation is unexpectedly understated, but creepy and tense. The climax that follows is a chilling psychological freak-out. This movie plays with the cliché image of the vampire as a charismatic figure in a cape, then gives us the most grotesquely monstrous vampire ever put on film. There is a healthy amount of blood and gore, but it is not excessive, so this is a good movie for a squeamish person that wants to see how much they can stand. All of this makes The Night Flier an entertaining, under-the-radar horror film that can be hard to find but is definitely worth tracking down.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Prince of Darkness

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober. 

Night 5: "Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level... into ghosts and shadows." John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness 

John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is the second film in his Apocalypse Trilogy (the first is The Thing, the third is In the Mouth of Madness), which are films that focus on a small group of people dealing with the beginnings of events that could lead to the end of the world. We get the set up for the movie in scenes interspersed with one of the longest opening titles sequences of any movie; John Carpenter’s director credit comes about 10 minutes after the movie starts. Donald Pleasence plays a priest who enlists the help of a physicist, played by Victor Wong, and his graduate students to stop an otherworldly evil from being unleashed on the world.

The movie takes place in the basement of an old church in Los Angeles where a mysterious and evil cylinder containing a green liquid has been hidden away by the Catholic Church. It is transmitting a signal, so Professor Birack (Wong) and his team of grad students set up equipment to decipher the message. As you might expect, creepy stuff begins to happen. An army of zombie-like homeless people (led by Alice Cooper) surrounds the church. We learn from a conversation between Father Loomis (Pleasance) and Professor Birack that the origin of the 7 million year old cylinder is an alternate universe made of anti-matter, ruled by an Anti-God. The liquid in the cylinder is the physical form of an Anti-Christ attempting to bring the Anti-God into our universe. It’s an interesting attempt to blend quantum physics and Christian dogma. For a physics and horror nerd like me, their conversation is the highlight of the movie.

The green liquid infects some of the scientists and turns them into essentially zombies. This is when the real horror of the film kicks into gear. Prince of Darkness turns into a siege movie when the heroes barricade themselves from the zombie-like homeless outside and the possessed team members inside. In a nice twist on the siege movie because these people have no arsenal of weapons since all they brought with them is their lab gear. The scientists having no weapons is more exciting than you might think. They fight off the zombies with pieces of lumber or just outrun them which heightens the sense of danger the characters are facing. Also, they still have to prevent an evil Anti-God from coming into our universe. 

There are good and gross visual effects in Prince of Darkness, including a pretty famous one in which Alice Cooper impales someone with a bicycle. One character becomes more and more monstrously decayed as she becomes possessed. The grossest part to me are the insects that swarm the building. Another special effect that holds up quite well is mirrors turning into liquid portals between universes. 

Prince of Darkness takes its time with the set up and zombie climax. It has interesting ideas about religion and mirrors being portals to other dimensions. It has fun playing with concepts from quantum physics (each particle of matter has an opposite antiparticle) and  horror/sci-fi riffs on those ideas (our God has an opposite anti-God, different from Satan). Those ideas are interesting, but are not explored as much as they could have been. Some things are never explained; for example, what do the zombie homeless people have to do with any of this aside from menacing the scientists? Despite its flaws, Prince of Darkness is still an interesting take on the apocalyptic horror subgenre. This is a lesser seen John Carpenter movie and though it is not his best (it’s hard to top films like Halloween and The Thing) it is still a good scary, creepy movie and contains a lot of interesting ideas that make this movie worth watching. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Twice-Told Tales

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and, October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 4: A Trio of Terror: Twice-Told Tales

It’s hard to go wrong with a horror anthology movie starring Vincent Price, especially when the source material for the stories is the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Released in 1963, Twice-Told Tales has a bold color pallet and excellent production design that help make this a wonderful collection of Gothic short films. Though the sets may not have the most realistic appearance, their artificiality only adds to the surreal nature of these supernatural stories.

Each of the three stories begins with skeleton hands opening a book and Price providing the opening narration. In "Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment" two elderly friends celebrate Dr. Heidegger’s 79th birthday. A storm blows open the entrance to the crypt that holds the body of Dr. Heidegger’s dead fiancé. They find that a natural spring has been dripping on her tomb and though she has been dead for 38 years her body has not decayed at all. They experiment with the spring to make themselves young again, but soon find that the joys of youth also come with the troubles of youth. "Rappaccini’s Daughter" has Price playing the sinister Rappaccini who keeps his daughter, Beatrice, locked in a garden and away from all human contact. Young Giovanni falls in love with Beatrice and becomes determined to free her from her father and his experiments with plants. The final story is a short adaptation of the novel The House of the Seven Gables in which Price plays Gerald Pyncheon, who returns to his family home to search for a secret vault that holds a treasure, but is also cursed because of the family’s dark past.  

For being over 50 years old, this movie has some special effects that hold up well. The lapse photography used to de-age the characters in "Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment" is not as dated as you might expect and looks more convincing than CGI in a recent movie would look. Other effects are a little humorous, but also bizarre, such as a guinea pig that turns purple from one of Rappaccini’s experiments. However, the film as a whole relies more on set design and the performances of the actors than special effects to engage the audience. 

Typically, when you think of 19th century horror stories Edgar Allan Poe comes to mind before Nathaniel Hawthorne, but after watching this movie you’ll want to read some of Hawthorne's spooky stories. I know I do. Twice-Told Tales is classic, spooky fun from a time when horror films where almost always period films and shocks were accomplished without blood and gore. If you’re looking for a horror film that is enjoyable without being intense, let Vincent Price and Nathaniel Hawthorne provide you with three eerie flights of horror and the fantastic.