13 Nights of Shocktober: Headhunters (2012)

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: Non-Supernatural Thriller Night

“My name is Roger Brown. I’m 5’6” tall. And you know what? That’s more than enough."

Headhunters (2012)

I’ve only seen a handful of foreign thrillers and Headhunters, from Norway, released in the states in 2012, is among the best and most exciting and thrilling. It hits every note it should, and several you don’t see coming. The director, MortenTyldum, would follow up this film with the Oscar nominated biopic The Imitation Game. While that film goes out of its way to be a conventional biopic, Headhunters does not use genre conventions as crutch or let them hinder its story or characters.

Headhunters stars Aksel Hennie as Roger Brown, our protagonist and narrator. He is 5’6” tall and insecure, so he overcompensates. He lives in house he cannot afford and does not like, but he thinks his statuesque wife, Diana, likes it so he goes along. He is aware that she is out of his league so he goes out of his way to provide her with a luxurious lifestyle that, though he is a successful corporate headhunter, is beyond his means. To cover these expenses, Roger moonlights as an art thief. He uses his day job to find new targets for his side job. One such potential client for Roger’s headhunting job, and his art thief job, is Clas Greve, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (now of Game of Thrones fame). Clas has inherited a painting believed to have been stolen by Nazis during WWII. To Roger it sounds like the payday of his dreams; one so potentially lucrative he may never have to steal art again. It sounds too good to be true, and it is. After Roger steals the painting he finds himself in over his head in a dreadful mess.

At this point Headhunters becomes an intense cat and mouse chase. No matter where Roger runs or hides, even if he changes vehicles and clothes, Clas is always in pursuit; Clas becomes like the Terminator. Coster-Waldau plays Clas as an intelligent, crafty, and believable villain. He is relentless, cold, and charismatic.  The chase takes on an almost absurd nature, but Roger is aware of the absurdity all the while, so we as the audience believe what we are seeing. There are no elaborate, unnecessary stunts just for the sake spectacle. When Headhunters does indulge in a thriller convention like a car chase, it puts Roger in an old, slow moving tractor. The brilliance of this chase is that it is creative but believable (Roger was hiding out in a barn). Everything in this film feels plausible. This film takes place firmly in the real world, making it effectively engaging and suspenseful.

The film does its best to begin Roger as an unlikable protagonist, but then, thanks to a smart script and Hennie’s performance, does a great job turning our sympathy towards him. Contrary to what studio executives and screenwriting professors espouse, characters don’t have to be likable, they just have to be interesting. At his worst, Roger is a very interesting, complex character; he is also an intelligent one making him a match for Clas and making the film very entertaining. Even characters we don’t spend much time with feel like fully realized people.

Headhunters combines the suspense of corporate espionage films like Michael Clayton or The Firm with the violent intensity of The Terminator. With its combination of a shadowy conspiracy and crime elements, Headhunters also has the feel of a Film Noir. This movie is well paced, grabbing you and never letting go until it’s over. There is a great, effective score adding to the tension and mystery of the film. It gets quite intense and bloody, but is also darkly funny. While this isn’t technically a horror movie, it is still loaded with shocks, thrills, and even scares. Most of all, it is a thoroughly satisfying film that you can watch this Shocktober, especially if you don't like horror movies.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Village of the Damned (1960)

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: Sci-Fi Horror Night
Beware the Stare That Threatens All Mankind

Village of the Damned (1960)

Village of the Damned is a classic and still spooky British horror film famous for those creepy emotionless bleach blonde children with glowing eyes. This must rank among the most referenced images from classic horror films. If you’ve never seen the film you’ve likely seen a parody or are familiar with the image of the children with glowing eyes. These children are, of course, not exactly human.

Village of the Damned is very eerie and creepy right from the start. The film begins with a mysterious event occurring in a pastoral British village. Abruptly and inexplicably everyone in town loses consciousness at exactly the same moment. Shots of the villagers passed out and collapsed wherever they happened to be are quite unnerving. The military investigates and as far as militaries in science fiction/horror movies go, they are quite competent and rational. Just as the solders are starting to understand the event, it ends just as suddenly and inexplicably as it began.

Soon after the event, Anthea (Barbara Shelley) surprises her husband, Professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders), with the news that she is pregnant. Their joy turns to concern and suspicion, however, when they find out that every woman in the village capable of bearing a child has also become pregnant. All of the babies are born on the same day, have the same weight, and the same odd eyes. The children develop unnaturally fast and after three years have grown to look about 10 years old. All of the children have pale blonde hair and a detached and emotionless countenance. All of the people in the village, the parents of the children included, are nervous and frightened of them. They seem to have a collective consciousness, and, most troubling of all, they can read people minds and control other people’s actions.

This film is shot in black and white which only enhances its otherworldly and surreal atmosphere. Village of the Damned does not go for big scares, but the creepy children with their unnatural calm go a long way to making this a memorable and chilling film. Adding to the odd atmosphere of the film is the reserved nature of the British locals. No one breaks into hysterics at any point in the movie no matter what shocking and supernatural things happen. The Zellabys’ son, David, is the leader of the otherworldly children. Sanders and Shelley are more apprehensive than frightened of him. The incredible George Sanders turns in a good performance and helps anchor the serious and tense tone of the film. If there is one person that can keep his cool around possible alien children with mind control powers, it’s George Sanders.

Village of the Damned is a low budget film that shows little and finds horror through tension and one solid effect. The movie builds to the second half of the film featuring the children. The low key nature of this movie plants the premise in the realm of plausibility and sets the audience at unease. This still spooky classic is well worth watching this Shocktober.

Village of the Damned will air on TCM Saturday, October 29th at 2:15PM CT

13 Nights of Shocktober: Cat's Eye (1985)

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: Anthology Horror Night
A Trio of Terror

Cat’s Eye (1985)

Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye is a not-so-scary but interesting horror anthology written by King himself. The first two segments are based on short stories from the collection Night Shift and the third King wrote specifically for the movie. A nameless stray cat loosely connects the three stories; in its wanderings it encounters main characters of the first two stories but plays a much larger role in the final story.

In the first story, based on Quitters, Inc., James Woods plays a man who gets himself in way over his head when he signs up with a mysterious treatment center called Quitters, Inc. to quit smoking. The man who runs the clinic lays out cigarettes on his desk and beats and smashes them screaming at Woods that he hates cigarettes. Then he shows Woods a small room with a steel floor that becomes electrified and they watch as the cat jumps like crazy while Twist and Shout plays. The company man explains to Woods that if he smokes one cigarette his wife will be put in the room. A second cigarette and his daughter gets put in the room. After the third cigarette something far more hideous will happen to his wife. Quitter’s, Inc. employees will be monitoring Woods at all times no matter where he is. Woods thinks the Quitter’s Inc. boss was just exaggerating until he finds traces of someone having been in his house in the middle of the night. Everyone looks suspicious to Woods after that, but his urge to smoke is ever present…

The second story, based on The Ledge, finds Robert Hays as a down on his luck tennis player who is forced at gunpoint to walk along the ledge of a high rise penthouse. The man forcing Hays to walk the ledge is the rich and sadistic husband of the woman Hays was planning to run away with. This is the most basic and least complex of the three segments, though none of the vignettes are very complex stories. The Ledge plays on the fear of heights, and the much more instinctive fear of falling and dying. The rich husband taunts Hays from the windows, throws things at him, and at one point turns a firehose on him. The cat is picked up by the husband after it inadvertently wins a bet for him by not getting run over as it crosses a busy street, but when it gets the chance the cat flees the posh high rise building and ends up on a train to North Carolina where the third story takes place.

In the third segment the stray cat is found and adopted by young Drew Barrymore and given a name, General. Her mother wants the cat gone, and her father tells her myths about cats stealing baby’s breath while they sleep. Some creature is trying to steel her breath, but it is not the cat, it is the demonic gremlin that lives in a hole in a wall of her bedroom.

Thought Cat’s Eye is a horror movie and written by Stephen King, the content and tone of each story is along the lines of classic Twilight Zone episodes. The first two stories are thrillers that have no supernatural elements. They scare through suspense. The third story, about the cat and the gremlin, isn’t scary but is entertaining. I think it is the kind of not-too-scary horror story that older kids can watch; it is about a pet saving its child owner from a monster her parents don’t believe is real, after all. The gremlin has scary eyes and sharp teeth but wears a jester’s hat with bells and makes comical noises.

The blue screen effects do not hold up very well. Quitters, Inc. which relies the least on effects fairs best in that respect. The effects in The Ledge don’t hold up, if they ever did, but if you have a fear of heights the nature of the story will still provide some suspense. All of the attempts of the old man to throw Robert Hays off balance get a bit goofy after a while. Cat's Eye attempts to build the cat’s character and backstory; at the beginning of the movie it sees little Drew Barrymore’s face appear in a store window asking for help. The cat is not very expressive however, but I’m willing to accept that it knows it has a mission. Cat’s Eye is a good horror anthology to take a break from blood and serious scares with some entertaining suspense. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Brood (1979)

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: Cronenberg Night

“These thing have a way of expressing themselves.”

The Brood (1979)

The Brood is a strong contender for being David Cronenberg’s most polarizing film—Crash (1996) would be the reigning champion. Roger Ebert called The Brood “a particularly nasty little number” and “an el sleazo exploitation film.” He ended his review wondering, “Are there really people who want to see reprehensible trash like this?” In its theatrical run, The Brood failed to be a hit at the box office, but it developed a cult following over time after it was released on home video. Carrie Rickey, in her essay “The Brood: Separation Trials,” included with the film’s Criterion video release, called The Brood, “an emotionally realistic horror movie.” She also writes about how differently she perceived the film before and after having children. Cronenberg himself said that “The Brood is my version of Kramer vs. Kramer, but more realistic.” This statement seems like a wry blurb for his own film, which it is, but it is also true to some extent. The Brood shows through horror movie violence how the nastiness of a bad divorce can radiate out and effect more than just the spouses. He wrote The Brood while going through a very difficult divorce and custody battle. His soon to be ex-wife allegedly absconded with their daughter to a cult in California. It’s safe to assume that Cronenberg did not relate to the divorce in Kramer vs Kramer.

When The Brood begins Frank and his wife Nola are already estranged and out of regular contact. Nola is staying at an institute and undergoing an extreme version of a radical new therapy called psychoplasmics. It involves the therapist role playing as a patient’s abusive parent and belittling and berating them to bring out and confront their own rage. The creator of the bizarre therapy, Dr. Raglan, played by Oliver Reed, has Nola in isolation, but allows visits from Candy, Frank and Nola’s 5-year-old daughter. When Frank picks up Candy from the institute one day, he notices scratches and bruises on Candy’s back. He assumes that Nola must have abused Candy, and the truth is something close to but not exactly that. There is an unintended and dangerous side effect to psychoplasmics: the rage that is released through the therapy manifests itself physically in the body.

Dr. Raglan is praised as a genius. Nola is a devote follower and believer. Frank thinks that Raglan is a quack and his method is a sham. This can be seen as a take on the cliché of a spouse feeling that their therapist has sided with the other spouse and they are united against him/her. Frank meets with a former patient of Raglan’s that is suing Raglan for physiological damage to his body that lead to cancer. He believes Raglan turned his body against him. Frank seeks sole custody of Candy but his lawyer tells him that even with the evidence he has of abuse he doesn’t have a strong case because “the law believes in motherhood.” Meanwhile, people close to Frank and Candy begin to die. The effect psychoplasmics has on Nola is to manifest her rage in a brood of murderous children that carry out violent attacks on the objects of her rage. Subconsciously, Nola is responsible for the abuse of Candy and murder of friends and family members. The murderous dwarf wearing a child’s red coat can’t help but bring to mind Nicholas Roeg’s marital drama/thriller film Don’t Look Now. The detective in charge of the murder investigation thinks that the culprit is someone’s deformed child that they kept locked up in an attic. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” he says.

I find that Cronenberg’s horror films have a pro-science perspective though they are about wild and fantastic stuff. Generally in films the scientist character, when not mad from the start, is the last to believe whatever paranormal event is occurring or continues to deny it even in the face of it. The scientific method is not about shouting down new claims. It is about evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as Carl Sagan would say. In Cronenberg’s films the extraordinary events of the story leave behind tangible evidence and the doctor or scientist and the other characters accept the claim as fact when presented with the evidence. In The Brood, one of the dwarf creatures is killed and an autopsy is done. The pathologist, the detective, and Frank are there to witness that the dwarf creature has no sexual organs or navel and is not entirely human. The evidence presented is met with acceptance not skepticism or hesitation. This is also true in Shivers, Rabid, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, and The Fly.

The controversy surrounding The Brood stems from claims that it is a misogynist film, and it is not difficult at all to read the film as such. With lines like, “You got involved with a woman that married you for your sanity, hoping it would rub off. It worked the other way,” and the fact that Nola is the source of all marital discord and conflict, it is understandable why the film could be viewed this way. I, and certain female fans of this film (yes they exist), view The Brood differently. The horror in The Brood stems from how psychoplasmics transformed Nola’s body. This is Cronenberg’s second film in which the female body transforms and becomes monstrous. In The Brood, Rabid, and Shivers the female body only becomes dangerous or monstrous and the site of horror after it has been tampered with by a male scientist seeking to improve the woman. In his first film, Shivers, the female body is the source of an infectious parasite that spreads to the tenants of a high rise building. What separates The Brood from Rabid (in which after surgery gone wrong a woman becomes a type of vampire), is that Raglan is trying to heal and improve Nola’s mind, not her body, and to some extent succeeds but unintentionally causes physiological damage to Nola. The mad scientist is to blame for unleashing horror through a female in Shivers, Rabid, and The Brood. Dr. Raglan certainly is a mad psychotherapist; he even has a faithful assistant like all mad scientists.

While the murderous brood are carrying out Nola’s subconscious desires, she is neglecting her child born from her marriage for her children born of her rage. One of the most horrific and gross images in the movie is when Nola licks the blood off of one of her newborn offspring. It was actress Samantha Eggar’s idea for her to lick the blood off of her offspring, the way a mother dog does, and was pleased that she was able to disgust the male crew. From a scholarly angle, you can view this as a maternal instinct being presented as horrific, or as the male perception of a maternal instinct being horrific. 

Samantha Eggar gives a great performance as Nola and is convincingly creepy as a true believer and fanatic of Dr. Raglan. She is not quite as over the top as Piper Laurie as Mrs. White, Carrie’s mom, in Carrie, but she is close. Oliver Reed is also good as the eccentric Dr. Raglan who becomes an uneasy ally of Frank, played by Art Hindle. The Brood has a great string based score by Howard Shore, reminiscent of Bernard Herman’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The special effects and make up effects hold up very well and look great, or gross depending on your sensibility. Despite what Roger Ebert says in his review, The Brood is not just a geek show. Yes, it will likely make you squirm and shift in your seat, but it also uses suspense to put you ill at ease. In particular, the scene in which Dr. Raglan tries to get Candy out of the secret room where the brood has taken her is evocative of a similar scene with Rod Taylor in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. The Brood, like Cronenberg’s previous horror movies, is an elevated exploitation film. This film has violence and scares and is shocking and even disgusting, but it is also a film of substance and troubling ideas. The Brood is quality horror that works on many levels.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Cat People (1942)

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: Val Lewton Night

“She looks like a cat.”

Cat People (1942)

In the early 1940’s RKO Pictures created a low budget B-horror movie unit to compete with, and capitalize on the success of, Universal Studios’ B-horror movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and their many sequels. Producer Val Lewton was put in charge of the unit and tasked with churning out horror movies with sensational titles, miniscule budgets, and left over sets from other movies. The result was a series of horror films that were the opposite of what the studio was expecting, but were still box office hits. Today they remain spooky and interesting films and Val Lewton is one of the few producers that critics, film historians, and cinephiles consider to be an “auteur,” or the author of a film. The first of these low budget horror movies was Cat People, released in 1942, which deserves to be included alongside horror movie classics like Dracula (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). If you are someone that doesn’t like graphic violence or bloody horror, or even if you are, or if you want to become more familiar with classic horror cinema, Cat People is a great film to watch any Shocktober night.  

Cat People stars Simone Simon as Irena, a Serbian immigrant in New York City who meets and falls in love with Oliver, played by Kent Smith. Irena lives in an apartment close enough to the zoo to hear the animals at night and finds the roar of the big cats comforting. She and Oliver fall in love and marry, but Irena’s belief in a superstition of her homeland keeps her from becoming intimate with him, or even kissing him. She fears that any passion or jealousy she has will change her into a jungle cat and she will kill her lover. At a restaurant, a woman that some characters say “looks like a cat” greets Irena by calling her “my sister.” When Irena walks into a pet store with Oliver, animals go into a wild frenzy and become calm once she leaves. Oliver is a good, decent husband and believes Irena will overcome her superstitions with the help of a psychiatrist played by Tom Conway, who exudes a cool, debonair, and condescending aura (not unlike that of his brother, actor George Sanders). Oliver confides his marriage troubles in his friend and co-worker Alice, played by Jane Randolph. Though Alice is in love with Oliver her only intention is to be a friend and offer advice, but Irena resents their closeness and becomes jealous and dangerous.

Lewton was a hands off producer when it came to shooting movies, but there is a distinctive style to his RKO horror movies despite working with different directors. The Lewton style was born out of necessity due to budget restrictions, but he and his directors turned this handicap into creative advantages. Cat People is shot with stark shadows and low lighting resembling the look of a Film Noir. In fact, the director of Cat People, Jacques Tourneur, perhaps Lewton’s best collaborator, would go on the direct the lauded Film Noir Out of the Past.

It’s a well-established horror movie trope that you can scare the audience more by showing them less; what you show them will never be as scary as what they create in their own imaginations. Lewton and Tourneur fully exploit this idea to great effect. They knew they did not have the budget for decent special effects so the movie avoids showing the audience what they might expect to see, namely a monstrous cat-person, and instead fills its spooky scenes with shadows, dim lights, and darkness. Shadows are as important to Cat People as its characters, and they are used along with a clear and effective sound design for maximum effect. They hide the film’s low budget and put the audience at unease by denying them a full picture and thus a full explanation. You may not see a lot of horror in Cat People but it builds a moody atmosphere that primes the viewer for scares which the movie delivers, but never quite how you are expecting. In one of the most memorable scenes Alice is walking home through a park at night in shadows and small pools of light from the street lamps. There is complete silence except for the clicking of her heels and… another set of heels behind her. For just a brief moment, so purposefully quick it’s easy to miss, we think we hear the growling of a big cat, but the growl morphs into the rumble of a city bus. A few moments later, however, large paw prints are found in the soft ground of the park.

Cat People plays with the preconceived notions the characters and audience have about superstitions and the supernatural. The movie begins in a thoroughly real world in which there is no chance of anything supernatural. Then, slowly, it shows us scenes to suggest otherwise and make the characters second guess their rationale. Is Irena really a cat person of old world legend or does she just believe she is so much that the people around her begin to unconsciously believe so as well?

Cat People is the antithesis of the Universal monster movies, in which the monster is the star of the movie. It holds back showing you any horror or scenes of violence for as long as it possibly can. The characters feel like full-fledged people, a rarity in horror movies of any era, and their world feels like a real, lived in place. Cat People does all of this and more in less than 75 minutes.

Cat People airs on TCM early Halloween morning at 6:15AM CT

13 Nights of Shocktober: Possession (1981)

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: Psychological Horror Night
Beyond the Realm of Human Desire

Possession (1981)

The two times I’ve watched this movie were when it aired on TCM as part of TCM Underground, and it is a perfect movie for their late night weekend programming. Possession is some “weird, wild stuff.” If people know about this movie, it is most likely as the movie where Isabelle Adjani has sex with a squid monster. Nearly a full half hour was cut from Possession for its theatrical run in the U.S. in 1981, but the restored version runs at just over 2 hours and that is the version you’ll find on TCM. It is also available on DVD. Possession is most easily described as a horror movie though it is unlike most horror movies, even off the beaten path horror movies. If there is such a thing as Marital/Divorce Horror, David Cronenberg's The Brood and Andrzej Zulawski's Possession are perfect examples.

Possession begins as nothing more than a well-acted and well-shot marital drama. Sam Neil and Isabelle Adjani play Mark and Anna, an unhappy couple living near the Berlin wall. Mark has just returned home from a business trip (it’s never quite clear what his job is) to find that his marriage is at an end. Anna disappears soon after. Then Mark receives a cryptic phone call from her saying that she needs time “to think…about me.” Mark discovers that Anna has been having an affair and receives another mysterious phone call, this time from a man saying that Anna is with him and won’t be coming back. Mark finds out the name and address and of her lover, an older man named Heinrich. But when Mark goes to Heinrich’s apartment to get Anna back he finds out that Heinrich hasn’t seen Anna for a long time. Nothing remotely scary or supernatural happens for almost a full hour and then it turns into horror territory in a way that is somehow both slow and abrupt.

The horror elements begin when a private investigator hired by Mark to track down Anna finds her in a dilapidated and dimly lit apartment. What he finds there and what follows make this an incredibly unusually movie. There is a monster that is like a creature from an H.P. Lovecraft story. The monster is hidden mostly in shadow but what you can see is covered in blood, slime, and is gross, gross stuff. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to reveal that there is a monster in Possession (I know I wouldn’t have watched this movie without knowing about the monster) or any of the other strange scenes because nothing is as strange or horrifying as actually seeing these scenes.

More than the monster, the actions and behavior of Mark and Anna make Possession an uncomfortable, strange, and weird, wild movie. Though Anna leaves Mark for her new “lover” she still returns back to the apartment to visit their son. Anna and Mark’s interactions during these short visits are bizarre. They move from arguments that any strained married couple would have to fiercely beating each other. In one scene Isabelle Adjani runs out of their apartment after Mark has slapped her and she screams in the street with a mouthful of blood. A truck carrying wrecked cars swerves to miss them and crashes. Then Anna gets a wild eyed look and wanders off and Mark plays soccer with a group of nearby school kids. In another scene Isabelle Adjani is walking through a tunnel with a bag of groceries at night and then convulses wildly. She twirls around, flailing her arms, screaming and it goes on for a very long time. Anna’s former lover Heinrich, played by Heinz Bennent, is a strange, odd character. When he and Mark meet he is unusually calm and wants them to be friends and grabs Mark’s hands puts them on his bare chest. Later, when he visits Mark, Heinrich is wearing a white blazer over a black unbuttoned shirt and speaks in riddles and proverbs and moves around like he is performing a drunken ballet. He also knows martial arts and lives with his mother.

Isabelle Adjani won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance in this movie. There is much more to her performance than just acting crazy and screaming. Anna is a complex character whose motivations are not spelled out. Adjani is great at portraying a woman that is under great stress and does not understand herself why these things are happening to her. She actually as a duel role and also playing, Helen, Mark and Anna’s son’s teacher, with whom Mark has an affair. Sometimes Mark is aware of how much Hellen and Anna look alike and other times he seems to put it out of his mind. Sam Neil also gives a great performance, maybe the best I’ve seen from him. When called for, Neil is excellent at being creepy, crazy, and menacing (see In the Mouth of Madness, Event Horizon). His performance has an intensity that matches the unhinged tone of the film. He gets as many odd and strange moments as Adjani and, to an extent, also has a duel role. The nature of his second role is difficult to describe.

Possession is an incredibly well made film and, tentacled squid monster aside, is visually interesting. It is filled with low and canted angles and tracking shots. Scenes are staged and framed in striking ways that give this film an usual atmosphere right from the beginning. Early on Mark and Anna meet in a restaurant to discuss getting a divorce and they sit at separate tables around the corner from each other like they are in a spy movie. He chases her through the restaurant and has to be tackled by waiters and chefs. It’s a great scene for the performances and filmmaking. This happens in the marital drama half of the movie and it is unlike scenes in other marital dramas of unhappy couples arguing about their emotions and problems which are usually dull and uninteresting. This scene is great and interesting because of its unconventional nature, the full throttle intense performances from Sam Neil and Isabelle Adjani, and the filmmaking style of director Andrzej Zulawski.

Possession moves slow but draws you in with interesting scenes of characters having dramatic moments. Then it is intriguing in its odd, bizarre nature and just gets stranger and stranger. There are plenty of scenes of Mark and Anna dealing with their dissolving marriage to make this feel like a John Cassevettees movie. There is also a squid monster, car crashes, a shootout with police, and an ending that is confounding and unnerving and haunting. I was reminded of The Brood, Hellraiser, Blue Valentine, and several David Lynch movies while watching Possession. There are themes and subtext buried under the weirdness that really give this film a lasting effect on the viewer. I’ll save deciphering those for another viewing. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Black Roses (1988)

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: Spooky Fun Night

Heavy Metal Horror From Hell!

Black Roses (1988)

Black Roses is great campy horror movie fun. Wikipedia lists the genre as Metalsploitation, which it absolutely is, but I prefer calling it Heavy Metal Horror. The plot is right out of an out of touch, uptight parent’s nightmare. You might think that this movie was made to let parents of the 1980’s know that they were right along: heavy metal music is from Hell and turning your kids against you.

The Black Roses, a hair metal band popular with teens but feared by parents, is starting their first ever world tour in the sleepy town of Mill Basin. It’s not clear if this town is in the United States or Canada; a town meeting displays the flags of both nations. The Black Roses have never played outside of the studio so their shows in Mill Basin are a very big deal for the teens of the town that idolize the band. A brawl breaks out in the school parking lot when one teen takes another’s Black Roses record. He punches out one kid, then picks another up and throws him on the pavement like it’s a WWE match. Why begin the tour in such a quiet, nowhere town? The lead singer, Damien, explains in a surprisingly casual conversation with Mr. Moorhouse, the high school English teacher, that the band’s plan is to start small, work out the kinks in their show, and then play Madison Square Garden.

Parents are in an uproar because of the band’s antisocial lyrics and use of evil images (namely a drawing of a skull that you might find in the Halloween decorations at your grocery store). The adults in town attend the first show and the Black Roses play a soft new wave song that puts the parents at ease. After the parents leave, the real show begins. In a flash the band’s costumes change from suits to leather galore and the music gets heavy.

The special effects are low budget and cheesy but so is everything else. In the most memorable scene, Vincent Pastore is sucked into a stereo speaker by a gross insect like monster when he tries to turn off his son’s Black Roses record. As the band plays their shows over several nights, the teens of the town become more and more corrupted. When Mr. Moorhouse is driving through town there are teens making out in the streets, teens robbing an old woman, and a group of teens kicking someone on the ground just because. And all of these corrupt teens are wearing leather. Mr. Moorhouse buys dynamite from…someone to blow up the band and save the town. Some of the teens at the concert turn into monsters, others poof into skeletons, and others just seems to be having a good time. Nothing in this movie makes sense and that is what makes it enjoyable.

Yes, Black Roses is campy and ridiculous. Yes, Black Roses is so-bad-it’s-good. The dialogue is stock and performances range from mediocre to acceptable. Despite it all, this movie never stops being fun. Black Roses is a movie to put on and have a horror themed good time. This is technically a horror movie but there is nothing very scary about it. If you like Mystery Science Theater 3000, you’ll have a good time watching Black Roses (just pretend Crow and Tom Servo are with you). It’s hard to say how seriously the filmmakers took the material, but whatever their intention, the result is undeniably bad and undeniably entertaining. Since its release Black Roses has become a cult classic.