Film Title: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Starring: David Emge as Stephen, Ken Foree as Peter, Scott H. Reiniger as Roger, and Gaylen Ross as Francine
Written & Directed by: George Romero
Ten years passed between the original Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead but just try to put this out of your mind. You’re not really supposed to notice the passage of time because Dawn obviously takes place shortly after Night as far as the story is concerned. It simply wasn’t feasible to continue to set the movies in the late sixties when the eighties were almost upon us.
Despite the best efforts of officials and law enforcement, the undead problem has reached apocalyptic proportions and society is falling apart. Francine can’t keep her television station crew from behaving erratically, yelling at the scientific expert appearing on their currently airing talk show and from finally abandoning their position.
Meanwhile, Peter and Roger, members of the local S.W.A.T. team, are raiding a building, forcing the tenants to evacuate to safety. They fail, however, finding the basement full of the undead. After taking care of the problem they decide that it might be time to make a run for it.
They go to the television station and meet up with Roger’s friend, Stephen, the television station’s traffic reporter. He has convinced Francine, his girlfriend, to abandon the station as well – there’s nothing left for her to do since all the emergency centers have been overrun with the undead and there’s nowhere left for her to inform the people to flee. All four of them load into the station’s helicopter and take off in hopes of finding somewhere safe to wait out the returning dead.
They stop at airports along the way to get fuel and supplies. Coming across a shopping mall (a relatively new force of nature at the time the movie was made) they decide to stop and see what kind of supplies they can find.
They’ve hit the jackpot. Not only is there plenty of food and clothes, there’s an ammunition store that hasn’t been touched since the zombie outbreak began. Crawling in from the top they barricade a few storage rooms and venture downstairs to get what they need.
When they find it relatively easy to maneuver around the mall and see how they could make themselves safe here, they decide to stay for a while – just until things calm down and start to go back to normal.
Denial can be a comforting thing, so these three (soon to be four – Francine is pregnant) work to make the mall safe for habitation. They fortify their rooms upstairs and even create a fake wall to hide the stairwell, opting to use other means to get around.
After losing Roger to a zombie bite, Francine starts pushing to leave the mall, wanting to go north. She realizes that fighting for material possessions just isn’t worth risking their lives. The men disagree with her but she insists that she at least be taught how to fly the helicopter just in case.
As is usual, the woman is right. 
A roving motorcycle gang spots the helicopter on the roof and deduces that there are living survivors inside. They attack the mall, breaking down the zombie barriers and making a general nuisance of themselves. In all the confusion another member of our heroic team succumbs to a zombie bite.
Only two (well, three) make it away alive, leaving the mall for the zombies. But really, doesn’t the mall make zombies out of all of us anyway?
Of all the Romero Living Dead films, this is my favorite. I have always enjoyed post apocalyptic stories but not for the death and destruction of the apocalypse – for how the survivors pick themselves up and manage to go on living. I suppose to be more accurate, I’m a fast of post disaster tales. I have enjoyed all five seasons of Lost, but the first season is still one of my favorites simply for the ‘how are we going to survive here’ aspect of that season. Watching people solve the problems of daily living in extreme situations is very gratifying to me.
And there’s not much more extreme than a world overrun by flesh-eating zombies when taking a step outside for a breath of fresh air could lead to taking your last breath ever.
Rating: Ten Screaming Pumpkins out of ten
This past week has been Living Dead week – and we still have a couple of movies to go before we’re done.
As any horror fan worth their salt knows, the king of zombie flicks is George Romero and this past week was a great reminder of why.
Film Title: Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Starring: Duane Jones as Ben, Judith O’Dea as Barbra, Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper, Marilyn Eastman and Helen Cooper (and Bug Eating Zombie), Keith Wayne as Tom, Judith Riley as Judy, Kyra Schon as Karen Cooper and Russel Streiner as Johnny
Written by: John A. Russo and George Romero
Directed by: George Romero
This movie may seem visually tame to young film viewers today, but for its time the first Night of the Living Dead was rather shocking.
On a nice Sunday afternoon in Pennsylvania, Barbra and her brother Johnny visit their father’s grave site. Not taking the visit seriously at all, Johnny relentlessly teases his sister that the shambling man walking around the cemetery is “coming to get you, Barbra.” So when the shambling man does try to ‘get’ Barbra, they are both equally shocked. And just like that, the Zombiepocalypse has begun.
It doesn’t take long for the action to start in this first of the Romero films. There’s no scenes showing the cause of the disaster, no shots of government agencies arguing over who will take the blame and how it’s going to be fixed. No, like all of Romero’s zombie films, this is about individuals and how this horror effects their day to day lives.
After escaping from the first of several zombies, Barbara runs to a seemingly abandoned farmhouse. She is shortly joined by Ben who will become the hero of our movie.
This movie has plenty of zombie attack action, but what makes the film worth watching is the characterization of Barbara, Ben and the others who are already in the farmhouse, hiding in the basement. Mr. Cooper, the spoiled, power-hungry husband, his sarcastic, weary wife, the nice young couple of Tom and Judy. Oh, and how could we forget the Cooper’s zombie-bitten daughter, Karen?
The one thing I like about these movies is that no one is safe. In any mainstream film, there’s always one or two characters that you know are going to make it to the end. Some of the later Romero films fall into that trap, but not this first one.
Claustrophobic, tense, horrifying and thought-provoking, Night of the Living Dead is still one of the best zombie films out there and is the standard to which to compare all others.
Rating: Nine Screaming Pumpkins out of ten.
Film Title: Fright Night
Starring: William Ragsdale as Charlie Brewster, Roddy McDowell as Peter Vincent, Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge, Amanda Bearse as Amy Peterson, Stephen Geoffreys as Evil Ed Thompson, Jonathan Stark as Billy Cole and Dorothy Fielding as Judy Brewster
Written and Directed by: Tom Holland
Charlie Brewster (he’s so cool) is an all-American teenager. He has a cute girlfriend, a quirky best buddy and a loving mother. His biggest worry is how to convince his girlfriend that it’s well past time to have sex with him.
Charlie’s carefree life doesn’t last long, however. Just when his girlfriend, Amy, is about to give him what he wants, he spies his new next door neighbors lugging a huge coffin into their basement. Charlie’s curiosity in events outside his window douses Amy’s interest and starts a chain of events that will lead to death and destruction.
Unable to help himself, Charlie continues to spy on his neighbors. He hears screams in the night and witnesses beautiful women visiting the Dandridge house. His luck runs out, however, when Dandridge catches his peeping Tom of a neighbor just when he has finished with his evening meal – another beautiful woman.
Charlie, uncertain if he has really been seen, sneaks out and watches as Jerry Dandridge and his manservant Billy Cole dispose of the body. Dandridge lets Charlie know that he is very aware of his presence but Charlie makes it back to his house before any harm can come to him.
After the police dismiss Charlie’s concerns, Charlie goes to his friend ‘Evil’ Ed for some vampire advice. Although Ed doesn’t believe Charlie for even a second, he reminds his best friend that he’s in no danger since a vampire can’t come into his house without being invited. This relieves Charlie – for about thirty minutes. When he gets home that night, he finds the vampire chatting away with his mother. After a few not-so-subtle threats (that Mrs. Brewster is completely oblivious to) Dandridge leaves, but Charlie knows he’ll be back.
That very evening Dandridge pays a visit to Charlie, but fails to kill him due to bad timing and a pesky number two pencil. However, he vows that he will return to finish the job.
Desperate for help, Charlie visits the local television station’s horror host, Peter Vincent. Peter quickly dismisses him as a lunatic. However, when Charlie’s girlfriend and Ed talk to Mr. Vincent – and some money is waved in his direction – Peter agrees to help prove to Charlie that Dandridge is not a vampire.
After a faked ‘vampire test,’ everyone is set to leave Dandridge’s house but Peter happens to pull out his little prop mirror and realizes that Charlie is right – Jerry Dandridge does not cast a reflection.
From this point on, Charlie and his friends are on the run as Dandridge hunts them down one by one. Evil Ed succumbs first and helps Dandridge capture Amy.
Although reluctant at first, Peter Vincent joins Charlie to help save Amy. After a run-in with Evil Ed in Charlie’s house, he and Charlie vanquish Dandridge and his creepy manservant, thereby saving Amy from ‘life’ as a vampire.
There are many things that I like about Fright Night. First of all, in this day and age of heroic blood-suckers, it’s nice to watch a movie that remembers that vampires are supposed to be frightening. Chris Sarandon plays Jerry Dandridge with equal amounts of charm and menace and although he’s exceedingly handsome, you still don’t want him to actually win.
Before I was even aware of Peter Cushing or Vincent Price, I liked Peter Vincent. I grew up with Roddy McDowall, seeing him in many Disney films and the like. His cowardly hero was all the more convincing because he never completely ‘manned up’ and his fear is apparent all the way to the end. I always found him even more admirable because of this – he did what needed to be done even though he was terrified.
I’m not sure if I noticed it back in 1985 when this movie was released, but the sexual tension in this movie is palpable – and not completely straight. There’s a closeness between Dandridge and his servant Billy Cole that feels more than platonic. I don’t know if this was intentional but it’s there and adds a layer to the movie that makes it even more interesting. And of course there’s the whole thing between Dandrige and Amy.
I’m not a big fan of the makeup effects in this movie. I think Sarandon is scarier without the prosthetics and the only makeup effect that unnerves me at all is Vampire Amy – but I find exaggerated human features scary. By the end of the movie, Sarandon is covered with makeup and I honestly believe the whole thing would have been much more effective without it. Look at Billy Cole – he’s pretty damn creepy and he doesn’t require any kind of special effects until his very last scene. Sarandon was a good enough actor to pull that off.
Despite my misgivings about the makeup, I highly recommend this movie. The characters are likable, the villain menacing and it reminds us all that vampires are for frightening us – not for lovin’.
Rating: Nine Screaming Pumpkins out of Ten
Movie Title: Horror Express (1972)
Starring: Christopher Lee as Professor Sir Alexander Saxton, Peter Cushing as Dr. Wells, Alberto de Mendoza as Father Pujardov, Julio Pena as Inspector Mirov, Silvia Tortosa as Countess Irinia Petrovska, George Rigaud as Count Maran Petrovski and Telly Savalas as Captain Kazan
Written by: Arnaud d’Usseau & Julian Zimet
Directed by: Eugenio Martin (billed as Gene Martin)
Two of my favorite actors who are frequent participants in many a horror film are Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Our latest October movie features both of them and for one of the few times, they are equals and are working together instead of trying to destroy one another.
In real life, Mr. Cushing and Mr. Lee were dear friends and enjoyed working together. Christopher Lee is best known for playing Dracula and Peter Cushing for playing Doctor Frankenstein for the Hammer studio. In Horror Express they play mere scientists and work together to hunt down a monster terrorizing the Trans-Siberian Express.
It’s the early 20th century and Professor Saxton (Christopher Lee), a prominent scientist in the field of archaeology has unearthed a humanoid creature, frozen in the Himalayas for millions of years. He believes the fossil will definitively prove evolution.
Countess Irina: I have heard of evolution. It’s… it’s immoral!
Professor Saxton: It’s a fact. And there’s no morality in a fact.
But before he can even get his find on the train, the dead bodies start appearing – the first right next to the crate containing his find. The local authorities know the dead man – he’s a well-known thief – but can’t explain why the man’s eyes have turned completely white.
Also traveling on the Trans-Siberian express is another prominent scientist, Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing). From the moment Dr. Wells steps into frame it is very clear that these two men share a mild animosity. Lee and Cushing play this perfectly and it’s a real shame that they couldn’t have shared more screen time as equals instead of mortal enemies.
Although the science is completely ludicrous, the sharp writing and superb performances by Lee and Cushing make this film a pleasure to watch. It also contains a few great quotes.
During the great monster hunt on the train, they deduce that the creature can actually body-hop and could be anyone. Saxton and Wells team up to look for the monster. Inspector Mirov walks in and finds them loading guns.
Inspector Mirov: The two of you together. That’s fine. But what if one of you is the monster?
Dr. Wells: Monster? We’re British, you know.
This movie is in public domain so beware of poor print quality. The best that we’ve seen so far is from Image, but that version is long out of print.
Rating: Eight Screaming Pumpkins out of ten.
Over the weekend the husband and I watched three October-appropriate films – An eighties slasher flick Happy Birthday to Me, an eighties horror-comedy House II: The Second Story and the more recent The Batman Vs. Dracula animated direct-to-video movie.
Let’s start with the animated movie:
Movie 2: Saturday October 2, 2009
Film Title: The Batman Vs. Dracula (2005)
Starring (voice actors): Rino Romano as The Batman/Bruce Wayne, Alastair Duncan as Alfred Pennyworth, Peter Stormare as Count Dracula/Alucard, Tom Kenny as The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot, Kevin Michael Richardson as The Joker and Tara Strong as Vicky Vale
Written by: Dave Capizzi
Directed by: Michael Goguen
This movie is part of The Batman animated series that was on the WB for a while not too long ago. My husband and I are huge Batman fans but never had much interest in this version. After watching this movie I’m glad that we never wasted our time.
The movie isn’t terrible, but it certainly isn’t something I would recommend anyone seek out.
For some unknown reason (even to the story writer, apparently) Dracula’s coffin was removed from Transylvania post-heart-piercing and dumped into a Gotham city underground crypt. After breaking out of Arkham Asylum The Penguin (who sounds and acts more like the animated Beetlejuice than any incarnation of The Penguin I’ve ever seen or read) stumbles across this crypt looking for buried treasure. Mr. Cobblepot escapes the fangs of Dracula but falls prey to Drac’s hypno-gaze and becomes The Count’s new Renfield.
Meanwhile, Vicky Vale is interviewing (and hitting on) a young Bruce Wayne but he’s too distracted by the new rash of strange disappearances and she’s pretty much out of luck.
But so is The Batman. Due to witnesses seeing a ‘batlike’ creature when these Lost Ones disappear, the city starts hunting down The Batman believing he is the one kidnapping all the missing persons.
The Batman figures out who Dracula is – but really, it’s not that hard. Drac even gives his name as Alucard to Bruce Wayne at a party. This has become so common it’s positivily cliche. What’s really sad is that ol’ Brucey had to write out the letters and hold them up to a mirror to figure it out. I know, I know – that was more to let the audience in on the joke, but really – it just made Bruce look stupid.
By the time the story ends, the Joker’s been turned into a vampire, cured by The Batman, and Vicky Vale has been kidnapped and nearly turned into Drac’s vampire queen. Fortunately, Batsy is able to defeat The Count with Wayne Industries’ newest technological feat.
There are many problems with this movie, the biggest being that it’s just plain dull. I did not like the character designs, Alfred Pennyworth seemed quite out of character (he did a spit take for goodness’ sake) and the voice actor they cast for Batman – ick. He sounded like almost all Hollywood men today – boyish and boring. Batman needs a deep, commanding voice. How can you strike fear into the hearts of men when you sound like a teenage boy?
I will say this for it though – The Joker as a vampire is pretty damn creepy. What’s even creepier is that while a vampire and as The Batman’s prisoner, he dined on Bruce Wayne’s blood nightly.
Okay, so moving right along. Don’t worry – I actually liked the other two movies we watched this past weekend.
Rating: Three Screaming Pumpkins out of ten
Purchase The Batman Vs. Dracula from Amazon
Movie 3: Saturday October 2, 2009
Move Title: House II: The Second Story (1987)
Starring: Arye Gross as Jessie, Jonathan Stark as Charlie, Royal Dano as Gramps and John Ratzenberger as Bill
Written by: Ethan Wiley
Directed by: Ethan Wiley
The first House movie is a lot of fun and sometimes genuinely scary. The sequel – which has nothing to do with the first movie aside from the fact that it centers around a haunted house – is just fun.
When Jessie moves into the house his parents – who he never knew – left him, he starts exploring and finds that the strange mantlepiece on his fireplace is missing something rare and valuable – a crystal skull. After even more research he deduces that this skull might just be buried with his great great grandfather, with whom he shares his name.
He convinces his best friend Charlie to help him dig up the old codger and lo and behold – there’s the skull – and along with the skull is ol’ gramps. He’s decayed and very, very old but still kicking.
Jessie and Charlie take Gramps and the skull back to the house but is is almost immediately stolen – by a barbarian from a prehistoric alternate universe that anyone can get to just by going into the upstairs study.
And that’s how this movie goes up until the end. Jessie and Charlie visit three alternate universes trying to keep their hands on the skull and therefore keeping Gramps alive. In the end, Gramps’ old friend-turned-enemy shows up demanding the skull but Jessie shoots it out with him until only one of them is left.
Along the way Bill Maher shows up as a smarmy record producer and a few non-descript women look pretty on the screen for a few minutes but are never developed past a two-dimensional shell. However, a cute little pterodactyl and dogerpillar make up for lack of female character development.
Rating: Five Screaming Pumpkins out of ten
Purchase House II The Second Story from Amazon
Saving the Best for last :
Movie 4: Sunday October 4, 2009
Title: Happy Birthday To Me (1981)
Starring: Melissa Sue Andersen as Virginia Wainwright, Glenn Ford as Doctor David Faraday, Tracey Bregman as Ann Thomerson and various other Canadian youths
Written by: John C.W. Saxton, Peter Jobin & Timothy Bond
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
Although a slasher flick, this movie is very short on gore. The kills are quick and the camera never lingers on the aftermath.
However, the interesting story that keeps you guessing right up until the end makes up for it.
Virginia is a popular girl in her (high school? College? – it’s very unclear) and is even in what the locals call ‘The Top Ten’ – meaning the top ten most popular people in the school.
However, all is not perfect in pretty little Virginia’s world. Three years prior she had been in an accident that left her in a coma. After experimental brain surgery, she recovered but with very little memory of the accident itself or what led up to it.
In the meantime, members of the Top Ten slowly disappear. The viewer knows they are dead – we see each kill although we never see the killer – but the townspeople don’t know if they’re dead or alive. None of the bodies turn up.
By the end of the movie we find out exactly where those bodies went along with how and why.
As with most slasher movies, this film has a female lead performed adequately by Melissa Sue Andersen of Little House on the Prairie fame. A few other familiar character actors from early eighties films pop up along with Glenn Ford.
Rating: Seven Screaming Pumpkins out of 10
Since it’s October, the husband and I have decided to try to watch at least one horror film a night. The exception to this would be Fridays upon which we have been watching the James Bond films in order – including the ones not part of the ‘official’ film series (Casino Royale, Never Say Never Again).
So, what better time to resurrect my long-neglected Myriad of Reflections blog? It was this time last year that I started the blog and then failed to keep it going on a regular basis. Let’s see if I can do better this time.
Movie 1 – Thursday October 1 2009
Film Title: Infestation (2009)
Starring: Chris Marquette as Cooper, Brooke Nevin as Sara, Wesley Thompson as Albert, E. Quincy Sloan as Hugo, and Ray Wise as Ethan (a Myriad of Reflection favorite – he was in Twin Peaks, how could he not be a favorite?!)
Written and Directed by: Kyle Rankin
I had never heard of this movie before my husband received his review copy yesterday in the mail. I noticed that the male lead on the box (Chris Marquette) was someone that I have liked in the few movies I’ve seen him in – Fanboys and Freddy Vs. Jason – so I wasn’t adverse to watching it.
The plot in a nutshell: Almost immediately after being fired from his telemarketing job, Cooper (Marquette) and everyone in his office are bombarded with an earsplitting sound that renders everyone unconcious. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a web cocoon. After fighting off a beetle the size of a Boxer, he rouses several people and pulls them out of the webbing, including the daughter of his boss.
The group ventures outside and finds that in addition to the beetles, there are huge flying bugs that tend to swoop down on anything that makes noise and either carries them off toward an ominous cloud or stings them in the back.
The group takes off to find relatives and help, fighting off the bugs along the way and coming to terms with their new seemingly-post-apocalyptic life.
The movie is fun, the characters deep enough to evoke some feeling when they die and the special effects convincing. By the end of the movie not all questions are answered (including where these bugs came from in the first place), but I believe this is on purpose. Especially from the last scene of the film, I’m certain the filmmakers are hoping for a sequel and I, for one, would definitely enjoy watching a second movie in this world.
Rating: Seven Screaming Pumpkins out of ten.
So, I’ve made it two days in a row. Wonder how long I’ll be able to keep this up.
Tonight, another five horror flicks that I’ve enjoyed and that I think you might enjoy too.
Ringu (1998)
No, not the American remake, the original Japanese film directed by Hideo Nakata and written by Hiroshi Takahashi. This was my first foray into the world of Japanese horror – before I knew about the fear of long black hair and young girls prevalent in the genre.
The general premise, for those three of you who don’t know, is that after viewing a certain video tape, the viewer will die in seven days. This film follows the investigation of these deaths and the video itself by a young mother who’s son has watched the video.
This is one of those few movies that I mentioned a few posts ago about making me almost crawl over the back of the couch when ‘the scene’ happened.
If you’ve seen the American version and enjoyed it at all I urge you to see the original. It’s much scarier and doesn’t feel the need to spoon feed you the answer to every single, freaking piece of imagery in the cursed video tape. Also, the fact that the only special effect to make the ‘ghost’ move strangely was running the film backward makes it much scarier than the over-produced, computer-enhanced effects of the American film.
When will they ever get it? The more real a supernatural occurrence looks, the scarier it’s going to be? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
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The Black Cat (1934)
A rather subversive and sometimes perverse film, this movie stars both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Boris takes on the role of the bad guy in this film and has the widow’s peak to prove it. Both actors give it their all in this movie and it’s interesting to see Lugosi play the hero of the film. I haven’t seen all of Lugosi’s films, but this is the only one I’ve seen in which he plays this role. Most of the films I’ve seen of his he’s either trying to drain hapless victims or conduct experiments on…hapless victims. Oh, and bully Tor Johnson.
Purchase The Black Cat, part of The Bela Lugosi Collection
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The Evil Dead (1981), The Evil Dead II (1987) , Army of Darkness (1992)
(Yes, this is three movies, but I’m counting it as one for the purposes of this post.)
Poor Ashley. All he wanted was a quiet weekend in the woods with his friends, have some fun with his best girl, maybe get a little drunk. Instead, he got a sister molested by the local foliage, talking deer heads, possessed friends, medieval knights and he really lost control of that hand.
Now considered classics of the genre, The Evil Dead trilogy launched Bruce Campbell’s and Sam Raimi’s careers and gave us three of the most enjoyable gore-fests ever made. Often scary, sometimes funny and at times just downright silly, these movies show an ingenuity and wittiness on a shoe-string budget (Army of Darkness being the exception – it had an actual budget) that most horror movies can’t pull off even with millions being thrown at them.
Purchase The Evil Dead/Evil Dead 2 – Book Of The Dead Collection
Purchase Bruce Campbell vs. Army Of Darkness – The Director’s Cut (Official Bootleg Edition)
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
This is another of those movies that scared the poop out of me. Strange that I never had trouble sleeping afterward and I’ve only had three Freddy Krueger dreams in my life and that wasn’t until years later.
This movie just hit all the right notes to scare me – a monster that had the perfect hiding place where only his intended victims could see him, the fact that this monster was inside the mind and had access to those things that really scare you (although he didn’t really start doing that until the third movie in the series) and the scariest fact – there was no escaping him. Everyone has to sleep eventually.
I think if New Nightmare had come out shortly after the first movie, it would have damaged my psyche.
Purchase A Nightmare on Elm Street (Infinifilm Edition)
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Love at First Bite (1979)
This movie is probably the first vampire movie I ever saw. Therefore, I grew up thinking that to become a vampire, you had to be bitten three times. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. The first time I saw anything with different rules I was taken aback. It just didn’t seem right.
Love at First Bite is a very silly movie. Dracula, tired of being alone, decides to visit the United States to find a new bride. He chooses the height of the ‘me’ decade, 1979, and falls for an extremely self-involved model who finally finds herself after receiving that fatal third bite.
I think what makes this movie work is how George Hamilton plays the part. He certainly plays it for laughs, but he never makes fun of his own character. Dracula is still ‘the man’ and never does he take a pratfall or make himself look like a fool (I’m looking at you, Mr. Nielsen). Even though he’s been dropped into the absurdity of the modern world, he never lets it ruffle his wing hair.
And damn! He’s the finest looking vampire I’ve ever seen.
Well, so much for my horror movie a day plan. I don’t want to do the whole making excuses thing because I really don’t have one – other than life.
Instead of doing another dedicated review, I thought I would make a list of horror movies I have seen and enjoyed and little blurb as to why they made the list. That way, if I flake out again, you’ll have a few movies to take a look at and maybe rent for yourself.
Mr. Sardonicus (1961)
From the back of the DVD box: Desperate to retrieve a winning lottery ticket, a greedy baron unearths his father’s corpse. An enormous jackpot is his reward, but not without a price: his face is frozen permanently into a hideous grin. He enlists his fiendish one-eyed servant to help him lift this horrible curse, but their schemes fail. Finally, he turns to a noted neurosurgeon – and his wife’s former lover – to cure him.
Based on a novella by Ray Russel and produced and directed by the legendary William Castle, master of ballyhoo.
I have only seen this movie once and it was a few years ago but I do remember that despite it’s simple shooting style and story, it is quite effective and the make-up for the grin still gives me the willies. (I won’t post a picture here. You’ll just have to see it for yourself.)
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The Wicker Man (1973)
A creepy, understated horror flick about a small community of druids lead by Christopher Lee and investigated by Edward Woodward due to a missing child that the community claims never existed.
I didn’t bother to see the remake. Subtlety isn’t common in modern film-makers’ vocabulary and I doubt this film would work without it.
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Horror Express (1973)
This would be a typical ’stuck on a train with a killer/monster’ movie but both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are thrown into the mix which instantly makes it a horror classic. Besides, it has one of my favorite Peter Cushing lines of all time which means nothing out of context.
And for all you Kojak fans, Telly Savalis appears as the arrogant Captain Kazan. Who loves ya, comrade?
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The Changeling (1980)
The Changeling is a chilling tale of the ghost of a wronged child haunting the house in which he was murdered. George C. Scott gives a splendid, understated performance of a man who, after losing both his wife and daughter in a car accident, moves into the large house and attempts to help the spirit find peace.
The ending of this movie can seem a little goofy, but the film up to that point is genuinely scary and just a touch heart-wrenching.
This movie has no overt special effects and relies on story, performances and sound effects to scare you and does so to great effect. I never thought I could be afraid of a little rubber ball, but apparently, I can.
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Legend of Hell House (1973)
Huh. It’s starting to look like 1973 was a good year for horror movies, eh?
Based on Richard Matheson’s novel Hell House – and fortunately, the screenplay was also written by Matheson – this film is about a group of investigators visiting a house that is no doubt very haunted. The leader of the group believes he has invented a machine that can de-haunt it. I doubt that it’s any great spoiler that it doesn’t work.
You can’t stop ghosts. You just can’t.
Purchase The Legend of Hell House
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Okay, there’s five movies for you sink your teeth into if you haven’t already. And if you have – enjoy them again!
Since I took the weekend off from posting, I thought I’d make it up to you by posting reviews of two horror movies tonight. One of my all-time favorites and one that I just recently saw for the first time.
I’ll start with the new one.
Several months ago my husband and I saw a trailer for a horror movie that looked like it had a good sense of humor. It would have to because really, I don’t see how you can make sheep genuinely scary.
Black Sheep (unrated cut) follows a young man, Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister), as he returns to his childhood home after a long absence. Because of a traumatic childhood event involving the murder of his pet sheep and his sadistic older brother, Henry has a deep fear of all things sheep and has been away from the family farm for a long time.
Meaning only to visit the farm to get the check from his brother Angus (Peter Feeney), turning over full ownership of the farm, he gets stuck and spends most of the movie running from one location to another avoiding genetically mutated sheep. Along the way he picks up a couple of friends including Tucker (Tammy Davis), an employee of the farm and Experience (Danielle Mason) the obligatory cute girl who is also an animal rights extremist.
The movie isn’t great – it suffers mostly from pacing problems and from the fact that the writers just couldn’t resist going for the more obvious, gross sheep jokes. This is also the second film this year where I’ve seen a fake animal latch onto a fake penis and stretch it way out of proportion, which is two times two many, in my opinion.
(If you really need to know, the other film that features this ‘gag’ (pun intended) is Strange Wilderness, a terrible movie that can’t even be saved by its normally funny cast.)
Despite all that it was a fun watching experience and had several genuinely funny scenes. Most of the performances were better than I would expect for a movie like this and the effects are quite good, especially considering that they chose to do practical effects as opposed to all CGI (which is always a good thing, in my book.) The only thing I saw that was obviously CGI were the morphing scenes and it was very subtly done. A very nice job by the Weta Workshop.
I recommend Black Sheep if you’re looking for a tongue-in-cheek ‘horror’ movie with an original concept.
At least, I’ve never heard of any other movies about killer sheep.
Trailer:
There are plenty of horror movies that give me the creeps – make me turn on the lights before going into a room and all that stuff. But there have only been a handful that have scared the bejeebus out of me – made me gasp, maybe even scream a little and once, literally push away from the screen.
The Blair Witch Project was is one of those movies.
When a horror movie is good, it can scare you more with what you can’t see. It leaves you imagining what could be going on and the fact that it never shows you what is making that noise makes it all the more scary. An excellent example is the original The Haunting directed by Robert Wise. I won’t go as far as to rank The Blair Witch project with that classic, but it uses the same techniques to scare its audience.
If you can’t – or won’t – use your imagination, you can just skip this movie. There are no special effects, no music cues to tell you when you should be scared and not once do you actually see anything scary. This film depends on pure atmosphere, tension, sound effects and a dependence on the audience to have actually paid attention to what was said about the background of the strange happenings related to the titular character.
One of the first of a rash of mockumentaries, The Blair Witch Project follows a three-man team investigating the Blair Witch of Burkittsville, Maryland. Through filmed interviews of the townsfolk we learn the various legends of the Blair Witch before Heather (Heather Donahue), Josh (Joshua Leonard) and Mike (Michael C. Williams) head into the Black Hills to do some on-location shooting.
After getting lost, the three wander the woods for days trying to find their way out. Along the way they start to fall apart mentally and physically, tortured by lack of food and unexplained sounds in the night and odd ‘gifts’ left outside their tent in the morning. After Josh mysteriously disappears in the night, Mike and Heather go on alone. The film ends at the abandoned home of the alleged child murderer Rustin Parr who claimed he was told to go on his killing spree by the witch.
The final shot of the film will either have you crawling out of your seat or saying, “Huh?” If you’re one of the former, then you get it. If you’re the latter, well, here’s a little pat on the head for you.
Trailer:
I will be doing my best to review at least one item a day this month. Those items will have something to do with scary stuff – it’s October you know and Halloween is my favorite holiday. I even got married on it.
Last night I asked the husband to pick a horror movie that wasn’t too scary and that I hadn’t seen before and that had Peter Cushing. So, he picked an old Amicus anthology film titled From Beyond the Grave.
Just so you know that title has absolutely nothing to do with the movie.
As with all anthology films, some segments are better than others. However, if one doesn’t strike your fancy, there’s always a good chance that the next one just might. This one only has one weak story.
In many of the anthology films that Peter Cushing appeared in, he was the major character of one of the segments. In this film, Cushing is the main character of the framing sequence. This might seem a lesser role, but it has the advantage of letting the viewers know that even if the segment they’re currently watching isn’t all that good, they’ll at least get to see more of Peter and that’s always a good thing.
Cushing’s character is an old, kindly owner of an antique shop called Temptations. Each main character of our tales comes into this shop and purchases an item. All but one of these fellows finds a way to cheat the poor old man out of the price he deserves.
This film starts out with a very weak story. The only saving grace it has is the presence of David Warner as its lead character. He comes into Temptations and finds a 400 year-old mirror whose selling price is marked at 250 pounds. Warner tells Cushing it’s not nearly as old as it really is and gets it for a pretty heft discount.
Of course the mirror cleans up beautifully and he hangs it in his flat. A friend says it looks like it belongs in the home of a medium so they decide to have a séance. As a result, a ghost trapped in the mirror appears to Warner and demands that he bring him victims so that he can be freed from the mirror.
This segment started out kind of creepy – ghosts and mirrors tend to scare me and the first time the ghost appears is genuinely chilling. However, all tension leaves the piece almost immediately and the viewer is subjected to a stony-faced Warner seeking out victims to sacrifice to the Mirror Man.
We never have a chance to really care about this guy. He starts out as a cheat and we learn nothing about him to gain our sympathy. His only saving grace is the fact that he fights the ghost one time and saves a woman we can only assume is his girlfriend from a grisly end. This is not directed well enough to make the viewer really believe he loves her and doesn’t do anything to make us feel for what is the character’s obvious destiny.
In the end, the ghost is freed and it’s no surprise when Warner is then placed inside the mirror to search for another hapless soul to help free him.
Fortunately, the rest of the movie is substantially better.
Our second character to be tempted, Mr. Lowe (Ian Bannen), is a man who keeps eying some war medals in the Temptation shop’s window. We quickly find out that his time in the service was the only time Lowe felt any self-worth. His shrew of a wife quickly shoots him down from that high horse, reminding him that he never saw any combat and he was just as useless then as he is now. His son just sits at the table and smirks at all the nasty remarks both of his parents hurl at each other.
So, he returns to the shop. Cushing puts one of the medals aside and tells him he can have it as soon as he brings in documentation proving he used to have one that he lost. Lowe agrees but when Cushing steps away, he takes the medal and runs.
He befriends an out-of-work war veteran, Jim Underwood (Donald Pleasance.) Underwood starts calling him sir and saluting him making this man feel important for the first time in his life.
Soon, Pleasance invites the man home for tea and introduces him to his daughter, Emily (Angela Pleasance – Donald Pleasance’s real-life daughter). When we first meet Emily she appears quite homely but ends up appearing strangely beautiful – a trick done more with attitude and good acting than any physical changes made to the actress.
Of course the man falls in love with meek, accommodating Emily and when she asks him if he wants her to stab a doll modeled after his wife, he tells her that he does.
When he gets home, he is surprised (although we are not) to find his wife dead, their son hunched in a corner. Seconds later, Pleasance and his daughter arrive and walk in the door in black formal clothing. The traditional wedding march starts and they walk toward Lowe so that Underwood can give his daughter away. This scene could be seen as rather silly – the music sending it straight over the top – but the smiles on the Underwoods’ faces make it more eerie than loopy.
Of course, all can’t end well for Lowe – he stole from gentle Mr. Cushing, after all – and he meets the same end that his previous wife suffered and in the same exact way. The Underwoods weren’t there to help out that old milksop Lowe – they were there to help out the always-smirking punk of a son.
So, we return to the Temptation shop to see what cheat is going to come in next. We find nicely dressed man, Reggie Warren (Ian Carmichael) looking over some snuff boxes. He switches the tags on a couple and walks out paying four pounds for a much more expensive box.
He takes the train home and is told by an eccentric woman, Madame Orloff (Margaret Leighton) that he has a rather nasty elemental on his shoulder. He dismisses her, of course, but after some unseen force attempts to kill his wife, he calls Orloff and asks for her help.
This story is simple but it is the most humorous and the performance of Leighton is probably the best in the film. The character’s self-confidence and lack of pretension about her work is refreshing.
But don’t worry; it doesn’t end well for Warren. Madam Orloff rid him of the elemental, but it didn’t go far.
Our last tale is a little different. William Seaton (Ian Ogilvy) comes in and buys a door from Mr. Cushing and although he talks down the price from 50 to 40, he does so honestly. Cushing turns his back on Seaton and we see him pick the money back up, but when he leaves, a pile of money is still in the register.
The antique door is a monster – almost literally. Big, ornately decorated and dirty Seaton finds it irresistible and places it in his office, replacing the stationary cupboard door.
However, the next time he opens it, he finds not a box of paper but a large Blue Room decorated in late 18th century style. He also finds a book written by the room’s owner – a man who purposely studied all things evil and how he could use it to his advantage.
The story is simple but this is often best, especially in a horror movie like this that isn’t really scary but relies on atmosphere more than plot.
The room itself was a great set piece. In one scene, the room seems to be becoming devoid of color and it was then that I realized the blueness of the room was being done with lighting. Because of this, the changes made to the room over the course of the story were subtle and quite eerie.
This story does end on a happy note. Even though he has to demolish the door to do it, the evil man and his blue room are destroyed completely and the Seaton and his wife live.
And why is this? It’s not for certain but it seems that it’s because he didn’t cheat our dear, kind Mr. Cushing.
The film ends with the attempted robbery of the shop. Turns out dear, kind Mr. Cushing is impervious to bullets and large metal objects being thrown at his head. The thief, backing away from the menacing shop owner, falls backwards into a spike-lined coffin.
So, the overall moral of this story is – don’t frack with Peter Cushing. Unless you’re Luke Skywalker, it will always end badly for you.
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