13 Nights of Shocktober: The Haunted Palace

by A.J.

Night 9: Roger Corman Memorial Night/Vincent Price Night

“This isn’t a house. It’s a madman’s palace.”

The Haunted Palace

It’s not Shocktober without Vincent Price and here Price and legendary producer-director Roger Corman, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 98, take on the unfilmable eldritch horrors of H.P Lovecraft in The Haunted Palace. If you’re thinking that The Haunted Palace is an Edgar Allen Poe poem and not a Lovecraft story, you are correct. By 1963 Corman and Price had made several Poe adaptations, with varying degrees of success, including House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, three Poe stories in the anthology Tales of Terror, The Raven and Corman wanted to tackle new material. Corman’s investors were hesitant for him to stop making Poe adaptations, so the compromise was that he would adapt another American horror author, H.P. Lovecraft, but the title would be taken from an Edgar Allen Poe poem, which Price recites excerpts of to justify the title. So, the title was taken from Poe’s The Haunted Palace and the plot was taken from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The result is a Roger Corman/Vincent Price movie that checks all the right boxes, yet in some ways is darker than their previous collaborations.

The story opens in colonial New England with villagers capturing and burning Joseph Curwen, a warlock attempting to summon dark, evil forces. Before Curwen is burned, he puts a curse on the village of Arkham (a frequent setting for Lovecraft). 110 years later, presumably some non-specific decade of the 19th century, Charles Dexter Ward, a descendant of Curwen, and his wife Ann arrive in Arkham after Charles inherits the old Curwen castle. They do not receive a warm welcome from the villagers and are told either to avoid the castle or leave Arkham altogether. Of course, the castle comes with a creepy caretaker (Lon Chaney, Jr), as spooky castles often do. Charles becomes possessed by the spirit of his evil ancestor and once in control of Charles’s body, Curwen returns to his work of using the Necronomicon to summon the dark Elder Gods.

Unlike in The Pit and the Pendulum there is no young hero to duel with Price. Instead, Price gets to duel with himself as Charles and Curwen fight for control of his body. Price goes from sinister to sympathetic easily and believably. When he’s Curwen his skin takes on a greenish-yellow hue that no one seems to notice, but even without the makeup it would be easy to tell when he is Charles and when he is Curwen. It is great to see Price play both the villain and the hero in the same role. Curwen is a dark and evil character with a horrendous plan—Price’s darkest role would  come a few years later as the real-life “witch hunter” Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General.

The setting may be Arkham and the source material may be Lovecraft but The Haunted Palace has all the hallmarks of a Corman-Poe adaptation: period setting, vibrant period costumes, low cut gowns for the women, foggy exteriors, lightening, characters with torches, and a spacious gothic location with secret chambers and passageways. The main difference with this movie is that it is more sinister than you might expect. The curse Curwen puts on the village manifests itself as deformities (like being born with no eyes) in the village children. Also, Curwen’s plan to summon the Elder Gods involves mating humans with the monstrous, otherworldly beings.

My friend and podcast co-host Bryan Connolly and I had an in-depth review and discussion of The Haunted Palace as part of our series on Francis Ford Coppola (episode 20, Coppola Cast #2), who at the time in 1963 was Roger Corman’s “ace assistant." Like all the better Corman-Price movies, this is a spooky but not scary movie that still has great entertainment value. Nearly everything looks fake and artificial but that is part of the charm and atmosphere of the movie. Corman is presenting a tale of the fantastic so any noticeable artifice, even stiff acting or over acting, only enhances its storybook/campfire tone. 

The Haunted Palace is streaming for free on Tubi.

13 Nights of Shocktober: In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

by. A.J.

Night 12: John Carpenter Night

“Do you read Sutter Cane?”

In The Mouth of Madness (1995)

With credits like Halloween, The Thing, Christine, and They Live, director John Carpenter is unquestionably one of the true masters of horror. John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness is not as famous or widely seen as those movies though it is equally well-crafted and very scary. It opened in February of 1995 to mostly negative reviews and indifferent audiences, but over time has gained somewhat of a cult status and a special edition Blu-ray release in 2018 from Shout Factory (through their special horror label, Scream Factory). Currently it is streaming on the Criterion Channel, Tubi, and The Roku Channel.

The film begins with the main character, John Trent (Sam Neil), being dragged into an insane asylum screaming that he is not insane. He’s interviewed by a psychiatrist played by David Warner and we flashback to see how Trent ended up in a padded cell. They make reference to how bad things are “out there” and it is clear that Trent’s story will also explain the beginnings of that as well. In the Mouth of Madness is part of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse trilogy, along with The Thing and Prince of Darkness, each of which is about how the end of the world, at least as we know it, begins. Here the cause of all the trouble is the latest book by the mysterious horror author Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow).

Trent is an insurance investigator hired to locate Cane, the most famous and best selling author in the world, who has vanished along with the manuscript for his new book, titled In the Mouth of Madness. Cane and his work are so popular and create such hysteria that riots break out when bookstores sell out of copies of his current novel. Trent believes that the disappearance is a hoax and is smugly proud that he’s never heard of Sutter Cane. Cane’s editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen) goes with Trent on his search. They end up transported to a town that shouldn’t exist, Hobb’s End, the fictional town in Cane’s novels that looks like a perfect small town but has many strange things and horrors that emerge from every corner. The town residents, starting with the children, are mutating: some have deformed faces, some have tentacles. Trent and Styles find Cane in a red chamber in a Byzantine style church finishing his novel. He reveals that he has merely been channeling his work from ancient otherworldly creatures that once lived on earth and seek to remake the world and return. 

Jurgen Prochnow is very well cast as the mad author Sutter Cane. He is so low-key in his surprisingly few scenes that it only makes his character more frightening. In a very memorable scene he stands in front of a pulsating door covered in slime and then…rips a hole in reality… is probably the best way to describe it. Cane is a villain but there is no ultimate bad guy. The horror of In the Mouth of Madness is in its characters questioning their reality, learning knowledge or ideas that will drive them mad, and the horror that an idea can alter reality and bring about mass destruction. 

Sam Neil gives a superb performance as a man who begins as a smug skeptic and then is driven to madness. The image of him sitting alone in a movie theater with black crosses drawn all over his face and eating popcorn as he finally succumbs to the spreading madness is a haunting and unforgettable scene (there’s little surprise that it has turned into an internet meme). Neil also has one of the great screams and maniacal laughs in movies. No matter what state his character is in, you believe it. Julie Carmen as Styles also begins as a conservative character, then her hair comes down and she too succumbs to madness. She is not just a tag along character either. She witnesses the strange sights first as their car flies through the air to reach the otherworldly, horrific town of Hobb’s End. Once she witnesses the horrors Sutter Cane shows her, she becomes an important part of getting the insidious manuscript to our world. 

Sutter Cane is obviously modeled after Stephen King. Both have similar sounding names, set their horror stories in New England towns (King uses his native Maine, Cane uses neighboring New Hampshire), and both are extremely popular. However, Sutter Cane is more of a stand in for the extremely influential, and problematic, early 20th century weird and horror fiction author H.P. Lovecraft. Also a New England native, Lovecraft set most of his stories in or around the fictional town, Arkham, Massachusetts. His stories often dealt with ancient monsters that predated humanity and sought to reclaim the earth. He rarely described the monsters in detail but used many adjectives to describe the terrified reactions of the characters. A very Lovecraftian scene happens when Neil peers down into an abyss and sees the creatures approaching the portal to reality. Carpenter keeps the camera on Neil whose expression communicates the approaching horror. The next scene is not only nightmare fuel but the epitome of a nightmare: being chased by a mass of monsters down an endless hallway. We see only quick flashes of the monsters, close ups of mouths and teeth and tentacles and claws. Their anatomy seems to make no sense and that is part of the horror. Carpenter also makes good use of well timed jump scares and more subtle moments of suspense. In an early scene Trent and his boss, played by the late, great Bernie Casey, are having a casual conversation in a diner while a deranged looking man crosses the street towards them carrying an ax. 

This is one of my absolute favorite, top 13 horror movies. The screenplay by Michael De Luca and Carpenter’s direction effectively use many different kinds of horror. This is a horror movie with monsters, gross effects, and jump scares, but also a horror movie with suspense, surreal imagery, unsettling ideas, and disturbing themes. Compared to Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe, there are only a handful of adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories or novellas, which due to Lovecraft’s literary style are inherently difficult to visualize (The filmmaker who has probably had the most success with adapting Lovecraft to the screen is Stuart Gordon, director of Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Dagon). Even though In the Mouth of Madness is not a direct adaptation of any specific Lovecraft story, it may well be the best cinematic representation of the horrors of H.P. Lovecraft.

13 Nights of Shocktober: From Beyond (1986)

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 11: Lovecraft/Stuart Gordon Night

“I saw you die” 

–“No. Not die. Just pass beyond”

From Beyond (1986)

One of the few filmmakers daring enough to adapt the unfilmable eldridge horrors of H.P. Lovecraft to film was Stuart Gordon. His most famous film is also perhaps the most famous Lovecraft adaptation, the 1985 cult classic Re-Animator. The following year he adapted another Lovecraft story for the big screen: the grotesque but entertaining From Beyond. Aside from Roger Corman and Edgar Allen Poe or Kenneth Branagh and Shakespeare, I can’t think of many other filmmakers so closely linked to a particular author. Gordon’s film naturally updates and expands the original Lovecraft short story but it feels true to the essence of Lovecraft's weird fiction. 

The stars of Re-Animator, Barbara Crampton and Jeffery Combs also have the starring roles in From Beyond. Crawford Tillinghast (Combs), a scientist charged with murder, agrees to recreate the experiment that really killed his mentor Dr. Pretorious (Ted Sorrel) in order to prove his innocence. Crawford’s psychologist, Dr. McMichaels (Crampton) and a detective, Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree), return to the house where the original experiment was conducted; unsightly horrors from other dimensions await. The experiment involved a machine called The Resonator that enhances the senses so that a person can see and even interact with creatures that exist all around us but in another plane of existence. Crawford repairs The Resonator and instead of things going horribly wrong, they go horribly right. The Resonator also has an addictive quality, so Crawford and McMichaels keep revisiting the machine. They also learn that Pretorius still exists as an evil being in the other dimension and has become an inhuman monster. 

The flying eel-like creatures are very much like something from a Lovecraft story but they are on the tamer end of the horror special effects. All of the special effects are gross and scary in just the right way and still pack tremendous shock value. The mutating Pretorius-monster is grotesque and slimy and, unlike other movie monsters, doesn’t become less scary the more it is shown. When one character’s “third eye” becomes so enhanced that it pops out of their skull and moves like the false worm of an angler fish, it is truly disgusting, and perfect for the movie. There’s enough story and suspense to keep From Beyond from being just a geek show, but this film is not for the faint of heart.  

The characters are not terribly complex but they are not flimsy either. By far the movie’s biggest asset is Ken Foree who plays Bubba not like a character in a horror movie but as a normal person. He is terrified and perplexed by what he sees and experiences, can’t understand Crawford and McMichaals’s obsession with the other dimension, and doesn’t see the point in staying there longer. Combs is over-the-top , as he usually is, but this is what makes him believable as a mad scientist. Crampton gives a good performance but the film doesn't find anything too interesting for her to do aside from becoming possessed and suddenly and randomly being dressed in S&M bondage gear.

From Beyond does a great job of showing us how one of Lovecraft’s narrators would have ended up insane. There is definitely a sense of camp value but the film still takes the material seriously enough to be scary and horrifying. If anything the camp undertones of the first half of the film help you accept the plot and outrageous visuals. It meets you halfway instead of talking down to you like so many recent horror films.

From Beyond is streaming for free on Tubi, PlutoTV, and Hoopla.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Dagon

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 10: Stuart Gordon Memorial Night

“Now you serve Dagon.”
Dagon

Earlier this year notable horror filmmaker Stuart Gordon passed away at the age of 72. He was one of the only filmmakers daring enough to tackle adapting the unspeakable eldritch horrors of author H.P. Lovecraft, with varying degrees of success. Without a doubt his most famous film is the cult classic Re-Animator, adapted from the Lovecraft story Herbert West, Re-Animator. This film mixes shock visuals, gross effects, lurid nudity, and dark, offbeat humor. Scenes involving a decapitated head that won’t shut up and the glowing green syringe of reagent, used to bring the newly dead back to life, are well known to horror fanatics. I have to admit that though I’ve seen Re-Animator a few times, it never struck a chord with me the way it has for countless horror movie fans. 

His 2001 film, Dagon, however, I found very entertaining. I can’t say it is a good movie exactly, but it is definitely an awesome movie. With its exploitative sensibilities, gory violence, monsters, and lurid nudity, it feels like the Tales From the Crypt movie that wasn’t but should have been. If you’re a fan of Tales From the Crypt, Roger Corman movies, or Stuart Gordon’s own Re-Animator, you’ll have a good time with this Dagon.

Dagon is actually based on two Lovecraft stories: Dagon, a very short story about someone encountering a strange creature on a small strange island and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, from which the film takes its plot. Dagon moves the setting from a small, isolated New England seaside village (Innsmouth) to a small, isolated Spanish seaside village (Imboca); it’s worth noting that numerous Spanish production company logos appear in the opening credits. After a storm causes a yacht to strike rocks and begin to sink, a young American man, Paul (Ezra Godden), and his Spanish girlfriend, Barbara (Raquel Meroño), seek help at a nearby village. Right away nothing seems right. The village is eerily deserted and the people they do find have deformities like webbed, claw-like hands.

Paul and Barbara are separated and as he searches for her he has a strange vision of a mermaid, is chased by a mob of grunting villagers in raincoats, and stumbles into a shed straight out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but somehow more gruesome. He meets an old drunk, Ezrquiel (Francisco Rabal) who tells him the dark history of the village. We see in a flashback to when Ezequiel was a boy that the village gave up Christianity in favor of worshipping the sea god Dagon, in exchange for gold and fish. When the gold stopped coming, they began offering human sacrifices to Dagon and now the villagers are changing “into the sea.”

All B-movie qualities aside, of which Dagon has many, Francisco Rabal’s performance as the old drunk is genuinely great. He died shortly after making Dagon and the film is dedicated to him. Paul also finds the beautiful mermaid of his dreams, Uxia (Macarena Gomez), though her bottom half is more squid than fish. At first Uxia seems vulnerable and helpless and Gomez does a good job playing these traits. Then she’s revealed to be a crazed mastermind and Gomez does a great job at this, going completely over the top, which just makes the movie fun. Raquel Merono gives a solid performance as Barbara but she unfortunately doesn’t have many scenes. The weak link in the cast is Ezra Godden; his performance does not break the movie but it’s carried by everything else working in Dagon’s favor. I suppose in its own way his performance fits the B-movie sensibility.

The budget is low and the visual effects look cheap but are still gross and effective. The CGI effects however look very fake. The mob of villagers is obviously people in masks and fake monster hands; it’s a good thing it was raining so they could wear big raincoats that cover everything else. There are some horrific and upsetting visuals, most notable a man getting his face flayed off in full light. It is incredibly gross but also impressive from a technical point of view. There’s also some implied offscreen horror that is very disturbing. Still, Dagon, even in its goriest, darkest moments never feels dreadful or sadistic towards the audience. Unlike the Saw or Hostel films, Dagon isn’t out to make you feel awful; it wants to leave you entertained. Dagon is a B-horror movie at its best.  

Horror Movie Month: The Supernatural

The movies that always scared me the most as a kid, and even now, were not about killers with knives and agendas, but the ones about things you cannot see, things that were not of this world—the supernatural. As a kid the things everyone told you weren’t real always felt like they could be real. Was there really a way to prove there wasn’t anything under the bed, or outside the window? How did you know for sure that the time you went into the house all the other kids said was haunted wouldn’t be the one time something out of this world really happened? There’s nothing there in the dark that isn’t there in the light, but how do you know? It’s too dark to see that.

In my search for good horror movies John Carpenter has come up more than a few times. He directed the original Halloween, which is, for my money, the best of the slasher sub-genre. But he has also made some very effective and spooky supernatural horror movies. In the Mouth of Madness is a movie I wanted to see but was too afraid of when it was released in 1994 and I was 9 years old. When I finally saw the movie, it gave me the creeps, but it a good way. In the Mouth of Madness is based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft though no specific work is credited. The story is about an insurance investigator John Trent, played by Sam Neill, who is hired to investigate the disappearance of the ultra popular horror novelist Sutter Cane. Sutter Cane is a combination of Steven King, Clive Barker, and, of course, H.P. Lovecraft. His macabre works seem to be driving people insane and the further Trent investigates he finds that things from Cane’s books appear to be real, and he appears to be a character in Cane’s latest book. The movie has a dated soundtrack and some obvious spooky music cues, but the visual effects, all practical as far as I can tell, are still realistic and effective. The movie plays on the line between reality and fiction, sanity and madness.

11 years after making a movie about a book that makes people insane, John Carpenter took on the next logical step, a movie about a movie that makes people insane, or rather a short film. John Carpenter's contribution to the short lived Showtime series Masters of Horror in 2005 is called Cigarette Burns. It's only an hour long, but it's a very spooky, creepy 60 minutes. In the movie, a young theater owner, who also finds prints of rare films, is hired by a wealthy, and creepy, film buff and collector to find a print of the rarest film in the world, "Le Fin Absolue du Monde." The rare few times that the film was shown all those who saw it when insane. It might be hard to find at the local video store, but if you are able to find a copy I highly recommend it for a great spooky night.

Of course there are a number of other sub-genres that fall into the category of the Supernatural, but I wanted to highlight these two particular films because I feel that they're largely unseen but very effective, well-made scary movies. Ghosts and demons are two other supernatural creatures featured in many movies. The best haunted house/ghost movie, in my opinion, is, of course, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. People will say, and I agree, that The Shinning isn't so scary as it is creepy, but that's all this movie needs to be. Rather than going for easy scares Kubrick sets a tone of dread and fear best exemplified in the scene that follows. Steven Spielberg said that in this scene if Kubrick had not used the point-of-view shot and instead had Jack Nicholson just appear over Shelly Duvall's shoulder, he'd have had people jumping out of their seats. But Kubrick used the point-of-view shot to created that feeling of impending danger. It's not meant to create mystery, we know that Danny is in their room, so it must be Jack. This shot means that her husband, whom she is trapped with in this hotel, is now a predator.