Behind the Couch

The Leopard Man

2012-02-01T10:44:00.002Z

1943
Dir. Jacques Tourneur

When a publicity stunt backfires, a domesticated leopard escapes from a New Mexico nightclub prompting a desperate search to re-capture it. An ensuing series of grisly deaths is blamed on the animal; however nightclub performer Kiki and her agent Jerry soon suspect that it isn’t the leopard responsible for the violent deaths; but a deranged serial killer who uses the escaped animal as a cover for his heinous crimes.

After the success of Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, producer Val Lewton reteamed with director Jacques Tourneur for their next collaboration, the RKO-assigned title of which was to be The Leopard Man. Rather than churning out a hackneyed variation on the werewolf film, in which a man transforms into a slathering beast before claiming his prey, the exceedingly literate Lewton chose to adapt Cornell Woolrich’s mystery-thriller ‘Black Alibi’: a twisted tale about a killer in a Mexican city using the fear caused by an escaped wild animal as a cover, or alibi, for his own vicious murders. A typically moody and thoughtful Lewton production, The Leopard Man sticks closely to its source material and unspools as an episodic noir thriller quite ahead of its time. While film noir was a genre still in its embryonic stages, The Leopard Man could arguably be described as the first horror/noir hybrid that revolves around the ghastly actions of a serial killer - bear in mind the term and concept of the serial killer wasn’t coined until much later. Its plot, detailing the deaths of several young women, also exhibits similarities with what would later become known as the slasher movie.

The overriding theme of The Leopard Man is the randomness of death and the cruel mystery of fate. The opening shot of a ball atop a spurt of water in a fountain highlights the underlying notions of the unpredictability of fate, and the lack of control people have over such matters. One of the characters, Galbraith (James Bell), comments on this spectacle, pontificating on the dominant theme of The Leopard Man: ‘We know as little about the forces that move us, and move the world around us, as that empty ball does about the water that pushes it into the air, lets it fall, and catches it again.’ At the end of the film, Jerry (Dennis O’Keefe) reiterates Galbraith's musings to Kiki (Jean Brooks) and quips: ‘That's the way it was with us, only we were too small to know it.’ Such philosophical foreboding abounds amongst the host of tragic and flawed characters in the film, most of whose true natures are gradually unveiled as the story progresses.

One of the most interesting things about The Leopard Man is its rather unconventional narrative structure. The main set pieces in the film involve the violent demise of three women, two of which are introduced to the episodic narrative by the third, a dancer called Clo-Clo (Margo). The sudden shifts in the narrative are cued once Clo-Clo interacts with these other women, or someone who will immediately lead us to them. The first shift begins when Clo-Clo leaves the nightclub where she works after she deliberately startled Jerry’s leopard, causing it to bolt into the night. As the camera follows her down a moodily lit street where men with flashlights are looking for the escaped critter, we can’t be blamed for believing that something bad is going to befall her. As she walks past an open window she greets a young girl looking out of it and the camera remains fixed on the girl as Clo-Clo continues walking out of the shot. The focus of the story then shifts to this young woman, Teresa, whose death is preceded by one of the most suspenseful and moody sequences in horror history. We follow her night walk to a store on the outskirts of town, as she wanders through empty streets and out into the fringes of the community, eventually having a horrific encounter under a shadowy train trestle that culminates in her death outside her own front door: safety just inches away. After a series of blood-chilling screams, her domineering mother relents and tries to open the door. There is a large thud and a steady trickle of blood seeps under the door into the house. This masterfully tense scene highlights one of the most characteristic traits of Lewton’s work: suggestiveness. As in Cat People, everything is conveyed to the audience by shadows and sounds, ensuring the viewer must use their imagination, which can usually conjure all manner of gruesome sights special effects at the time could not effectively depict. Events are thus rendered infinitely more disturbing then anything a low budget film could ever hope to show us.

“Something black. Something on its way to you…”

Shortly after poor Teresa’s death we are reunited with Clo-Clo who, in a similar narrative twist, passes on some sort of curse or death-mark when she meets another young woman who will eventually connect us to the new focus of the narrative and the centre of another moody murder set-piece: Consuelo.* As she waits for her lover Raoul in the cemetery, Consuelo realises too late that she has been locked in. Wandering around the spooky locale she panics, remembering the fate of Teresa and the wild animal on the rampage. Like Teresa before her, Consuelo is a lone and vulnerable figure and much menace is elicited through the location and her predicament. Every tomb, headstone and tree potentially harbours a threat hiding behind it waiting to pounce. Unusual editing renders the audience as disorientated and panicked as Consuelo, who is eventually murdered by an unseen assailant. All we see is a tree branch moving under the weight of something, or someone, as they lunge from it upon the terrified girl.

That this scene and the scene involving Teresa’s death play out with no music only adds to their effectiveness; a lonesome howling wind is all we hear as these women encounter their killers.

“Men who killed for pleasure. Strange pleasure.”

Interestingly, The Leopard Man also unravels as a sort of proto-typical slasher film, specifically in it’s, albeit off-screen and highly suggestive, depictions of the murders of several lone female characters as they wander around sinister and imposing dark spaces only to encounter violent death at the hands of a madman. Predating the likes of Psycho and Peeping Tom (both noted as major influences on the slasher flick) the narrative is essentially hung around these set pieces. The motive of the killer is also revealed to be rooted in a fascination with the aesthetics of fear. His morbid inclinations and urges are aroused by the sight of Teresa’s mauled body and he is compelled to stalk and murder several women. Just like in Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), it is the look of fear on the faces of his victims that entices the killer and motivates his frenzied blood-lust. As JP Telotte notes in ‘Dreams in Darkness’: ‘In each situation an individual leaves the safety of her home to wander through a circuitous, ultimately imprisoning world within which there lurks sudden death.’ Tourneur himself described the film as a ‘series of vignettes.’ With descriptions such as these, the film’s narrative arguably foreshadows those of the Italian gialli made famous by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento: where loose stories are draped around arresting and provocative set pieces featuring beautiful young women wandering around sinister, moodily lit spaces before being murdered. Argento himself paid homage to The Leopard Man (and Woolrich's novel) in his third film, Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971), with a scene in which a lone woman waiting for someone in a deserted park is locked in and (very untypically of Argento) murdered off-screen. Sergio Martino, whose gialli also drew inspiration from the likes of Woolrich, featured a similar scene in his first giallo, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh.

Lewton’s films don’t boast monsters or obvious supernatural occurrences; the horror always emanates from the darkness of the human condition, the id, if you will, and is highly ambiguous. His productions could be cited as the first psychological horror films. Beautifully written and elegantly lensed, the ‘terror’ pictures he produced for RKO were also amongst the first to be based in contemporary times and settings (not the typically far flung gothic locales popular at the time) and very often the figure of terror was an ‘ordinary’ person. The Leopard Man is no exception. When its killer is revealed, he is a seemingly ordinary man who harbours morbid, and eventually murderous, tendencies. Prefiguring Psycho by about twenty years, this killer, like Norman Bates, is a mild mannered and soft-spoken chap who spends his days largely in solitude. Working as a curator in the museum, he fusses over old artefacts he’s collected – much like Bates who collected and stuffed birds.

Lewton was indeed a rare breed: a producer who helped rather than hindered his movies, and an even rarer example of a producer regarded as an auteur. His movies, most of which he also co-wrote (or re-wrote) using various pseudonyms, or completely uncredited, address such notions as psychology, sexuality, death and loneliness. The Leopard Man is often sorely overlooked when it comes to his work, and indeed the work of its director Jacques Tourneur. Unconventional and engrossing, it consistently rises above and beyond genre expectations and cleverly subverts various archetypes and narrative traditions associated with thrillers of the time. It remains a curious and fascinating entry in war-time American cinema.

* Unlike 'Fearing the Dark' author Edmund G. Bansak’s suggestion, that these encounters between Clo-Clo and other women who become victims of the killer are the film’s only traces of possible supernatural intervention, due to Clo-Clo being dealt the death card by her fortune teller friend, I would suggest they simply highlight the film’s underlying theme of the random nature of death and the bleak irony of fate. But hey, that's just my own humble opinion. It is also testament to Lewton's best work that the horror is ambiguous enough to allow one to draw their own conclusions.

Audiodrome#4: The Wicker Man

2012-01-23T17:18:00.000Z

Head over to Paracinema.net to check out the latest instalment of Audiodrome: Music in Film. This month I’ve been listening to Paul Giovanni’s inspired score for Robin Hardy’s folk-horror masterpiece, The Wicker Man. Heavily informed by paganism and indigenous music, Giovanni’s meticulously researched soundtrack combines adaptations of traditional folk pieces, poems and authentic-sounding original compositions.

Why not pick up the latest issue of Paracinema while you’re there? Amongst its lurid delights are articles such as Panic in Detroit: RoboCop and Reagan’s America by Andreas Stoehr; Blood on the Rubber Chicken: Horror Parodies of the Early ’80s by Mike White; and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures from Hell by Todd Garbarini. All great stuff, written by hardcore fans of genre films for hardcore fans of genre films.

Issue II of Exquisite Terror

2012-01-22T21:04:00.001Z

Exquisite Terror is a brand-spanking-new and independently produced periodical; the intention of which is to take a more academic, analytical approach to the genre of horror. Issue 2 is now available to pre-order. Amongst the various delights waiting within its pages are Dalliances with the Dead, by an occultist; Upper-class dining with a difference; by popular demand, the analysis of both classic book and film; and, one of my own articles, an examination of the relationship between fairy tale and horror film.

This issue boasts beautiful illustrations by artist Paul Talbot. Check out more of his work here.

Pre-order yourself a veritable bargain at £2.45 plus £1 P&P within the UK*

Make haste and save a generous 150 pennies from the cover price, to ensue once the mice have delivered.

*For international sales, please contact info@exquisiteterror.com prior to order

Frankenhooker

2012-01-12T12:42:00.001Z

1990
Dir. Frank Henenlotter

When his fiancée is decapitated in a freak remote control lawnmower accident, medical student Jeffrey Franken sets out to build her a new body made up of Manhattan street hookers and zap her back into life... These hookers are tough cookies though, and the only way Jeffrey can get his hands on a dead one is by using his latest invention, Supercrack; a lethal cocktail of drugs designed to make the user explode. Yup. You read that right. Explode.

In case that synopsis leaves you in any doubt, Frankenhooker is a sleazy, trash-fest of splashy splatter effects, ludicrous body-horror, gratuitous nudity and cartoonish violence. Henenlotter’s irreverent take on Mary Shelley’s 'Prometheus' is so intent on being offensive, it’d make the poor woman turn in her grave. In other words, it’s a damn good time. Prior to Frankenhooker, Henenlotter was responsible for such cheap and cheerful grot-fests as Basket Case 1 and 2, and Brain Damage; scuzzy, low-budget exploitation flicks boasting freakish protagonists engaging in all manner of seedy doings on the fringes of society. High on subversive imagination and morbid wit, his work may be exploitative trash, but its great exploitative trash; and certainly more provocative and entertaining than the majority of films currently in your local multiplex.

The New York backdrop of Frankenhooker is as sleazy and gritty as you’d expect, and Henenlotter has fun with the carnival of colourful characters that populate it; hookers, pimps, junkies, drag queens and all manner of other grimily exotic deadbeats. The bulk of the film basically acts as an elaborate set up, in which Jeffrey (James Lorinz from Street Trash) hatches his perverse plan - while treating his fiancée’s severed head to candlelit dinners and fine wine no less - and his attempts to obtain the body parts he needs to rebuild her. Cue lots of naked exploding hookers and scenes featuring gory body parts flying through the air. When she’s finally resurrected, the sight of the stitched together, bikini-clad Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) staggering through Times Square is worth the wait. Barking and slurring lines like “Want a date?” and “Got any money?” in a thick New York accent, she proceeds to turn a few tricks with morbidly hilarious results, as Jeffrey rushes frantically to retrieve her and take her back to his lab.

Were it not for the fact that its all so ludicrous and over the top, Frankenhooker could be seen as a misogynistic piece of grindhouse that views women as no more than the sum of their separate body parts. Well, maybe if you read The Daily Mail, it could. After the overly perky Elizabeth is mown down in the opening scene, the only other female characters are tough-talkin’, street walkin’, drug takin’ hookers. Henenlotter’s darkly twisted humour, impish enthusiasm and sly social commentary shine through though, and Frankenhooker emerges as a tongue-in-cheek, freakishly trashy retelling of Shelley’s cautionary classic. Henenlotter’s style is quite similar to the likes of Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, and comparisons with the likes of Re-Animator and Society are inevitable; particularly in the last scenes when the severed body parts Jeffrey has been storing in a vat of his life preserving elixir begin to merge and take on grisly lives of their own. Despite the low budget, the special effects, as elaborate and ridiculous as they are, still look great.

Frankenhooker (cert. 18) was released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video on 2nd January 2012. Special Features include: brand new high definition transfer of the film (1080p); UK exclusive audio commentary with director Frank Henenlotter and star James Lorinz; UK exclusive introduction to the film by actor James Lorinz; “Your Date’s On A Plate: The Making Of Frankenhooker” – UK exclusive documentary featuring director Frank Henenlotter, star James Lorinz and special effects artist Gabe Bartalos; a personal UK exclusive tour of the Gabe Bartalos effects lab in Los Angeles, California; “A Salad That Was Once Named Elizabeth: Patty Mullen Remembers Frankenhooker”; “A Stitch In Time: The Make-Up Effects Of Frankenhooker”; Turning Tricks: Jennifer Delora Remembers Frankenhooker”; original theatrical trailer; reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphries; double-sided fold-out artwork poster; exclusive collectors’ booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by Calum Waddell.

Audiodrome#3: Fantastic Planet

2011-12-30T18:25:00.002Z

Head over to Paracinema.net to check out the latest instalment of Audiodrome: Music in Film. This month I look at/listen to Alain Goraguer's prog-tastic score for Fantastic Planet; a visually stunning and psychedelic French-language animated feature directed by René Laloux. Combining elements of funk, jazz and prog-rock, Goraguer's music provides a suitably trippy mood for one of the most unique and provocative films you'll ever see.

Why not pick up the latest issue of Paracinema while you’re there? Amongst its lurid delights are articles such as Panic in Detroit: RoboCop and Reagan’s America by Andreas Stoehr; Blood on the Rubber Chicken: Horror Parodies of the Early ’80s by Mike White; and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures from Hell by Todd Garbarini. All great stuff, written by hardcore fans of genre films for hardcore fans of genre films.

The Case of the Monstrous Art

2011-12-16T12:16:00.000Z

I recently conducted an interview with self-taught artist Ryan Case for Fangoria. Case's striking paintings of the enduring icons of fright cinema have gained him comparisons with the likes of Basil Gogos, an artist renowned for capturing the underlying melancholy of the classic Universal Monsters. Head over to Fangoria.com to check it out.

Issue 14 of Paracinema Available to Pre-Order

2011-12-14T22:29:00.002Z

Paracinema? I'd buy that for a dollar! Well, $7 actually.

Issue 14 of Paracinema is now available to pre-order! Hard to believe that the magazine has been going for 14 issues. It has been independently published since 2007 and, as clichéd as it might sound, has got better with every issue. It’s also recently widened its net and is available in various independent retailers right across the length and breadth of the States. Cool stuff, eh?

Issue 14 contains a number of exciting features on various genre classics and obscure gems. Articles include Panic in Detroit: RoboCop and Reagan's America by Andreas Stoehr; Blood on the Rubber Chicken: Horror Parodies of the Early ’80s by Mike White; Christ Stopped at San Miguel: Italy’s Economic Miracle and A Fistful of Dollars by Jef Burnham; Catching the Bus: Jump Scares in the Horror Film by C. Rachel Katz; Slavery in 70's Cinema: Mandingo and Drum by Paul Talbot; and (personally speaking, the one I’m most looking forward to checking out), a comprehensive overview of the career of Riccardo Freda, a very important figure in Italian horror cinema. Huzzah!

Head here to pre-order your copy. Do it!

Ladies Month at The Death Rattle: Top 10 Final Girls #3-1

2011-12-09T11:09:00.000Z

This week Aaron Duenas and I have been counting down our top ten favourite heroines in horror over at his fine blog, The Death Rattle. There have been a few surprises along the way as we both felt it wouldn’t be that interesting to just peddle out another masturbatory treatise on the likes of Nancy, Laurie, Alice and Ripley, and why they’re so wonderful. As much as we love those particular Final Girls, and recognise the influence they have over the ones we did decide on, it’s not really very original – we know why they’re wonderful. But hey, maybe you won’t think our choices are that original either – you won’t know until you check ‘em out. So what are you waiting for? Head over to The Death Rattle and see for yourself. And let us know what you think! Be brutal. We like that.

Red Hoods, Dark Woods Part IV: Happily Ever After

2011-12-09T00:18:00.000Z

'Snow, Glass, Apples' by Julie Dillon

With Hardwicke trailblazing modernised fairytales for teen horror audiences, it is safe to assume that more will soon follow suit – think of what Twilight did for romanticising vampires and making them appealing to maudlin teenagers. Love it or loathe it, its influence on popular culture is undeniable. Fans of Twilight no doubt flocked to Hardwicke’s latest offering.
A number of Hollywood horror-tinged adaptations of fairytales are actually already in the works. Amongst them is the Julia Roberts starring Mirror Mirror, with Roberts tipped to play the Evil Queen. Directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell), the film is a dark twist on the classic fairytale, in which Snow White and the seven dwarfs look to reclaim their destroyed kingdom. Another film that refigures the tale of Snow White, only as a chase movie, is Snow White and the Huntsman, starring Kristen Stewart as Snow White, and Chris Hemsworth as the huntsman sent to kill her and bring her heart back to the Evil Queen (Charlize Theron). Also forthcoming is Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters; set '15 years after' their traumatic encounter with a cannibalistic witch in a gingerbread-house, siblings Hansel and Gretel have grown up to become a formidable team of bounty hunters who track and kill witches the world over.

So when you’re off to visit Grandma, or just going to the videoshop; take care. Stick to the path. Don’t talk to strangers. And beware the full moon… Fairytale horrors are here to stay.

Red Hoods, Dark Woods Part III: The Beast Within…

2011-12-08T23:59:00.001Z

With this central image of a young girl being stalked and menaced through dark and foreboding forests by a snarling, sly and slathering beast, Little Red Riding Hood has also always had its roots firmly planted in horror. It shares its conservative morality with many fairytales that warn of what happens to young women who ‘stray from the path’ and indulge their ‘primal instincts’. It is essentially a dark tale about sexual awakening. The forest, a place used time and again in literature and cinema to represent a place of hidden danger, primal fear and dark threat serves as the suitable backdrop; a place that is as far removed from civilisation as possible.

What further embeds the tale in horror is the fact that the Big Bad Wolf can be seen as a werewolf – another handy metaphor for physical and emotional transformation. Werewolves - humans who are condemned to spend their lives transforming into bloodthirsty beasts when the moon is full - are a common theme in mythology and folklore throughout the world, as well as in literature and cinema. They usually serve as allegories of our internal primal instincts and intrinsic savagery, buried deep down under years of civilisation and social conventions – but still lurking there nonetheless. The transformation of man into monster is representative of the manifestation of inner conflict - surrendering to the animal within, and to the primitive side of our nature. Most werewolf stories are concerned, on some level or other, with exploring the consequences of unleashed moral and sexual depravity, serving as allegories to warn us of the dangers of indulging our ‘animal’ instincts.

'The Company of Wolves' by Emily Tenshi

'The Big Bad Wolf' by Graham Franciose

Returning to Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’, we can see that she has utilised the figure of the werewolf to explore notions of unleashed female sexuality and empowerment. There are three takes on the tale of Red Riding Hood in Carter’s collection of short stories, and each one refigures the tale to reveal different aspects of ‘womanhood.’ Carter consistently challenges the way in which women are represented as passive victims and as such, the female characters in her retellings aren’t rescued by woodsmen, but by themselves, their mothers and by other women. The stories deal with ideas and notions of the traditional roles women play in relationships, the uneven balance of power, their burgeoning sexuality, identity, coming of age and their eventual ‘corruption’ at the hands (claws) of men and their base instincts. Catherine Hardwicke’s sensibilities and preoccupation with younger characters attempting to find themselves, and her choice of cast, compliments and at times even seems filtered through Carter’s own approach to Little Red Riding Hood as a tale of female empowerment. Red Riding Hood features a trinity of actresses renowned for their portrayals of strong, independent women in a myriad of unconventional roles and movies: Julie Christie, Virginia Madsen and Amanda Seyfried.

'Red Riding Hood' by Fleury Francois Richard

'Red Revenge'

Happy 'Bloody' Birthday, Behind the Couch

2011-12-08T16:18:00.006Z

Behind the Couch turns 3 years old today!

Thanks so much to everyone who has swung by over the last year. There were quite a few great films watched and reviewed, the usual plethora of bad films, and of course, absolutely fucking ridiculous films. Natch. This year I also rejoiced (sort of) at the return of John Carpenter to our screens, pondered the sickening excesses of the films of Lucio Fulci and celebrated the centenary of none other than the patron saint of Behind the Couch, Mr Vincent Price. Huzzah! There was also a Halloween movie marathon and the usual contemplation of all things gialli and trashy. Fun times.

Away from the blog, I’ve continued to contribute to the likes of the really rather awesome Paracinema- including a new monthly feature on their website looking at music in cult cinema – and the brand-spanking new indie publication Exquisite Terror.

Also! Earlier this year an excerpt from an article I wrote about Sergio Martino was used as the title of an all-new 20 minute interview with the director, which appeared on the Shameless DVD release of The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh. Exciting stuff, eh? The interview was called Thrills, Chills and Cleavage, and according to Shameless, was an apt title for a mini-doc about the filmmaker. You can read the article here.

Here’s to the next year of writing about horror movies! May it be as wine drenched, bloody and as good as this one!

Red Hoods, Dark Woods Part II: Once Upon A Time…

2011-12-07T18:02:00.002Z

Throughout the years many filmmakers have adapted various versions of Little Red Riding Hood for cinema, most to investigate or exploit its coming of age subtext. In the early Eighties Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan collaborated with English writer and novelist Angela Carter on an adaptation of her book 'The Bloody Chamber.' 'The Bloody Chamber' is a collection of fairytales, including Little Red Riding Hood, which Carter had reworked, reinterpreted and filtered through a 20th Century feminist viewpoint to give them a fresh and provocative perspective. Their resulting collaboration was 1984’s strikingly beautiful and dreamlike The Company of Wolves, a film that unfurls as the fever-dream of a young girl experiencing menstruation for the first time. Boasting a narrative of stories within stories and dreams within dreams, The Company of Wolves retains its power even now, and in terms of stylisation and mood, even manages to ‘out-Burton’ Tim Burton, with its rich and intoxicating atmospherics. Angela Lansbury starred as the Grandmother who warns her young granddaughter Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) to be wary of men who are ‘hairy on the inside’ and whose eyebrows meet in the middle. The tales they tell each other form the bulk of the movie, unspooling as striking vignettes ruminating on the nightmarish plight of female adolescents.

Matthew Bright’s indie film Freeway updated and reinterpreted the story in 1996, with Little Red Riding Hood (Reese Witherspoon) portrayed as a white-trash juvenile delinquent on her way to stay with her grandmother when her drug-addicted, prostitute mother and abusive step-father are hauled off to prison. Naturally, she has a run in with the ‘big bad wolf’ – Kiefer Sutherland as a mentally deranged serial killer targeting vulnerable young women on the titular freeway. Unfolding as a wickedly off-kilter road movie, Freeway also provides damning social commentary on the US’s Right Wing justice system and how it treats the juvenile delinquents caught up in it.

Still from 'Trick 'r Treat'

Giacomo Cimini’s 2003 film Red Riding Hood, re-imagined the tale as the misadventures of a young girl acting as a vigilante, delivering violent justice to thieves, rapists, murderers and thugs with the aid of her imaginary, wolf mask wearing friend, George.

Also made in 2003, Little Erin Merryweather updates the tale to feature Red Riding Hood as a serial killer with severe psychological hang-ups originating from her molestation as a child: the 'big bad wolf' in her past being her abusive father. She works as a fairytale-obsessed librarian on a college campus and preys on male students; stalking them through nearby woods, stabbing them to death and sowing stones up inside their bellies. The film, directed by and starring David Morwick boasted the tag line 'A flash of red... Then you're dead', and craftily subverted the norm by playing around with gender conventions resulting in a film about a group of young men who are stalked by a female killer.

The Ellen Page starring Hard Candy reinvented the story for the iPod generation, with a self-appointed vigilante ‘red riding hood’ figure tracking down paedophiles through online chat-rooms and extracting brutal ‘justice.’ The Syfy commissioned series, Red: Werewolf Hunter also put a slyly subversive spin on the tale. The series follows the exploits of the modern-day descendant of Little Red Riding Hood, who brings her fiancé home to meet her family and reveal to him their occupation as werewolf hunters. Trouble ensues however after he is bitten by a werewolf and the pair must go on the run, with her having to protect him from her werewolf-slaying family. Ultra low budget slasher Rotkäppchen: The Blood of Red Riding Hood mixed erotic stylisation with gory violence in its retelling of the tale as directed by Harry Sparks in 2009.

Still from 'Brothers Grimm'

Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood - written by David Leslie Johnson (who also wrote the creepy and disturbing The Orphan) - is loosely based on the original folk tale “Le Petit Chaperon Rouge” (Little Red Riding Hood), as written by Charles Perrault, and elements from the version by the Brothers Grimm, “Rotkäppchen” (Redcap), which was written several decades later. With its supernaturally charged story boasting werewolves and angst-ridden teens embroiled in a quivering love triangle, Red Riding Hood has already drawn comparisons with Hardwicke’s adaptation of teen-vampire romance, Twilight. It would be easy to dismiss Hardwicke as a peddler of pallid, gothic-hewn romances for lovelorn, awkward teenage girls; easy, were it not for the fact that she also co-wrote and directed the hard-hitting and wayward drama Thirteen.

Hardwicke has a penchant for stories that revolve around marginalised young people, particularly young women, who undergo tumultuous strife and heartache in order to find their own identities and voices. The character of Little Red Riding Hood after all, depending on what variation of the tale you look at, was resourceful, independent, head-strong and resilient. The perfect heroine for a modernised gothic horror flick. In some versions it is she who saves herself and her grandmother from the big bad wolf, not a woodsman. Each version acts as a thinly veiled metaphor relaying the pain and potential dangers girls face as they mature into womanhood.

It is fair to say that the figure of a red-hooded girl picking her way cautiously through deep dark woods, still haunts popular culture today and drips with sexual undertones. It is one of the most effective expressions of the ultimate loss of innocence. From Roald Dahl’s ‘Revolting Rhymes’ through countless music videos by the likes of Evanescence and Cathy Davey, to explicit references in horror movies such as Trick 'r Treat and The Brother’s Grimm, to darker, more erotic takes on pre-Perrault versions of the tale, such as Neil Gaiman’s reinterpretation in ‘The Sandman’; the little girl with the red riding hood actually cuts a pretty impressive swathe through pop culture and media.

Ladies Month at The Death Rattle: Top 10 Final Girls #7-4

2011-12-07T10:35:00.003Z

A pregnant college girl; a grieving widow; a murderously obsessive best friend; a nervous wreck and a spoilt daddy’s girl. Any of these sound like your typical horror heroine or Final Girl?

Head over to The Death Rattle to check out the latest instalment of mine and Aaron's favourite women in horror.

Ladies Month at The Death Rattle:Top 10 Final Girls #8-10

2011-12-05T10:25:00.004Z

When Aaron Duenas of The Death Rattle infamy asked me to choose a few favourite Horror Heroines for his Ladies in Horror month, I was hardly going to say no, was I?

As much as I love Laurie, Alice, and Nancy et al though, I thought it might be more interesting to take a look at a few other ‘horror heroines’ who perhaps broaden, bend or even negate the concept of what it is to be a Final Girl.

The plucky women I’ve chosen might not necessarily fit the rigid and conventional definition of ‘Final Girl’, but they still represent the strong spirit she is renowned for. Of course, many of the women Aaron and I have listed obviously owe a huge debt to Laurie, Alice, Nancy and co – whose essences pervade this month over at The Death Rattle - which is where you should head now to check out the first of our Top Ten.

Red Hoods, Dark Woods Part I

2011-12-01T00:38:00.001Z

"The Company of Wolves II" by Olukemi

With Snow White and the Huntsman galloping onto screens in the wake of, and from the same gothic fairytale stable as Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, and Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror to follow soon after, it looks like fairytale adaptations are ‘trending’ at the moment. They’re certainly not a new thing; fairytales have often provided the basis of films throughout cinema history – either directly or loosely. I thought it might be interesting throughout the course of December to have a look at one of the most recognisable and enduring of these tales – Little Red Riding Hood.

The tale of Little Red Riding Hood is centuries old. Most people will be familiar with it thanks to growing up with the likes of the slightly diluted version by the Brothers Grimm, in which a young girl and her grandmother are rescued from the belly of a ravenous wolf by a chivalrous woodsman. Earlier versions of the tale were much darker, and bleaker. The earliest recorded written version of the tale dates back to 17th century France and a writer named Charles Perrault. Perrault’s tale featured young Red Riding Hood and her sickly Grandmother being devoured by a Big Bad Wolf who tricks both of them, only this time; they are not rescued by a woodsman.

A typical fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood works on a subconscious level to teach us about the dangers inherent in our world; it isn’t just the story of a young girl who is menaced by a wolf when she gets lost in the woods on her way to her grandmother’s house. It is a story, as most fairytales are, that hangs heavy with cautionary morality, warning young girls of the dangers of conversing with strange men and the potential threats which will accompany their burgeoning sexuality as they cross the threshold into womanhood.

"Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" by Gustave Doré

Still from Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Fairytales remain a relevant and powerful form of storytelling because of their ability to be constantly reinterpreted and retold, making them relatable enough for most generations. That they are usually drenched in sexual connotations and concerned with the awakening of sexuality renders them even more potent. The renowned psychologist Bruno Bettelheim – also a follower of Sigmund Freud's and an important contributor to psychoanalysis - proposed in his book “The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales”, that the fairytale is an important part of helping children define who they are and what their place is in the world. Bettelheim believed that by hearing about life-threatening problems and potential threats, children are given vital information that operates on a subconscious level, educating them about the struggles of life, and that these struggles are actually an intrinsic part of our existence. Like Plato, Bettelheim maintained that the education of children should begin with the telling of myths and that the fairytale presented a model for behaviour; giving meaning and value to our lives. He commented: “As children, we need monsters to instruct us in the ways of the world.”

Abney Park Cemetery

2011-11-22T16:51:00.000Z

On a recent trip to London to visit friends I also took the opportunity to visit Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, in the London borough of Hackney. It is one of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries and a peaceful Saturday afternoon was spent exploring the place. It’s no secret I love cemeteries (the older the better) and wouldn’t think twice about spending an afternoon wandering around one and taking photos.

In 1840 Abney Park became a non-denominational garden cemetery and semi-public park arboretum, and today it is used by local residents who walk, jog, picnic, hang out and drink there.

Amongst the dark delights I discovered were an abandoned gothic chapel in the middle of the grounds and various catacombs amongst the overgrown and hauntingly beautiful walkways; themselves flanked by landscaped woodlands. Everything is wildly overgrown and atmospheric.

Amongst the dead interned in Abney Park are William and Catherine Booth, founders of The Salvation Army. Here are (but a few!) of the photographs I took whilst wafting around there on a strangely mild November afternoon...

Audiodrome#2: Eraserhead

2011-11-16T22:16:00.000Z

Head over to Paracinema's online lair to check out my article on the soundtrack of David Lynch's “dream of dark and troubling things”, Eraserhead; a surreal and nightmarish meditation on the horror of parenthood.

"You're in very bad trouble if you won't cooperate..."

Why not pick up the latest issue of Paracinema while you’re there? Amongst its lurid delights are articles such as 'Blood Is Thicker Than Fear: Maternal Madness in Horror Cinema'; 'Dreams That You Could Never Guess: Bela Lugosi on Poverty Row, 1940-42' and 'Censoring the Centipede: How the BBFC are Sewing Our Eyes Shut.' All great stuff, written by hardcore fans of genre films for hardcore fans of genre films.

The Woman

2011-11-13T20:03:00.001Z

2011
Dir. Lucky McKee

Social satire or horror movie? Misogynistic or an attack on misogyny? Feminist tract or manipulative glorification of violence? These are the kinds of questions that The Woman has raised with audiences and critics. Whether the film is viewed as a powerful portrait of misogyny, a thinking man’s torture-porn flick or simply a brutal and nasty gore-fest - The Woman proves to be an uncompromising and memorable ordeal. More a film to be endured than enjoyed, it has left audiences divided, devastated and immersed in deep debate. Frenzied viewers were left shocked, dazed, horrified, angry and outraged in its wake as it blazed through festival screenings and cinemas. Interestingly, apathy wasn’t something experienced by most viewers – The Woman demands that you have a strong opinion one way or the other. Of course, the danger with having such a fearsome and provocative reputation so adamantly preceding it is that it will fail to live up to the hype.

Does it? Well, it does and it doesn’t. It is shocking, gripping and well directed, but it is also very manipulative and morally black and white; the thinly veiled points it makes about gender relations, familial dysfunction, spousal abuse and contemporary morality are all hammered home with unwavering intensity.

Based on a screenplay by Lucky McKee and horror writer Jack Ketchum, The Woman works both as a stand-alone film and a sequel to the pair’s previous backwoods shocker The Offspring. It follows family man Chris Cleek’s (Sean Bridgers) attempts to civilise a wild woman he encounters in the forest and subsequently chains up in his cellar. He forces his submissive family to partake in his attempts to tame her, but unsurprisingly, it turns out to be he who is far from civilised. The Woman leads viewers along a frequently shocking and emotionally draining trail, twisting and turning but always leading unavoidably to that haunting and unforgettable climax. From the outset, it is one of those films in which everything indicates it won’t end well. At all well.

While it does serve as an exploration of the darkness in humanity and the atrocious, barbarous things society does in the name of civilization, it is a fairly simplistic depiction of such. It takes barbed jabs at conservative patriarchal family values revealing them to be inherently corrupt. While unquestioningly provocative and commanding, The Woman isn’t quite the feminist allegory it has been made out to be. Perhaps best viewed as a pitch-dark sitcom, if you scratch the surface there isn’t really that much more going on. Everything is loud and blatant – but it is conveyed with enough vigor and conviction to ensure it remains pretty damn compelling.

While its obvious button pushing is clear, it remains strangely effective. Its depiction of domestic abuse is unflinching and overwhelming in its matter of fact and abrupt execution. Even though the sporadic bloodletting will sate gore-hounds in its alarming intensity, it is actually the psychological horror and quiet degradation of the family unit that packs the weightiest punch. The female characters all live in fear of Chris. Tension comes from his unreasonable nature, his family’s inability to stand up to him and his tyrannical brand of patriarchy. He has no redeeming qualities – he has no moral grey area or ambiguity – he is presented as a clean-cut monster we’re actively encouraged to despise. He views his actions as morally righteous, and simply sees women as weak and deserving of such harsh treatment. Were these misogynous values instilled within him by his own father? Society? Or something broken, dark and damaged in his own soul?
Add to this the deliberately languid, slow-burn approach masterfully handled by McKee and you’ll get some idea of the stifling tension the film exudes.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the story is how Chris’s son begins to exhibit signs of following in his father’s footsteps, and is actively encouraged by Chris to do so. When Belle (Angela Bettis) chastises him for sexually assaulting the woman, Chris beats her unconscious and props her up at the kitchen table for daring to question their son’s actions, basically saying there was “no harm done.” It is in these moments when Chris condones violence and hatred towards women that get the blood boiling most of all.

The performances hold the increasingly extreme story together and all are highly effective. Pollyanna McIntosh is addictively compelling as the titular feral woman. Equal parts threatening and vulnerable, the wash of emotions exhibited by her is startling; everything is conveyed through her eyes, body language and guttural gurglings. As the dominating patriarch, Sean Bridgers is unnervingly calm and manipulative; behind closed doors he treats his daughters and wife with disdain and contempt. The mask he wears is that of an upstanding pillar of the community, a respectable business/family man who attends barbeques and partakes in the All-American pastime of hunting. As awkward teenager Peggy, Lauren Ashley Carter quietly commands attention as she implodes in fear and distress at the events unfolding in her own family home. Angela Bettis meanwhile provides yet another reliable performance as the downtrodden, soul-broken wife Belle. Fragile and fearful, the frustration she feels as she helplessly watches her family be psychologically abused consistently simmers behind her watery weak eyes.

The crowd-pleasing and blood-soaked climax enthralls as much as it frustrates – and the fate of one character in particular boasts a distasteful ‘blame the victim’ slant. Otherwise The Woman is a very well made and commanding film – McKee’s best since May

The Woman (cert. 18) will be available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray from 17th October 2011 courtesy of Revolver Entertainment.

Special features include: The Making of ‘The Woman’, Deleted Scenes, Short Film – ‘Mi Burro’, Meet The Makers, Music track ‘Distracted’ by Sean Spillane and 5 Exclusive Limited Edition Art Cards (HMV only).

The UK Blu-ray release also features an exclusive extra ‘The Film4 FrightFest Total Film panel with Lucky McKee, Andrew van den Houten, Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Ti West and Larry Fessenden.

Kaboom

2011-11-09T18:58:00.001Z

2010
Dir. Gregg Araki

Director Gregg Araki has never been one to shy away from controversial subject matter. His work usually explores the dark side of teenage life, where bad things happen ‘unexpectedly' and the lines between life and death, reality and nightmare are increasingly blurred. As a director he lingers somewhere between amateur and auteur. His 2005 film Mysterious Skin looked at sexual abuse and its aftermath through the eyes of two teenage boys – one of whom is convinced he is the victim of alien abduction. The Doom Generation was a gloomy, ultra-violent and nihilistic 'Generation X' for the soulless Nineties. His work usually features various depictions of the apocalypse as an almost mundane, matter of fact event and drugged-out characters wander through hyper-retro candy-coloured sets and broodingly dark cityscapes.

His latest film, Kaboom is a fantastical, mind-altering, sex-charged romp through the fickle world of college life that gradually morphs into an increasingly oddball, horror-tinged and absurd story about the onset of a global nuclear holocaust brought about by a sinister cult. Part comedy, part horror, part sci-fi, the range of tones Araki adopts throughout this head-melter shouldn’t really work, though everything holds together well enough to form an off-kilter and intoxicating film that is anything but boring.

The lives of Smith (Thomas Dekker), his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella (Haley Bennett), kooky free spirit London (Juno Temple) and pretty but dim surfer roommate Thor (Chris Zylka) are turned upside when Smith is convinced, while tripping on hallucinogenic cookies he ate at a party no less, that he has witnessed the brutal murder of an enigmatic red-haired girl he’s seen before in his dreams. His investigation leads him deeper into a sinister mystery that looks set to alter not only his own life, but the destiny of the entire world.

Rather unfortunately, the intriguing central premise all too soon falls into the background and becomes a mere backdrop, and the narrative is propelled by various sex scenes in which Araki’s characters explore their sexualities with each other while discussing everything from pop culture to the meaning of life. Cue much bed-hopping between couples and copious close-up shots of ecstatic faces during orgasm. The colourful and dysfunctional characters are typical of those who inhabit Araki’s film work; disaffected, bored, tedious and cynical; they indulge in copious amounts of drugs and sex while waxing lyrical about the state of the world. While Araki’s attempts to flesh out his creations are admirable, Kaboom might have benefitted from more attention to the story. When the central mystery eventually comes to the fore and Araki builds a fair degree of tension rather seamlessly, it’s all arguably too little, too late, as the film suddenly ends in a moment that will make some audiences feel utterly cheated and others – maybe those more familiar with the director’s bleak, absurdist humour – just smile wryly.

The ethereal score by ex-Cocteau Twins member Robin Guthrie and Austrian ambient-electronic composer Ulrich Schnauss is suitably moody and swirls throughout the movie headily, enhancing the tripped-out, hallucinogenic feel.

Araki’s meshing of sci-fi, horror, queer cinema, road movies, dark drama, full on sex, magic-realism and quasi-religious foreboding may not be everyone’s bag – especially as it all feels so detached – but those seeking genuine oddness with humour by turns both madcap and absurd, may find what they seek in this spaced out oddity.

Maniac Cop

2011-11-06T21:45:00.002Z

1988
Dir. William Lustig

Innocent New Yorkers are being brutally murdered by a uniformed police officer. As the death toll mounts, officer Jack Forrest finds himself accused of the slaughter. With few friends, powerful enemies and a psychopathic slayer still at large, Jack teams up with hardboiled Detective Frank McCrae and blonde-bombshell rookie Theresa, to prove he’s not guilty and bring down the killer.

You have the right to remain silent… Forever!

Boasting a cult-tastic cast of 80’s exploitation veterans including Tom Atkins, Richard Roundtree, Bruce Campbell and Laurene Landon, Maniac Cop has so much going for it. The script, by Larry Cohen, coupled with William Lustig’s bruising direction, ensures the film unravels as an entertaining and riveting suspenser. Cohen has made a career out of subverting normal, everyday things into objects of terror: babies (It’s Alive), ice-cream (The Stuff), paramedics (The Ambulance), and public phone boxes (Phone Booth). Maniac Cop subverts the notion of the police as a bastion for law and order, and twists it around to create something more sinister and unsettling. By taking a figure usually associated with safety, security, law and order and capsizing it, Cohen and Lustig are able to create effective scenes involving innocent people seeking help from the police, only to come face to face with a ruthless, psychotic killer.

Maniac Cop meshes together standard slasher movie tropes with police procedural movie trimmings. As well as the plethora of stalkings and murders, the film also boasts an engrossing central mystery; who is the cop and why is he killing people? As the eponymous cop, Matt Cordell comes complete with a tragic back-story and a thirst for revenge. That he is also a hulking brute who never speaks, is severely disfigured and wears a rather iconic garb means he could sit comfortably alongside other slasher villains of the 80s such as Jason, Michael or Freddy. The ways in which he kills his victims are both brutally violent and slyly humorous, particularly the scene involving a handcuffed man and a pool of just poured concrete. An especially taut scene features one woman handcuffed to a dead man and trying desperately to escape as the psycho-cop bashes down her door…

The central theme of the film seems potently relevant today, given the increasing instances of police brutality in society; the most prominent one in recent memory being the case of Ian Tomlinson, who on April 1 2009, was passing through the G20 summit protests in London and was pushed to the ground by a policeman. He died soon afterwards and the officer responsible for pushing him – demonstrating disproportionate force - has been charged with manslaughter. Another instance of contemptible police brutality that I couldn’t help but recall when watching Maniac Cop was the case of Jody McIntyre, who was dragged from his wheelchair by police during a student protest over tuition fees in London, 2009. What happens when police abuse their power and the trust we have in them? Who do we turn to then? This notion is exploited perfectly throughout Maniac Cop, most obviously in the opening scene where a woman, fleeing through a darkened park from a pair of muggers, spies a cop ahead of her and runs to him for help, only to receive a crushed throat for her trouble.

It is ingrained within us as a society not to question the police, and there are a number of suspenseful scenes where the titular cop exploits the authority his badge gives him – notably in the scene where he yanks a guy from his car as the dumb girlfriend looks on with weak trepidation, realising something isn’t quite right but feeling powerless to protest. Cohen’s witty script also finds time to take a few side swipes at the media – particularly at its ability to whip up frenzied panic by sensationalising stories, resulting in people panicking and acting without foresight or rational thought - perfectly conveyed in the scene where a lone woman in a broken down car listening to the news with increasing anxiety, shoots the cop who comes to her assistance, believing him to be the killer.

The New York City depicted is gritty, sleazy and menacing and the dank atmosphere is perfectly enhanced by the score, courtesy of Jay Chattaway; a typically 80s horror movie affair – all pulsing synths, taut strings, creepy atmospherics and a haunting Goblinesque lullaby theme that echoes throughout the flashbacks.

If you’re looking for a trashy, though well written and tightly executed exploitation flick with major slasher tendencies and some Tom Atkins AND Bruce Campbell action thrown in for good measure, you really can’t go wrong with Maniac Cop.

Maniac Cop (cert. 18) was released on Blu-ray (£27.99) by Arrow Video on 31st October 2011.

Special Features: Brand new High Definition transfer of film presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio; exclusive UK introduction to the film by star Tom Atkins; Doomed Detective: Tom Atkins on Maniac Cop; Lady Of The Night: Laurene Landon remembers Maniac Cop; Scripting A New Slasher Super-Villain: Larry Cohen on Matt Cordell; trailer; collectors’ booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by author Troy Howarth and “The Original Maniac: An interview with William Lustig”, adapted from Calum Waddell's book “Taboo Breakers”; reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork; double-sided fold out artwork poster; original Stereo 2.0 audio; optional English subtitles for the hearing impaired.

The Exterminator

2011-11-05T13:32:00.003Z

1980
Dir. James Glickenhaus

After returning home to the US from fighting in Vietnam, a traumatised soldier attempting to rebuild his life turns vigilante when his best friend is paralysed by a group of thugs.

While it may unfold as a brazenly violent, exploitative and at times trashy revenge fantasy, Glickenhaus’s The Exterminator is also at times a strangely thoughtful commentary on the difficulties of Vietnam soldier reintegration, post-war trauma and government corruption. The socio-political subtext about the plight of Vietnam vets and how their own society and justice system failed them on their return home, isn’t just a front for the exploitative violence – the film does make some genuinely stark points – some of which, particularly those about the ordinary working man’s dissatisfaction with greedy, corrupt governments who make us pay for their mistakes – have never been more prevalent. John Eastland (Robert Ginty), like so many other soldiers, fought because they felt they were protecting the ideals of democracy and the hardworking US people. Upon his return to New York he finds a city overrun by corruption, vice and crime – a society devouring itself through greed and debauchery.

While Glickenhaus’s script never seems to overly condone Eastland’s violent actions, it never really condemns him either. Aside from the overly elaborate methods of death he employs (dropping a gang boss into a mincing machine; tying up a couple of gang members in a basement for rats to chew their faces off) Eastland is never really presented as an unreasonable madman – if anything, he’s presented as a thoughtful intellectual kinda guy (a copy of Sartre’s 'Critique of Dialectical Reason' can be spied on his coffee table) who just wants to get on with living his life in peace. In fact it is actually his humanity and his loyalty to his paralysed friend Michael (Steve James) that eventually gives him away. The film’s closing line “Washington will be pleased”, is unsettlingly sinister, and screams of political corruption and desperation.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though – The Exterminator is a good old fashioned vigilante justice flick with an ‘everyman pushed to the edge’ as its protagonist. The likes of Street Trash and Hobo With A Shotgun would riff on similar themes later on; with their depictions of ordinary decent people neglected and pushed to extremes by the corrupt nature of society. That Eastland vents his anger and vigilantism on such lowlifes as child pornographers, rapists, paedophiles, pimps and various other underworld denizens adds to the ‘right on’ sense of trashy entertainment the story emits. For a film with such bleak events depicted in it, The Exterminator still has moments of warmth that lend it some heart – especially the burgeoning romance between Detective James Dalton and Dr. Megan Stewart (Christopher George and Samantha Eggar), and Eastland’s friendship with Michael and the support he gives his friend’s wife and children.

From the denim-flaunting, headband-wearing thugs (The Ghetto Ghouls) complete with chains, spiked accessories and bad attitudes, to the sleazy squalid atmosphere of a New York that could only have been filmed in the Eighties – seediness brimming with rat-infested menace – The Exterminator oozes atmosphere. An irresistible Abel Ferraraesque New York City provides the backdrop for the story; all sleazy neon, grimy sidewalks and steamy back alleys, while the film’s opening – a red lit and hellish Vietnam ‘trench’ featuring a gruesome decapitation that still looks pretty effective and disturbing to this day – and explosions galore, is all beautifully rendered in HD.

The Exterminator (cert. 18) will be released on Blu-ray (£24.99) by Arrow Video on 7th November 2011.

Special Features: Introduction to the film by director James Glickenhaus; Fire And Slice: Making The Exterminator - an interview with James Glickenhaus; 42nd Street Then And Now – a tour of New York’s former sleaze circuit with director Frank Henenlotter; audio commentary by Mark Buntzman, producer of The Exterminator and writer-director of The Exterminator II, moderated by Calum Waddell; collectors’ booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by critic David Hayles; reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork; double sided fold out artwork poster; original 1.78:1 aspect ratio; original uncompressed LPCM mono audio.

Tyrannosaur

2011-11-02T10:44:00.000Z

2011
Dir. Paddy Considine

After killing his dog in a fit of rage, violent alcoholic Joseph heads toward psychotic meltdown. Stifled by his past and his own anger with the world, Joseph thinks he finds redemption in the form of local charity shop worker Hannah. However Hannah has a dark secret of her own which threatens to shatter both their lives and plunge Joseph deeper into deadly despair.

In Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park there’s a famous moment when the audience and characters are alerted to the oncoming danger of an approaching T-Rex by water rippling in a paper cup. Paddy Considine’s assured and commanding feature directorial debut doesn’t have man-eating monsters in it, but it does feature a one-man rampage against life and the same sense of impending doom and menace ripples throughout it.

Considine is an actor who made a name for himself with his intense performances under the direction of Shane Meadows. Appearing in films such as Dead Man’s Shoes (which he co-wrote) and A Room For Romeo Brass, Considine soon secured a reputation for playing dark ‘n’ disturbed characters, the likes of which would easily be at home in his directorial debut. From Tyrannosaur’s opening scene in which the protagonist, walking time bomb of internalised rage Joseph (Peter Mullan – Session 9), explodes violently and kicks his dog to death, all the way to the shattering denouement, Tyrannosaur pulls no punches and unfolds as a gritty, at times bleak and unrelenting slice of life. A ‘kitchen-sink horror’, if you will.

Considine’s direction is unobtrusive and unfussy, and he allows his characters to just live and interact and for the story to tell itself. The director exhibits an astute knack for revealing horror in the everyday, the mundane and the ordinary, as his broken, damaged characters that have had the shit kicked out of them by life, lead fractured and lonely existences on a seemingly unstoppable collision course with tragedy. But there is also heartbreaking beauty in the breakdown; a little boy’s drawing left at Joseph’s doorstep, a dying dog’s fragile glance and the bond that materialises between Joseph and Hannah. Testament to Considine’s skill as a writer and Mullan’s powerful performance, we feel nothing but pity and sympathy for Joseph, despite the atrocious things he does. Rampaging around his council estate snapping and snarling his way to personal extinction, a few violent outbursts reveal what Joseph is really capable of. But we also see him in his quieter moments, despairing at the world and with himself.

Desperately seeking redemption, this domestic monster whose brutality and anger has completely ostracised him, encounters hope in the form of Christian charity worker Hannah (Olivia Colman). A chance meeting initiates a tentative friendship, but as time goes on, Joseph realises that his assumption that everyone ‘has their own shit to deal with’, is true and Hannah has a few demons of her own to face in the form of her abusive and chillingly sadistic husband. As the quietly despairing Hannah, Colman, renowned for comedic roles in the likes of Peep Show and Hot Fuzz, delivers a disarming and utterly jaw-dropping performance. In some of the later scenes she’s barely recognisable; her face a swollen and bruised mess.

An immensely powerful film that showcases the talents of all involved, and while much of it will knock the wind out of your sails, it will also let you believe that maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay in the end.

Audiodrome#1 - Session 9

2011-10-29T12:08:00.001+01:00

Head over to Paracinema to read my review of Session 9's creepy soundtrack by Climax Golden Twins.

I'll be reviewing a film soundtrack every month for the new Audiodrome: Film In Music feature.

And check out my interview with Rob Millis from Climax Golden Twins, also over at Paracinema.
While you're at it, why not treat yourself to the latest issue of Paracinema Magazine. It's really rather good!

Issue 1 of Exquisite Terror

2011-10-26T20:05:00.003+01:00

London-based writer, editor and now publisher Naila Scargill, has harboured a deep-rooted fascination with the horror genre since a young girl, and it has long been a source of frustration to her that our beloved subject is rarely taken seriously as the relevant art form that it is.

Having worked as deputy editor on the now defunct Gorezone Magazine, and with increasing frustration witnessed its downward trajectory into salacious, gutter-press titillation, Scargill needed to sate her appetite for an intelligent and thought-provoking horror magazine that actually focused on horror.

And thus, having emerged from that particular wreckage with dignity just about intact, she has created Exquisite Terror - a brand-spanking-new and independently produced periodical; the intention of which is to take a more academic, analytical approach to the genre of horror.
Issue 1 includes an in-depth essay on actor Donald Sutherland and his career in the 1970s; an interview with promising new Spanish director Guillem Morales (Julia’s Eyes); ‘How to survive vampirism, according to Bram Stoker and Stephen King’; ‘Analysis of the script behind a classic’; a little something penned by yours truly on the Saitama Serial Murders of Dog Lovers (the real life story that provided the inspiration for Cold Fish) and the obligatory much, much more…

Pick up a copy of Exquisite Terror here.

Halloween Horrors in Belfast

2011-10-26T18:16:00.005+01:00

Following on from its well received premiere at the 3rd Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival in Belfast last month, and its award winning stint at this year’s Freak Show Film Festival in Orlando – where lead actor Robert Render picked up the award for Best Actor – George Clarke’s creepy spookfest The Last Light is set to chill the spines of audiences at Belfast’s Strand Cinema on Saturday 29th October…

The Last Light is the dark tale of a maintenance man called on to ensure an old derelict house – formerly a psychiatric hospital, no less - is securely boarded up after a reported break-in. On what is supposed to be his last day on the job, he experiences increasingly chilling occurrences. Initially believing that wayward kids are playing a prank on him, it soon becomes evident that something much more sinister is afoot…

The Last Light is a moody, atmospheric and old fashioned haunted house yarn – perfect viewing on All Hallow’s Eve… Read more about the film here.
Tickets are £10 and this includes wine and nibbly things, a red carpet walk and a screening of the film followed by a cast and crew Q&A.

Tickets can be purchased here, or at the box office at The Strand.

Also screening in Belfast in the run up to Halloween is the second annual Halloween Horrorthon at the Waterfront Hall's Movie Bar on Friday 28th. Kicking off at 8.30pm, the marathon this year consists of a trek through some of the most imaginative, 'colourful', blood-spattered and low budget terror flicks of the 80s...
Frank Hennenlotter's deranged and oddly touching Basket Case, Don Coscarelli's creepy, trippy nightmare flick Phantasm, Stuart Gordon's darkly funny, exceedingly splashy take on Lovecraft's Herbert West misadventure Re-Animator, and the one and only The Evil Dead, which really needs no introduction.

There are a limited amount of tickets remaining for the Horrorthon and these can be booked here. Alternatively, if you're based in or around Belfast, head over to Movie Bar organiser John Baxter's fine blog Knifed In Venice for the chance to win a couple of tickets for the horrorthon. Happy Halloween!

There are also a host of horror screenings at the Queen's Film Theatre. Apparitions: The Spectral Screen includes The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, The Innocents and Ringu, to name but a few.

Pass this Award onto five other people or you will DIE!

2011-10-26T16:27:00.003+01:00

Aaron over at The Death Rattle was kind/drunk enough to present me with the iDig Your Blog Award. As such it is my duty to gratefully accept and spread on the accolades to a few other blogs I dig…

5 Blogs I dig…

SADFAY

Belfast-based musician/producer Martin Byrne has been composing, producing and recording a song every day this year. A daunting task indeed, but Martin’s commitment to the project is nothing short of inspiring. Each visit to his blog results in an album’s worth of listening material. Great stuff. Plus, his latest track, The Slasher, appears to be an homage to John Carpenter and synthy slasher goodness from the 80s...

It All Happens In The Dark

A lover of slasher flicks, damsels in distress and feisty final girls, Cody’s breezy reviews and reflections on horror films old and new boast an infectious sense of humour and an ever fresh perspective. Currently on hiatus, here’s hoping Cody rejoins us soon for the sequel!

Unflinching Eye

A visit to Aylmer’s blog always results in discovering something I wasn’t previously aware of. With his finger on the pulse of transgressive, left-of-centre horror, every new post is an exciting, enlightening and usually beautifully written read.

Celluloid Highway

Shaun Anderson’s blog is a veritable trove of movies less-seen discussed and reviewed in an honest and frank manner. Shaun is usually pretty forthright in his writing – he calls a spade a spade. And that he does so in such an articulate, often acerbic manner results in damn good readin’.

Fascination With Fear

A fellow Argentophile, Christine Hadden’s blog charts her obsession with all things horror. Reflective, funny and scarily relatable, Fascination With Fear is easy to get lost in with its myriad reviews, ruminations on the genre and everyday anecdotes from the life of a hardcore horror fan.

Should any of these fine bloggers chose to accept their award, apparently there are rules...

1. Gratefully accept this award.
2. Link to the person you received it from.
3. Post 3 interesting facts about yourself.
4. Pass this award around to at least 5 blogs you dig.
5. Notify them.
6. If you don’t, you’ll die in seven days after receiving a series of ominous phone calls actually made from inside your own house… (I may have made this one up).

Sheesh!

Three interesting facts about myself:
1. I was once an extra in a film. I'm blown up in an explosion during the opening credits.
2. I once referred to Suspiria as 'a giallo' in an essay at university. For shame!
3. I watched Jaws 4: The Revenge last night.

Home Invasion Movie Competition

2011-10-20T15:29:00.006+01:00

The 'home invasion' movie works to unsettle and disturb its audience by preying on the fearful anxiety that someone or something could gain entry to our home with the sole intention of harming us. By penetrating our sanctuary – the place we live, rest and take refuge after a long day – these films work to make us feel unsafe within our very own four walls. Amongst some of the most effective titles in this perturbing sub-genre are Funny Games, Inside, Ils (Them), The Strangers, the surprisingly effective remake of Mother’s Day – and of course, Sam Peckinpah’s classic Straw Dogs.

Draw the curtains, lock the doors and read on for details on how you can win copies of Mother’s Day and Straw Dogs…

To celebrate the 24th October UK DVD and Blu-ray release of Mother's Day (Studiocanal), we are offering a fantastic original cinema poster and a copy of the film on Blu-ray.
Rebecca De Mornay (Wedding Crashers; Lords of Dogtown) heads a killer cast in Mother's Day, in a role the makes her psychotic character from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle look like Mother Theresa! Loosely based on Charles Kaufman’s 1980 Troma classic, Mother's Day is a nail-biting thriller that has been described as “Intense” (Dread Central) and “A gruesome pleasure" (The Sun).

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. Thanks to all who entered - and good luck!

As if the Mother’s Day competition wasn’t enough – those kind folks at The Associates/Cult Labs are also giving away several copies of Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs.

Coinciding with its 40th anniversary and with the forthcoming remake, director Sam Peckinpah’s notorious thriller Straw Dogs has been carefully restored and remastered for release on two-disc DVD and for the first time ever as a features-packed Special Edition Blu-ray on 24th October 2011.

Discover more about the original in a series of articles running on Total Fan Hub which will include reactions to the remake, plus details of the screening of the original at The Barbican in London on 9th Nov.

And for your shelf we have copies of the Blu-ray to give away for two lucky winners. To be in with a chance of winning a copy of Straw Dogs, simply answer this question: Before starring in Straw Dogs, British actress Susan George appeared in director Pete Walker’s first foray into the thriller genre. What was the name of that 1971 film?

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. Thanks to all who entered.Good luck! And don't forget to lock your back door...

Wine of the Month: Survivor’s Syrah

2011-10-19T17:35:00.002+01:00

“Wine is bottled poetry” - Robert Louis Stevenson.

Okay, so while all of this month has been dedicated to watching the Halloween films, my intentions to try some pumpkin wine for October’s featured bottle were put on hold when I heard there was a new addition to the Crystal Lake Wine series… Plus, the suburban sprawl of Haddonfield made me long for the greenery of Crystal Lake.

Survivor’s Syrah is a smooth and inviting red with hints of toasted coconut followed by notes of poached Anjou pear, strawberry jam and dried blueberries. The perfect weapon in a bottle for those trying midweek times.

To promote the latest addition to the Crystal Lake Wine range, filmmaker, avid Friday the 13th fanatic and fine wine connoisseur Curtis Pew has filmed Back To The Lake II, an eight-minute short and the second instalment of the Back To The Lake commercial series. It stars Adrienne King, Dallas Bobbitt and Nicholas Matthew Walker.

Check it out here.

Crystal Lake Wine is produced and bottled by one of the oldest wineries in Southern Oregon, Valley View Winery. Located near the historic town of Jacksonville, in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon, Valley View was originally established by pioneer Peter Britt in the 1850’s. The winery ended with Britt’s death in 1906 but the name was restored in 1972 by the Wisnovsky family, whose vineyard and winery is located just outside Jacksonville in Applegate Valley. The Applegate and Rogue Valleys offer a large variety of soil types and microclimates that allow a great diversity of grape varieties to be grown. Because the Applegate Valley is considerably sunnier, warmer and drier than elsewhere in western Oregon, Valley View concentrates on Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Viognier, Syrah and Tempranillo at their estate vineyard.

Adrienne King – Alice Hardy from Friday the 13th Parts I and II - was invited to join the Valley View family in February 2010 by 80s horror film fans Mike and Mark Wisnovsky, whose parents restored Valley View Vineyard over 40 years ago. Together they conceived the idea of Crystal Lake Wines. The rest, as they say, is history.

Laurie Strode favours the lingering honey finish of Crystal Lake Chardonnay…

Halloween II (2009)

2011-10-19T15:36:00.000+01:00

Dir. Rob Zombie

A year later, and a traumatised Laurie still struggles to come to terms with the bloodbath that resulted when her psychotic brother Michael Myers escaped from an asylum and came to find her, killing everyone who got in his way. Her worst fears are soon realised when Myers, who has been in hiding ever since, returns on Halloween night to finish what he started a year ago…

I first wrote about Rob Zombie’s follow-up to his remake of Halloween when it came out in 2009. You can read that review here.

After burning out while making Halloween, Zombie was initially hesitant to helm the sequel. After thinking about it though, and recognising the chance to continue with the story, he decided to film the follow up, imbuing it with the same squalid, dingy and bleak tone as its predecessor. My thoughts on the film haven’t really changed. I still think it is an immensely flawed, but beautifully filmed work. Zombie’s grungy aesthetics litter every shot and he creates a dank, foreboding atmosphere through his gritty production design. Halloween II is pierced with striking images and moodily lit moments that seem to transmit from some nightmarish, ransacked dystopia. Here are but a few of those eerily alluring images that showcase Zombie's unflinching and singular vision as a filmmaker…

Halloween (2007)

2011-10-19T15:02:00.001+01:00

Dir. Rob Zombie

After massacring his family on Halloween, disturbed 10 year old Michael Myers is committed to a mental institution. 17 years later, he violently escapes and heads back home to Haddonfield to find his baby sister Laurie, brutally murdering anyone who crosses his path.

In November 2005, Halloween producer/peddler Moustapha Akkad and his daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, were killed at a wedding party when Al-Qaeda bombed the Grand Hyatt in Amman, Jordan. As the champion of the series since its inception, his death was a blow for the future of the franchise. This, coupled with Dimension Film execs realising (maybe) the error of their ways with Halloween Resurrection, looked set to see the end of the Halloween films. However, following a trend of remaking old horror films from the Seventies and Eighties such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, The Amityville Horror and When A Stranger Calls, producers recognised that Halloween was still a marketable name and decided to reboot/re-imagine/remake/reconceptualise John Carpenter’s landmark slasher. Greedy execs. Tut.

As the director of the new version of Halloween, Rob Zombie attempts to explore and deconstruct the man behind the mask – relentless killer Michael Myers. By delving into Myers’ troubled childhood and his darkly dysfunctional family, Zombie attempts to address the issues that made Myers the merciless killing machine he grew up to be and show how someone could possibly commit such atrocious acts of devastating brutality. In his career as a filmmaker thus far, Zombie has always proved adept at presenting dark, twisted characters and offering brief glimpses into what makes them tick. He demonstrates a sort of understanding with those who exist outside of polite society, ostracised from normality and ensconced in freakishly carnivalesque lifestyles. Serial killers, outsiders and freaks are his joie de vivre and often form the most interesting aspects of his work. Presenting the ruthless redneck killers featured in House of 1000 Corpses as the protagonists in its follow up, The Devil’s Rejects, was a daring move, and few directors could have pulled off such a feat.

It came as no surprise then when he announced his intention to remake Halloween and explore the childhood of its antagonist Michael Myers. Villains have always been the more fleshed out characters in Zombie’s films – he shows more of an interest in them than his bland, thinly drawn ‘heroes.’ This aspect of probing Myers’ fractured mindset and background is the basis of his remake and perhaps it’s most original and compelling segment before it eventually descends into extreme violence and tensionless bloodletting.

A relentlessly grungy and grimy aesthetic depicting the Myers’ residence and lifestyle informs the film. Interiors are cluttered with all manner of soiled bric-a-brac and later on when the film unspools as an extended chase scene, this clutter and structural disintegration works to create a sweaty claustrophobia, enhancing the stiflingly grim tone and driving home the sadistic violence. The film is constructed around a lengthy ‘prologue’ in which Myers’ childhood, the murder of his family and his subsequent incarceration and counselling with Dr Loomis is played out. When Michael escapes and Zombie returns the story to the familiarly cosy suburban landscape of Haddonfield and begins segueing Carpenter’s original story of a killer stalking teenagers into the mix, the second act feels very rushed. There is no build up to anything. This entire part of the film feels like a hyper-condensed version of Carpenter’s. The film’s strengths are actually when Zombie veers off from the familiar formula and does his own thing; puts his own stamp on the story. While it is interesting to see him recreate some of the iconic scenes from the original such as Linda’s murder, it feels a little flat. Other scenes in this section of the film though, such as the murder of Laurie’s foster parents, are so intense, barbaric and effective because Zombie has the confidence to infuse his own vision into the story. Subtlety suffers though, and many of these scenes aren’t particularly suspenseful – but they do create a wallop of an impact. At times the camera seems to sense Myers’ rage and frenziedly shakes as it stares at his chokingly realised bloodbath. The third act, while no less violent, is essentially a taut chase scene and Zombie aptly conveys his ability to create tension when he needs to.

Myers is presented as a sensitive, shy child with severe self-esteem issues. His mother works as a stripper to support her family, his sister is the town slut and his tyrannical step-father abuses the family, physically and emotionally. In his presentation of Myers’ dysfunctional family, Zombie seems to be saying that though many people have been dealt a shit deal in life – it is only a few whose inability to deal with it and see beyond it that become inherently corrupted. That’s not to say that Halloween is an insightful and nuanced deconstruction of human psychology. It isn’t – far from it in fact, as sometimes it feels a little one-dimensional, even caricaturish – but it’s all carried off with such besmirched aplomb, Zombie makes it work. It’s pop psychology by numbers, but in the context of a Rob Zombie film, it further showcases the director’s willingness to explore sleazy, disturbed characters and the sordid surroundings they wallow in.

The performances are all suitably rough edged, exaggerated even. As the young Michael Myers, Daeg Faerch brings a strangely sympathetic touch to the fledgling killer. As his put-upon mother, Sherri Moon Zombie actually delivers a very decent performance, highlighting Deborah Myers’ down-beaten resignation and acceptance of her red-neck life. Malcolm McDowell is an interesting Dr Loomis, though he isn’t given much to do except spout Donald Pleasence-isms about Myers’ inhumanity and devilish black eyes, and to say Tyler Mane’s adult incarnation of Myers is an imposing, formidable sight is an obvious understatement. Gone are Carpenter’s subtle placements of the killer at the edge of the screen, and in evidence are Zombie’s presentations of Myers as a barraging, relentlessly brutal bulldozer.

While Zombie’s Halloween has its flaws, it still manages to exemplify the directorial showmanship of Zombie and mark him as an interesting filmmaker with unique vision. His Halloween might not do as much justice to Carpenter’s original as many would have hoped, but as a Rob Zombie film, it follows on perfectly from the likes of The Devil’s Rejects, in the director’s ongoing obsession with submergence in the sick, seedy underbelly of American society.

Halloween: Resurrection

2011-10-19T11:55:00.002+01:00

2002
Dir. Rick Rosenthal

Four years after mistakenly killing a man she thought to be her brother (really, Dimension Films? Desperation?), long-suffering Laurie Strode is eventually hunted down by her not really dead actual brother, crazier-than-bat-shit Michael Myers, and murderlised. Making his way back home to Haddonfield, Myers discovers the crew of an online reality show has taken over his house to broadcast a Halloween special featuring a group of dumb-fuck teenagers who must spend the night in the house of ill-repute. Naturally he goes on yet another killing spree. And its all caught on camera and broadcast online for other dumb-fuck teenagers to watch.

Yes, it really is as shite as it sounds.

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later did not warrant a sequel. It was intended not only as a twentieth anniversary celebration of John Carpenter's classic chiller, but as a way to draw the series to a close, with its original heroine finally confronting her demons and emerging victorious. With the return of Jamie Lee Curtis to the role of Laurie Strode and the story’s back to basics approach, everything was in place for a bravura denouement. Its show-stopping final moments feature Laurie deciding to stop running and actively face up to her deranged brother, putting an end to his life and his hold over her with one blow of an axe. Had the Halloween franchise ended here (as it should have in this writer’s humble opinion) it would have been a great finale and went out on such a high. A sense of cathartic resolution was reached that made sense not only in terms of the story it featured, but also the direction the series had been heading. However, as the film had been so successful, both critically and commercially, Dimension Films began to ponder how they could recreate the success. Four years later, with a budget of $15 million and a measly explanation for why Myers isn’t really dead, Halloween Resurrection went into production and any hope of seeing the series put to rest in a respectful, distinguished way was quashed quicker than you could scream “Look out behind you!”

From the start, Resurrection just feels like a cheat. The undignified treatment of Laurie (though to be fair to Curtis, she probably just wanted out - and who could blame her) and the explanation of how Myers is still alive, spat out in a clumsy expositionary way no less, is cringe-worthy, indicative of the embarrassing mess of a film to follow and pretty much undoes all the good H20 did in reigning the series in and providing it with a decent sense of closure.

The premise, while possibly interesting in other films, just doesn’t have any context within the Halloween series. Mockumentaries had become a popular format for horror films after the success of The Blair Witch Project. Halloween really doesn’t seem a likely series to adapt this approach, but this again highlights how little thought has gone into this instalment and just showcases how desperate the studio was to move with the times and capitalise on what was popular. To hell with whether or not it fits the series’ spirit. The producers saw something that was popular and pounced on it. The idea of dumb teenagers watching a reality TV show in which other dumb teenagers are trapped in a house, their every move and subsequent violent death recorded for entertainment purposes a la Big Brother had been attempted in horror before, and to much more creepy effect, as in the likes of My Little Eye, Man Bites Dog and The Last Broadcast. Fuck, even Kolobos has more redeeming qualities than Resurrection. Yes I went there. Because it’s TRUE. While some postmodern, reflexive fun could have been had and some interesting points about horror audiences considered, Halloween Resurrection doesn’t even bother trying. The only time it comes remotely close to self-examination is the moment when the crowd at the party watching the show online cheer when one of the characters is dispatched as they think it’s a hoax. They’re suitably enthused and when they realise what’s going on and begin rooting for Sara, they scream senselessly at the screen with instructions for her to get out or runaway – like horror fans are sometimes prone to do when watching a dumb slasher flick.We've all been there. Haven't we? Don't lie.

The POV camera stuff feels like an afterthought – it doesn’t add anything to proceedings at all, when what it should do is thrust us into suspenseful build ups and bloody mayhem. Characters just wander around in the dark and gloomy house with no objective, while the intercutting of their static-charged camcorder POV footage is supposed to make us feel like we’re there with them. It doesn’t. It feels tacked on instead of integral to the storytelling. That they are such utterly redundant characters – some of which are so boring and pointless (yes Tara Banks I’m looking at you, coz frankly, just constantly shakin’ yo thang ain’t no actin’, bitch), Rosenthal can’t even be bothered filming their deaths. Not that this would enhance the film in any way – the violence is so generic and clichéd it has little effect. Much like he did when directing Halloween II, Rosenthal neglects to realise that it is the anticipation of violence that’s scary – not violence itself. The scene in which Freddie (Busta Rhymes) is dressed as Myers creeping through the house while actually being followed by the real Myers could have been quite creepy. Instead the moment is wasted on a dumb attempt at a humorous payoff. Freddie essentially sasses Myers thinking he’s someone else and the killer just slinks off. Perhaps feeling as embarrassed as the audience.

I was wrong about Halloween 5 being the absolute nadir of the Halloween series. When Busta Rhymes uses kung-fu to defend himself against Myers and exclaims “Trick or treat, muthafucka!” I just knew that this marked the absolute nadir of the series. What can I say, I’m that intuitive. Resurrection’s attempts at humour are severely misjudged, the performances are non-descript, and people spout juvenile, MTV-styled dialogue like “You want some of this? Huh? You want to try and fucking kill me? Huh? You like sushi, muthafucka?”, “Cameras are so... phallic” and “Looking a little crispy over there, Mikey. Like some chicken-fried muthafucka.” *groans*

Dumb, crass and representative of everything that that is bad about sequels – Halloween Resurrection is nothing but an obvious and shallow attempt by producers to cash in on the success of H20. It is utterly devoid of artistic merit and solely designed as a cold, hard cash-cow.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later

2011-10-17T22:26:00.001+01:00

1998
Dir. Steve Miner

With a new name and life in California, Laurie Strode still can’t escape the ghosts of her past and is haunted by the memories of her bloody ordeal 20 years ago, when her deranged brother Michael Myers tried to kill her. Working as the prim headmistress of an exclusive boarding school, she spends her days ostracising her son John, and her nights swigging booze and tranquilizers in an effort to forget her traumatic past. Since she faked her own death and went into hiding to escape her maniacal brother, she lives in constant fear of him ever finding her.

It’s now Halloween 1998, and the waiting is finally over…

With the twentieth anniversary of John Carpenter’s classic slasher movie approaching, and Michael Myers AWOL amidst a dirge of increasingly poorly executed and cumbersome sequels involving druids, curses and constellations (oh my!), it was left to actress Jamie Lee Curtis to pitch the idea of an anniversary film to both Dimension Films and the director who launched her career, John Carpenter. With the success of Scream, which had explicitly referenced Halloween, the bar had been raised for horror films – particularly slasher films – and the time was right to reunite slasher cinema’s ultimate scream queen with one of its most enduring bogeymen for one final showdown. Initially intrigued by the prospect, Carpenter eventually washed his hands of getting involved with a franchise long out of his creative control. Producer Moustapha Akkad also balked at Carpenter’s asking price, so it was left to Dimension to source a new writer and director for the film. Enter Kevin Williamson, the man who singlehandedly redefined horror for a cine-literate generation. Acting as an executive producer, Scream scribe Williamson drafted a treatment eventually written by Matt Greenberg (The Prophecy II) and Robert Zappia in which Laurie Strode, now living with a new name (Kerri Tate) and life, must confront her traumatic past once more when her psychotic brother Michael Myers finally tracks her down.

To its credit, Halloween H20 essentially ignores all the sequels after Halloween II, which frees it up from the increasingly supernatural and ludicrous direction the series had been heading in since Part 5. It was mentioned in Part 4 that Laurie Strode had been killed in a car accident resulting in her daughter Jamie being adopted by the Carruthers. In H20 it is revealed that she faked her own death and went into hiding. No mention is made of Jamie – though in the initial draft of the screenplay, one of Laurie’s students working on a project about serial killers, details Michael Myers’ killing spree and several key points from the sequels, including Jamie’s death, thereby acknowledging the character and her role in the Halloween canon. This was eventually dropped in rewrites though in a move that while daring (and ensuring H20’s close association with the story told in the original film and its sequel), arguably a tad infuriating (I sat through Parts 4, 5 and 6 when I could have just skipped ‘em!?).

At the heart of the film is a fine performance from Jamie Lee Curtis as the long suffering Laurie Strode. Laurie was an admirable character and it was Curtis who bestowed her with such strength and relatability. While she is now a traumatised, paranoid, barely functioning alcoholic, Laurie still retains her resourcefulness and strength. By making her the focus of the story, Halloween H20 sidesteps the usual cliché of a slasher story revolving around teenagers. This is the story of a woman consumed by the darkness of her past, who has gone through hell in her youth and still bears the scars. That the protagonist is a nervous, booze-swilling, pill-popping, bordering-on-domineering mother is one of the film’s most refreshing aspects. We can understand her torment though, and it adds to the overall satisfaction of the story to see Laurie regain her strength as time goes on and finally make a crowd pleasing stand against her homicidal sibling. Curtis had championed H20 from the beginning and felt it was of the utmost importance that Laurie finally confronts Myers after years of hiding from him.When she does, it is worth the wait.

Okay so there are some teen characters here too (well, Laurie is the headmistress of a boarding school after all), but they’re fairly inoffensive as they go about their mundane routines – oblivious to the peril they’ll soon find themselves in. Much like Scream, the younger cast members are all harvested from hip TV shows, including Michelle Williams, Josh Hartnett and Joseph Gordon Levitt. Molly (Michelle Williams) would have been the 'final girl' in any other film as she is the only one to show any sort of gutsiness and resourcefulness, aside from Laurie, when looking danger in the face. The school’s counsellor (Adam Arkin) and security guard (LL Cool J) round off the minimal cast.

Director Steve Miner was no stranger to the horror genre having already helmed titles such as Friday the 13th Part II and III, House and Warlock. Miner adopts the same slow-burn approach Carpenter utilised so masterfully in Halloween. For lengthy periods of time, nothing happens onscreen, but the sense of impending doom is effectively realised. In taking the time to establish characters and create a suitably menacing atmosphere, he ensures H20 is an involving, taut and compelling film. Unlike the sequels, H20 takes its time getting to the bloody mayhem and Miner knows all too well that it’s the anticipation of violence, not violence itself, which is key to creating tension and chills. In terms of look, tone and atmosphere, H20 resembles Halloween more closely than any of the sequels that came before it. Miner also uses the original Panavision widescreen format that Carpenter deployed in his film which establishes a visual echo. While he relies a little too heavily on jump scares – usually false alarms at that - Miner also manages to create several stand-out sequences that rely on moody suspense and the crafty subversion of audience expectations – namely the opening scene in which Loomis’ nurse Marion (Nancy Stephens reprising her role from the first two films) does everything right (gets the hell out of there, calls the cops and seeks safety in numbers) and still winds up dead, a mother and her daughter’s creepy encounter at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere and an edge of the seat chase scene involving a dumb-waiter…

That the film is pretty self-referential comes as no surprise. It openly acknowledges a dept not only to the original Halloween, but also to Psycho and, as it came in its wake, Scream. It is worth noting that Carpenter’s original was also pretty playful on a reflexive level, and director Miner is as careful not to overdo the knowingness, thus never risking the suspense he so carefully constructs. A number of memorable moments and shots from Carpenter’s original are effectively recreated here without seeming overly parodical or in-your-face. Amongst the more obvious nods to Psycho include a wonderful cameo from the original slasher victim Janet Leigh – Curtis’s mother - as the school secretary Norma (complete with offering ‘maternal’ advice to Laurie, the car her character drove in Psycho and the faintest swelling of Bernard Herrmann’s famous score accompanying her departure) and the unhealthy relationship Laurie has with her son John, which stems from her over protectiveness of him.

By going back to basics with a minimal cast, limited locations, pared down script, loads of menace and tension, H20 has everything that made the original so memorable. That it also features Jamie Lee Curtis in a story really worth revisiting in the form of Laurie Strode’s victimisation, struggle with her past and determination to confront it once and for all, is the jewel in the crown.

Halloween H20 is an uncommon thing – a decent sequel that, while honouring the original film it follows on from, has a story of its own to tell, too.

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

2011-10-16T22:20:00.002+01:00

1995
Dir. Joe Chappelle

Six years after she and her psychotic uncle Michael Myers were abducted from the Haddonfield police station by the mysterious Man in Black, Jamie Lloyd and her newborn baby go on the run again with Myers’ in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, relatives of the family that adopted Laurie Strode have moved into the old Myers house and befriended Tommy Doyle, whose obsession with Myers’ leads to the discovery of a family curse that drives the killer to violently eradicate his bloodline – which is bad news for the Strodes. Teaming up with Dr. Loomis, they set out to stop Myers and the cult that protects him once and for all, yada, yada, yada.

With Miramax having purchased the distribution rights to the Halloween franchise, it was their intention to give the flailing series something of a reboot and to release further instalments through its newly established genre arm, Dimension Films. Following in the wake of the leaden Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers - complete with its ambiguous open ending and hints of Druidic/Runic mythos, writer Daniel Farrands really had his work cut out trying to tie up loose ends, resolve inconsistencies within the plot and move the Myers saga into fresh territory. Origin stories had become popular in slasher films around this time, when all other concepts had pretty much been exhausted. Two years prior to Halloween 6, Friday the 13th’s unstoppable killing machine Jason Voorhees had his vaguely supernatural origins explored in Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare gave Freddy Krueger a post-modern make-over. Even the original slasher, Norman Bates, was given a prequel (Psycho 4: The Beginning) charting the instigation of his murderous psychological hang-ups.

Halloween 6 may not be the most successful sequel to Carpenter’s classic slasher, but like Halloween III before, it must be given credit for its ambition to move the series in a new direction. Opening with the revelation of Jamie and Michael’s fates after the ambiguity of Halloween 5’s ending; it proceeds to explore what it is that drives Myers’ bloody killing sprees. The answer? Druids. Well, sort of. You see it is revealed that Myers is effectively trying to wipe out his whole bloodline as he is inflicted with the curse of Thorn, a demon-spread ‘sickness’ in which an individual is forced to kill his entire family for the good of society at large. According to Celtic legend one child from each tribe was chosen to be inflicted with the curse of Thorn and to offer a blood sacrifice of its next of kin on Samhain. The sacrifice of one family meant sparing the lives of the entire tribe. A druidic cult (led by the Man in Black introduced in Part 5) has apparently been watching over Myers to ensure no one intervenes with his mission. It is also revealed that a specific alignment of stars in the shape of Thorn, which occurs only at Halloween, instigates Myers' murder sprees. We’ve come a long way from the simplicity of Carpenter’s original chiller which presented Myers’ as a pretty motiveless killer.

While arguably ridiculous, Farrands’ script and the answers it provides works to link up all the prior films and create some kind of continuity for the series. Granted, it isn’t immensely successful (Really, Farrands? Druids?), but when one recalls certain instances from the other films, it does form a vague consistency. For example, the scene in Halloween where the caretaker of the graveyard tells Loomis about a man who slaughtered his entire family at the same time Myers’ killed his sister, and the scene in Halloween II in which someone has scrawled the word ‘Samhain’ in blood on the wall of a school, it links things up within the mythology of the series. Sort of. The use of Halloween’s pagan/druidic origins in Part 6 also echoes similar themes and ideas from the third Halloween movie – and while it didn’t feature Myers – there are still irresistible thematic connections to the rest of the series highlighted by Farrands’ script. The revelation of the Man in Black’s identity also links back to an earlier film.

Reprising his role as Myers’ former psychiatrist is Donald Pleasence in what was to be his last ever role before his death. Looking painfully frail, Loomis is relegated to the sidelines as new characters are introduced to further the story along. The character of Jamie Lloyd is also sadly relegated to the sidelines. In fact she isn’t even portrayed by Danielle Harris (due to the actress’ resentment of the treatment of her character and issues over her salary, Harris declined to reprise the role). Jamie (portrayed in Part 6 by JC Brandy) was the heart of the prior instalments and had become popular with fans. She gave the series a relatable heroine to follow on from Laurie Strode. That she is given such a weak send off in this one seems like a smack in the face too. The rest of the cast consists of the usual knife fodder – in this case, relatives of Laurie’s adoptive family, the Strodes. There has always been an underlying notion of families having an inherent corruption and rottenness throughout the Halloween movies. Parents are often absent and siblings are murderous. In Halloween 6, the Strodes are a dysfunctional family with a tyrannical patriarch. The ‘final girl’ is downtrodden, single mother Kara (Marianne Hagan), a psychology student whose young son, Danny, has dark dreams and hears voices telling him to kill (it is hinted that he’s being groomed to replace Myers at a later date as the Thorn inflicted parricidist). At least Farrands has populated his script with believable characters as opposed to the usual sexed-up teens. In fact, while the Halloween movies (like all slashers) have featured their fair share of sexed-up teenaged knife fodder, the protagonists of the sequels to date have been a little girl and an elderly psychiatrist. The heroes in Halloween 6 are similarly offbeat - a young single mother and a nervous wreck, scarred by his encounter with Myers when he was a boy.

The nervous wreck is Tommy Doyle, the young boy Laurie babysat in Halloween. Now a young man, Tommy (Paul Rudd) is essentially set up as the new Loomis, complete with an unhealthy (but useful) obsession with the Myers, the Strodes and Haddonfield’s bloody history. It is he who reveals Myers’ ‘affliction’ with the curse of Thorn and its druidic origins.

Stylishly directed by Chappelle and boasting some rapid-fire editing that has become common place in horror films now, this instalment is much darker in tone too; there is little humour, knowing or otherwise. At one stage however, a radio DJ speculating on the whereabouts of Myers makes a quip about him being in space (the location of several instalments of other rapidly expanding and ludicrous horror sequels such as Hellraiser, Friday the 13th and Leprechaun). The same DJ wants to broadcast his show from the Myers’ house – an idea that would later form the basis of Halloween: Resurrection. A party-goer in one scene is also dressed as Freddy Kreuger and Phantom of the Opera is glimpsed on a TV. Halloween 6 is also peppered with appearances from horror veterans such as Susan Swift (Ivy in Audrey Rose), Leo Geter (Silent Night, Deadly Night, The Stand and Near Dark), Kim Darby (Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark) and Mitchell Ryan (Dark Shadows). Interestingly, much like Jason Goes To Hell, the film does briefly explore what kind of effect a killer like Michael Myers has on the reputation of a community. Halloween has essentially been banned in Haddonfield since Myers and Jamie disappeared.

The bulk of the story follows Myers as he offs the Strodes and various other residents of Haddonfield in an attempt to get to Jamie’s baby as Tommy and Kara try to stop him – learning more about Thorn as they go along. There are a number of fairly tense scenes (the stalking of Kara’s nervous mother; an encounter with a motionless Myers lying at the bottom of the stairs) and the third act unravels as a tensely prolonged chase sequence which contrasts with the rest of the film as it takes place in brightly lit hospital corridors where Myers is seen in all his glory. One of the most disturbing scenes doesn’t even feature the demented killer. Dark domestic drama is mined to distressing effect when, sitting down to a family breakfast, Kara’s father shows his true colours and further develops the Halloween films’ dysfunctional family theme.

With its arguably laughable druid subplot, outlandish and nasty violence and gaping plot holes (see below), Halloween 6 is a rather uneven affair and at times glaringly misjudged (Foetuses in lab jars? Really?). The ending, once again, seems to have been designed solely to make way for yet more instalments. However it still possesses a few redeeming qualities – the main one, not to sound too contrary (or crazy!), is Farrands’ attempts to tie up the flagging series and inject something fresh back into it. Whether or not you agree with me depends on your willingness to accept where he tries to bring the story. Druids and all.

The Producer’s Cut.

Spoiler Alert…

Halloween 6 suffered from a highly problematic shoot. After preview screenings proved unsuccessful, reshoots were ordered by the studio and what had already been filmed was re-edited, completely excising various scenes and causing more than a wee bit of confusion. The final cut of Halloween 6 that was released into cinemas is very different from the original, intended cut of the film – bootleg copies of this version - "The Producer's Cut" - are widely available online, though to this day it has never been officially released. Scenes featuring key dialogue were removed and replaced with more moments of graphic violence and gore, effectively discarding most of the cohesion of Chappelle and Farrands’ initial vision. Sadly, Donald Pleasence also passed away and his last scenes were never reshot.

This results in dialogue sequences which allude to events never actually depicted because of re-edits. In the Producer's Cut, Jamie is not killed by Michael's attack in the barn; she is killed later on by the Man in Black after having a dream about how she was imprisoned in Smith's Grove and impregnated with Michael's child. There is also a flashback to Halloween 5 that shows Jamie and Michael kidnapped by the Man in Black. In the theatrical release, Myers is defeated by Tommy who tranquilizes him and beats him with a lead pipe. In the Producer's Cut, Tommy defeats Myers in an arcane ritual with rune stones, which, within the existing context of the film, works much better. Wynn then finds Myers paralyzed by Tommy's runic spell while Loomis ushers Tommy, Kara, and Danny to safety. When Loomis returns he removes Myers’ mask only to discover a mortally wounded Wynn, who grabs his wrist before dying and transfers his role as Myers’ caretaker to Loomis. Myers, now dressed in Wynn's Man in Black outfit, is seen walking away. In the theatrical version, Loomis rescues Tommy, Kara and Danny and goes back into the hospital to find Myers – who has butchered Wynn and the cult members during a never-explained surgical procedure. The last shot reveals his mask lying on the floor; his body nowhere to be seen. We hear Loomis scream off-screen – either because Myers’ has attacked him or because once again, the killer has eluded him. It is as infuriating as it sounds!

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

2011-10-12T20:11:00.003+01:00

1989
Dir. Dominique Othenin-Girard

One year after surviving her blood-drenched ordeal at the hands of her murderous uncle, psychotic killer Michael Myers, young Jamie has been committed to the Haddonfield Children’s Clinic, rendered mute from her traumatic experiences. The presumed dead, though actually just comatose Myers, awakens and returns to finish what he started. Meanwhile, Jamie develops a strange psychic link with him, which her psychiatrist, Dr Loomis, plans to exploit in a bid to stop Myers once and for all. But who is that mysterious man in black who also stalks the streets of Haddonfield? And why is he so seemingly interested in Jamie and her eviiiiil uncle?

While Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers didn’t exactly break box office records, it was still successful enough to lead producer Moustapha Akkad to believe it warranted a follow up. Initial drafts of Halloween 5’s script dutifully acknowledged the ending of Part 4 in which Jamie was established as Michael Myers’ murderous successor, however producers rejected this notion perhaps worried that another Myers-less entry in the series (a la Halloween III) wouldn’t be favoured by fans. Despite the story focusing once again on Myers’ attempts to murderlise his whippersnapper niece, Halloween 5 went on to become the least successful film in the series – earning even less at the box office than Part III. Reprising their roles from the previous film were Donald Pleasence (who favoured the script featuring Jamie as a killer), Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, and Beau Starr as Sheriff Ben Meeker.

Halloween 5 begins with a recap of Part 4’s last scenes in which murderlising maniac Michael Myers was ran over repeatedly by Rachel and Jamie and then blasted into a nearby mineshaft by the police. Just to make sure he really was dead, they also tossed in a grenade to blow him up. Hey, you can never be too sure when it comes to these slasher villains – especially if their franchises are even remotely lucrative. And the Halloween series, despite rampaging in circles of ever-decreasing quality, was still pretty popular, so it turns out that Myers wasn’t finished off by the explosion after all. Shocker. Escaping from the mine and being carried away by a nearby river, he winds up stumbling upon the shack of an old hermit before promptly falling into a coma. Waking up a year later, just in time for Halloween, he murders the hospitable hermit and stomps off to Haddonfield in search of Jamie again.

The most interesting aspect of Part 4 – when Jamie is established as Myers’ successor – isn’t continued here. Turns out she didn’t kill her stepmother as suggested, she only stabbed her and was hospitalised for her trouble. Logic and continuity were never these sorts of films’ strong points anyway. As with Part 4, we’re also introduced to a new slew of knife fodder in the form of Rachel’s fickle friends, and Swiss director Othenin-Girard attempts to mimic John Carpenter’s methods of building tension through the use of false alarms and long bouts of suggestive menace as Myers stalkses and slasheses ‘em. He fails drastically. The false alarms become tedious very quickly, and the moments of violence are separated by long periods of utter tedium in which bland and annoying characters play practical jokes, have sex in a barn, spout inane drivel and wander off into darkened corners to check out strange noises. Did I mention these scenes were tedious beyond belief and these characters the most vapid, hollow and depressing ever gutted in a slasher movie? Even Loomis doesn’t fare well in Part 5. He begins to pop up in scenes as unexpectedly as Myers does and acts completely out of character. Sure, he’s been driven to the brink by his inability to stop his former patient, but that he actually puts Jamie’s life at risk in an attempt to trap Myers doesn’t ring true. His usual rambling jargon about Myers being ‘evil incarnate’ consistently highlights the ‘rage’ that drives him and how Jamie may be the only way to quell it. Despite being rendered mute for the first half of the film, Danielle Harris, as the long-suffering Jamie, pretty much carries the film and commands attention in all the scenes she appears in.

As the plot shambles on in ever bland stops and starts though, the only thing that causes tension is that the life of a defenceless little girl is constantly put in jeopardy by the ineptitude of those responsible for her. And even then it isn’t really tension experienced, but frustration and eventually boredom. One genuinely tense scene occurs when Myers pursues Jamie through his old house and she takes refuge in a laundry chute. Another scene that exhibits an uncanny creepiness occurs when too-perky Tina (Wendy Kaplan) is picked up in a car by Myers – sporting a new mask - whom she believes is her boyfriend dressed up for the Halloween party. An odd sense of humour – both inappropriate (the bumbling cop duo) and strangely reflexive (when Spitz pretends to be Myers in a practical joke on the cops and 'attacks' Samantha, Tina screams for him to "Take me, but spare my friend! She's a virgin!") randomly perforates an otherwise gloomily serious tone and further reduces any hint of suspense that could have been mustered.

Despite the lack of tension and increasing tedium, the one thing that Halloween 5 does get right is atmosphere. The film possesses a strangely gothic ambience – from the early scene in which Myers encounters a wood-dwelling hermit who nurses him back to health (echoing a similar scene in Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein' and the scene in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein in which ‘the monster’ receives hospitality before killing his host) to the gothic trimmings of the Myers’ house (with its turrets, candle-lit corridors and high arched windows) to the pilfering of a plot device evident in Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula' involving psychic-links between heroine and villain. The lighting and sound design is also atmospherically effective and Othenin-Girard injects a strange European style into proceedings. Stepping away from the eerie blue lighting of prior instalments this one is bathed in blacks, reds and gold. The creepy sound design highlights every creaking floorboard, gust of howling wind and echo of potential menace. Othenin-Girard also deploys more use of POV camerawork which harks back to the original film.

Also present are a number of interesting elements that quiver amongst the deluge. As in Parts II and 4, so too does Part 5 feature several scenes in which various people try to reason with Myers – in this case Loomis and Jamie respectively. A close-up shot of his eye reveals Myers to shed a tear, too. Also introduced in this film, though never elaborated on (until Part 6) is the notion that Michael Myers may be part of a strange cult – he and the Man in Black who creeps around for most of the film only to really feature significantly in the climax, are revealed to have the same strange druid-like symbol tattooed on their arms.

Utterly devoid of suspense and momentum, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers marks a real low point in the series. Were it not for the turd that is Halloween: Resurrection, it would have marked the absolute nadir of the series. The few intriguing aspects it contains were seemingly only designed to be followed up on in further instalments. And as a side note: what the hell is up with Myers’ mask in this one? It’s supposed to be creepy, not goofy. Tut.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

2011-10-11T23:03:00.008+01:00

1988
Dir. Dwight H. Little

Ten years after his bloody killing spree and attempts on his sister Laurie Strode’s life, a comatose Michael Myers awakens and returns to Haddonfield to kill Laurie’s daughter, seven-year-old Jamie, on Halloween. Dr Loomis, who also survived the explosion in the hospital thought to have finished Myers’ off, once again sets out to stop his former patient once and for all.

After the commercial flop of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, producers realised that fans of the burgeoning series were baying for more of Michael Myers’ psychotic exploits. With the original Halloween instigating a boom of slasher movies that continued well throughout the Eighties, Moustapha Akkad decided the time was right to bring the brutal serial killer back. As a result, John Carpenter and Debra Hill, who had hoped to develop the series as an anthology with a new Halloween-season related plot in every sequel, backed away from the series and had nothing more to do with it from this title onwards – aside from Carpenter’s theme music accreditation. With a budget of $5 million, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was a moderate commercial success, though it received lukewarm reviews. The slasher movie was by this stage on the way out, with its Golden Era (1978 - 1986) well and truly behind it.

Halloween 4 begins with much promise, but after the bleak, eerie and overwhelmingly creepy opening credit sequence, it’s pretty much business as usual. Apparently Michael Myers and Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasence) didn’t die in the fire at the end of Halloween II. Myers’ lay in a comatose/dormant state for ten years (hey, even evil incarnate needs some down time) while Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) attempted to rebuild her life and Loomis continued his work at Smith’s Grove Sanatorium, cultivating a reputation as a crackpot doomsayer. Laurie had a daughter, Jamie, and then apparently died before the events in this film. Myers learns of Jamie’s existence during a routine transferral (is there ever any other kind?) back to Smith's Grove and murders the medics en route. Making his way back to Haddonfield, it isn’t long before the blood begins to flow in copious amounts and it's business as usual in this increasingly substandard slasher series.

Much in the same way as the original film established its characters as they went about their daily routines oblivious to the peril they were about to find themselves in, so too does Halloween 4 introduce us to a new cast ready to go under the knife as Myers’ stalks them from a distance. Jamie (Danielle Harris) still mourns the death of her mother and suffers from nightmares of ‘the bogeyman’ (Myers). She’s bullied in school as her notorious uncle has become a sort of local urban legend whom stories of are used to frighten children. Her level-headed foster sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) attempts to help her through the hard times. As with most Halloween films, the parents – in this case Jamie’s foster parents – are absent for much of the time, leaving their children to fend for themselves. Even Pleasence isn’t given a great deal to do here except elaborate on his harbinger of doom act. One telling scene however features him hitching a lift with a fanatical drifter priest who pontificates on the impossibility of 'killing damnation.' Loomis seems to see himself in this man and the two share a moment of mutual understanding.

Halloween 4 doesn’t even exhibit a shred of the tension evident in Carpenter’s original – in terms of originality, suspense and imagination it is more akin to Halloween II and emerges as a relative latecomer to the slasher genre, and a fairly two-bit one at that. Myers is no longer relegated to the shadows or the periphery of the screen to menacingly loiter and skulk; in this instalment he comes out into the open and loses any sense of mystery or shuddersome dread he ever had. Some of the scenes set outside Haddonfield as Loomis pursues Myers through the countryside, are atmospheric in a sparse and moody way though. The absence of music and the sound of a lonely, howling wind establish a desolate atmosphere of uneasiness. Tracking Myers to a gas station, the film’s creepiest moment comes when Loomis attempts to plead with the killer to stay away from Haddonfield. Seen only in the background of the shot but still in plain sight, Myers lurks in a doorway just out of focus, the remnants of his victims scattered about the diner, his head bandaged with bloody gauze. It’s a shot chilling in its simplicity and understated menace. As this is a sequel (and one that marks the series' ten year anniversary at that), it therefore has to be bigger, better, faster, more - the gas station explodes soon after. Another rare subtle moment of dread comes when Rachel sees Myers for the first time: losing Jamie while trick or treating, she desperately roams the increasingly deserted and fog shrouded streets of Haddonfield during a blackout. In a particularly dark and empty backstreet she sees a formidable figure emerging slowly from the fog and legs it.

The screenplay by Alan McElroy attempts to open the story out and tries to explore how a small town would react to the news of such an infamous killer and blight from its past, returning to stalk its leafy streets. A vague sense of community is established, but most of the characters are either anonymous cops or Rachel’s sexed-up teen friends – all of whom are only really there to be murderlised. And murderlised they are – usually in graphic ways and without much build up or tension. While there are aspects of the script that prove promising, director Little still fails to muster much tension, and before long, all the old clichés and conventions established since the original Halloween are carted out and strewn about with abandon.

Having a young girl as the main target of Myers’ murderous intentions works to raise the stakes and perturb matters significantly. Indeed, some of the scenes featuring an ever imperilled and vulnerable Jamie are reasonably distressing, and Harris delivers a convincing and engaging performance. However there are too many instances of idiotic teens and ineffective cops having sex and forgetting how to use a gun to ensure Jamie’s plight is as convincing as it could be. The script contains a few interesting aspects that are never really fleshed out, such as the lynch mob baying for Myers’ blood and mistakenly shooting up innocent citizens, and the underlying concept of families and their skeletons in the closet as a source of danger and anxiety. With a little teasing out, the idea of a small, everyday town uniting to conquer its dark past personified, could have been quite effective. Even several moderately thrilling set pieces such as an extended chase sequence along a roof-top and through a deserted school still don’t save Halloween 4 from descending into a rudimentary slump, bogged down by a lack of daring. In terms of slasher logic, Halloween 4 is as standard as they come; characters insist on doing the most foolish, illogical things because the lazy script and convention dictates they do. Despite having police protection and being in a locked down house with battened doors and windows, Jamie and Rachel still aren’t safe and Myers constantly gets to them with little tension evoked.
As the sort of Final Girl, Rachel is an adequate successor to Laurie Strode. The lengths she goes to to protect Jamie are admirable, and Cornell is grounded and likable. In a resourceful, even-headed Final Girl sort of way.

In a last ditch attempt to throw something new onto the pile, or set up a sequel (hey, who are they kidding?) Halloween 4 closes with Jamie apparently established as a progeny/successor to Michael Myers’ blood-hewn legacy. The film closes with her stabbing her foster mother and staring blankly at the screen, decked out in a clown costume (echoing the opening scene of the original film in which a similarly dressed young Myers kills his sister) having seemingly inherited her maniacal uncle’s psychotic tendencies. This of course would be sidestepped in the follow up and even more lackluster Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

On a more or less even par with Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is also quite disappointing – and when compared with Carpenter’s original classic, it is a staggering let down. That it also pales somewhat in comparison to countless other copycat slasher flicks of the time is also telling of its lack of originality. The few interesting ideas it toys with are lost amid the clichés, tensionless violence and pretty much tired-as-soon-as-they-were-established conventions the genre is renowned for.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

2011-10-10T23:31:00.004+01:00

1982
Dir. Tommy Lee Wallace

When a distraught man carrying a creepy Halloween mask is brutally murdered in his hospital, Dr Dan Challis teams up with the victim’s daughter to find out why. Their investigation leads them to the small Southern Californian town of Santa Mira and the bizarre Silver Shamrock toy factory that seems to hold sway over it. The snoopy duo soon discovers that the company’s sinister director has a diabolical plan involving ancient Celtic witchcraft, Stonehenge mysticism and booby-trapped Halloween masks to cull America’s ankle-biter populace.

Not a sequel in the strictest sense of the term, Halloween III often gets a raw deal from critics and fans of the series. In an attempt to bring something fresh and interesting to the franchise, producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill planned to produce an anthology of films using the Halloween title and featuring different stories set in and around All Hallow’s Eve. As such, Halloween III: Season of the Witch bears no relation to the prior instalments featuring Michael Myers, Dr Loomis and Laurie Strode. It was a bold move on their part and while it isn’t entirely successful, credit where credit is due, at least they tried to experiment and produce something new and interesting. Produced on a budget of $2.5 million, Halloween III grossed $14.4 million at the box office in the United States, making it the least successful film in the Halloween series.

Originally written by Nigel Kneale, the creator of the Quatermass saga, Halloween III’s distributor Dino De Laurentiis and producer John Carpenter thought the film would benefit from more graphic violence and bloodshed. As a result, Kneale felt the revisions to the script deviated too far away from his original vision and requested that his name be removed from the credits, leaving director Wallace to finalise the script. Despite not wishing to be associated with the film, Kneale’s influence is still heavily evident in Halloween III’s blending of science and supernaturalism and anti-authoritarian undertones.

The film is populated by Carpenter regulars, both onscreen and off. Director Wallace cut his teeth working on the original Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13 and Dark Star, while Carpenter reteamed with Alan Howarth to compose the film’s chilling electronic score. Tom Atkins had starred in The Fog alongside Jamie Lee Curtis and Nancy Loomis who also have small roles in Halloween III, as the voice of the phone operator and Dan’s ex-wife, respectively. Dean Cundey once again acted as director of photography, his masterful use of widescreen enhancing the film’s moody, sparse look – particularly evident in the taut opening scene.

When considering what Halloween III is actually about - a mad scientist with an army of androids planning to annihilate America’s children by stealing a pillar from Stonehenge and inserting chips from it into mass-produced Halloween masks which turn deadly when activated – it does sound like a mildly ridiculous pantomime. However despite the ludicrous story, it actually unravels as a dark, bleak and surprisingly upsetting film. While Wallace might struggle with the story and pacing at times, where he does excel is in conjuring an ominous atmosphere and deathly serious tone. Halloween III is pregnant with foreboding, effectively enhanced by Carpenter’s moody, doom-laden synth score that throbs eerily throughout proceedings. From the opening scene featuring a man running out of the darkness and being pursued through the stormy night by strange men in suits, the doomfully grim tone is established and never lets up until the queasy, downbeat denouement.

Wallace steadily builds a stifling air of dread and paranoia, particularly when Dan and Ellie get to Santa Mira, with its myriad of CCTV cameras, strict curfew announced by a loudspeaker at the toy factory and enforced by the suited automatons (whose relentless advances, coldly mechanical movements and murderous precision mirror the actions of Michael Myers), and creepy local types who obviously know more than they’re letting on. Throughout events, snide swipes are taken at consumerism, TV advertising and the manipulative power of the media, particularly through the use of the creepy/insidiously insistent jingle advertising the Silver Shamrock masks and urging viewers to tune in on Halloween night. Little do they know that when they do, chips embedded in the masks will be activated by sinister frequencies broadcast through TV sets and gory death will ensue. Several other films around the time of Halloween III also depicted the media (and TV sets) as forces of evil – the likes of Poltergeist and Videodrome for example. At various stages throughout, Carpenter’s original Halloween can be seen playing on TV sets, thus continuing the series’ mildly reflexive and knowing humour.

While the characters are never fully developed and some of the performances are quite ropey, Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin are likable leads – him, a hard-drinkin’, hard livin’ divorcee, and her, a gutsy, headstrong city gal. Their makeshift romance fails to give the already unfeeling film any sort of heart though. As arch villain and Oirish warlock-blaggard Conal Cochran, Dan O’Herlihy layers on the ham with a trowel and a crafty wink.

The violence and bloodshed in Halloween III is much more graphic than anything seen in the series thus far, and more closely resembles that depicted in Halloween II. Skulls are crushed in, heads are ripped off and faces are ruptured by laser beams. In the film’s nastiest and most sickening scene, when the power of the masks is demonstrated on one unlucky family in a dank and clinical test room, a young boy’s head seems to explode into a writhing mass of snakes and insects that squirm and thrash their way out from under the mask he’s wearing. Repulsive and cruel, this moment cannot be unseen – but it’s fair to say it disgusts more than scares. What adds to the cruel and nauseating tone is the sight of his lifeless eye peering out unseeing from the eyeholes of the mask as his head disintegrates into gross stuff. Gahhhh!

The film’s use of ancient pagan rituals and Celtic mysticism as a means to inflict pain and suffering lends it an intriguingly off-kilter feel, while the giant broadcasting room inside the factory, with its myriad TV monitors and flickering 'control panels', is undeniably kitschy. Cochran’s (admittedly hair-brain) plot to return Halloween to its bloody origins of human sacrifice and death – in which the land runs red with the blood of animals and children – is the dark reveal at the climax. He discusses Samhain, the ancient Celtic 'festival of the dead', which was immersed in the blood of human sacrifice, and takes pot-shots at how the season has been commercialised and far removed from its sinister origins. Later Halloween sequels would also draw on this aspect of ancient Celtic tradition in an attempt to explain away Michael Myers’ powers and apparent invincibility. The town of Santa Mira is an Irish settlement and links to Ireland are seen everywhere – a bar called Dublin Inn, maps of Ireland on walls, the grotty Rose of Shannon motel and the dodgy Oirish accents of the locals.

Despite its shortcomings and mild ridiculousness, Halloween III emerges as a daring and ambitious film – particularly following on from the rudimentary slasher shenanigans of its predecessor. Stark, cold and downbeat, its pessimism and fatalistic outlook mark it as one of the more interesting Halloween entries – even if it is unrelated to the Myers saga – and a film with a genuinely nasty, impish core.

Halloween II

2011-10-05T18:44:00.002+01:00

1981
Dir. Rick Rosenthal

Laurie Strode is rushed to the hospital after barely surviving her bloody ordeal at the hands of demented killer Michael Myers. Meanwhile, Dr Loomis discovers that Myers isn’t really dead and sets out to track him down with Sheriff Brackett. Discovering Laurie’s whereabouts at the hospital, Myers makes his less than suspenseful way there leaving a bloody trail of bodies in his wake…

After the runaway success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, and the slew of stalk and slash films it inspired, it came as a surprise to few that a sequel charting the increasingly gory antics of Michael Myers would be released. Halloween producers Irwin Yablans and Moustapha Akkad approached John Carpenter and Debra Hill to pen the script for Halloween II and they initially planned to set the sequel a few years after the events depicted in the first film, with Myers tracking Laurie to her new life and home in a high-rise apartment building. The decision was then made to set the film on the same night as the first and just pick up exactly where things left off. With a much larger budget than its predecessor, Halloween II cost $2.5million and was once again filmed in and around California with most of the cast from the original - including Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence - reprising their roles.

Obviously Halloween was going to be a tough act to follow. John Carpenter’s assured direction built suspense right from the opening scene. He made inspired use of widescreen and by only showing us brief glimpses of Michael Myers – usually standing on the periphery of the screen – created palpable tension and a real sense of menace. Halloween II is essentially a repeat of the original film's structure, with Myers gradually picking off the cast as he makes his way towards his prize victim, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). However it lacks the original’s subtlety and artistry. In Halloween at least there was anticipation, careful build up and suspense. Halloween II departs drastically with its incorporation of more graphic violence and overt gore and none of the tension to back it up. It emerges on a similar par to the myriad slasher films of its time. Despite obviously trying to outdo them in terms of creepy set pieces and bloody violence, it is no better or no worse than the likes of Hell Night, Terror Train or Friday the 13th. Not a bad thing if you like slasher movies, but following on from a classic like Halloween, the film is quite disappointing. The only advantage (or arguable disadvantage) it had over other slashers of the time, was the reputation of Carpenter’s original.

Setting the film on the same night as events from the first one lends it continuity and urgency. Relieved that Laurie survived her initial ordeal, we now root for her to make it through this one, as she’s even more vulnerable than before; tired, drugged and trying desperately to remain vigilant. The hospital setting is an inspired choice but the fact that Laurie is badly injured, sedated and therefore more vulnerable, is never exploited as much as it could have been. Other horror titles such as Cold Prey II, Visiting Hours and Phobia utilised similar settings to much more sinister effect. Some moody shots of empty hospital corridors create an uneasy atmosphere, but this is gradually wasted through the repetitive nature of the script and the eventually mundane violence with no tension leading up to it. The characters are introduced only to be killed off and none are developed beyond sex scenes or inane dialogue.

Rosenthal’s direction remains completely uninspired and he fails to generate any tension or menace. Even Dean Cundey’s return as director of photography doesn’t really elevate proceedings without Carpenter’s masterful hand to guide him. Only a couple of scenes really stand out. The first comes early on; after Myers’ vanishes from where Loomis shot him, we follow him, via creepy point of view shots, as he skulks around the neighbourhood eluding police and killing at random. To begin with these scenes exhibit the same haunting atmosphere as some of those in the original film – a quiet suburban space invaded by an unspeakably evil presence. Peering in through windows, we can see people watching TV (including an older couple watching Romero's Night of the Living Dead), making dinner, chatting on the phone, completely oblivious to the danger they are in. This atmosphere is shattered after the first murder though. Another highlight comes much later when Laurie is eventually tracked down and pursued by Myers through the hospital in an extended chase scene. As in the original, tension is created by contrasting Laurie’s increasingly panic-stricken attempts to evade her stalker, and Myers’ silent and stealthy approach. Lurid Italian horror-inspired lighting lends these scenes a nightmarish quality and the film includes a couple of nods to the likes of Argento - not least when one character is killed by having a hypodermic needle thrust into her eye.

The most interesting aspects of the script explore Laurie’s past and hint at a connection between her and Myers. The truth is revealed with the return of nurse Marion Chambers Whittington (Nancy Stephens); sent to order Dr Loomis back to Smith’s Grove, Marion confesses to Loomis that she’s seen a secret file on Laurie Strode and it reveals that Michael Myers is in fact her brother. After Myers was incarcerated for killing his sister Judith back in the Sixties, young Laurie was adopted by the Strode family, who swore to protect her from ever finding out about her dark past. Much of the original was so chilling however, because Myers seemed to be operating with no motive other than the young girls he was stalking and killing reminding him of his sister Judith.

Like many of the Halloween sequels this one also attempts to incorporate some Halloween lore into proceedings with the discovery of the word ‘Samhain’ scrawled in blood on the wall of a school. Loomis interprets this to mean ‘lord of the dead’, but unlike the allusions to Myers being the bogeyman in the original, nothing is really done with this information. A little more Halloween lore and contemporary society’s anxiety surrounding the holiday’s mysterious origins is hinted at in a brief scene involving a young boy who has been cut by a razorblade bobbing for apples.

While Halloween II is an above average slasher film, it is a pale imitation of its predecessor rather than a continuation of that film’s genuinely creepy story. Like so many slasher sequels and imitations, Halloween II fails to be effective because of its aim, to quote John McCarty (author of 'Splatter Movies'), not to scare, but to “mortify (audiences) with scenes of explicit gore.”

Halloween

2011-10-02T15:34:00.003+01:00

1978
Dir. John Carpenter

Fifteen years after brutally murdering his sister on Halloween night, mentally deranged Michael Myers escapes from the psychiatric hospital where he was incarcerated. With his psychiatrist hot on his heels, Myers makes his way back to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, with the express intention of committing more murders. On Halloween night he sets his sights on several teenaged babysitters, stalking and slaying them one by one…

After being impressed by Assault on Precinct 13, producer Irwin Yablans approached director John Carpenter with an idea for a low-budget horror film about a maniac who stalks babysitters. Tentatively titled The Babysitter Murders, the project appealed to Carpenter, who along with his then partner Debra Hill scripted the story. After it was suggested they set the story during the course of one night, Carpenter and Hill decided upon Halloween, with its rich history and spooky connotations.

With a measly budget of $300,000 and a tight shooting schedule of 21 days, the newly-titled Halloween began filming in various locations in California (standing in for Illinois).
In one of the many deliberate nods to Hitchcock’s Psycho, Carpenter cast actress Jamie Lee Curtis as his female lead Laurie Strode, as he thought it would be fun and interesting to menace the off-screen real-life daughter of the original slasher film victim; Janet Leigh, whose stabby death in the shower of a creepy motel back in 1960 signalled the arrival of the slasher film. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were approached to play Dr Loomis but the part eventually went to Donald Pleasence.
Furthering the surprisingly coy and reflexive sense of humour the film boasts, several characters are named after characters from Psycho and they watch The Thing From Another World on TV – a movie about a sanctuary coming under attack from a seemingly unstoppable killer (and a film Carpenter was eying up to remake later in his career).

The stylistic techniques and plot elements of Halloween were pretty groundbreaking at the time - and while the film can’t lay claim to actually initialising them (it owes a dept to and borrows from earlier titles such as Psycho, Peeping Tom, Black Christmas, Deep Red and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), it still utilised them in an original way and laid out the blueprint for later slashers, solidifying the subgenre’s conventions.

• A masked/unidentified killer with connections to a past event or misdeed
• A group of teens in an isolated location
• Phones/cars that have a nasty habit of not working when they’re needed most
• Ineffective police/authority/adult figures
• Drug/alcohol use
• Characters having premarital sex
• Characters’ splitting up to look for other characters/investigate strange noises, usually in creepy woods or in dark basements.
• The use of knives or other sharp implements as murder weapons – killers in slashers prefer the thrill of the chase and the intimacy afforded by killing victims up close and personal with a knife.
• There is always one girl (the ‘final girl’), usually the one who doesn't have sex or indulge in drugs/alcohol, who is left standing after her friends have been bumped-off by the killer. She must use her resourcefulness to escape and stop the killer.
• The way is always left open for a sequel, should your slasher movie be successful.

With back to basics plotting and structure, Carpenter ensures maximum tension is extracted from his deceptively minimalist approach and manages to create moments of nail-biting tension, suggestive chills and an unnervingly creepy atmosphere punctuated with shrill jump-moments throughout. POV camerawork a la Black Christmas and Deep Red implicate us as viewers in the onscreen violence and align our vision with that of the killer’s. The opening scene is shot completely from the unseen killer’s perspective. Carpenter makes expert use of the still quite fledgling Steadicam, and we seem to float, wraith-like through an empty house on Halloween night, up the stairs to stab a young woman to death. While appearing to happen all in one take, there are actually three discreet cuts in this sequence. The camera also pulls back from the reveal of the killer as a young boy as though shocked with what it has seen.

Much of the film follows the girls as they go about their daily routines, completely oblivious to the danger they are in. Tension mounts and is punctuated at regular intervals with well timed jump moments. Establishing the mundane lives of the main characters as they plan their evening, telephone each other and watch old horror films on TV, helps the audience to identify with them. The three girls are likable and ordinary, and therefore the shocking fates they encounter have an incredible impact. The cosy and homely spaces they inhabit throughout the film perfectly convey their sheltered lives. When these havens are invaded by Myers, the effect is chilling to the core: once secure and safe homes become threatening, with danger potentially lurking in every shadow, behind every piece of comfortable furniture.

Halloween is a fairly bloodless film – there is a distinct lack of graphic violence and gore, as Carpenter prefers to illicit chills and suspense rather than utilise gross-out special effects. Many of the slashers that would come in the wake of Halloween (including its own sequels) opted to go all out with gore and blood, instead of slow-burning tension and unease. The onscreen violence is pared down and comes in short sharp shocks until the climax when Laurie is pitted against Myers. Most of the creepiness and moments of spine-tingling dread comes of course from the frequent glimpses of Myers, AKA The Shape. There is something unbelievably chilling about that blank, moon-white face slowly emerging, phantom-like from the darkness, and hovering just out of the sightline of the oblivious characters.

Making wonderful use of his widescreen frame, Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey utilise the foreground and periphery of the screen to create tension and atmosphere. The presence of The Shape, indeed even the mere threat of his presence, is enough to render any previously cosy domestic space or autumnal leafy suburb, a now creepy, dangerous place, saturated with menace. Carpenter’s expert use of widescreen and his placing of The Shape just on the periphery of many shots - lurking in the shadows and corners of the screen - is more than enough to generate unease, the threat of violence and set hearts pounding… Indeed even when he appears to Laurie in broad daylight, his presence obviously doesn't belong in cosy suburbia - his eerie menace juxtaposed with familiar settings, and in broad daylight, is positively haunting. It isn’t what The Shape does in these shots that make proceedings so creepy, but what he doesn’t do. Anything. He just stands there.

His relentless advance on Laurie forms the film’s nail-biting climax – her increasingly frenzied and panicked attempts to escape boldly contrast with his coldly clam onslaught to create striking tension. What makes events even more disturbing is that he doesn’t seem to have a motive – other than associating the teens he stalks with the sister he butchered when he was a boy. Much pontificating on Dr Loomis’s part eludes to the fact that Michael is actually evil personified, and as the film progresses he becomes something resembling the bogeyman incarnate.

Although criticised for its ‘misogyny’, various feminist critics such as Carol J Clover have argued that Halloween, with its strong and resourceful final girl Laurie Strode, actually empowered women. While Laurie still depends on Dr Loomis to come to her rescue, she puts up a damn good fight and holds her own until he does. His attempts to stop Myers are arguably more ineffective than Laurie’s. Much has also been made of Halloween’s seemingly conservative morality, and the ‘sex equals death’ mantra it appears to exhibit would feature in pretty much every slasher movie that came afterwards. Carpenter denies deliberately creating this conservative morality and insists Halloween is not a morality play. Interestingly he once stated that it wasn’t Laurie’s virginity or purity that helped her survive, but her pent up sexual frustration. The weapons she uses to defend herself against Myers’ attacks are everyday household items – items linked with domesticity and possessing distinct connotations of feminine ‘homemaking’: a knitting needle, a coat-hanger and a kitchen knife. However, taking into consideration what Carpenter said about Laurie’s sexual frustration pouring out, it is interesting to note that (Freud alert!) her choice of weaponry is also ‘phallic’ in form.

One of Carpenter’s stipulations for directing the film was that he could score it too. His typically minimalist score is one of horror’s most recognisable and chilling signature pieces. It lurks somewhere between Psycho’s frenzied and shrill jabbing and Jaws’ ominous rumbling.

Halloween still stands the test of time and remains a thoroughly unsettling, suspenseful and haunting film to this day – ensuring its rightful status as a classic of the genre. Like all good horror films, it makes the viewer feel unsafe in their very own home.

Halloween Month/Marathon

2011-10-01T02:12:00.011+01:00

Halloween, 1967

Boy: “We’re alone, aren’t we?”
Girl (Judith Myers): “Michael’s around here somewhere…”

You bet Michael’s around here somewhere – everywhere, in fact. That’s because this month (what with it being October and Halloween and all) is totally Halloween Month at Behind the Couch.

I thought it would be a good idea to watch all ten Halloween films (including Rob Zombie’s remake and its sequel) in the lead up to All Hallow’s Eve this month. Okay, I may have totally been drinking and watching Halloween H20 for the first time in ages when I had this brainwave, but hey, these things just have to be done sometimes.

John Carpenter’s seminal slasher flick Halloween set a benchmark for horror throughout the Eighties. An excruciatingly taut exercise in suspense and fear, Carpenter’s film relied on ‘less is more’ suggestiveness to create an atmospheric chill-fest that still proves highly effective today. Arguably the benchmark it set would go on to consist of ever more exploitative violence, nudity and diminishing quality in the slasher movies it inspired throughout the Eighties (including the film’s own sequels, sadly). That’s hardly Carpenter’s fault though. His low budget chiller was, at the time, the most successful independently produced film of the era. Its influence is still evident in horror today and the slasher craze it ignited in the Eighties would be rekindled in the Nineties by Kevin Williamson’s Scream – a post-modern love letter to Halloween and the myriad stalk and slash films it inspired.

So, have your Jack-o'-lantern and your William Shatner mask at the ready, refill your glass, and totally join me, if you will, on a bloody trek back to Haddonfield, Illinois; to where all the fun began…

And don’t forget to totally forget your chemistry book and your math book, and your English book, and your, let's see, your French book, and... Well, who needs books anyway, we don't need books; we’ve got Halloween movies to watch! I mean, it doesn't really matter if you have your books or not... Hey isn't that Devon Graham?

Halloween
Halloween II
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
Halloween: Resurrection
Halloween (2007)
Halloween II (2009)

Interview With Rob Millis, Climax Golden Twins

2011-09-27T17:40:00.000+01:00

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Rob Millis – one half of Seattle-based experimental music group Climax Golden Twins – about their work on the soundtrack for Brad Anderson’s creepy psychological horror film, Session 9.

Head over to Paracinema’s online home to check it out.

The Last Light

2011-09-22T17:57:00.004+01:00

2011
Dir. George Clarke

A maintenance man is called on to ensure an old derelict house – formerly a psychiatric hospital, no less - is securely boarded up after a reported break-in. On what is supposed to be his last day on the job, he experiences increasingly chilling occurrences. Initially believing that wayward kids are playing a prank on him, it soon becomes evident that something much more sinister is afoot…

The Last Light is director George Clarke’s third film and follows on from his low/no-budget gore-fests Battle of the Bone, (flesh hungry zombies descend on Belfast during the tumultuous ‘marching season’) and The Knackery (violent reality TV satire featuring genetically modified zombies picking off the contestants of a popular TV game show). In terms of tone and style, it couldn’t be more different and sees the indie filmmaker really mature as a storyteller, and in terms of technical expertise.

A much more atmospheric and creepy affair, his latest film is based on unsettling ‘true-life’ events from the history of his moody location: the reputedly haunted Cairndhu House, County Antrim. While writing the story Clarke visited the house with various mediums and members of the Paranormal Ulster investigative team to try and tease out untold stories from the place. Incorporating their findings into his script, Clarke wanted to recreate events that had taken place in the house. Whether or not you believe in the paranormal, there’s no denying that The Last Light still unravels as a moody, often effective and old fashioned haunted house yarn. Like all good haunted house movies will testify – the location is key and essentially a character in itself. Cairndhu House is rich with faded grandeur and creepy melancholy and is clearly a character Clarke cares deeply for. As locations in low budget horror flicks go – this one is truly convincing – and, if it’s sinister history to be believed – the real deal.

Inside the house events turn claustrophobic very quickly. Clarke utilises the early scenes to create a sense of unease and dread as Rob (Robert Render) explores the formidably dark confines of the house. The slow-burn approach is enhanced by odd and creepy sound effects and subtle glimpses (to begin with anyway) of ‘things’ skulking in the shadows and really toys with our fear of the dark. As atmospheric as it is, the plotting in the first act struggles to muster much momentum (it is essentially just Rob’s exploration of the house), and at times it is perhaps too dark and difficult to see what is happening onscreen. However the pace picks up when Rob’s wife Jo (Jo Lamont-Crawford) and her sister (Vivian Jamison) begin to worry about him and make their way to the house to find him.

Sturdy performances bolster the story in grounded realism. Rob’s wife (Lamont-Crawford, who picked up Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Yellow Fever Film Festival in Belfast) is convincingly sceptical but still reacts with practical hesitancy when she reaches the house. The kooky harbinger-of-doom sister is played with aplomb by Jamison, and as maintenance man Rob, Robert Render essentially carries the film. We see everything through his eyes and Render convinces as the initially happy go-lucky worker going about his daily routine and the eventually ground down, nervous wreck he becomes in the house.

Some breathtaking scenery of the Antrim coast features under the credits and Rob’s car journey there is reminiscent of Jack’s drive to the hotel in The Shining; the uneasy sense of isolation is nicely realised. Shades of sub-genres such as ‘hand held’ horror are swirled into the gloomy mix as Rob sometimes uses the camera on his phone to light his way and navigate through the almost tangible dark. For much of the time we’re plunged into the film seeing things firmly from his perspective, which heightens the tension and sense of foreboding. A couple of nicely timed and effective jump moments cut through the creepy atmosphere to shred at the nerves as we build to the disquieting climax

The Last Light is definitely one to watch alone in the dark on a stormy night.

Read more about the film and how it was made here.

Getting Darker: The Making Of 'The Last Light'

2011-09-18T14:45:00.002+01:00

Northern Ireland based writer/director/producer George Clarke specialises in micro-budgeted, high-energy, special effects-driven, kung-fu/zombie mash-up gore-fests that have trail-blazed through independent film festivals around the world. His debut film, the ground-breaking Battle of the Bone, follows a group of friends stuck between warring communities and a horde of marauding zombies on the streets of Belfast during the tumultuous ‘marching season.’ Bloody carnage ensures, naturally. His follow up, the hyper-violent reality TV satire The Knackery, skulked along a similarly gore-drenched trail and boasted genetically modified zombies picking off the contestants of a popular TV game show, sloshing their innards across the screens of primetime telly.

The indie filmmaker is following up these frenetic and blackly comic cult films with a drastic change of pace that should result in an altogether more unsettling affair. His latest film, The Last Light, is based on harrowing true-life events from the history of the reputedly haunted Cairndhu House, County Antrim. If that wasn’t enough, the renegade filmmaker opted to set and film his movie in the very same house.

The Last Light, which stars Robert Render, Jo Lamont-Crawford, Vivian Jamison and Peter Meehan, revolves around a maintenance man who is called on to ensure the derelict house is securely boarded up after a reported break-in. On what is supposed to be his last day on the job, he experiences increasingly chilling occurrences. Initially believing that wayward kids are playing a prank on him, it soon becomes evident that something much more sinister is afoot…

Cairndhu House by day

Entering the house

Prior to filming in February and March this year, Clarke had been waiting 17 years for an opportunity to sneak a peek inside the house. Paranormal Ulster invited him to join them on an investigation of the council-protected Cairndhu House last October and that was all he needed to get the creative juices flowing and the idea for a spook-laden story bloomed. “Although it was pitch black inside, I was able to piece the place together in torchlight,” says the director, explaining the genesis of the story. “As always I started thinking ‘movie.’ Within a few hours, I had the basic storyline laid out, and when I got home, I just started writing.”

Much like Brad Anderson’s darkly disturbing Session 9, Clarke’s latest flick was also inspired by and written for a very specific location. Cairndhu House is situated on the weather-lashed, picturesque Antrim Coast in the very North of Ulster, and has a full-blooded history just screaming to be adapted for film. The building was originally home to Lord and Lady Dixon, before it was given over to the council, who eventually turned it into a hospital. There have been many reports of paranormal activity at the house; a young child in Victorian clothing has been seen in the background of various wedding photographs taken on the grounds of the house, a former security manager at the house made reports of loud banging and a creepy figure has been glimpsed standing at one of the windows, to name but a few ghostly occurrences.

Director George Clarke

A ghostly resident of the house

The house has had a lifelong hold over Clarke, as he explains in typically enthusiastic fashion. “When I was 13 or so, I can remember stumbling across Cairndhu House with my best friend. It was an incredible sight. I have always been drawn to this area, and its neighbouring village Ballygally. Even with all my time spent around the world, this is the place I come back to quickest.”

Another excursion to the house with Paranormal Ulster, along with a medium, afforded Clarke the opportunity to develop the premise for the film. Not just content to use it as a location, Clarke now wanted to incorporate actual events that had taken place in the house into the story. “We returned with a medium, which opened up many new avenues for the story. I took into account what he and the rest of the team were experiencing and came up with an experiment for the film that would involve recreating the sightings and hauntings in the house, filmed in the exact same spot they are said to have happened. Strangely enough, there was one particular part in the story that I had already scripted long before meeting this medium, yet he described the exact event I had written, in the room I had written it for!”

Usually when film productions claim that their set was plagued by strange occurrences - audiences tend to be quite cynical. When the cast and crew of films like The Exorcist and Poltergeist said they experienced ‘odd’ things on set, most assume it was merely a publicity stunt. In the case of The Last Light, the cast and crew are all quite open about the odd things they claimed to have experienced while wandering the dark and lonely hallways of the house. Actress Jo Lamont-Crawford reveals the house had an effect on those who left themselves open to ‘contact’ with whatever still lingered within its damp and sullen walls. “Once in Cairndhu it isn't hard to get into character,” she explains. “The house can be a bit unnerving, especially as you can't even see your own hand in front of your face in some of the rooms. When we arrived in the early morning, it was exciting. When darkness fell though, the mood of the house shifted. It is dark, cold and dusty, and it made me feel apprehensive, as I have experienced certain things throughout life that have formed the basis of my belief in the existence of spirits. Filming in Cairndhu I have seen and felt things that reinforced my beliefs.”

The dead don't like to be disturbed

Clarke and cast

According to Clarke, the darkness in the house provided the perfect setting for things to go bump in. “There is always going to be an argument in these circumstances if something goes bump or something passes the corner of your eye. Not everyone believes, and not everyone is open to seeing with their minds eye what is going on. I do, and can experience these things, and know what I see when it happens. Jo (Lamont-Crawford) and I were in the kitchen area - a place I had previously experienced negative things, and found the character of ‘Alexander’ who appears in our film. After I had explained his past to her and she cursed him for bullying the women staff, she began feeling a pushing sensation on our way out. When she told me to keep walking because she felt someone was behind us, I turned back to look and saw the shadow of a man - at least 6,4 in height, standing over us.
“I think everyone is a sceptic until something truly happens in front of them. I have seen enough from childhood to believe in the spirit world, and I don't expect everyone to be as open. But things do happen to us all and whether or not you take that as something paranormal or not, is up to you.”

Lead actor Robert Render, who has worked with Clarke a number of times before, relished the chance to work in such an atmospheric location. “The house is absolutely awesome,” the actor enthuses. “The first few days here felt really creepy, as it gets so dark in some of the rooms. After I got used to the layout of the house however, it got a lot easier to get around. I was happy to get out of there on the last day of filming though, but I was also sad to leave.”

Clarke and crew

Setting up a shot

What about the fact that the plot revolves around alleged real-life occurrences? Did this have an effect on the cast and crew? “I tried not to focus on the fact that the film may depict true events,” reveals Lamont-Crawford who plays the sceptical sister of Render’s character’s wife. “However I believe that it was because of this that I was driven out of the house one evening by an intimidating presence. That was the one and only time I felt intimidated in the house. The rest of the time I was in my element and I felt a great energy. This tends to go hand in hand with working for George though!”

According to Render, it was quite a physically demanding shoot, but also a rewarding one. “A lot of the floors were so damp and degraded, they would almost give way underneath you, so you had to be alert at all times as to where you were going and where you were stepping. Our safety was always the first priority though, and George would never make us do anything we were not comfortable with. Second priority was not to do any more damage to the house than there already was, so we took great care in that. I think all in all, it was well worth it, and even though I was there during the filming of every scene, I really cannot wait to see the finished movie!”

It is no secret that director Clarke is a huge fan of Asian cinema, particularly kung-fu films and the work of Jackie Chan. His work is also heavily influenced by the likes of George Romero and Lucio Fulci. The Last Light sees him moving away from such blood-spattered and visceral influences to concentrate on creating a quieter mix of chills. Indeed, while the idea of a haunted house film conjures up spectral memories of atmospheric masterpieces such as The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House, The Changeling and The Amityville Horror, Clarke maintains that when it came to writing and filming The Last Light, he tried to keep a clear head and not draw upon such classics. “I tried hard to avoid watching anything that was along the same lines. Movies like Buried, House On Haunted Hill, The Grudge and such like, so I wouldn't get any ideas implanted. I always try to keep it straight from my own head when shooting. One film I did want to better though was Paranormal Activity - yet only for the first half of the movie, with our use of the camera-torch.”

According to Clarke, the change in tone and pace of The Last Light, compared to his earlier films, was also brought about by the location. “I was set on losing the gore side of things. The idea of doing a classic ghost story has always played on my mind. I'm a massive fan of the old Hammer flicks, and horrors from yesteryear, so once I got this location confirmed I knew just what I wanted to do.”

Working with such a low budget, tight schedule and in a potentially dangerous location is nothing new to Clarke, in fat you could say that he thrives on such challenges. “The shoot was a 12 hour a day challenge! Very long, very draining, but a lot of fun! Apart from two days, the rest were spent in the house - pitch black even in daylight. Our only lighting was some lamps powered by a marine battery, torches and an iPad. When we were shooting, Robert’s character uses a torch for a short period of time before moving on to a Zippo lighter and matches; with the flame creating some amazing shots. Any problems that arose, we were lucky enough to overcome them through creativity or just the sheer determination to get it done.”

The Last Light is set to premiere at Clarke’s independent film festival (Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival) in Belfast's Black Box this evening (18th Sept) before being released on DVD.

Atrocious

2011-09-18T13:18:00.002+01:00

2010
Dir. Fernando Barredo Luna

The Quintanilla family head back to their old rural farmhouse near Sitges, Spain, for a quiet break during the Easter holiday. Teenage siblings Christian and July set about investigating a local urban legend relating to a series of hauntings and ghostly goings-on in a wooded labyrinth in a gated property beside their house. The pair decides to document their day-to-day investigations on video with the intention of posting the footage online at a later date.

Five days later however, the bodies of the Quintanilla family are found in the house, everyone having died in extremely bloody and mysterious circumstances.

Atrocious is the kids’ film footage presented to us as police evidence revealing the shocking events which took place during those last few tragic days. Despite the connotations its title might suggest - Atrocious is actually far from atrocious. Unfurling as the latest in a recent wave of 'found footage' films in a similar vein to The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, [REC] and so on, it takes its time to build atmosphere and intrigue before letting rip with some very stressful and creepy stuff indeed.

While it doesn’t offer us anything particularly new or groundbreaking, it still succeeds because of some effectively realised moments that take the basic template of the found footage subgenre and slightly subvert it. Taking time to introduce us to the characters (not as annoying as it sounds), director Barredo Luna generates moments of genuine tension and a slow-burning foreboding is evident from the outset. Adding to the sense of realism is the largely improvised dialogue – though at times this consists of the characters describing things we can see for ourselves, or just stating the obvious - and naturalistic performances. Argento fans will also get a kick out of the scene where the kids find some old videos in the basement and decide to watch The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. One of the most understatedly spine-chilling moments comes during the scene when the siblings are discussing local urban legends with their father’s childhood friend. He relays them the tale of the Girl of Garraf Woods - by the fire no less - and just by utilising the power of words (stuff about an old well, the devil and whispering in the darkness…), sets a creepy mood that permeates the rest of the film.

Atrocious is peppered with ominous shots that add to the sense of dread – doors into dark rooms left ajar, the night-vision footage of the gate leading into the labyrinth, an unidentified figure standing stock-still in the woods. The scenes filmed in the labyrinth are also incredibly stressful, even if they do run the risk of becoming quite repetitive. As the sibling’s sense of panic increases they flee through the maze becoming increasingly disorientated – and therefore ensuring that we also become increasingly disorientated. The long, narrow paths, tall dark trees and hedgerows take on a claustrophobic effect and the way in which it is filmed creates the impression that at any moment someone or something could jump out from the darkness where it had been patiently lurking. Testament to the look of the labyrinth, even the scenes set in it during the day are saturated in creepiness; the sun-parched trees and dead plants enhancing the wilted atmosphere of apprehension. The discovery of a spooky well echoes events in Ringu and proves to be just as unsettling.

As with The Shining, Atrocious also conjures uneasiness from within the family unit itself. Christian and July’s parents seem quite distant and there’s some brief discussion of their mother’s apparent nervousness at returning to the old house. The father is also absent for a time which casts some suspicion on him too. Why are the parents so keen for the kids to stay out of the labyrinth? What is the house’s connection with the urban legend the kids become fascinated with? All is eventually revealed in a twisted ending that, while not entirely surprising, is still satisfying and troubling and manages to become more disturbing the more you ponder it.

Atrocious (cert. 15) is released by Revolver Entertainment on 19th September 2011. DVD extras include a “Making of” feature.

Head over to the website to win a camcorder to make your own urban legend movie...

The Dead

2011-09-16T17:52:00.001+01:00

2010
Dirs. Howard J Ford and John Ford

When the last evacuation flight out of war-ravaged Africa crashes off the coast, the sole survivor – an American military engineer – teams up with a Ghanaian soldier searching for his son. The pair try to reach the last remaining military airport in an attempt to escape a zombie plague sweeping across the sun-burnished continent – dodging attacks from the hordes of living dead as they go.

Eschewing the usual zombie movie title ('something' of the 'something' dead), the simply, and arguably effectively titled, The Dead adopts a more thoughtful approach to the lumbering genre, and aligns itself more with the likes of Romero than Resident Evil. Despite the ultra-low budget it is filmed in the most breathtaking manner. Opening with a scene that suggests this could be the Laurence of Arabia of zombie films (man emerging slowly from stifling wilderness), the film instantly establishes its quiet, reflective mood. Beautifully photographed and sparse landscapes ensue, imbuing the film with a haunting emptiness – even the majority of zombies seen are lone ones, wandering through the purgatorial landscape.

A frenzied plane full of people attempting to escape the country crashing into the sea early on tricks us into thinking this will be a film about the usual rag-tag group of survivors evading marauding zombie masses on their way to a safe haven. It isn’t. It’s a lone survivor evading marauding zombie masses on his way to a safe haven, enhancing the film’s somewhat downbeat/'losing hope fast' mantra. A number of tensely constructed scenes perforate an otherwise reflective and languid narrative; however events become quite repetitive quite fast – our protagonists encounter the shuffling, savage and starving undead, and must act quickly to survive. The zombie attacks are pretty relentless but due to their frequency, and the way in which the lead characters never seem to be in too much peril, they become a little monotonous. Lots of convenient coincidences help the plot along, but simultaneously strip it of tension in the meantime.

Setting the story and filming in Africa seems to implicate a political subtext that for the most part is quite vague. Striking and effective scenes that could have been lifted wholesale from news footage depict the dead and dying lying by the roadside. The zombies, much like the survivors, are effectively refugees in their own country – nomadically wandering towards an out of reach destination and resolution. One character addresses the situation of warring clans ravaging Africa, by stating that everyone has put aside their differences to face the greater threat. There is brief talk of a new war between the living and the dead.

The Dead has traces of Jacques Tourneur’s moody cult classic I Walked With A Zombie in its almost poetic and atmospheric approach to its subject matter. Pacing is as somnambulant as the walking dead that populate the story, and this would be fine were it not for the tedium that sets in, lumbering the film with a mainly uninspiring second act. Its ponderous pacing and penchant for gorgeous, lingering shots may make it feel more thoughtful than it actually is (it is arguably just a variation of the most basic zombie film structure), but it still intrigues and eventually emerges as a rather thought-provoking and strangely moving meditation on the existential nature of mankind.

Paracinema Issue 13 Now Available To Pre-Order!

2011-09-07T20:28:00.001+01:00

It’s hard to believe that Paracinema Magazine has been going for four years now. Four years in which it has consistently delivered thought provoking and increasingly exciting content on cinema that falls firmly outside the mainstream. Within its pages you’ll find passionately written pieces on the likes of blaxploitation films, Italian giallo flicks, cult oddities, extreme Asian sub-genres, horror, exploitation, B-movies and pornography, amongst other lurid and obscure delights.

Issue 13 is now available to pre-order. Amongst the tantalising pieces on offer are the likes of the cover feature Blood Is Thicker Than Fear: Maternal Madness in Horror Cinema by Ashley Avard, Dreams That You Could Never Guess: Bela Lugosi on Poverty Row, 1940-42 by Andreas Stoehr, Censoring the Centipede: How the BBFC are Sewing Our Eyes Shut by Liam Underwood and Teenage Riot: Coming of Age in Modern Cinema by Christian Sellers.

Head over to Paracinema’s online domain and pick yourself up a copy!

And if you like what you see and would like to help Paracinema continue to expand, please think about also picking up a lovingly designed Warriors t-shirt. So, not only do you get an effortlessly cool t-shirt based on an effortlessly cool cult movie – you’ll be helping Paracinema achieve wider distribution. And that, I’m sure you’ll agree, is cool.

Drive-In Movies At The Westport Arts Festival

2011-09-07T20:17:00.001+01:00

Established in 1976, Westport Arts Festival is not only one of Ireland’s longest running festivals, but an on-going celebration of the arts in and around Ireland. With over 100 events spanning ten days, this year’s festival represents one of the most ambitious to date. Amongst the array of events at this year’s festival is a drive-in movie event. That’s right; you can watch films from the comfort and safety of your own automobile! A 200-year-old courtyard at Westport House, built by the 2nd Marquess of Sligo no less, will be transformed into a state-of-the-art drive-in movie theatre for a series of screenings of classic movies as part of the Westport Arts Festival.

This year there are ten feature films on show ensuring there will be something for everyone, from the epic western Once Upon a Time in the West to the equally epic science fiction spectacular 2001: A Space Odyssey.

For fright fans there’s the classic terror of Jaws, the ultimate horror summer blockbuster, and the darkly disturbing Dutch psychological thriller Spoorloos, a film that can be described as a genuine horror. Horror fans will also be delighted to know that the Wyatt Hotel will host a screening of the classic silent chiller Nosferatu with musical accompaniment by Aisling Smyth.

For those less inclined to the dark side of cinema, fear not - other titles to be screened at the drive-in cinema include Casablanca, Dirty Dancing, This is Spinal Tap and Harold and Maude.

The Drive-In Movie series runs from Friday, September 23 to Sunday, October 2. All screenings commence at 7.30pm in the Courtyard behind Gracie’s bar at Westport House. Admission is free, but ticketed. Parking spaces costing €20 are optional and may also be reserved online. The film soundtrack will be broadcast on FM radio.

Organised entirely by volunteers, the annual Westport Arts Festival has been a fixture in the Irish arts calendar since 1976, making it one of the longest-running festivals in the country. It has proved itself time and again to be a beacon in Clew Bay for both aspiring and internationally famous artists, performers, writers and musicians, giving them an opportunity to showcase their talents to a passionate West coast audience.

For further information, the low-down on all other festival events and to buy tickets, visit their website.

To keep up with the latest news find it on Facebook and on Twitter.

Insidious T-Shirt/Blu-ray Competition

2011-09-07T16:31:00.002+01:00

Are you ready to get scared all over again - but this time in your home? The smash-hit horror movie Insidious is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray on 12th September. You can get into the spirit by swapping spooky stories on the Insidious UK Facebook page where you'll also be able to report sightings of the black Insidious Routemaster bus as it terrorises London streets for the week of release!

We've also got something very special for you - a money-can't-buy ‘haunted’ Insidious t-shirt! How can it be haunted? Turn it over to find out… but to do that you have to enter and win our competition where you'll also be in line to get a Blu-ray copy of the movie.

By playing on people’s primal fears of the dark and the unknown, Insidious, like other horror classics such as Poltergeist and The Exorcist, is a welcome reminder of how much fun it can be to be absolutely terrified by a movie.

The story concerns Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne), a happily married couple recently moved into a new suburban home with their three young children. When their eldest son, Dalton, inexplicably falls into a coma his condition coincides with the start of a series of disturbing events that defy any rational explanation. The ghostly goings on suggest a sinister supernatural presence is at work in the house, one that is intent on tearing the Lambert family apart. Forced to seek unconventional help to protect themselves and their children, Josh and Renai are awakened to the terrifying truth – it’s not the house that’s haunted…

To be in with a chance of winning a ‘haunted’ t-shirt and a copy of the film on Blu-ray - just answer this question: Which 1982 film did Barbara Hershey star in as a woman tormented and sexually molested by an evil force in her own home?

This competition has now closed - thanks to everyone who entered. Good luck!

Wine of the Month: Campo Viejo’s Gran Reserva Rioja

2011-09-01T20:09:00.003+01:00

"When the wine goes in, strange things come out" - Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, The Piccolomini, 1799.

That is certainly true here at Behind the Couch. When the wine goes in, strange things end up in my DVD player – and I don’t mean beer mats. Sometimes the wine you’re savouring dictates what films you crave to watch, and vice versa. Ensuring the wine you’re drinking matches the tone and content of the film you’re about to watch, can make all the difference. FACT.

A recent trip to Granada, Spain, has ensured that many of the films I’ve been watching recently have been accompanied by a beauteous bottle (or two) of Campo Viejo’s Gran Reserva Rioja. I’m a big fan of the Campo Viejo range (yes, I have expensive taste, but wine in Spain is cheap, so I stocked up).

Made from Tempranillo, Graciano and Mazuelo grapes, and a carefully controlled vinification process, this exquisite biddy spends two years in two-thirds French oak casks and the rest in American oak casks. If you think the aging process stops there – stick a cork in it and think again. It then goes on to age gracefully for 36 months in the bottle. Ruby red with aromas of ripe red berry fruit and nuances of wood and spices, it provides a long finish resplendent with sweet tannins and gentle hints of coffee.

Rich and robust, it goes well with mature cheeses and as it’s Spanish, naturally it’s accompaniment with the work of, say, Amando de Ossorio will prove most pleasant indeed. The sophisticated nature of the wine also works well with the likes of the poignant and slow-burning chills of Guillermo De Toro’s Spanish-set The Devil’s Backbone. The likes of Juan Piquer Simón’s trash-fests will only work to jar the palatable nature of this wine though – the likes of Pieces should only be watched after savouring the wine. Not a moment before. The oaky flavours will also work well alongside most backwoods based slasher films, such as Just Before Dawn, Madman, The Final Terror and, of course, many of the Friday the 13th films.

Random Creepy Scene #767: Fire Walk With Me

2011-08-31T22:32:00.002+01:00

Fire Walk With Me marked David Lynch’s return to his beloved Twin Peaks; albeit a return lovers of the series didn’t quite expect. Not only was it a prequel, charting the bleak and disturbing last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life, but it also marked a drastic shift in tone that left many fans out in the cold. Gone were the cherry pies and damn fine coffees, and in their place was a dark tale of domestic abuse, incest and what lurks in the sick, twisted underbelly of small town America.

As it serves as an exploration of poor Laura’s tragic demise, it isn’t surprising that Fire Walk With Me exhibits some of the most poignant, creepy and nightmarishly bizarre moments and imagery from Lynch’s work to date. All set to the strains of one of Angelo Badalamenti’s most evocative and haunting scores yet.

We follow Laura (Sheryl Lee) as she descends into an ever hopeless spiral of drugs, prostitution and ritualistic abuse at the hands of those she’s closest to. Throughout the course of the film Lynch tentatively paints a hopelessly romantic, relentlessly unsettling and doomfully tragic portrait of a vulnerable young woman who, in her darkest hours, feels she has no one to turn to in the place she calls home…

"I just know I'm going to get lost in those woods again, tonight."

The film is full of typically Lynchian moments and dream-like imagery. However, one of the most disturbing and creepy moments comes courtesy of the scene in which Laura returns home after entrusting her diary to her confidante, reclusive agoraphobic Harold Smith, and having a strange encounter with Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont and her grandson, who whispers cryptically to Laura that "the man behind the mask is looking for the book with the pages torn out. He is going towards the hiding place."

As Laura gingerly makes her way upstairs to her bedroom, the silence in her house is deafening. Only the whirring of a ceiling fan breaks the stifling quiet, and along with it comes an air of foreboding impossible to ignore. Opening her door slowly, Laura peeks into her room and is horrified to discover Bob – the filthy molester who visits her in her dreams – emerging from behind her bureau… The sight of this dirty, ravenous pervert in the supposedly safe sanctuary and domesticity of Laura's home is utterly unforgettable.

As fans know, this is also the moment when Laura soon realises who Bob really is, and that her darkest moments in life are yet to come…

Through the darkness of future past,
The magician longs to see
Once chants out between two worlds:
Fire, walk with me…

Short Film Showcase: Cold Blood

2011-08-29T11:43:00.001+01:00

2011
Dir. Peter Ferris

Shot in and around Belfast last winter, Cold Blood is the second in an, as yet, unfinished trilogy of short films charting the exploits of the fiendish Elias Mortenson (Peter Ferris) as he travels the world forcefully recruiting vampires under the guise of an acting coach/agent. Certain scenes were also filmed in beautifully eerie locations such as the ancient stone circle of Avebury in Wiltshire, and Rennes Le Chateau in France. Working as a stand alone film, Cold Blood hinges on some fertile ideas – particularly in its exploration of the tribulations of a group of young people, unwillingly turned into vampires and attempting to resist their new blood-thirsty instincts to kill and maim (recalling the chilling plight of Claudia from Interview with the Vampire). The makeshift family they create echoes that of the clan in Near Dark – and of course the concept of vampires attempting to reform has been explored in the likes of Twilight and True Blood.

Aspects of Oliver Twist, Lord of the Flies and any number of recent vampire films in which the fanged-ones reject their thirst for blood swirl throughout proceedings. At times the narrative is a little unclear however, and the pacing muddled – particularly in the numerous scenes featuring the younger cast addressing their dire situation through mainly improvised dialogue. It always feels like it is only part of a bigger picture (what with it being the second instalment of a trilogy) and is hampered slightly by muddied sound quality and issues with lighting – no doubt stemming from its ultra-low budget.

The film boasts decent performances from its mainly young cast – their enthusiasm beams from the screen; though the scenes in which they improvise much of their dialogue could have been reigned in and tightened up. There are also a number of menacing performances from some of the older actors, particularly Eugene Hynes as the at times sinister and Faganesque patriarch Papa Eugene, Martin Lasch as the roguish boxing trainer (these young vamps need to learn how to protect themselves in their dark new world!) and Aki Buhidma (who also shares co-writing duties) as one of the more pro-active of the tentative 'vamplings.'

The Belfast setting lends the film a gritty veneer and several scenes shot with night-vision in which the characters attempt to ‘nocturnalise’ themselves, also provide some creepy imagery. There are a number of rather interesting ideas that are never really fleshed out though – like vampires attempting to cover their tracks by making their bloodbaths look like the result of paramilitary attacks.

The deranged and fragmented opening, which features snippets of the prior film and the character of Mortenson claiming his victims in a drama class, hint at a juicy but never fully realised subtext of how the film industry literally sucks the life out of those desperate to become stars of the screen.

No doubt working better as the connecting film in a trilogy (and viewed with the other two instalments), the central idea is a striking one though, and Cold Blood unravels as a bizarre and off-kilter short with a dark, back-alley sense of humour.

The House on Sorority Row

2011-08-26T20:57:00.001+01:00

1983
Dir. Mark Rosman

After a prank horribly backfires, a group of sexiful sorority sisters are stalked and murdered one by one while hosting a graduating party and attempting to dispose of the body that was the result of their prank going wrong. Talk about an inconvenience!

In true slasher style, we open with a prologue - to intrigue and set the scene for the bloodbath to come – in which a woman undergoes a problematic birth in a big house during a thunderstorm and is led to believe by her doctor that her baby is dead. Cutting to years later, the house is now a sorority house and the woman is revealed to be the house mother, Mrs Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt) – a formidable and cane-wielding crone who seems overly anxious for the graduating girls to vacate the premises. The girls have no such intentions though – they want to have a party to celebrate and they decide to play a prank on Mrs Slater to show her who’s boss. She ends up dead (showed her!) and the girls are left with her body to dispose of. It seems someone knows their secret though and begins to murderlise them one by one. Well, they do keep insisting on splitting up to investigate strange noises or to fetch a car from a dark garage and such. They don’t even get to enjoy the party they so desperately wanted to throw because of the inconveniences of dispossessing of the body and being picked off by a crazed killer… Sucks to be them.

Anyway. Where The House on Sorority Row sets itself apart from many other slashers, is in its use of the dark secret bonding the girls together. Afraid to go to the police after their prank on Mrs Slater goes terribly wrong, they’re left guilt stricken, paranoid and lumbered with a body they’re desperately trying to dispose of. The group begins to disintegrate and spilt – and before long they’re at each other’s throats as bickering and panic sets in. Add to this the fact that somehow, someone knows the girls’ secret and seems intent on dishing out their own brand of bloody revenge, picking them off violently one by one, and you have a taut and pretty suspenseful – if immensely conventional – slasher flick. Of course, it being an old fashioned slasher that sticks quite closely to the now infamous conventions of the sub-genre ain’t no bad thing. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that’s pretty much why these bloody and morally conservative flicks have remained so popular with horror fans since their hey-day in the early Eighties. There’s a certain comfort to be garnered from the familiar.

The House on Sorority Row also takes time to get to the blood (and even when we do, its all fairly restrained stuff), opting to build slow-burning tension and build up an atmosphere of mystery and queasy dread. The various discussions between Mrs Slater and her doctor also fuel the mystery, especially all his talk of ‘psychotic breaks’ and ‘latent violence.’ There are a few red herrings sprinkled throughout the mayhem – not least Mrs Slater’s mildly menacing physician who knows more than he is letting on about the house mother’s dark past. The script is careful to keep us guessing, and when the revelation comes, it is suitably twisted. As well as building tension around the girls’ plight as they try to dispose of the body, we’re also thrown intriguing titbits such as the discovery of a secret bedroom in the attic; cluttered with vintage toys and creepy jack-in-the-box music boxes, its obvious something sinister happened here; or lurks here. A threat emanating from the attic of a sorority house also permeated Black Christmas.

A number of striking images sear out from the screen – notably the moment when Katherine (Kathryn McNeil) discovers the severed head of her friend in a toilet, the moodily lit-from-below pool full of floating bodies and the hallucinations a drugged Katherine has of her dead friends entering the house after the party… The killer is kept mainly off-screen, save for a few brief glimpses – a spooky one in silhouette, and a brief one over a banister looking down on him revealing his deformed face. When he emerges at the end (in a genuinely chilling moment), he’s decked out in full harlequin gear and looks appropriately deranged.

While none of the characters are that likeable, they still possess a certain old fashioned vulnerability that can only come from sexist slasher stereotyping. Characterisation is limited to the likes of ‘the alpha-bitch’, ‘the one who loses it completely and freaks out, tripping over her own feet in an empty hallway’ and the level-headed, resourceful and thoughtful ‘final girl.’ The others fall somewhere in-between but aren’t that easy to differentiate. It’s not that crucial to the plot though, and The House on Sorority Row breezes along at a fairly brisk pace. It is surprisingly elegantly lensed and the lush orchestral score courtesy of Richard Band moves gracefully between nostalgic longing and eerie menace and suspense with twisted ease.

Seven girls, a guilty secret, a big sorority house and a psychotic killer wielding sharp things. The House on Sorority Row is a rudimentary and highly conventional slasher film with a few neat twists and enough tension and chills to ensure it won’t disappoint fans of the sub-genre. While not as masterful as Halloween, or as gory as Friday the 13th, it still emerges as one of the better slasher films from the early 80s. Delta! Lambda! Death!

Pieces

2011-08-25T16:45:00.001+01:00

1982
Dir. Juan Piquer Simón

A killer, attempting to piece together a human jigsaw puzzle made from body parts, starts cutting up the young scantily-clad/ample-bosomed co-eds on a college campus. Bad dialogue, terrible acting, gratuitous nudity, sloppy gore effects, unexpected kung-fu and nubile lovelies getting cut the fuck up ensue. Warning: contains guffaws.

Directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Piquer Simón in his native Valencia (though set in the States), the marvellously trashy and overtly sleazy 1982 extravaganza Pieces is a scuzzy, down ‘n’ dirty slasher that ranks down there with the ~~worst~~ best of ‘em. Pretty damn notorious when it was released, it has gone on to garner a sizable cult following – and rather understandably so. Containing no tension whatsoever, the film still manages to be highly entertaining due to it falling firmly into that old favourite category of the so-bad-it’s-bloody-good variety. On my first attempt to watch Pieces (several years ago when I first picked it up on VHS in a bargain bin) I got as far as the first chainsaw attack and was ordered to switch it off by whichever friends had the misfortune of watching it with me. Cut to several years later (in true slasher movie style), and I’m given a boxset of 10 horror films – so cheap there’s 3 on each disc – hey, so my friends know me too well) and I’m ready to have a second go at watching Pieces. I had the sense to watch it by myself this time.

Like the tagline indicates – It’s Exactly What You Think It Is - and what with me thinking it was a cheap, sleazy, terrible piece of ~~garbage~~ filmmaking; it wasn’t wrong! What can I say though? I fucking loved it.

The plot, so to speak, is structured around grisly and splashy deaths, unattractive sex scenes and increasingly ridiculous scenes in which the main characters stand around and indulge in dull expositionary dialogue. The police investigation - which is carried out by a staggering array of people (some of whom aren’t even cops) including detectives Bracken (Christopher George) and Holden (Frank Brana), the Dean of the university (Edmund Purdom), professor of anatomy Prof. Brown (Jack Taylor), former tennis pro turned undercover detective Mary Riggs (Lynda Day George) and the campus stud turned undercover cop assistant Kendall (Ian Sera) - consists of trawling through files and shuffling papers looking for clues. Tension could have been mustered in a number of stalking sequences, but the direction is so bland and the pacing so devoid of momentum that it just never feels as suspenseful as a good slasher should. The victims are all women with more boobs than brain cells: case in point – the killer sneaks into an elevator with one victim who fails to notice the big chainsaw he’s hiding behind his back, while another girl, who is fished out of a swimming pool with a small net, simply reclines by the pool in terror while the killer retrieves his trusty chainsaw from the other side. The shock ending featuring a body made up of stitched together parts of all the scantily clad victims is also a depraved delight that would be echoed years later in Lucky McKee’s May – though to much more poetic and chilling effect.

“While we were out here fumbling with that music, that lousy bastard was in there killing her. Bastard! BASTARD! BAAAASSSTAAAARRD!!!”

Note the 'Friday the 13th' poster behind this clearly vestiphobic young lady...

Interestingly, there is a number of tantalising giallo trimmings scattered throughout Pieces; not least the killer’s wardrobe which consists of black leather gloves, fedora hat and long dark raincoat. He also boasts some major psycho-sexual issues and is depicted in the prologue as a young boy indulging in a spot of matricide with an axe after his mommy dearest finds him playing with a jigsaw puzzle of a naked lady. When we cut to 40 years later, an unseen figure – the killer! - sporting black leather gloves fondles some obviously fetishised items in a box – including pieces of a familiar looking nudie jigsaw and bits of the dress worn by his mother when he murderlised her. There’s even a photo of her with a big red cross through it – you know, just in case we don’t get how much he hates her. Even the event which seemingly triggers the murderer’s memory of killing his mother (a young girl roller-skating into a big-ass mirror and a flashback shot from the opening scene when the mother smashes a mirror when she discovers her son’s pervy jigsaw) echoes similar devices used in giallo films when the killer sees something that reignites their dormant psychosis. A basic staple of slasher and giallo films - prowling POV camera work – is also chucked in for good measure. Similarities with Italian gialli stop here though, as Pieces unfolds as a messy, somewhat soiled and hilariously bad splatter pic with about as much subtlety as a curiously stained breezeblock being hurled through an ornate stained-glass window.

If trashy slashers with tits, gore, bad dialogue, tits, hammy acting, tits and tits are your bag, then uncork something vulgar and cheap and guzzle it while watching Pieces. Sleazy, absurd, ridiculous fun awaits…

Wreckage

2011-08-11T17:41:00.001+01:00

2010
Dir. John Asher

A group of friends find themselves stranded when their car breaks down while drag racing outside their home town. After deciding to try their luck at a nearby scrap yard rather than risk walking back into town, some careless horseplay with a loaded pistol leaves one of them wounded and in desperate need of medical attention. Meanwhile, the local sheriff’s office has just received notification that a serial killer has escaped from the state prison and is thought to be hiding out somewhere in the area. Alerted to the situation at the wrecking yard, the police and ambulance crew arrive on the scene only to face a long night of bloodshed and mayhem as a mysterious killer stalks the yard determined to slay everyone and leave no witnesses…

Beware. The spare parts may be your own…

Wreckage unravels as conventionally as the slasher flicks of the Eighties which so obviously inspired it. It even opens with a flashback sporting some gritty domestic drama in which one of two young boys finally snaps and shoots their wrung-out, chain smoking mother and her dodgy drug dealer boyfriend. Cutting to fifteen years later, the film begins again with its most interesting, teasing and suspenseful scene featuring an encounter between a stranded young woman and her would-be rapist/murderer, a radio broadcast boasting the revelation that a dangerous prisoner has just escaped from prison and an unexpected conclusion to events. Wreckage then shifts gears again and opens properly as we’re introduced to the main characters, all of whom seem plucked from slasher movie history: the just engaged jock/ex-soldier and his ‘resourceful’/perky fiancée, her bitchy best friend (who has just found out she’s pregnant) and the bitchy friend’s slacker/practical joker boyfriend. So far, so meh. They go drag racing, break down and wind up stranded in a wrecking yard where they’re picked off by an unseen assailant.

While it does stick to typical slasher structure and convention, Wreckage goes a little way to redeem itself with a few neat twists that throw various spanners in the works resulting in a few unexpected moments and surprises. They’re few and far between though. When his fiancée Kate (Cameron Richardson) is accidentally shot by Rick (Aaron Paul), Jared (Mike Erwin) runs into town for help. When he returns, his friends are missing and the typically ineffectual police are little help. Whilst searching the yard, they make the same dumb-ass mistakes made by their bygone slasher peers. They spilt up, investigate strange noises, don’t have phone signal, don’t call for back-up, they leave victims' bodies to come back for them later only for the body to be gone again and the like.

There is some intrigue mustered regarding the identity of the killer – a hulking brute in a welding mask who is only glimpsed briefly. Is he connected to the escaped prisoner? Who were the young boys from the prologue? As the setting is a wreckage yard, the deaths naturally feature car-wrecking themed pay-offs: various cast members are hung on tow-truck hooks, crushed inside cars and even have cars dropped on them. A couple of chase scenes add a fair amount of suspense, and the telling of tales concerning the owners of some of the car wrecks and their deathly fates provides a highly unsettling and disturbing moment, but as events just continue to plod on unevenly, Wreckage looks increasingly likely to be consigned to the low-budget, straight-to-DVD slasher movie scrap heap. Ahem.

By no means a bad film, Wreckage just isn’t a very compelling one. The script is rudimentary and the direction uninspired. There are a couple of atmospheric shots of Jared running for town through the fog-sodden forest and along the deserted highway at night, but aside from providing moodily lit respite from the main action, they don’t really enhance it. The leads’ performances are all sturdy enough, but their characters aren’t in the least bit interesting, nor do they give us any reason to care about them. A bizarre turn from Monsters star Scoot McNairy as the redneck owner of the yard fails to aid proceedings; his wacky-eyed ramblings annoy more than entertain. Where Wreckage does succeed is in how it throws us off the scent of the identity of the killer and keeps us guessing. We know of course he is linked to the prologue, but we don’t know how. There are a fair few suspects and red herrings, and it all ties together quite well by the conclusion. It’s just a shame that the journey there was so lacking in suspense and originality.

Wreckage (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£12.99) by Chelsea Films on 22nd August 2011.

Paracinema Magazine and Beyond!

2011-08-10T12:32:00.004+01:00

Born from a conversation about film magazines in a small Queens, New York apartment in the summer of 2007, Paracinema Magazine has been steadily garnering a reputation as a distinctive, intelligent, thought-provoking and passionately produced publication of the highest order since its first issue almost four years ago. Taking its title from a phrase coined by film scholar Jeffrey Sconce, the independently produced, quarterly magazine focuses primarily on all facets of cult and genre cinema.

Each issue contains accessible in-depth analytical pieces, critiques, interviews and academic articles written by fans for fans on all manner of genre cinema – from Hitchcock, Herzog, Bergman and Carpenter to the likes of HG Lewis, Wiseau and Ed Wood, to name but a few. All is presented in a strikingly designed and attention-commanding publication. Paracinema is essentially for those who want to delve deeper into the lurid depths of ‘periphery’ cinema; each issue contains pieces on a staggering array of movies and genres including, horror, sci-fi, blaxploitation, exploitation, cult, Asian, giallo, pornography and B-movies… If you aren’t currently reading Paracinema, it is my duty to inform you that you’re seriously missing out.

Think of the amount of times you’ve been flicking through movie magazines in your local newsagents or book shop and thought how frustrating it was that your favourite types of movies and filmmakers were often neglected or relegated to the sidelines in terms of the amount of articles about them or attention given to them. Think how fantastic it would be to be able to pick up a magazine that was SOLELY about these types of films and filmmakers; and a well written, affordable and lovingly produced one at that.

Recently Paracinema has been given the opportunity to expand; of course it’s not as simple as it sounds. Being a labour of love (read: usually in the red) their budget is quite tight. As such, Team Paracinema has proposed a bit of a fundraiser. Think of it as a donation, but instead of a tote bag you get a sweet Warriors t-shirt out of the deal. Times are tough so if you can’t afford the shirt, please, please, please just help spread the word by sharing this link everywhere you can and help Paracinema to acquire wider distribution. It is a great magazine that deserves to have a much bigger readership.

For more information about the magazine, why not head over to their site and have a look around. You can also befriend them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. For a little more insight you can check out an interview with the editor of Paracinema, Christine Makepeace, over at The Blood Sprayer and listen to a podcast with her at The Toxic Graveyard.

Support independent publishing!

Random Creepy Scene #487: Quiet As A Nun

2011-08-03T19:27:00.001+01:00

Armchair Thriller was a British television series, broadcast on ITV by Thames in 1978 and 1980. It was essentially a horror/supernatural orientated anthology series that specialised in adapting various spooky novels and stories. It consisted of two weekly 25 minute episodes, usually screened at 8pm on a Tuesday and Thursday evening. I’m too young to remember it, but a recent conversation with several (ever so slightly) older friends alerted me to one particular episode of the series entitled Quiet as a Nun…

Adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Antonia Fraser, Quiet as a Nun was a six part dramatisation revolving around Fraser's regular sleuth Jemima Shore, who revisits the convent where she was schooled following the mysterious death of one of the nuns. The nun, Sister Miriam, was a former friend of Jemima’s and she apparently starved herself to death in a ruined tower in the grounds of the convent. Jemima soon learns from the girls at the convent about a mysterious and malevolent figure called the Black Nun - a sinister faceless spectre which allegedly appears whenever a death is about to take place. The figure was seen just prior to Sister Miriam's death, and has been sighted again…

"Oh Christ... It's the rocking chair..."

The final minutes of the third episode, aired on 18th April 1978, are regarded as one of the most chilling moments on British TV – and the very scene that ingrained itself into the mind of my friend, who spoke about it with a mixture of loving nostalgia and well-remembered terror. In the scene, Jemima, who is thoroughly engrossed in her sleuthing, gingerly enters the tower alone at night. Climbing up into the attic she is greeted with the sound of a rocking chair on old rickety floorboards… Turning slowly around she is greeted with the sight of the faceless Black Nun, who suddenly rises up out of the chair and advances menacingly towards the screaming woman… Watch the clip here. And the opening titles of Armchair Thriller here. And then imagine yourself watching them as a young child. Gah!

The series was transmitted before the traditional 9pm watershed, and was very popular with families – I guess much in the same way that Dr Who was (and still is). This is probably one of the reasons why it is still so fondly remembered – and so controversial at the time. Watching the scene now is creepy enough, but I’m sure if I’d seen this as a child, it would have had a much deeper, more troubling impact, and no doubt resulted in many a sleepless night… It ties in perfectly with the whole ‘behind the couch’ ethos – that wonderful feeling of nostalgia and safe fear in a domestic setting, linked to being scared of something as a child, and now really quite enjoying the sensation and the nostalgia it provides.

Pleasant nightmares!

Tenebrae

2011-07-27T21:57:00.001+01:00

1982
Dir. Dario Argento

Generally regarded as one of Italian horror maestro Dario Argento's finest films (and rightly so), Tenebrae marked the director's return to the giallo genre which he implicitly popularised, after his detour into supernatural gothic horror with Suspiria and Inferno. Based on the filmmaker’s own experiences of an unhinged fanatic obsessed with his work, Tenebrae follows the story of American mystery-thriller novelist Peter Neal, whose arrival in Rome to promote his latest title coincides with a series of violent murders – the perpetrator of which claims to have been inspired by Neal’s latest book. When the author himself begins to receive death threats from the killer he must use his literary know-how to snare the slasher before he becomes the next victim.

Tenebrae was added to the Video Nasty list and banned on video in the UK until 1999, when it was released with severe cuts. The film was finally passed uncut and uncensored in 2002. Now, this definitive version of Tenebrae comes to DVD and (for the first time in the UK) Blu-ray, courtesy of Arrow Video, and boasts a brand new HD restoration which perfectly showcases Argento’s inimitable style and sado-chic. Despite its title (which is Latin for ‘darkness/shadows’), Tenebrae is a bright, stark and strikingly lit film (cinematographer Luciano Tovoli also lensed Argento’s candy-coloured Suspiria and forthcoming Dracula 3D) – and the new HD restoration really helps it pop off the screen like you’ve never seen before.

Unfolding as a cunningly reflexive critique of the Italian giallo, as well as Dario Argento’s own distinct body of work, Tenebrae directly addresses the accusations of misogyny often hurled at the director throughout his opulent and bloodily-hewn career. Containing some of his most iconic imagery and providing a commentary on the nature of violence in cinema and literature, Tenebrae also sees Argento actively examining some of his most reoccurring themes and preoccupations with a savage precision, as well as namedropping some of his literary influences such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Freudian psychology, sexual deviancy, repressed trauma, voyeurism/spectatorship and the sexualisation/fetishisation of violence and death are all on bold display throughout this twisted story which is also pierced with a slew of heavily stylised murder set-pieces, the likes of which are usually associated with the director’s cinema.

Further highlighting Argento’s stylish and reflexive approach to depicting violence, a number of carefully orchestrated moments work to lift us out of the narrative to objectively consider what is happening on screen. Not only are the audience placed firmly in the role of ‘voyeur’, but we’re also made to consider this very notion and our role as active spectators. Argento works to purposefully detach us from the story with several technically impressive camera shots – including one where the camera scales a victim’s house in one seamless take, navigating walls and floating over the roof, peering in through windows. As dazzling as it is, the shot doesn’t further the narrative, nor does it represent anyone’s POV; it exists simply to remove us from the ‘reality’ of the film and because Argento enjoys showcasing his technical prowess. At other times, his more usual approach of utilising the camera to show us events from the murderer’s point of view are in full effect. The result is a dizzying malaise of artistically framed shots which alternate between disrupting the narrative and thrusting us deep into the very midst of the ensuing onscreen mayhem. It’s also no coincidence that many of the victims gaze, almost longingly, into the camera and directly at us, not only implying our involvement in their violent deaths, but also serving as a reminder that they’re happening for our entertainment.

Despite all the slyly subversive reflexivity, Tenebrae also functions as an engrossing murder mystery. Typical of the genre, it boasts shoals of red herrings with various motives, a psychologically fractured killer sporting black leather gloves and a penchant for hacking up sexually liberated women, and the story twists and turns delivering a slew of shocking revelations that enhance the mystery and thicken the plot as Argento toys with audience/character perception and perspective. As mentioned, the look of the film is really rather striking and the Rome depicted in it is not the Rome usually portrayed in cinema; no landmarks or typical baroque architecture are on display - instead it is presented as an anonymous, nearly futuristic city, devoid of character and full of eerie, well-lit and sparsely peopled streets and squares which adds to the unusual, coldly detached tone of proceedings; as does the bombastic electronic score by ex-Goblin members Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli and Elsa Morante.

Special Features

Arrow Video has really delivered the goods with their release of Tenebrae. Not only are fans treated to a stunning brand new HD restoration of the film, but they also get an introduction by Daria Nicolodi; audio commentary with Argento experts, journalists and writers Kim Newman and Alan Jones and a second audio commentary track with Argento expert Thomas Rostock.
Jones and Newman’s track is bursting with all sorts of exclusive insights as the two have an engaging and lively chat – Jones providing behind the scenes anecdotes and facts, and Newman providing an accessible critique. Rostock’s commentary unfolds as an entirely different beast: a hardcore dissection of the film and a highly detailed and academic analysis. For anyone who takes their Argento films seriously, the abundance of information, readings and thoughts on the subtextuality shimmering beneath the surface of Argento’s masterful and cosmopolitan giallo, this track really is a must!

Elsewhere, Screaming Queen! Daria Nicolodi remembers Tenebrae boasts an interview with the ever-candid and revealing Daria Nicolodi – Argento’s former partner and muse. Reflecting on her role in Tenebrae – which she describes as ‘bland’ – Nicolodi reminisces on working with the other cast and crew and the problems the film had with censors upon its release. She also discusses some of the more memorable technical aspects of the film, such as how its unique look was obtained and its special effects realised. Never one to not speak her mind, the relaxed and informative actress also reflects upon Argento’s former ‘rock star’ status in Italy and how she was ‘coerced’ into playing such a small role in this collaboration.

The Unsane World of Tenebrae – an interview with Dario Argento features the director discussing the origins of the film and how it was received in Italy when released back in the early 80s. He freely discusses how he’d deliberately moved away from the giallo into fantasy horror when the cinemas became saturated with gialli after his trailblazing debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Argento appears in fine form and even makes a few jokes while reflecting on his work and the allegations of misogyny it was usually greeted with.

A Composition for Carnage – Claudio Simonetti on Tenebrae features the composer discussing his work throughout the years with Argento and the influence of dance and electronic music on the score for Tenebrae. He also chats about censorship and violence in cinema and culture.

If all of that isn’t enough, the disc also includes footage of a Goblin concert in Glasgow (in which they perform tracks from Tenebrae and Phenomena), an exclusive collector’s booklet featuring brand new writing on Tenebrae by Alan Jones, author of “Profondo Argento”; four sleeve art options with original and newly commissioned artwork; double-sided fold-out poster; original trailer; English and Italian mono audio options; optional English subtitles.

Hobo With A Shotgun Competition

2011-07-27T21:23:00.001+01:00

To celebrate the 1st August UK DVD and Blu-ray release of Hobo With A Shotgun, starring the legendary Rutger Hauer, we have extremely limited edition t-shirts to give away! Specially created and not available to buy, we have three t-shirts to give away, but before we tell you how you can win them please do stop by the official FanHub website for the film - www.cult-labs.com/hobo - click on ‘Win!’ and there you'll get the chance to win yourself drawn into the Hobo With a Shotgun poster!

Meanwhile, to be in with a chance of winning a totally rad and way-exclusive Hobo With A Shotgun t-shirt courtesy of those damn fine folks at Momentum, The Associates and Arrow Video - just answer this question: What was the name of Rutger Hauer’s character in the 1986 horror flick The Hitcher?

This competition has now closed - thanks to everyone who entered. And good luck!

Psst. The t-shirts look like this!

Who Saw Her Die?

2011-07-25T01:04:00.005+01:00

1972
Dir. Aldo Lado

When the young daughter of Venice based sculptor Franco is heinously murdered, he and his estranged wife begin an investigation to track down the killer. Meanwhile the body-count continues to grow as the crazed maniac bloodily dispatches anyone who strays too close to discovering the truth about their identity.

Set in Venice and featuring the story of a grief-stricken family crippled by the death of their child, Who Saw Her Die? is in many ways uncannily similar to Nicolas Roeg’s startling masterpiece Don’t Look Now, which was released only a year after. Opening with the shockingly frank and brutal murder of a little girl on a snowy mountain in France, Lado’s film really hits the ground running, however while its central mystery constantly intrigues as it twists and turns unendingly, it never really manages to repeat the power of this opening scene. Focusing on Franco’s obsession with finding his daughter’s killer, the film unfolds as in typically glorious giallo fashion, with red-herrings galore, a convoluted and serpentine plot, expertly staged murder sequences and the revelation of the killer coming out of nowhere.

Director Lado was born in Venice, and he films it through the eyes of someone who is intimately familiar with its labyrinthine alleyways and canals. He builds a dank atmosphere of dread and depicts the city as a crumbling, damp and inherently sinister place full of faded beauty and grandeur. The film subverts the usual connotations of water with cleansing and purification and instead associates it with death. This is nicely evoked in a number of moments, such as when Roberta is given a necklace with the astrological symbol for Aquarius on it, prefiguring the discovery of her body in the canal, and what with it being set in Venice and all, there really is no avoiding water! Lado utilises his locations well and Who Saw Her Die? boasts some incredible camerawork, particularly evident in the set piece involving four characters locked in a taut game of cat and mouse in a warehouse which exhibits a dizzying and Escheresque warped logic.

Despite the heart-aching subject matter, Who Saw Her Die? is a strangely unemotional film. Even though we follow Franco’s desperate attempts to find out who murdered his daughter, and it is he who is the anchor and focus of the film, his pain and turmoil is never really expressed sufficiently. George Lazenby delivers an utterly passionless performance that seems to compliment the unfeeling and frigid mood of the film perfectly, while Anita Strindberg, so compelling to watch in Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, delivers a similarly detached performance. As the doomed Roberta, Italian horror stalwart Nicoletta Elmi (whose impressive film work includes roles in such genre classics as Demons, Deep Red, Baron Blood, Flesh for Frankenstein and Bay of Blood) is sufficiently vulnerable and innocent, which serves to highlight the tragedy of her bloody fate. Their family unit is already fractured prior to their daughter’s death and it is only through her death that Franco and Elizabeth reunite. Their reunion is a cold one and the scene depicting it is detached, austere and contains no passion or warmth. A simple but beautiful overhead shot depicts them lying side by side; Elizabeth has tears rolling down her face, Franco has his back to her. The limp thrusting intercut with this conveys nothing but impassivity and bleak resignation. Had the performances been rawer and more emotional, Who Saw Her Die? would have been a film with incredible power.

An unsavoury undercurrent flows throughout proceedings, as most - if not all - of the adult male characters appear to have a dubious interest in Roberta. A number of awkward moments occur as they gaze at her a little too longingly… This is of course Lado’s attempt to establish red herrings and cast suspicion on everyone, and the effect is highly sinister. The child’s murder is revealed to be the latest in a string of murders of other young girls who all had red hair and a strange woman dressed in black mourning clothes and veil is seen nearby. She is a haunting, striking and formidable sight. Flashbacks lace the narrative, as do sinister point of view shots filmed from under the dark veil as the killer closes in on each victim. Close-up shots of the killer’s eyes behind the veil also glare from the screen with unsettling power. The flashbacks, which depict previous murders, convey the killer’s fractured mind and psycho-sexual hang-ups, and their appearance comes without warning; they simply perforate the narrative momentarily; the jarring effect of which is highly perturbing.

Lado has a knack for creating pointedly political films, particularly as far as his gialli are concerned (also see Short Night of Glass Dolls – a stunningly filmed, fiercely original and deeply eerie giallo), and Who Saw Her Die? can be read as a barbed criticism of the Catholic Church. This reading of the film seems to be dispelled at the very end however, when the last line of dialogue reveals something about the killer that is not only random, but also feels tacked on and unnecessary. The moment undoes Lado’s seemingly scathing critique of Catholicism as a corrupt institution. The film really benefits from Ennio Morricone’s haunting score, which comprises of choral pieces featuring a cacophony of infantile voices echoing in and out of each other. It immediately conjures the innocence of childhood and is shot through with an alarming urgency that becomes increasingly sinister, disorientating and panicked as the layers of voices increase. A potent and mesmerising bass line usually signifies the killer’s presence and the use of church organs adds an element of the ecclesiastical to events, which enhances Lado’s arguably anti-Catholic subtext.

In short, Who Saw Her Die? is not without its flaws, and one can only imagine how powerful it would be had its protagonists been portrayed with more emotional resonance, but it is still a striking, daring giallo, beautifully filmed and constructed, and a fantastic follow on from Lado's Short Night of Glass Dolls.

I recently wrote a feature called "Sketches of Venice in Red: A Comparative Glance at Who Saw Her Die? and Don’t Look Now."

It appears in issue 12 of Paracinema.
You can pick up a copy of it here.

Happy reading!

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

2011-07-20T16:55:00.009+01:00

1972
Dir. Sergio Martino

Alcoholic writer Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli, Bay of Blood) and his timid, long-suffering wife Irina (Anita Strindberg, Lizard in a Woman's Skin) live a self-destructive existence in their isolated and crumbling villa. When Oliviero’s mistress is the first victim in a series of vicious murders, he becomes the prime suspect – and when his sexy niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech, Strip Nude for Your Killer) suddenly arrives for a visit, things become increasingly complicated as a series of double-crossings and shifting character dynamics add to the air of stifling paranoia. Irina finds comfort in Floriana’s arms – and bed – and the two decide to bump off Oliviero, Diabolique-style. Throw in a few scenes of Sapphic love-making, an ominous and seemingly ubiquitous black cat, lush gothic trimmings, several vicious murders, and you have a fantastically vintage, sex-charged and moody giallo that rates right up there with the best of ‘em.

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key – the absurdly extravagant title of which comes from a note written to the titular protagonist in Sergio Martino’s first foray into the giallo, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh - is a very loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s feverish tale of psychological turmoil and revenge, “The Black Cat.” While the film certainly explores themes from that story, it is really only in the third act that it obviously mines the source material. Elsewhere Martino is content to mount an increasingly suspenseful and character-driven murder mystery which successfully sets itself apart from other gialli by boasting unusual gothic influences and a morbid atmosphere, heavily pregnant with dark connotations of madness, decay, incest and shades of necrophilia.

Your Vice is predominantly character-driven and the various dynamics between the three protagonists are constantly shifting. The opening scene establishes the passive/aggressive relationship between Oliviero and Irina. In the middle of a party Oliviero proceeds to humiliate an already edgy Irina by forcing her to drink a cocktail made up of his guests’ unfinished drinks. When Floriana comes on the scene, the dynamic is shifted once she seduces and ‘comforts’ Irina, trying to convince her to kill Oliviero. Later on we realise that Floriana is bedding him too and is playing the already emotionally estranged couple off against one another, hopping from one bed to the next. Ernesto Gastaldi’s screenplay works to build up suspicion and doubt around everyone. Also typical of Martino’s gialli, there are several murderers with different motives working in tandem which adds to the mystery and arguably convoluted plot – but hey, it keeps things ticking over nicely. One of the killers essentially holds no significance to the overall story aside from helping to up the body count, cast more suspicion on Oliviero and provide several moody and tautly mounted death scenes.

Incest and necrophilia supply the film with an odd subtext, which helps to flesh out the characters and add to their perverted traits. Heavy allusions to the incestuous relationship between Oliviero and his domineering mother pierce proceedings. When the party guests of the opening scene have left, Irina, decked out in Oliviero’s mother’s resplendent gown, quizzes Oliviero about his relationship with his mother and is subsequently raped by him. Floriana also uses the gown to seduce him, and in one of the standout set pieces, the maid Brenda also dons the gown after tip-toeing around the house one night when she hears what sounds like a cat wailing. Momentarily pleasuring herself in front of a mirror while Oliviero spies on her, she is soon terrified by strange noises and the raging storm outside. Panicking, she flees and is killed at the top of the stairs by an unseen assailant. Her mutilated corpse is walled up in the cellar by Oliviero, who believes that the police will suspect him of her murder. The strange mix of typical giallo imagery (black leather gloved hands wielding sharp implements) and gothic trappings (the gown, the thunderstorm) creates an interesting, heady moment.

The film retains a sparse look, with the sprawling feel of the vast and crumbling villa and the manner in which Martino’s camera prowls around it creating a sense of foreboding and unnamed menace. Bruno Nicolai’s haunting score also enhances the strangely gothic ambiance, as do the various scenes of a wide-eyed and nightgown clad Strindberg tiptoeing through the dark hallways – evoking imagery of bygone Italian gothic horrors by the likes of Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda. In typical Poe fashion, the villa in which the story unfolds is a manifestation of the psychological disintegration of its inhabitants. The film also abounds with nods to the likes of Hitchcock’s gothic melodrama Rebecca (1940) and Freda’s dark necrophiliac romance The Horrible Secret of Dr Hichcock, especially in its use of the portrait of Oliviero’s dead mother which serves as a reminder of the past and all the dank secrets forever entombed within it. A creepy moment that would later be echoed in Kubrick’s The Shining, is also a sly throwback to the moment in so many past gothic horrors where a musical instrument (actually a typewriter in this instance) is heard in the night, only for whoever is investigating to discover no one is playing/using it…What she finds is pretty chilling.

The film is bolstered by strong performances. As the submissive and driven-to-the-brink-of-madness Irina, Anita Strindberg is very convincing. She goes from weak and tormented to pushed-over-the-edge madwoman with ease, while Edwige Fenech plays against her usual giallo-type (the doe-eyed victim) as the scheming, manipulative and prone to undressing Floriana. A little sympathy is garnered for Oliviero by Luigi Pistilli, who plays him as an alcoholic and tortured artist, helplessly locked in an abusive relationship with his wife, whom he punishes for his own shortcomings. Sadly, Ivan Rassimov as a mysterious stalker-type is criminally underused, and really only shows up properly towards the end...

Martino’s gialli may lack the rich subtext of, say, those of Argento or Bava, but they are still vastly entertaining, stylish, atmospheric and slickly produced works. All of them were experimental in their own way and featured many memorable, stand out moments – odd that they are so often overlooked when it comes to the genre. Your Vice is one of his most striking and a must for any giallo fan.

Planet of the Vampires

2011-07-20T13:06:00.003+01:00

1965
Dir. Mario Bava

AKA Terror en el Espacio

Two interplanetary ships on an exploratory expedition into deepest, darkest, unchartedest space receive a distress signal from Aura, an unexplored and seemingly deserted planet. When the ships are pulled into its gravitational pull and crash land on the ominous surface, the surviving crew members gradually fall victim to the disembodied inhabitants of the world who begin to possess their minds when they sleep. They also possess the bodies of the dead and use the animated corpses to stalk and kill the remaining survivors in an attempt to get off the planet which is about to go postal...

Based on Renato Pestriniero's short story “One Night of 21 Hours”, Planet of the Vampires is a bit of a misnomer – the alien entities that possess the bodies and minds of the crew are more like ‘body-snatchers’ than blood-thirsty vampires. That’s by-the-by though; the title is as wonderfully kitsch, exploitative and lurid as the film itself. In short – it’s totally fitting. While there are undeniable moments of kitsch courtesy of dated costumes and sets, they don’t detract too much from the masterfully eerie atmosphere Bava conjures.

Bava specialised in creating striking and sumptuous looking films with relatively little money. He relied on ingenuity and a penchant for optical effects which have for the most part, stood the test of time. In this film he combines live-action filming with miniature sets and models by reflecting the sets through a mirror that had portions of its reflective surface scraped away so the actors could be seen through it. The result is quite breathtaking. Sure, some of the sets are dated, but with Bava lighting and filming them in that inimitable way of his, they’re imbued them with a distinctly gothic and oddly psychedelic majesty, elevating what is essentially a bargain basement B-movie, to something much more commanding. The film is often credited with being a major influence on Ridley Scott’s Alien particularly in terms of its narrative structure and set design. This is no more evident than in the beautifully haunting scene where the ship’s macho captain and his female companion explore a derelict alien vessel and discover the giant skeletal remains of an alien crew. From the cylindrical passageways to the grotesquely oversized alien remains, one can’t but wonder if O’Bannon and Scott had sneaked a peak at Planet of the Vampires before penning Alien (they claim they hadn’t).

A rather stifling air of paranoia begins to manifest as the crew fall prey to the disembodied entities as they sleep. The dead crew members are buried in makeshift graves on the surface of the planet and as they rise from them, wrapped in plastic burial shrouds, the result is really striking and calls to mind similar imagery in the likes of Black Sunday and the future work of Fulci. They are more space zombies than vampires. The majority of the story features the crew exploring the surface of this strange new world, and of course we’re happy for Bava’s narrative to meander along this path as everything looks so beautiful and eerie – all sinister ground fog and spookily glowing lighting. It is really only in the third act when tension begins to mount as the last survivors engage in a race against time (and each other) to escape Aura before they are dominated completely by their alien nemeses.

The film’s weak spots include the technobabble-tastic script, awkward dubbing and disposable characters who at times are hard to differentiate. Fans of Italian cult movies shouldn’t be too put off by these aspects; and of course they really add to the film’s irresistible kitsch appeal. The interior scenes of the crews’ ship are also pretty dated and more closely resemble left-overs from Lost in Space or Star Trek; all spacious soundstages and control panels with throbbing lights and weird electronic bleeps. It is the exterior scenes where Bava really succeeds in creating a memorable and hauntingly beautiful landscape that seeps with a gothic otherworldliness.

Planet of the Vampires is a pulpy, lurid comic-strip of a movie in which fans of Bava and cult sci-fi/horror flicks will find much to drool over. It also works well as a companion piece to Queen of Blood for those wanting a kitschy sci-fi double bill to die for. Masterfully lensed and saturated in a foreboding atmosphere, it is a much better film than it has any right to be - and all because of the imagination and ingenuity of Mario Bava.