13 Nights of Shocktober: House (1977)

 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. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 5: Japanese Horror Night

“Any old cat can open a door. Only a witch cat can close a door.”

House (1977)

The 1977 Japanese horror film House (AKA Hausu) is weird, wild stuff, to put it mildly. This is a movie with so many peculiar cinematic choices and strange, puzzling sights that the demonic cat, floating severed head, or killer piano might make you forget about the watermelon laughing over someone’s shoulder. So much about House is intentionally off kilter that it is equally funny, interesting, creepy, silly, thoughtful, scary, but, above all, unforgettable.

The weird and bizarre nature of House comes from what happens on screen, not from how it is told. There is no toying with narrative structure, or points of view, or chronology. This goes a long way to keeping the audience engaged. At the start of summer break, teenager Gorgeous invites six of her friends to stay at her estranged aunt’s house. Unfortunately, the house is haunted by a vengeful spirit that preys on unmarried (virgin) girls. Yes, the main character’s name is Gorgeous. Her friends are: Fantasy, Mac (short for Stomach), Prof (short for Professor), Melody, Sweet, and Kung-Fu. Those names are descriptive (Prof reads a lot, Kung Fu knows kung fu, etc.) but the actresses all bring youthful energy to the roles. Each girl finds herself attacked by her fear or distinctive trait (Melody is attacked by the piano, for example). 

The making of House is a fascinating story. In 1975 Japanese movie studio Toho (the studio behind the Godzilla movies) hired Nobuhiko Obayashi to make a film that would be a box office hit like JAWS. Instead, he asked his adolescent daughter, Chigumi, what she thought was scary. She said it would be scary if her reflection in the mirror suddenly attacked her. Obayashi wisely chose his daughter’s idea over the studio’s order. “It’s not all that strange for ants or bears to attack people, but to be attacked by your reflection in a mirror is a fantasy that could only happen in a movie,” Obayashi says in a documentary included with the Criterion home video release.

Many of Chigumi’s other ideas made it into the movie and she received a story credit. Obayashi never expected for the movie to be made so he gave it an English title, something “taboo” for Japanese films at the time. When he finally did make the film two years later, Obayashi made a conscious decision to do things unlike the traditional Japanese filmmaking style of Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai) and Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), two of not only the greatest Japanese directors but the greatest of all directors. If Obayashi thought that Kurosawa or Ozu would be offended by a stylistic choice, that was the choice he made. The result is a film unlike any that came before, or even after for that matter. 

You can enjoy House purely as a phantasmagoria of the bizarre and macabre, as I did the first time I saw it, but it is also rich with subtext. Gorgeous’s aunt has a substantial backstory that is presented as a black and white silent film with the girls watching and making comments. In short, her fiancé was drafted into the army and never returned from the war but she continued to wait for him. When they see brief footage of the atomic bomb one of the girls says that the mushroom cloud looks like cotton candy. It is worth noting that Obayashi grew up in Hiroshima and lost many of his childhood friends to the devastation of the atomic bomb. The divide between the older generation that fought and lived through World War II and the younger generation that was born after the war also looms large. Gorgeous and her friends are separated from her aunt not just because of their youth but because of their varied personalities and opportunities thanks to post war feminism. 

The generational divide played a big part in the movie’s success too. It was the movie that every kid wanted to see and no parent wanted their kid to see. It was a commercial success thanks to its younger audience but a major flop with critics. Even executives at Toho were unhappy with the success of House. One studio executive even told screenwriter Chiho Katsura, right to his face, that he was upset with House’s success because he wanted a hit but not with a movie like this. Katsura was understandably offended. Time passed and the kids that loved House grew up to be critics and filmmakers and moviegoers and its influence and place in international cinema is firmly secure.

House airs on TCM on Wednesday, Oct 26th at 1AM CT and is streaming on the Criterion Channel and HBOmax. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Eyes Without a Face

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. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 5: French Horror Night: 
“My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.”
Eyes Without a Face

There’s a good argument that the 1960 French film Eyes Without a Face is more of a thriller with horror elements than an all-out horror movie. However you classify it, Eyes Without a Face is a peculiar film with haunting imagery. Since its addition to the Criterion Collection and late-night airings on TCM, it has become almost like required viewing for fans of classic horror and international horror films. Eyes Without a Face could qualify as “arthouse horror,” or "elevated horror," but watching it isn’t like doing homework. Eyes Without a Face is its own brand of horror.

After a car accident disfigures Christiane (Edith Scob), her father, Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a renowned plastic surgeon, fakes her death and keeps her locked away at their country estate. He makes her wear an expressionless white mask and conducts experimental surgeries to restore her face. Dr. Genessier is acting entirely on his own wishes, not his daughter's; he mentions briefly that he is responsible for the accident that maimed her. Dr. Genessier’s loyal and murderous assistant, Louise (Alida Valli), preys on young women to lure to the chateau for the doctor to use in his experiments. Christiane wants none of this, but she is a prisoner in her own home.

There are elements of body horror in Eyes Without a Face though it is not as graphic or explicit as the modern era films of David Cronenberg or Guillermo Del Toro. However, there is a prolonged scene of surgery where a girl’s face is removed that is graphic and gross. It is not played for sensation but coldly and clinically without any background music and very few cuts. The horror of the scene comes from its context. There is nothing sadistic to the surgery, Dr. Genessier is just doing his work. The final moments of the film are filled with eerie and creepy imagery beautifully shot in stark black and white.

This is a good film to watch with someone that doesn’t like horror movies but wants to watch something spooky. It is totally unlike anything resembling a conventional horror movie. There are no pop-up scares. The villains are not especially devilish or sadistic. The climax where Christiane finally takes agency of her own fate is played low-key. There is a detached feeling between the film and its macabre subject matter. It also has the structure of a mystery/thriller though we the audience know every angle of the story. Christiane’s fiancé believes she is still alive and detectives are on the case of the missing girls, but these elements are in the far background.

Eyes Without a Face straddles the thriller and horror genres and also the classic and modern film eras. The unsensational, almost documentary-like approach to the story and characters lean towards the trends and style of the French New Wave being pioneered at the time by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The score, however, is firmly rooted in the older era of filmmaking and feels too jaunty at times for what is happening on screen. The Criterion Collection, dedicated to highlighting notable classic and modern films, has few horror films in its library. I'm glad this is one of them. 

Best Pictures #24: 1929-30 (3rd) Academy Awards Outstanding Production Nominee, The Love Parade (1929)

by A.J.

Best Pictures #24: 1929-30 (3^rd) Academy Awards Outstanding Production Nominee

The Love Parade(1929)

Director Ernst Lubitsch’s final silent film, The Patriot (a Best Picture nominee the previous year), is a lost film unfortunately, but, thankfully, his first talkie and musical has been preserved and is available on home video as part of the Eclipse series released by the Criterion Collection. It also airs occasionally on TCM. The Love Parade received the most nominations of any film at the 3^rd Academy Awards with a total of six, including nominations for Maurice Chevalier and Ernst Lubitsch, but it did not win in any category. This film is allegedly the first movie musical to incorporate songs and performances into the narrative, as opposed to a backstage musical, such as The Broadway Melody, in which the characters are singers and dancers.

Lubitsch, who had directed many silent films, takes to talking pictures quite well right out of the gate. There is nothing clunky or awkward with the composition and staging of shots or overall style that suggests someone working through a learning curve. Of course The Love Parade has several strong elements working together in addition to Lubitsch’s skill behind the camera. Based on the play The Prince Consort, the script is loaded with lively dialogue, a sharp sense of humor that does not shy away from innuendo, and likeable characters. Maurice Chevalier plays Count Alfred, who is recalled from Paris to his homeland of Slyvania after (several) scandals involving married women.

Lubitsh transitions from silent filmmaking to working with sound and dialogue smoothly. He does not over indulge in dialogue and music and still uses silent visuals to great effect. When a servant in the Queen’s palace asks why Alfred has a French accent, Alfred says that he went to see a doctor about a cold but was greeted by the doctor’s wife. The movie cuts to an exterior shot of the palace and through a window we see Alfred whisper the rest of the story to the servant. When the movie cuts back inside Alfred says that the cold was gone, but he had that terrible accent. I had never seen a movie starring Maurice Chevalier before and he is as charming and lively and French as I’d imagined.

Jeanette MacDonald, in her screen debut, plays Queen Louise who in addition to having the responsibilities of a governing queen is also under pressure from her ministers and advisors to marry. The trouble with finding her a suitor is that he would be only Price Consort and have no power or responsibility in governing. She meets Count Alfred to reprimand him for his scandals, but they both quickly charm each other and flirt through song.

Aside from a dolly shot or two, I must confess that I was so caught up with the characters and story that I hardly noticed the camerawork, or lack thereof. Lubitsch fills the screen with entertainment, so even static shots are hardly dull. The songs are pleasing and catchy. The palace sets and costumes are opulent and impressive. There are memorable scenes both with and without music. From his balcony at the beginning of the film, Chevalier sings his goodbye to Paris and the women on nearby balconies. His valet, Jacques, played by Lupino Lane, joins in and sings goodbye to Parisian maids. Then Chevalier’s dog sings, by barking, to the female dogs of Paris. We see none of Alfred and Louise’s first date. Instead we see the Queen’s advisors, her ladies in waiting, and Jacques and the Queen’s maid spying on the date and reporting to each other like a game of telephone. The Queen’s maid, Lulu, played by Lillian Roth, and Jacques have some good songs together too.

The Love Parade is almost overwhelmingly enjoyable, up to a point. There are two distinct halves to this movie. The first half is very funny, jaunty, and romantic. The second half, after Alfred and Louise are married, deals with their marital problems. There is still humor and entertainment value in this half of the film but at a diminished level. Queen Louise and Alfred seem to misunderstand and mistreat each other immediately after they are married and solely for the sake of dramatic conflict. Their main conflict is that Alfred does not have the traditional role of a man in their marriage or in the monarchy. Queen Louise runs the country and palace. Traditional gender roles in marriage and government being the central conflict of a musical from 1929 is interesting, however, as you might imagine, these issues are addressed but not challenged. The two tonally different halves of The Love Parade make for an uneven but overall enjoyable musical. There is still a lot to enjoyed in The Love Parade and it is a good step forward for the nascent musical genre.

Nominee: Paramount Famous Lasky

Producer: Ernst Lubitsch

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Screenplay: Ernest Vadja and Guy Bolton, from the play The Prince Consort by Leon Xanrof and Jules Chancel

Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lillian Roth

Release Date: November 19^th, 1929

Total Nominations: 6, including Outstanding Production

Win(s): N/A

Other Nominations: Actor-Maurice Chevalier, Director-Ernst Lubitsch, Cinematography-Victor Milner, Art Direction-Hans Dreier, Sound Recording-Franklin Hansen