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. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Madhouse (1974)

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 4: Vincent Price Night:  
“I must play the final scene. The death of Dr. Death!”

Madhouse (1974)

It just wouldn’t be Shocktober without Vincent Price. He appeared in so many horror movies, turning out such quality performances, that he became a horror cinema legend. Some of those movies are genuine classics, others campy fun, others forgettable. Madhouse, released in 1974, combines the campy entertainment of Price’s most famous horror films (the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations he made with Roger Corman) with a more hard edged 1970's horror sensibility. It is also, in its own way, a tribute to Price’s career in horror.

Price plays Paul Toombes, an aging actor famous for playing the character Dr. Death in a series of horror movies. After his fiancée is murdered gruesomely, Toombes suffers a mental breakdown and disappears from the limelight. The writer of the Dr. Death movies, Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing, another horror legend), arranges a comeback for Toombes with a new Dr. Death series. Yes, putting a traumatized man who may or may not have murdered someone into a situation similar to the one that traumatized him in the first place is a bad idea. Toombes arrives in London and even before the cameras roll, the bodies start piling up.

Madhouse is ostensibly a murder mystery (who is dressing up like Dr. Death and murdering people?) though there is little doubt about the identity of the killer and their goal of framing Toombes for the murders, or driving him mad, or both. That doesn’t hurt the film, however, because the real entertainment comes from its approach to horror: a mixture of shock visuals, admiration for the genre, and a dash of camp. The plot follows the structure of a slasher movie though that subgenre would not be solidified until the early 1980’s. One by one people are murdered in different and more elaborate ways: decapitated, hanged with their own hair, crushed by a bed. The kills are not especially gory or violent especially when compared to other 70’s horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released the same year as Madhouse, or Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, released two years earlier.

There’s a sly sense of humor to Madhouse. Any horror movie with characters named Toombes and Flay can’t take itself too seriously. There's even a costume party scene that has Peter Cushing (famous for playing the vampire hunter Van Helsing in numerous Hammer Films) dressed as Dracula. Living in the basement of Cushing’s house—a dungeon straight out of a Hammer horror movie—is his ex-wife Fay Flay (Adrienne Corri), who was disfigured in an accident and is now obsessed with spiders. The clips we see of the “Dr. Death” movies are actually scenes from older Vincent Price movies: Roger Corman’s The Raven and Tales of Terror, both distributed by AIP, the company behind Madhouse. Using footage from another movie to pad out a new low budget movie was something fairly common at the time, especially in horror (Roger Corman would do this several times with footage from The Terror). In Madhouse this device feels a bit more justified since the story is about a horror movie star confronting his past. Viewing the film today, these clips of Price’s older movies feel like a tribute to his career and talent. Though Vincent Price’s career would continue into the 1990’s, by 1974 he had already appeared in enough horror movies that a film playing on his horror career felt justified.

The reason to watch Madhouse is, of course, Vincent Price. Other roles have given him more to sink his teeth into but he still plays the part of a reluctant actor unsure of his sanity very well. For me the highlights of the movie are his speeches; these are the scenes where he really gets to shine. Watching him talk about death while lighting candles is just what you want from a Vincent Price movie. My favorite scene is of Price talking about the nature of horror movies and their appeal to viewers. A TV interviewer asks, “Why do you think that your films have been so very successful?” Toombes replies, “Well, I think it’s because they’re not about the ordinary everyday world around us. They’re about a world that’s deep inside of us. A world of impulses and instincts that we have been taught to suppress. That sounds a bit spooky…” Spooky and true sentiments, wonderfully delivered by Vincent Price.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Pontypool

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 3: Pandemic Horror Night
“Kill is blue. Kill is wonderful. Kill is loving… Kill is everything you ever wanted… Kill is kiss.”
Pontypool 

If A Quiet Place is the horror movie based around not speaking, and Bird Box is the horror movie based around not seeing, then Pontypool is the horror movie based around not hearing. Its conceit is fresh and interesting and, while not without flaws, remains haunting and unsettling. Pontypool has never fully left my mind since I first saw it two years ago. It has been on my mind a lot since March 2020. There are films with more violent and disturbing imagery that I’m recommending this Shocktober, but this is the only one that I hesitated in recommending at all. It didn’t occur to me in 2018 but it is clear now that Pontypool, like 28 Days Later, is not a zombie movie. It is a pandemic horror movie.

Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is a cowboy hat wearing, washed up radio shock jock reduced to doing morning news for a rural town in Ontario: Pontypool. Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) is the morning show producer, who tries to keep Grant on track, reminding him that people just want their news and weather and don’t want to be antagonized. Sydney’s assistant Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly), is a young veteran that served in Afghanistan. These are the main characters, and, aside from a few callers and visitors to the station, the only characters. Once Grant arrives at the radio station, he and Sydney and Laurel-Ann slowly realize that the strange violent events overwhelming the town have trapped them in the station.

The film unfolds over a matter of hours on a frigid and snowy Valentine’s Day in one location, more or less. Before the sun is even up, the radio station begins receiving reports of strange and violent behavior in Pontypool. There is a hostage situation and a riot at a doctor’s office and military vehicles in the streets. We see none of this and no other news source is reporting the events. Sydney thinks that they are being pranked but the influx of reports and a call from the “sunshine chopper” reporter (who actually just reports from a hill overlooking the town) make it clear that something sinister is wreaking havoc and spreading. Those people acting strange and attacking others are also chanting and babbling incoherently, repeating the same word or phrase again and again. Mazzy and Sydney translate a message in French warning people to avoid contact with loved ones and the English language.

The sinister force at work is a strange virus that turns people into mindless zombies repeating phrases like: “A simple kind of sample” or “I’m not missing Mr. Mazzy.” The explanation for the virus comes in one of the film’s biggest contrivances, Dr. Mendez (Hrant Alianak), who breaks into the radio station and explains his theory on the virus. The idea he presents, that the virus spreads through understanding certain infected words, is what sets Pontypool apart from other virus/zombie movies. It's an intriguing concept. As Mazzy puts it, “How do you not understand a word. How do you make it strange?”

Pontypool would work equally well as a stage or radio play. There are scenes of blood and zombie attacks (for lack of a better term) but almost no pop-up scares. This film relies on the sheer talent of its leads reacting to the news they hear and the little they see while stuck inside to create suspense and tension. Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle don’t just carry the movie, they make it as good as it is; the premise does not work without their top-notch performances.

I wouldn’t say that Pontypool falls apart in the third act exactly, but its intentions become muddled. Even as the characters are executing their plan it is unclear just exactly what they are trying to accomplish. Still, the tension is high and I was too caught up in their climactic performances to be concerned with the details. I am even more puzzled by the epilogue but equally intrigued for the same reason. Even with its flaws, Pontypool is a surprising and at times mesmerizing small scale horror movie that is unsettling and frightening not because of any intense visuals or effects but because of the overwhelming situation and ideas thrust upon the characters.

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Invisible Man (2020)

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 2: Modern Monster Night
“He said that wherever I went, he would find me, walk right up to me, and I wouldn't be able to see him.”
The Invisible Man (2020)

The 2020 film The Invisible Man is not a remake of the classic 1930’s Universal Monster movie starring Claude Rains and directed by James Whale, or even a new adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel. In fact, aside from sharing a title and the basic concept of a sinister man that is invisible, this film has nearly nothing in common with the H.G. Wells novel. This frees up writer-director Leigh Whannell to create a wholly fresh approach to the story of a mad scientist that makes himself invisible. Unlike the Wells story or the film Hollow Man, this story focuses not on the scientist but on his victim.

Elizabeth Moss stars as Cecilia, whose partner, Adrian, is a controlling and abusive tech genius. In a suspenseful opening scene, she makes her escape from his luxurious compound-like West Coast mansion. She is hiding out with a friend (Aldis Hodge) and suffering through PTSD when she receives news that Adrian has killed himself. Cecilia finally begins to feel safe and free when unusual and suspicious occurrences begin. Adrian’s research was in optics, so it does not take her long to realize that he has somehow made himself invisible to continue to control and torment her.

The Invisible Man was produced and released by Blumhouse, the dominant production company in modern horror, which likes to keep budgets low (to keep profits high). The visual effects involving the invisible man are sparse but effective: floating objects, footprints appearing out of nothing, a human shape appearing when covered in paint or water. There are big scare scenes but also plenty of lowkey creepy moments to make your skin crawl. Disembodied breath on a cold night appearing behind Cecilia is a quiet but frightening moment. Maybe the simplest and scariest effect is the camera panning over to an empty corner or staying put after everyone has left a room. As a director, Whannell is smart enough to know that the best way to scare us is not with special effects or blood and gore but to put us right in Cecilia's shoes. We are as certain of the invisible man’s existence as she is and as uncertain of where he is or what he’ll do next as she is. His attacks on her are not only physical. When she is at a job interview and her portfolio is empty, we know what happened, but the interviewer just thinks that she is forgetful and unqualified. Adrian isolates her from her family and friends just as he did before, sabotaging the relationships that are holding her up, just as real life abusers physically and emotionally isolate their victims.

Elizabeth Moss gives an outstanding performance that drives the movie. Through her performance and the stylistic choices of Wharnell we really feel Cecilia’s paranoia. That is the major reason why this movie is so successfully frightening and suspenseful. She begins to come undone because of the stress and anxiety of her situation, but she knows she is not losing her mind. Scene after scene of her of not being believed has a deep significance beyond the plot. Any number of women could unfortunately relate to being not believed and left vulnerable by those supposed to offer protection. This movie easily avoids the male gaze and any lascivious scenes you might expect in a modern era movie about an invisible man: there are no scenes of Cecilia in the shower or getting undressed. From beginning to end this is an excellently crafted, scary film. This isn’t art house horror or elevated horror. This is just great horror. I wish more horror films were like this.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Mad Love (1935)

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 1: Classic Horror Night
“That Dr. Gogol is 100% crazy!”
Mad Love

The classic 1935 horror film Mad Love (not to be confused with the gen-x romantic drama starring Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell) is a weird, wild film and a very creepy one too. Watching it today, you wonder how a film like this made it past the strict and puritanical Production Code, which policed the subject matter and content of films during the classic era.

This 68-minute movie has two horror premises playing out simultaneously. 1) Yvonne, an actress in a Grand Guignol type theater, retires to marry Orlac, a promising pianist and composer, much to the dismay of her obsessive fan, the brilliant surgeon, Dr. Gogol. Dr. Gogol’s obsession with Yvonne goes from unhealthy to creepy to dangerous. 2) After Orlac’s hands are badly damaged in a train accident, Dr. Gogol performs a hand transplant, giving him the hands of a recently dead murderer. Orlac, unaware of the transplant begins to think he is going mad when his hands seem to act on their own and throw knives with great precision. Instead of telling Orlac the truth, Dr. Gogol decides to feed Orlac’s paranoia. Once Orlac is arrested or committed, then Dr. Gogol believes he will be able to have Yvonne.

Peter Lorre, in his American movie debut, gives a great performance as the fiendish Dr. Gogol. Though Yvonne and Orlac are the protagonists, Lorre is the clear star and dominant screen presence. He is plenty creepy and menacing, but his performance even elicits some sympathy too. We see Dr. Gogol’s sympathetic and malicious sides at the same time in an especially creepy and well-staged scene where he talks to his evil side in a mirror. Lorrie is also completely bald as Dr. Gogol; it is a small touch, but it makes him seem extra creepy. Though Yvonne gives up her career to be married and becomes a damsel in distress, she is not a passive character and Frances Drake’s performance gives her some depth. Colin Clive, famous for playing the frantic Dr. Frankenstein in James Whale’s 1931 Universal monster classic, plays Orlac. He brings some of that same frantic energy to the scenes of Orlac troubled and panicked by his sudden violent impulses.

Mad Love’s director, Karl Freund, was a notable cinematographer that worked on films such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Metropolis, and Sunrise, a film whose cinematography is visual poetry. Mad Love would be his final film as a director, but he would continue to work as a cinematographer and win an Oscar for his work on The Good Earth (1937). With his background as a cinematographer, Freund has a keen eye for powerful, effective visuals. This isn’t limited to effects shots or horror imagery: a close up of Lorre looking at Yvonne is as creepy and sinister as any horror image. The Grand Guignol theater is a treasure trove of macabre sights. Scenes of Dr. Gogol talking to the wax statue of Yvonne and playing music to it are unsettling, not just because of the content but also the way they are staged. The most powerful and shocking image in Mad Love, perhaps in any horror movie of the 1930’s, is of Dr. Gogol appearing to Orlac disguised as the beheaded killer whose hands Orlac now has. He is draped in black with a toothy, sinister smile and wears a neck brace where his head has been “reattached.” He shows Orlac his metallic hands as proof. It is a frightening and disturbing scene. 

There are also some great moments of levity that do not clash with the horror plot. Dr. Gogol’s housekeeper/landlady is a daffy old woman with a parrot on her shoulder. Keeping a wax statue of an actress is just one of Dr. Gogol’s eccentricities that she gossips about. When she is drunk and sees the real Yvonne she says, “What are you doing out?” and drags her to Dr. Gogol’s apartment. There is also a persistent reporter wanting to profile Dr. Gogol. He actually helps the police instead of blocking them. When he hears Dr. Gogol’s scheme he says, nonchalantly, that it’s an old trick. It’s worth noting that Yvonne also figures out Gogol’s plan very quickly.

Like all films of the classic era, Mad Love has no closing credits making the ending feel abrupt and adding to the movie's odd tone. This a bizarre and surprising movie that has not lost its shock value over the decades. There is no gore or blood, so someone squeamish could watch this, or even a hardened horror fan, and still be shocked, frightened, and thoroughly entertained on any Shocktober Night. 

Mad Love airs on TCM on Friday, October 30th at 4:15PM CT. 

Review: Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

 by A.J.

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn 

This was not a film I planned to see, at first. Then, after positive reviews from critics I trust and with the imminent closure of movie theaters in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, my wife and I decided that the last film we would see in a theater, for now, would be Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. It was a very satisfying decision. 

Birds of Prey is a sequel of sorts to the completely joyless 2016 film Suicide Squad, a Dirty Dozen knockoff but with comic book villains. Thankfully, this spinoff stands on its own so you do not need to have seen Suicide Squad to understand the characters or plot of Birds of Prey. The only good thing about Suicide Squad was the casting of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, the partner in crime and love of Batman's nemesis, the Joker, which leads us to the best thing about Birds of Prey. Margot Robbie has the all-enveloping, enchanting screen presence of a genuine movie star and the genuine talent and skill as an actress to carry a movie. She exudes a great lively energy as Harley Quinn that matches perfectly the fun, flamboyant, and darkly comedic tone set by director Cathy Yan.

The plot of Birds of Prey is refreshingly straightforward for a comic book movie that expands an established character and introduces new ones. As the Joker’s girlfriend, Harley Quinn enjoyed total immunity in the Gotham City underworld no matter who she crossed or how big or small or darkly comical her offenses. When she makes her break up with the Joker public, all of those she pissed off in one way or another come after her. When not fleeing those out for revenge, Harley is pursuing a young pickpocket, Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), who stole a diamond etched with hidden bank codes. Along the way Harley crosses paths with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, though everyone calls her the Crossbow Killer, much to her annoyance, and Rosie Perez as Detective Montoya, the only Gotham cop actually interested in catching criminals. Jurnee Smollett as Black Canary, whose voice can used as a weapon—the most left field fantastical element in Birds of Prey, whether it is in the comics or not—rounds out the “Birds”. They are all in danger (Harley especially) of having their faces cut off by Ewan McGregor as the sadistic crime boss Black Mask. After Robbie, McGregor is the other stand out of the cast. He is in over the top mode and it completely works for his character and the movie. He plays it big and gets ridiculous at times, all the while maintaining the dangerous, violent nature of the Gotham villain. McGregor brings his charm to the character without making him a likeable villain.

Harley Quinn is a punk rock character and her movie has an energetic punk vibe. There are more than a few scenes of violence and though this story takes place in the visually dark and dour world of D.C. comic book movies, this is not a dour or grim movie. Birds of Prey achieves something that no other D.C  movie has done (not even Wonder Woman): it’s fun, lots of fun from start to finish. Harley Quinn injects the right amount of color and life into the D.C. universe. Thankfully, the screenplay by Christina Hodson is not bogged down with tying this film into other superhero (or supervillain) films or leaving loose ends for the sake of sequels and spinoffs. There are good action scenes and best of all this movie wants its characters to have complete journeys. The big showdown is of the kind that we’ve seen before; each character gets to use their specialty and it leads to a smaller final showdown that is incredibly satisfying. With all of its criminal underworld characters, subversive tone (since D.C. movies are so dark and cynical, being fun is subversive), and showy visuals Birds of Prey feels like a comic book Film Noir. 

Review: Sonatine (1993)

by A.J.

Sonatine

“I’m in wonderland.”

Takeshi Kitano’s Sonatine upends and subverts all expectations of a yakuza (Japanese mob) movie. For example, here’s some dialogue you might not expect to hear in a serious gangster movie: “You call that dancing?!... I’ll join you.” There is violence to be sure, but the main character, Murakawa (Kitano himself, who also writes, directs, and edits), has grown bored with the gangster life and with violence. The film sees acts of violence as Murakawa sees them: unexciting or even dull. Rich in the quiet mundanities that happen in every job and life, no matter how thrilling certain jobs or lives may sound, Sonatine is far from dull. This is a peculiar and beguiling picture that doesn’t explain any more than it feels necessary, thus drawing us into the world of a criminal in limbo.

Using his stage name “Beat Takeshi”, Kitano plays the midlevel Tokyo yakuza boss Murakawa who has been assigned by the boss of the entire crime syndicate to mediate a gang war between two rival clans in Okinawa. Murakawa and his lieutenant think there is something fishy about the Okinawa job, but he and his crew go nonetheless. After a restaurant shootout that is simultaneously surprising and subdued, Murakawa and his crew are taken to a beachfront house to lay low. As they bide their time the movie becomes something quite special.

Sonatine is a movie about waiting. In Okinawa a young gangster plants and bomb in a building and runs back to the car with his partner. Nothing happens. They wait and still nothing happens. The next scene has the entire gang outside of the building bored with waiting. Several scenes later, the bomb finally goes off to little consequence. The gangsters may be bored with their situation but there is not a dull or boring moment in the movie. It never treads water though it is about people doing exactly that. Instead, Sonatine comes to life in these moments.

The most oddly comedic, beguiling, and even enchanting scene happens when the gangsters are at the beach. They’ve grown bored with playing a children’s game where paper figures “fight” when you tap the edge of a board with you finger, so they act out a life size version of the game in the sand, hopping as though they are paper figures. Kitano ramps up the camera speed for added comic effect but also their unnatural movement emphasizes the odd situation these characters find themselves in: there’s nothing to do, but they’re still there.

Takeshi Kitano began his career as part of a comic duo (this is where he picked up the nickname “Beat Takeshi”) and he puts his comic eye to great use. When the gangsters are in a house with no water, they run outside when it starts to ran, soap themselves up, only for the rain to stop. The shootout I mentioned earlier is so routine to Murakawa that his blank expression is comical. The jokes don’t hit like jokes in a comedy, the action scenes don’t hit like scenes in an action movie, but still Sonatine is engaging on a few different levels. This movie goes from violent to darkly comic to lightly comic to meditative and back again with each tone flowing smoothly and naturally into the other.

This movie takes place in a peculiar universe: indifferent but jovial. When Miyuki, a local Okinawa woman interested in Murakawa, asks if she can come visit again, he says “you can, but you won’t, bitch,” so passively there’s somehow nothing aggressive about it. Later when she takes off her top offering herself to him during the brief rainstorm he smiles and says “Indecent exposure is fun.” In the intervening time they’ve connected on a more mental, less physical level. While watching Sonatine I was reminded of the HBO series The Sopranos, specifically an episode where Tony and his loyal but goofball captain Pauly have to hideout after a body is discovered. That series focused on what happens between the thrilling and violent moments of the criminal life. Predating The Sopranos by six years, Sonatine does the same. It is a meditation that allows itself to wander and play in the sand.