13 Nights of Shocktober: The Last Broadcast

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: "Why don't you do a show on the Jersey Devil?" The Last Broadcast

The Last Broadcast is an interesting time capsule from the late 90’s. It presents itself as a documentary attempting to uncover the truth behind the events of an episode of a New Jersery cable access TV show called Fact or Fiction that led to the death of everyone involved except for one person. The two hosts of the show and a man claiming to be a psychic set out into the Pine Barrens of New Jersey to try and film the Jersey Devil, a mysterious hooved wild creature of urban legend, at the suggestion of one of their viewers. Only the psychic comes out of the Pine Barrens alive and he is arrested and convicted for the murder of the other men; but this documentary is meant to prove that something else happened that night.

The key to this mystery is the tangle of videotape the Fact or Fiction crew shot the night they were murdered. We get to see most of the footage from the crew’s final night. They are led through the woods by the psychic and when they become lost tempers flare. While the narrator of the documentary interviews people involved with the case, the damaged tape is being rendered into viewable images. The narrator’s monotone voice gives the whole movie a feeling of unease. As the distorted images from the damaged videotape become clearer, tree branches, a hint of eyes, a face, a shape of some kind, they also become creepier.

The Last Broadcast was made in 1998 but is about events that took place in 1995 when the internet was new and unfamiliar. In an attempt to gain more viewers the hosts of Fact or Fiction began broadcasting on the internet and using a new program called Internet Relay Chat, what we would call voice chat today, to interact with their viewers. It is through the Internet Relay Chat that one viewer suggests they do a show on the Jersey Devil and because this was a time when the internet could provide anonymity, there is also a mystery about the viewer that made the suggestion.

The Last Broadcast is reportedly the first feature length film to be shot on digital equipment. It was distributed digitally to movie theaters. It also predates The Blair Witch Project which was also a low budget horror film about filmmakers lost in the woods that also presented itself as a documentary. These films paved the way for the subgenre of horror movies that would become known as “found footage” movies in the 2000’s. This may not be the strongest mystery movie but the details about the production and its contributions to the horror genre and independent filmmaking along with its portrait of the mid to late 1990’s make it worth watching.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Tomie

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: What's in the bag? Tomie

I'm not the only person recommending horror movies this Shocktober. Every weekday local film buff John Ary is hosting Ain't It Scary Reviews, a special Shocktober edition of the Vulcan Vault review series in which Vulcan Video employees (such as myself), filmmakers, local film personalities, and other special guests recommend lesser seen films for Ain't It Cool News. Today John interviews me about one of my favorite horror movies:

Check in with Ain't It Cool News each weekday for more great Ain't It Scary recommendations. For past segments search for "Ain't It Scary" or "Vulcan Vault."

 

 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Kuroneko (Black Cat)

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: "Why have you taken the forms of my mother and wife?" Kuroneko (Black Cat)

I first saw Kuroneko, or Black Cat, very late at night on TCM a few years ago and for the first time in a long time I knew I would have trouble falling asleep. But late at night in a dark room is the perfect setting to watch Kuroneko. This Japanese ghost story from 1968 is shot in stark black and white, making it as beautiful as it is eerie. The film begins with a band of samurai descending upon a house occupied by two women: a mother, Yone, and her daughter-in-law, Shige. The samurai attack and rape the women, burn the house, and leave them to die. A black cat finds their bodies.

The women return to haunt a bamboo grove and kill and drink the blood of samurai. In what form they return is unclear: ghosts? demons? cats? Yone’s son, Gintoki, was abducted by samurai and drafted into their ranks. He is now a war hero tasked by a samurai chief who is more bureaucrat than warrior to find and destroy the demon ghosts that have been killing samurai. When Gintoki finds them he wonders why they look so much like his mother and wife, and, if they are his mother and wife, why would they want to kill samurai?

Kuroneko is effective, low key horror at its best. Otherworldly moments are downplayed giving the film a tone of eerie wonder. When one of the women’s long black hair moves like an animal’s tail, or when one reaches for a kettle, but we see a hairy claw pour the sake, the music cues do not shriek; they are subtle or non-existent. The cinematography and set design create an atmosphere and environment that is beautifully haunting and ethereal. Shots are backlit giving white robes, curtains, and the pale skin of the characters a ghostly glow. Everything in the scenes in the haunted bamboo forest and the house where the mother and daughter-in-law now live is made of glowing whites or pitch black darkness. There is no in-between, so the ghosts literally appear and disappear into darkness. I watched Kuroneko again in daylight was still haunted and entranced by what I saw.

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

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: Does that sound like a bird...? The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Dario Argento had a career as a film critic before he began writing screenplays, and eventually directing movies. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is his first film as director and it is an amazing debut. He started his film career working within the traditional boundaries of the giallo, an Italian crime and murder-mystery genre pioneered by filmmaker Mario Bava. While it is clear that Argento is working within this established genre, it is also clear that he is imitating, in the best way possible, Alfred Hitchcock. The plot of the movie is about an American writer, Sam, in Rome who witnesses a woman being attacked. At first he is a suspect but as other attacks and murders occur he becomes wrapped up in the investigation and then becomes a target What Sam cannot seem to remember about the night of the attack is the key to solving the mystery. This may be Aregento’s first film but the stylized production design and composition that would become one of Argento’s trademarks is in full bloom and provides some memorable imagines, mostly notable the attack scene Sam witnesses in an art gallery.

But perhaps the most memorable scene a POV shot of someone falling out of a window. You see the approaching pavement straight on. This shot was achieved by, you guessed, throwing the camera out of a window with ropes attached to keep the camera from actually hitting the ground. It didn’t work.

There is nothing of the supernatural in this movie, but over the course of his next three movies Argento would make his mark on the giallo genre by gradually adding elements of the supernatural and stylized violence, before making a full-blown supernatural thriller: Suspiria. Argento can thrill by creating suspense and mystery just as well as he can with blood and the supernatural. If you’re in the mood to see a well-paced, well-crafted thriller without gore and terror, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is an excellent choice.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Jacob's Ladder

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 3: But which way? Jacob’s Ladder

When people ask “what’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?” there are a handful of movies that swirl around in my mind, but I invariably choose Jacob’s Ladder. Tim Robbins plays Jacob, a Vietnam vet who is mourning the loss of his son and experiences flashbacks that become increasingly surreal and frightening. He sees monstrous creatures and he becomes less and less able to tell what is real and what is not. One of the spookiest scenes in the movie takes place at a nightclub where Jacob sees a lizard tail wrapping around his girlfriend’s leg on the dance floor; the strobe lights only adding to the confusion. It is probably the best “freak out at a nightclub scene” in any movie. In another scene Jacob goes to a doctor for his back and ends up being strapped to a stretcher and wheeled down a dirty hallway with body parts strewn on the floor. This movie works best because it combines the anxiety and unease of a psychological thriller with the shock of visual scares. I don’t feel that the ending is a letdown or anticlimactic, though I can understand how some people would feel that way, but the journey to that ending is a chilling one.

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Howling

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  2: Werewolves? You mean like in the movies?: The Howling

 

There had not been a werewolf movie, at least not a successful one, for years and years before 1981 when both John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London and Joe Dante’s The Howling were released. The trailers for The Howling even played down the fact that it was a werewolf movie; it only hints of something supernatural and beastly. The movie itself seems to be self-conscious about being a werewolf movie, too.

Most of the movie focuses on Karen, played by Dee Wallace, dealing with the post-traumatic stress of being stalked and attacked by a serial killer. Her doctor recommends that she go to a secluded mountain resort to recuperate. It’s obvious that something sinister is behind this resort and a team of reporters are on the case. This movie waits as long as it can before showing us a werewolf, but once it does it’s a werewolf extravaganza. The excellent look of the werewolves is thanks to special makeup effects master Rob Bottin who also worked on Total Recall, Robocop, and created the shape-shifting visual horrors of John Carpenter’s The Thing. The Howling spawned numerous sequels and, like with any franchise, each sequel seems to undercut the quality of the original and make people shy away from the whole series. I can’t speak for the sequels, but the original is a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable horror movie.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Night of the Living Dead

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 1: "They're coming to get you, Barbara." Night of the Living Dead

 

It’s very interesting that zombies have joined vampires, ghosts, demons, and werewolves in the pantheon of supernatural scares since the zombie as we know it—the cannibalistic living corpse that can only be killed by damage to the head and brain and whose bite will turn you into one—has only been in existence since 1968. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead makes no mention of zombies, the creatures in the movie are referred to as “ghouls.” A review called them zombies and the new definition stuck. Before Romero’s film, any movie zombie was more of a Haitian zombie, someone tricked into believing that they are dead and forced to serve a master. It’s also interesting to note, for entirely different reasons, that according the History Channel documentary Zombies: A Living History, more than half of all zombie movies have been produced after September 11, 2001. But that’s a topic for another day. 

 

Night of the Living Dead, like another important horror movie from 1968, Rosemary’s Baby, takes place in a familiar setting (rural Pennsylvania) and in the present day. Most earlier horror movies were period pieces set in castles. George Romero did not intend for Night of the Living Dead to be a political film; however, with an African American actor as the lead, playing a dignified man of action, social commentary and political subtext were unavoidable. What the zombies are a metaphor for and what the social commentary has to say are the source of discussion that can be as interesting as it is endless.

 

This low budget horror movie made 45 years ago is still a creepy and chilling experience. Its simple story of a group of people, holed up in a house, just trying to survive makes the horror universal and the political subtext manages to change with the times, keeping the movie relevant.