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JM Cozzoli

A horror genre fan with a blog. Scary.

Cemetery Man (1994)
Zombies, Sex, and Guns

/ Movies (Drive-in) / Leave a Comment

Zombos Says: Very Good

“What’s all that yelling about?” Zombos asked , putting his book down. We were in the study on a beautifully foggy morning.

“It sounds like Pretorious,” I said.

“Well, see what the blasted fool is yelling about now. If it’s not ducks, it’s something else.”

I went down to the front door, opened it, and found the groundskeeper waiting for me. He tossed a small package into my hands.

“What’s this, Pretorious?” I asked.

“Your damn fool something-or-other. Postman barely slowed down before he threw it over the fence. Hit me on the head, it did.” The groundskeeper adjusted his large straw hat. “Now maybe I can trim those corpse plants around the back in peace. Damn things grow like weeds.”

As he walked off, I tore open the package. There it was; my screener of Anchor Bay Entertainment’s release of Cemetery Man.

The first thing I do before watching a new DVD is to look for a commentary or documentary, even if the film is new to me. I watch that first. I know, even Zombos thinks it rather odd, but I prefer to know as much as possible about a new film before I see it, and more about a film I’ve already seen, with the hope that I will learn about those little artistic touches that otherwise go unnoticed.

The liner notes for a DVD can also provide a wealth of valuable information regarding the provenance of a film. (Oh lord, I am watching too many Antiques Roadshow episodes!) Michael Felsher’s liner notes for Anchor Bay’s release of Cemetery Man are exemplary, and I learned much about this quirky, odd mix of humor, horror, sexual desire, necrophilia,  gore and surrealism by director Michele Soavi and writer Gianni Romoli (from Tiziano Sclavi’s novel, Dellamorte Dellamore).

Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, the forlorn, laconic caretaker of the Buffalora Cemetery, aided by a Curly-esque, dim-bulb—but frenetic—sort of individual called Gnaghi. One slight annoyance, or nightly chore—if you will—is that they have to keep the newly buried dead underground. For reasons never mentioned, the dead keep wanting to stay undead.

Mr. Soavi, as noted in the IMDb trivia for the film, explains that these “returners” are brought back to life by the mandragola roots that permeate the grounds of the cemetery. But that really doesn’t tell us why, does it? Life is often like that: things happen, but we never really know why. We just go with the flow.

So Francesco and Gnaghi are kept rather busy returning the dead to where they belong. To assist with this endeavor, Francesco keeps a revolver which he uses liberally to shoot the dead, well… dead again. To complicate matters, Francesco refuses to let the town authorities know what is happening in the cemetery for fear he may lose his job, along with having to fill out all that bureaucratic paperwork regarding reanimated dead people.

One aspect of all this bizarre supernatural activity that provides a bit of tension is that we never know, as Francesco and Gnaghi never know, which returners are going to take a few bites out of them, and which returners are just anxious to get back to their daily living routine, but really shouldn’t, considering personal hygiene and all.

Francesco’s nightlife, busy with shooting and reburying dead people, is more interesting than anything else he does during the day, and that is a sad commentary on his existentialistic existence. For a man whose favorite pastime is reading the phone book, and who observes one day that “At a certain point in life you realize you know more dead people then living,” things are not going all that well. But how can he get out of his doldrums?

It’s at this point that the voluptuous She enters his life—The Woman, as played by Anna Falchi. He meets her during her husband’s funeral. He’s captivated by her beauty. How she could be married to such an old man surprises him, but she tells him that it was the sex. Her dead husband was indefatigable in bed. This is an Italian film, after all.

Francesco does what he can to get closer to her, but it’s when he shows her his ossuary—interesting double-entendre here—that she begins to fall passionately in love. It’s here the use of billowing cloth throughout the film first becomes apparen as they embrace and kiss through it. Combined with the cinematography of long perspectives and close-ups, its appearance lends an impressionistic touch to the odd events surrounding Francesco.

The ossuary itself is a wonderfully eerie and claustrophobic chamber filled with skulls, bones, earth and huge mandragola roots, all intertwined and suffused in a brownish-gold light. In the documentary, it’s explained the set was constructed in layers, then put together to create the finished look of so many seemingly separate elements. It’s quite a work of horrific art indeed.

As daylight fades and night comes, blue ghost lights dance around Francesco and his lover. Soon, they’re making love over her dead husband’s grave. Her husband, of course, is not pleased and attacks them, killing his wife before Francesco can stop him. This being Buffalora Cemetery, however, she soon returns in her billowing death shroud to make passionate love once again to Francesco. A little decomposition doesn’t get in the way of his ardor, but her biting a rather large chunk out of his neck does. He makes sure she will not return a second time.

Adding insult to injury, a busload of scouts, the mayor’s fun-loving daughter, and some fun-loving but careless motorcyclists get mashed up on the roadway in a nasty accident and fill up the cemetery, providing both Francesco and Gnaghi with much work to keep the mangled returners more sedentary. Gnaghi, who does have some personality issues, takes a fancy to the mayor’s daughter’s head, and he soon has it out of the grave and into his apartment. She also takes a fancy to Gnaghi, and soon the two are singing and chatting up a storm like bosom-less buddies.

The film shifts from absurdity to downright surrealism as Francesco begins to see the woman he loves in other women. Oh, and the meeting he has with Death I suppose I should mention also.

Death is rather miffed that he keeps sending the dead back to the grave, so Death tells him it would be better if he just killed the living instead. Sure, why not? He does have that big gun.

Francesco’s existentialist angst spirals out of control and he finally seeks escape from it all. Packing a few belongings and Gnaghi into the family car, he heads out of town, through a long tunnel, and into the outside world. Or does he? Has he found a resolution to his problems by trying to escape them?

I dare you to watch this film only once.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

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Zombos Says: Very Good

“That was disturbing,” said Zombos as we were leaving the theater after seeing The Hills Have Eyes.

“Yes, the hard horror situations were—”

“No, no, I meant the annoying political barbs,” he interrupted.

“Oh,” I said, “you mean the father being a republican and getting them into the hellish predicament in the first place, and the milquetoast democratic son-in-law who rises to the occasion and unloads a truckload of whoop-ass on the radiation-mutated hill people after being pushed to the edge of sanity? I hardly noticed it.”

“The director is French?” Zombos asked.

“Alexandre Aja? Yes, I believe so.”

“Then that explains it,” he concluded.

“Actually, I think hubris plays a much greater role than politics. The father’s cocksure attitude left him prone to making bad decisions. Oh, right, that does apply to most politicians, doesn’t it?”

“Politics,” we agreed and continued walking.

“It reminded me of Wrong Turn,” I said.

“Yes,” said Zombos, “especially the decrepit, degenerate-owned gas station in the middle of nowhere; and that scene with all those victims’ derelict cars dumped into that huge atomic blast crater. Chilling.”

“The extreme long-shot zoom-outs showing the other huge craters surrounding it are especially effective,” I added. “Great matte work there.”

“What I do not understand is why mutated, inbred, and cannibalistic families in every horror movie are always depicted as more of a solid social unit than the normal, bickering tourist families they prey on,” Zombos pondered.

“Goals,” I replied. “Mutated, inbred, cannibalistic families have fewer goals.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Zombos rubbed his chin.

“Well, they certainly don’t need to worry about jobs, taxes, school, retirement, or the dozens of things that keep normal people awake at night and bickering among themselves. Just finding food is one simple goal that keeps them all working as an insane, but strong, cohesive unit,” I said.

“They sure do eat a lot. The least they could do is cook their food. Revolting.”

“Gore-hounds wouldn’t like that. ‘The redder the better’ is their motto,” I replied.

Zombos stopped walking. “What always amazes me is the sheer dim-wittedness of family and teenagers that are always placed in harm’s way in these movies. You would think after all this time, with all the sordid chaos in the world, they would be better prepared to handle difficult situations and have a little bit of a clue. I mean, here you are traveling in the desert, hundred-plus degree heat, no water, no civilization, and you take the scenic route? And one that a spooky and unbathed
gas station attendant, who obviously does not have much of a social life, tells you to take? In an ’88 Airbus with no air-conditioning?

“Well, at least the detective father carried a few guns with him,” I said. “They shouldn’t have split up though. It’s always convenient to have soon-to-be victims always split up in movies, but that plot expediency is wearing thin.”

“That is another point,” Zombos said. “These mutated, sadistically maniacal families never split up. They always carry out well-orchestrated group attacks on those dim-witted and oh-let-me-go-off-alone family members.”

Zombos was on a roll. I rarely see him this reflective.

“That was quite an horrific scene,” I added, “using the father as a decoy to lure the family out of the trailer, and then attacking that poor girl. Quite a statement about why you shouldn’t wear an iPod to bed, don’t you think?”

“Biting off the head of that little defenseless parakeet, too,” Zombos added, shaking his head. “For shame. I did find that Test Village 3-B to be a horrific setpiece also.”

“You mean when the son-in-law goes through the mining tunnel and finds the mock-up town filled with mannequins? Yes, the mise-en-scene is well executed. His confrontation with the mutated maniacal family members is fast-paced and exciting. His baseball bat against an axe? I think I rather have the axe.”

“The big-brained fellow singing the national anthem was a wicked touch.” Zombos clapped his hands together. “Oh, now I get it, baseball bat and national anthem. Subtle.”

Zombos started walking, then stopped again. “That scene with the children was more horrific than anything else in the movie,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, “in the midst of all that carnage and insanity, to have a hideously deformed child innocently ask you to play with her and her equally disturbing playmate… it was a masterful, almost poetic touch. I dread to think what snacks she’s been having. No Fig Newtons or Oreos in that place.”

“Definitely not,” Zombos agreed. “I wonder how much longer we can watch such movies.

“Why is that,” I asked.

“It seems every hard horror movie relies on the same basic characterizations and script devices to sustain an often repeated storyline; and let us not forget the gore factor: that needs to keep escalating to provide shock value to those ever more jaded gore-hounds out there. Most of the elements in this movie, given that the direction and scripting is above average, still use the same old hash. Can redundant art sustain itself?”

“I’d say that most horror-heads just want to be scared, or shocked. Take the sequelization-antic ending. It’s a cheap cliché ending that destroys the movie’s triumphant moment, just to imply it ain’t over so wait for the next movie.”

“Yes,” Zombos agreed. “But I hope the sequel is worth it.”

Naina (2005)

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Naina Zombos Says: Good

It took a few attempts to get Shripal Morakhia’s Naina into the DVD player. After the first bottle of Claret, my coordination deteriorated rapidly. I finally loaded the disc and Zombos and I were soon watching this intriguing Bollywood Horror remake of The Eye.

With a matter-of-fact tagline that reads, “Twenty years of darkness, seven days of hell, no one could survive it, SHE DID,” we did not have very high expectations. But the Claret made us stronger and more daring.

Then there are the cultural differences: how would a Hindi version of The Eye fit in with the melodramatic and religious aspects of Bollywood cinema? And most importantly of all, would there be singing and dancing?

“Bring on the dancing and singing Gopis,” hiccupped Zombos. “If I could stand it in Rocky Horror, I can stand it here.”

“There were no Gopis in The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” I told him.

“Not dressed as such, but the premise is the same.”

“Point taken,” I conceded. “But there are no Gopis, nor singing or dancing in this movie.”

“What? Impossible! I thought that was a contractual requirement for every Bollywood movie?”

“Apparently horror movies are excluded from that requirement.” I said.

I started the movie.

The opening shows the accident that leaves young Naina blind, intercut with a bloody cesarean-section of a still-born baby girl that suddenly comes back to life just as Naina’s parents are killed in an accident. Then there is an eclipse of the sun. We move ahead years later to a point where Naina is ready to undergo a cornea transplant operation.

“I am already confused,” said Zombos.

I refilled his glass. “There, that should help.”

Urmila Matondkar plays Naina Shah with a touch of melodrama—after all this is a Bollywood movie—and grandmotherly Mrs. Shah (Kamini Khanna) is constantly by her side. Yet the coloration of the movie, the cinematography, and, to some extent the somber, bittersweet, piano score give this movie a J-Horror style.

Naina speaks briefly to a boy in the hospital who is undergoing numerous brain operations, before she undergoes surgery to restore her sight. After the operation she begins to see dark figures through her blurry vision. These figures lead patients away. She also hears spooky sounds and sees dead people. Every dead person she sees is dressed in crisp white, neatly-pressed, clothes. It’s comforting to know there are laundries in the after-life.

Mrs. Shah quickly pulls out the eligible bachelor photos for Naina now that she can see, and starts working the old marriage magic on her. But Naina is becoming more and more distraught as her visions become more frightening. As Hindi cinema tradition would have it, the psychiatrist Mrs. Shah brings Naina to for help is handsome, eligible, and immediately infatuated with her loveliness—it’s love at first sight for both of them. A somewhat derailing Love Boat–styled romantic montage ensues and the horror is put on hold while love is in the air.

“Wake me when we get back to the dead people,” said Zombos.

I took a long sip of Claret. And another long sip of Claret.

Eventually Naina sees more and deader people and now they see her. From hanged men dressed in clean white clothes in restaurants, to little girls with little curls in hallways asking, “Have you seen my mommy?” Understandably, she becomes more distraught. Her psychiatrist boyfriend thinks it’s all in her mind (no, really?) and she can’t convince Mrs. Shah that those creepy black figures and talkative dead people are driving her to new heights of over-acting.

Then there’s the elevator scene.

It works well and puts you on the edge of your seat with its scary encounter in a tight spot. After that she’s back in the hospital and seeing more creepy black figures. A walk through the morgue as she follows eerie sounds and black figures is done with her as the only moving figure in a frozen room of doctors, nurses, and bodies in various stages of dissection. Gruesome.

At this point in her travails, she begins to question God. You don’t see much questioning of God in American horror movies unless some victim or madman is yelling expletives. She questions why God is showing her these sights. He tells her it’s time for the intermission.

No, I’m just kidding you, but the movie does stop—remember this is a DVD—with a big “Intermission” shown onscreen. You certainly don’t see this in American Horror DVDs or movies either.

I waited to see if a dancing bag of Buttery Sally Popcorn and Mr. Straw jumping into a cup of Coke would appear, singing “Let’s all go to the concession stand and have ourselves a snack.”

“Thank god,” said Zombos. “I really need to take a p—”

“I’ll get more Sherry and Coke.”

“Capital idea!” he said, hurrying to the bathroom.

 INTERMISSION

While we wait for intermission to end, let me direct your attention to how this movie caused a lot of concern when it was released:

NEW DELHI (Reuters, 2005) – Indian eye doctors have asked a court to ban a movie in which the heroine sees ghosts after a cornea transplant, saying it will scare off donors and patients. The All India Ophthalmological Society complained to Delhi’s high court that the movie “Naina” (Eyes), starring Bollywood bombshell Urmila Matondkar, would reinforce myths about cornea transplants, The Times of India said Friday. “This movie could create a fear psychosis among cornea recipients and their relatives as well as among potential eye donors,” ophthalmologist Navin Sakhuja told Reuters. Would-be donors could be frightened off, afraid their eyes would “live on after they are dead,” said Sakhuja, a member of the society. “We have a huge backlog of people, particularly children, waiting to get new corneas. His movie adds to misconceptions and could hurt efforts to get them those corneas.” Naina’s director says the heroine’s visions after the transplant following 20 years of blindness are caused by what the donor had seen and experienced in life. “If such objections are taken into account, no horror film will ever be made,” the Times quoted Shripal Morakhia saying. The court is due to hear the case Wednesday, but the movie was released nationally Friday. India needs 40,000-50,000 corneas a year but only 15,000 are donated. Hindus believe in reincarnation and that what they do and how they behave in this life affects the next. Doctors say some people fear they will be reborn blind if they give up their eyes.”

 END OF INTERMISSION

Now let’s back to our movie, shall we?

Naina is riding the train, talking to the psychiatrist boyfriend on her cell phone, when a revelation occurs, forcing her to suddenly question not only God, but who she is and the person who donated the corneas. Naina drags her reluctant boyfriend along to a place she’s seen in a vision. She stops being a victim and becomes resolute in finding answers. This sudden shift in the story is surprising and suspenseful, and adds an intriguing layer to it. Naina overcomes her fear as she investigates what happened to the eye donor, learns why dead people are attracted to her, and seeks to complete a broken cycle of reincarnation, even as those black figures begin to congregate in larger numbers.

Naina is similar to Premonition and Sixth Sense, but the mixing of J-Horror elements with Bollywood-Horror makes a story that’s part horror, part mystery, part ghost story, and worth a view by any horrorhead looking for something out of the ordinary.

And there’s no dancing or singing, either.

Interview: Drawing Cthulhu With Dave Carson

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It is hard to say whether Dave Carson, award-winning pictorial chronicler of the macabre landscapes and alien creatures of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, is illustrating from some creative well of inspiration, or really just simply drawing his own family members during frequent festive get-togethers in crumbling tombs and chilly, aquatic climes. Whatever the true nature of Carson’s disposition, the fact remains that his unearthly illustrations of those things not spoken of, living in those places not visited by sane men–save for him—bring a great, but disquieting pleasure to the rest of us more fearful worshipers of Cthulhu. Dave put down his drawing implements long enough to answer a few questions scribbled by moonlight and slid beneath his door.

How did you get started in your illustration career?

I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a career really. I’ve been illustrating books and magazines since the early eighties or thereabouts, but I also had various full-time jobs while I was doing it, it’s always been a kind of on/off thing with me. There was no way I could support myself solely on illustration. For instance, when I was illustrating H.P.LOVECRAFT’S BOOK OF HORROR, and had about a week to do it, I was in the middle of a six week contract to renovate an old School building. Grueling work to say the least, after which, when I finished for the day I had to get home and do one illustration a day for a week. The friend who I was staying with while the work was going on had to keep me awake with coffee just to get the
drawings finished on deadline. Some nights I just fell asleep on the floor with exhaustion.

Of course for the past ten years I have had no other kind of job to get in the way, but now I’m more interested in doing sculpture and digital artwork rather than the laborious process of black & white stipple drawing. I do miss it at times, but I rarely feel that it’s worth the bother of putting pen to
paper.

When did you begin drawing Lovecraftian landscapes and their denizens?

1978. Seriously. However, I’ve been doodling all kinds of monsters my whole life.

What is it about Lovecraft’s alien, ichthyoid characters that fascinate you?

Possibly it’s that I’ve always been interested in animals, natural history and the sea, as well as having a life-long obsession with all things weird. That’s what inspired me to start drawing them. I love all those winged, tentacled, gelatinous masses, starfish-headed things, deep ones and others that shamble through his writings.

There seem to be a common misconception that H.P.L’s entities aren’t clearly described. I have no idea why this should be, as many of them are fleshed out in great detail. I don’t know how many times I’ve read that “Lovecraft’s descriptions are vague to say the least”, or similar nonsense. Just read THE CALL OF CTHULHU for instance, a clearer description of Cthulhu is hardly possible.

 

Why do you think Lovecraft’s mythos continues to be a popular and influential
fictional and graphic wellspring?

It’s taken some time for Lovecraft to reach the audience he now has. When I discovered him back in the mid 60’s relatively few people outside of fantasy and horror fandom had heard of him until all the paperbacks of his stuff became very popular later that decade. They influenced a whole new generation of writers who
had never even seen a copy of Weird Tales. I guess the Cthulhu Mythos appeals to artists on the basis of its incredible possibilities and scope for their imaginations, and writers for the same reasons.

How do you do it? Tell us about your creative process from inception to finished drawing.

I do a pencil rough and ink it in, usually with Rotring technical pens – no great secret process. Just hard work, long hours, a sore back, strained eyesight, etc.

Who are your favorite illustrators and why?

Lee Brown Coye is my favorite. His work was extremely strange and remarkably original. Harry Clarke’s work is also outstanding.

What question would you like to be asked and what’s your answer?

Q : “Hey DC, did you see on the News that R’lyeh has risen in the Pacific?”

A : “I already knew.”

What’s your favorite Lovecraft story? Why?

It’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ without a doubt. I love ‘the piecing together of dissociated knowledge’ element throughout the story, and the references to artists and sculptors being more susceptible to Cthulhu’s dreams appeals to me.

What is the easiest and the hardest thing about being an illustrator?

Easiest is being able to work through the night and sleep during the day. Hardest is being broke all the time.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

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Zombos Says: Excellent

Journeys end in lovers meeting, or so the saying goes. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson do have one rough journey, though, before that ending comes.

Spider-Man 3 is the movie Superman Returns should have been. Take one iconic American comic book character, stir in lots of terrific, dizzying action, add a measure of relationship-woes, sprinkle a dash of rocky romance, and what Sam Raimi cooks up for the third time in a row is a movie that captures the emotional and visual charge of the comic book art form for the big screen like no other superhero movie has done since the original Superman.

Just make sure you sit farther back in the theater to catch it all: it gets rather hectic and you may spill your popcorn trying to keep up with Danny Elfman’s exciting music and all that web-slinging mayhem.

Spidey’s doing pretty well. He’s on top of the world; and when Spidey’s happy, Peter’s happy. Filled with a cocksure attitude that he can take on anything, his Spider-sense doesn’t warn him about those dark clouds on the horizon. He’s so wrapped up in his alter-ego’s success, he can’t see that Mary Jane’s really hurting from a career stumble, or that Norman Osborn’s sinister heritage has been passed onto his son, Harry.

If that weren’t enough to upset his cozy web, there’s the meteor rock that crashes, releasing a spidery creepy-crawling black sludge that wants to make friends with him in a really bad way; and then he finds out that the man who killed Uncle Ben, is not the man he cornered in the warehouse back in Spider-Man 1. The real killer of his uncle is Flint Marko, who escapes from prison only to get his molecules shaken and stirred with a pile of sand during a particle-reactor fusion test.

The result is a villain, the Sandman, that provides much of the onscreen action in swirling sand clouds that pack quite a wallop–and pathos. He’s not all bad, just morphed that way. He desperately keeps trying to steal the money needed for his dying daughter’s treatment, but Spider-Man keeps getting in the way. Thomas Haden Church is perfect as the Sandman. His angular face, striped-shirted athletic build, and ability to convey the internal struggle with the regret for the decisions he’s made add up to one of Spider-Man’s strongest, yet more vulnerable foes.

Venom is not so vulnerable. That creepy-crawling sludge has no internal struggle to slow it down. It just needs someone with enough anger to make it thrive. It finds that anger in Peter. His need for revenge on the man who murdered his uncle is all consuming, and feeds the black parasite what it needs. It consumes Peter and his Spidey costume, creating a darker, more aggressive, more callous Spider-Man and Peter Parker.

In a funny then serious show of his newfound over-confidence and aggressiveness, Peter makes the relationship with Mary Jane worse and uses Gwen Stacy to do it. He also goes after the new Daily Bugle staff photographer, who played dirty, with a vengeance; again making a bad decision that will lead to the creation of a much more powerful foe.

As Peter and Spider-Man struggle with the choices to be made, Aunt May, and Ben (in flashbacks), try to help him find his way out of the darkness. But will he make the right choices to rid himself of his more sinister self? And when the Sandman and Venom team up to end Spider-Man, how will he survive their combined onslaught?

Spiderman04 Raimi proves once again who’s your Superhero Daddy. He and the special effects crew create a swirling, spiraling, exhilarating ballet of web-slinging aerial combat that sizzles across the screen. In between the slugfests, he captures the difficult relationship between Peter and Mary Jane, the growing relationship between Peter and Gwen Stacy, and the trade-offs of being everyone’s hero.

Spider-Man 3 is the perfect kick-off to this summer of the cinema, where more potential blockbusters wait in the wings. ‘Nuff said.

Dinocroc (2004)
Croc of What?

/ Movies (Bad) / 1 Comment

Dinocroc Zombos Says: Fair

How does one describe a movie that’s bland? I’m fighting the temptation to go off on a tangent with sentences with the word ‘crock’ in them. While that might help spice the review, it’s an obvious but cheap shot.

This movie is a crock. Its bland by the numbers characters and action, with bland superficial dialog, and less than stellar computer graphics work. Jake Thomas plays Michael Banning, and actually does as good a job as any of the other actors; but he’s not given much to do. At least they didn’t spike his hair. Thomas spends the movie riding around on his bike looking for his dog Lucky, the three-legged run-away.

Then there’s the evil corporation, Gereco–stop me if you’ve heard this one about an evil corporation–conducting secret genetic experiments on man-eating monsters. Rabbits won’t suffice? These experiments blend the genes, by accident, of a Sarcosuchus and a dinosaur. The resulting monster escapes its holding pen because an idiotic scientist walks right in–as it’s killing everything else in the pen–leaving the door wide open. She gets her throat ripped out as she tries zapping it with a pocket-sized stun gun.

Joanna Pacula plays the evil mouthpiece for Gereco, Paula Kennedy, who denies everything even as they send their top, man-eating monster hunter to recapture the monster. Using Lucky, the three-legged dog for bait, Lucky really turns out to be lucky and high-tails it just as the crafty hunter gets eaten instead, leaving only his legs behind. The CGI blur happens fast, but dotes on those legs.

One of the highlights in this film–I’m stretching a mile here– is what, unexpectedly, happens to Thomas as he goes searching for Lucky late at night in Gereco’s wildlife preserve. What happens ends too abruptly. What should have ended abruptly are the dialog exchanges between the crocodile hunter they bring in, Dick Sydney (Costos Mandylor), the Grant’s Lake Animal Shelter control officer, Diane Harper (Jane Longenecker), and Michael’s brother, Tom Banning (Matt Borlenghi). The action bogs down when an old romance–queue the piano tinkling–is rekindled and the hunter tries some really bad pick-up lines.

A predictable insert-scene-here time-killer has two drunk hunters poaching on the Gereco wildlife preserve; quickly scratch off two poachers. To speed things up, the Gereco scientist hunting the monster spills the beans about the whole mess to Harper and Tom and they volunteer to help. As they search in the preserve, they come across a pile of man-eating monster doo-doo and the scientist quips “Holy sh*t.”

Dinocroc Vision kicks in as the monster gets hungry. I don’t mind monster-point-of-view vision–I love the Snake ‘o Vision in Snakes on a Plane–but here it’s not very inspired or enhancing. Another oddity is how all these would-be hunters carried only single-shot rifles. What, automatics would’ve blown the budget? The thing’s as big as a mobile home and they hunt it with pea-shooters.

The scientist goes down for the count when the group crowds a skimpy motor boat and tries to hunt Loc Nesses’ land-legged cousin with single-shot rifles and tranquilizer darts. More people get eaten as people crowd the water’s edge for some relaxing horror movie-victim involvement. The local sheriff’s Keystone Cops deputies get eaten. Lot’s of people get eaten. Mostly off-camera or in “shaky-cam” CGI blurs. There’s no suspense, no build-up to a climactic ending that brings the beads of sweat to your brow.

I really really wanted to see Lucky either get eaten or save the day. Instead, they use other dogs to lure the monster into a trap. The animal-loving Harper doesn’t go along with this so she’s cuffed along with Tom after he tries to help her. But Tom is a metal-sculpting artist. He lights up the acetylene and before you can say I should have watched Rogue, they’re racing ahead of the dog-eating monster to release each and every stray dog chained between the monster and the trap. As they race against time to free the dogs and come closer and closer to the trap, the hunter finally does something and jumps in to lure the monster away from them. They start yelling “Dick! Dick!” as the monster gets closer to him, in passionate close-ups of concern. It is funny I admit.

The trap is sprung, but since they only have one bolt cutter to release all the chains holding the trap’s doors, the sheriff must race from one end of the long trap to the other to release the doors to lock the monster inside. But the monster gets out and chases Harper and Tom some more. It finally gets run down by a train and Tom determinedly walks over to its stunned, prostrate body to poke it in the eye with a metal rod. It doesn’t move.

Not much in this movie does.

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o’Gold Part 4
Going Dutch Can Be Murder
Slaughter Night (2006)

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SlaughternightPart 3 

Zombos Says: Good

“Ya know,” said Curly Joe, “that supernatural slasher film from the Netherlands just popped into my head. Must be all this walkin’ through these dark, creepy tunnels; reminds me of the old mine they were trapped in.”

“You mean Slaughter Night?” I asked.

“Yep, that’s the one”

“Yes,” I said, pausing to hit my flashlight, hoping to make it a tad brighter. “At least we aren’t being chased by the ghost of some maniacal killer who cuts people’s heads off.”

What sounded like a maniacal laugh echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off the walls with a screech like gritty chalk on a blackboard. We looked at each other, then walked faster in the opposite direction from where the sound came from. Never hurts to play safe, I always say.

 

The backstory within Slaughter Night would have been a more engrossing movie, but overall this 1980s-styled slasher is still a Dutch treat with good
acting, an eerie story, and a moderate pace moving the action along. Although the overuse of shaky-cam blurs that action at times (probably intentionally to
lessen the strain on the budget), and an unexpectedly jarring point-of-view for some scenes, along with a few head-scratching plot logic lapses, all come
together to almost weigh the movie down, but at least the earnest victim by victim mow down is lively enough.

There’s something evil afoot in the Province of Limburg as children are mysteriously kidnapped. When the latest victim is snatched a clue is left behind, leading the local constabulary to the home of one Andries Martiens (Robert Eleveld)–just as he slices off the head of another poor kid. Martiens’ basement is definitely not a rec room in the usual sense: there are heads mounted on poles stuck in the earth, and lots of candles cast a nice warm glow over the glistening , maggot-crawling faces of the dead. It’s Voodoo and Satanic Mass nastiness Martiens has been conducting, paid with ritual slaughter to buy his passport to Hell and back again. He’s pissed his parents died without leaving him an inheritance and he’s hellbent on making the trip to annoy them into revealing where the family fortune is. With four heads for the compass points and four heads to represent the elements, he’s off accruing all the frequent flyer miles he can between Hell and Earth.

What a backstory!

Unfortunately this filled-with-possibilities period piece ends too quickly with Martiens’ capture and we jump to the present day into a frenzied nightclub scene. Kristel (Victoria Koblenko) and her High School buddies are out partying, but when her car refuses to start, she calls Dad (Martijn Oversteegen) to pick them up. One of her friends, Lies (Carolina Dijkhuizen), the Tarot-card reading seer, accidentally mentions Kris’ plans to leave town. After he drops her friends off, Dad and Kris argue themselves into a fatal car wreck. Kris blames herself for her dad’s death. After the funeral, her mom asks her to go to Belgium to pick up her Dad’s manuscript. Sure, why not? I suppose FedEx would have been too expensive. He was working on a book about serial killers, writing it at the mine museum where Martiens did his dirty work. Packing her friends in the car along with her guilt, they head to the mine.

A montage of road trip antics set to rock music–what the director considered rock music, anyway– is mercifully brief and they arrive at the mine. She finds her Dad’s tape recorder and listens as he explains the Satanic aspects of Martiens’ serial killing and the need for eight heads to open the gateway to Club Hell.

She also finds a Ouija board–always useful for getting into trouble in a horror movie–a heavy and rather large music box, and his thick manuscript. She stuffs all this in her already cumbersome backpack, and LUGS IT on a last-minute tour of the historic mine. Her friends join her. They huddle around the tour guide as he tells them how Martiens’ met his end in the very tunnels they will now walk through. A condemned murderer, he was given one slim chance at life if he could survive being a “fireman,” the role an unlucky convict played years ago, sent into methane-filled tunnels to ignite the firedamp. He didn’t play the role for long.

A gimmicky and jarring use of point of view has them mugging the lens, ruining an otherwise atmospheric tableau in another montage of kids running wild down in the mine; until they realize they’ve been locked in.

To while away the time they whip out the Ouija board from Kris’ backpack to communicate with Martiens, the maniacal, head-removing butcher since they have nothing better to do. Lies explains the intricacies of the planchette and board. In little time they summon Martiens who promptly possesses one of the idiots. She takes out the tour guide first.

Going through the horror movie victim’s litany of things-that-will-certainly-get-you-killed, her friends start getting the axe, the pick, and the shovel on the receiving end. In-between the mayhem and carnage, Estrild and Kris whip out the Ouija board again to dial up Dad for some fatherly advice on coping with Martiens.

Dad’s cryptic advice stymies them for a bit. While they figure it out, Martiens keeps possessing her friends one by one and chasing after the others. Unnecessary shaky-cam fuzziness ruins the details of death, but the panic-acting is frenzied to a turn, providing satisfying denouements at proper terminal velocity.

There’s one more moment when the Ouija messaging board comes into play, helping Kris realize why the music box she’s been lugging around is so heavy (and should have been left in the car except the plot needed it here).

All in all, while Slaughter Night uses gimmicky camera work and the standard horror movie mechanics of shock, drop, and die, it’s still watchable and involving.

Part 5

Interview: Edges of Darkness’ Jason Horton

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Three interconnected tales of terror set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse…

  • A young vampire couple struggle to survive as the zombies eat up all their food.
  • An obsessed writer powers his computer with a chip that runs off the life force of others.
  • A survival nut takes in a woman and her child who are on the run from a group of renegade priests hell bent on destroying the child.

…Welcome to The Edges of Darkness.

Currently in post-production, the indie horror thriller is written and directed by Jason Horton and Blaine Cade, with makeup effects by Tom Devlin. Actor Lee Perkins plays a renegade priest battling the anti-christ in one of the tales of terror.

Jason was kind enough to chat with us about his work.

With Rise of the Undead and Edges of Darkness, you seem to have a flair for “end of the world and zombies, too” movies.  Why is that?

I’ve always been fascinated with end of the world stories. Extreme circumstances seem to bring out the “real” in people and I don’t think there is anything more extreme than an apocalypse.

As far as the zombie thing goes, one of my earliest cinema memories is of my older brother taking me to see a midnight showing of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. It moved me like no other film had. Ever since I had a thing for zombies. So when it came time to do my first movie (ROTU) it seemed like the only choice. Having them be a part of Edges was sorta my way of making up for some things that weren’t so right about Rise.

How did you become interested in independent filmmaking?

I always wanted to make movies. Exploring that in the realm of Independent moviemaking made the most sense to me. I’ve worked on a few bigger features and just didn’t fancy working another 15 or 20 years in the trenches before I got a shot to direct, and then have to do it under someone else’s thumb. When you’re doing it all yourself, you have only yourself to answer too and only yourself to blame if things go wrong (or your co-director.)

What is it about horror filmmaking that draws you to it?

I love movies. All kinds. But there’s something especially fun about working in horror. You get to explore more of the human experience. Create new and unique worlds that could never exist, and see how real people would react in them. Plus there’s just something about the visceral fun in watching a woman shove a bowling ball through a zombie’s head.


What challenges did you face making Edges of Darkness and how did you meet them?

I suppose money is the cliché answer, but it’s so true. When you’re doing something for little money, no one gets paid what they’re worth. And even though most of the people who worked on it are friends, it’s still a pretty big favor to ask someone to invest so much time into something that may only compensate them months or years later. I overcame that with preparation. Being prepared keeps things moving, that way no one thinks I’m just wasting their time figuring out what I want.

Which directors influence you the most and why?

Romero: To me he’s created the definitive view of an apocalyptic world, and did so with rich character work and social relevance. Peter Jackson (especially his earlier work): His love for movies shows in every frame. Tarantino: He opened my eyes in ’92 to a whole slew of things. Hong Kong Cinema, Walter Hill, Peckinpaw, French New Wave, Blaxploitation. Joss Whedon: For really nailing home the notion that you can make a joke in your work without making your work a joke.

Did you have to compromise between your role as co-writer and co-director on Edges of Darkness?

Not really. The only compromises that were made were due to time or physical limitations of the sets and locations. Even though the three segments intertwine, they also very much stand on their own. I wrote and directed Undone (the anti-Christ segment, and Overbite (the vampire segment) Blaine wrote and directed Entanglement.

What’s next on your list of projects?

Next for me is most likely a prequel of sorts to Edges. Following the earlier exploits of the Vampire Couple. It’s larger scale and should be a lot of fun.

Can you share with us any funny or interesting stories regarding the filming of Edges of Darkness?

Don’t work with animals. There was originally a dog in Blaine’s story. He brought the dog to the set. It was a huge, horse of a thing. It sh*t all over the warehouse and wouldn’t do anything we needed it to do. The cast and crew were complaining so Blaine decided to axe the dog. He replaced it with a rat. It works better than it sounds.

How did Edges of Darkness come about?

I was working in LA. Shooting and cutting ultra low budget features for several different companies and getting pretty burned out. I was watching these cats turn out pretty shoddy work for next to nothing, turning it over and making quite a bit. It was disheartening. I was tired of working for people who were really only in it to make a buck.

I met Stephen Kayo while camera oping on a project of his. Convinced him that quality work could be done for little money, and started work on Edges.

What advice can you give to independent directors just starting out?

First, watch more movies. You can never see enough. Love movies. If you don’t love movies, don’t direct. Go work at a bank. I’m sick and tired of running into directors and producers in Hollywood that don’t even like movies. They don’t watch them. WTF?

Second. Make movies. Work on someone else’s. I went to film school. I wouldn’t give that time back for anything. But my real education happened on sets. I did Rise of the Undead right after film school. I did Edges after working a few years on sets and in post production. You only have to glance at the trailers to see the difference.

What’s the one question you would love to be asked and what’s your answer?

What’s you’re favorite color? Blue.

Can you give us a “day in the life of an independent horror director?” What’s it really like?

Get up. Work on something else. Making your own flicks doesn’t always pay the bills. Then put every other waking minute into finishing your current project or prepping the next or watching a movie.

Re-Animator (1985)

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Zombos Says: Excellent

 

Re-Animator with Jeffrey Combs–one of my favorite horror and sci-fi actors–is an outrageous onscreen realization of H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Reanimator series of short stories.

Stuart Gordon directs this gory-to-absurdity film with one body part humor and multiple body parts ‘Theater of the Grotesque.’ Comb’s exuberance and intensity as Herbert West is a perfect melding of histrionics and gleeful, devil may care, hubris. Add Richard Band’s driving, Bernard Herrmanesque score with its incessant and forceful strings and sardonically playful cat and mouse orchestrations, and what you have is a treat that most any horrorhead would die for, along with the organic, freshly-popped popcorn drowning in real butter and salt.

The film wastes no time in establishing its gory, black comedy tone as it opens in Switzerland, with West kneeling over the just revived body of his teacher, Dr. Gruber. Unfortunately, as with all of his reanimations, Dr. Gruber does not take well to the revivification and experiences an eye-popping side effect; literally, that is, as both pop. As the law moves in, West moves out to Miskatonic University Medical School. West, who has an incredible knack for getting out of tight spots he continuously puts himself into, is introduced as a promising medical student. He is intense, arrogant, and just itching to inject his mysteriously glowing solution into anything remotely dead. Rooming with a fellow medical student, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), West quickly takes over the basement for his bizarre experiments.

As I watched the film and munched on my popcorn, one thing that struck me about most horror films from the 70’s and 80’s is they usually have a well-written script, crisp dialog, and a solid plot logic that seems to elude most horror films done today. While current films may be more sophisticated in artistic and special effects designs, many seem to lack the simple ability to tell a coherent story with memorable dialog. But I digress.

Once in class, West, in a humorous scene, starts loudly breaking pencils during Hill’s pompous lecture–one snap for every comment he passionately disagrees with. West accuses Hill of being a hack who’s stolen Dr. Gruber’s work. Both inevitably lock horns and Hill strongly recommends that West switch to using a pen. Their antagonism and professional rivalry soon leads to a Grand Guignol showdown of oneupmanship that still stands out as one of the most gorily entertaining showdowns in horror cinema.

It all starts getting out of hand with Rufus the cat. In a scene both funny and chilling at the same time, West reanimates Cain’s pet after Cain and his girl friend Meg, Dean Halsey’s daughter, find Rufus in West’s fridge next to the Coke (things do go better with Coke). Faster than you can say weird-product-placement, West revives the dead Rufus in the basement with the usual side-effects.

All hell breaks loose as West and Cain fend off the furry fiend’s attack with anything at hand. The lone hanging light that illuminates the room is knocked back and forth, alternately casting the basement and the action in light and darkness. One lucky swing of the bat and the cat is now juicy minced-brain pie sliding down the wall.

Cain, not believing his own eyes, watches as West once again injects the now mashed-up feline. “Don’t expect it to tango,” West quips as he injects the serum. “It has a broken back.” While the cat doesn’t tango, it does, once again, come back to screeching life. Now convinced that West’s serum can reanimate the dead, Cain joins him in finding fresher subjects to experiment on. They go to the morgue to find a fresh cadaver, and settle on one fellow who died from unknown circumstances. West injects the serum, they wait, and he impatiently injects a greater dose.

–At this point the film suddenly stopped! Our theater screen went black! While theater personnel rushed to fix the problem, someone in the audience came up with an apropos game: who would you reanimate if you could? The audience joined in and one very bright fellow said, “Vincent Price!” That’s the kind of answer I like to hear–

In a very short time we were back with Herbert West, Dan Cain, and the cadaver. It comes to life, and once again all hell breaks loose as the newly reanimated body wreaks havoc and mayhem.

Dean Halsey unfortunately manages to walk into the bloody havoc and mayhem and gets some fingers bitten off as he defends himself. In an orgy of gory, West brings down the reanimated cadaver with a whirring skull-saw through the chest move, but not before Dean Halsey is much the worse for wear and quite dead.

Did somebody say dead? Dean Halsey is quickly injected with the serum as West pluckily seizes the opportunity for another test. You really must admire his intrepid spirit. Meg walks into the gruesome scene just as her dad is reanimated with less than stellar results. West reassures her: “He’s not insane: he’s dead.” She, of course, is noticeably upset and confused by the whole mess.

Later, while examining the zombie-like Dean Halsey, Hill realizes he’s as dead as a doornail and goes after West for the serum. While Hill gloats over his superiority, West takes the flat end of a shovel to his head, sending it flying through the air. Trying to prop up the not so good doctor’s head in a pan, West eventually gives up and grabs a paper spike and impales the head on it. He injects the head with his serum, then decides to inject the headless body too, quipping, “I’ve never done parts.” Sure, why not? He’s been so successful already.

Doing parts, however, turns out to be a bad idea. Hill controls his clumsy, headless body to whack West unconscious. Taking his head with him, he heads back to his office, and the now bipartisan doctor uses his head (in a manner of speaking) to command Dean Halsey to do his bidding, like some dead but reanimated Renfield.

Hill’s head (stay with me on this) heads to the morgue while Dean Halsey heads to get his daughter, who Hill has a fancy for. The unconscious Meg is brought back to the morgue where Hill has her stripped au naturale, and proceeds to give her head with his head, aided by his headless body. West walks in on them, chides Dr. Hill for not using his head purely for science, and soon discovers that the cadavers in the room are under Hill’s control, too. All bloody hell once again breaks loose as cadavers, in various states of leaking morbidity, attack West and Cain.

Dean Halsey, vaguely realizing his daughter is in danger, goes after Hill and grabs his head between his hands (that’s Dr. Hill’s head between Dean Halsey’s hands), and squeezes it like a really big zit.  West, fighting  the cadavers, heads over to Hill’s headless body and injects it with two syringes full of reanimation serum.

Faster than you can say hellz-a-poppin, Hill’s body explodes in a geyser of entrails and organs. An eerie white light blasts forth from the now exploded chest cavity, and a very large, large intestine snakes out and around West, pinning him to the floor in a Lovecraftianesque tour de force.

Cain and Meg manage to escape the room, leaving West to his fate of Re-Animator sequels, but Meg is soon killed by a relentless cadaver as she runs for the elevator.

Can you guess where this is going? Right! Cain rushes Meg to the emergency room, but when all else fails he injects her with the reanimation serum. Tsk, tsk, they never learn, do they? Lucky for us.

Re-Animator is definitely one of the top fright flicks of all time. It’s gory fun, witty, and horrifying with a capital H.

Vacancy 2007
Horrible Room Service

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Zombos Says: Very Good

Norman Bates’ mom would have approved of the Pinewood Motel. Nestled off the Interstate—way off—it’s the ideal place to get away from it all, and have it all put you away: permanently. The noisy late night room service and decrepit amenities are simply to die for, too.

Vacancy is a refreshingly gory-free excursion into terror with classy, mood-setting Bernard Herrmanesque music, a stylish opening credit sequence, and Hitchcockian tension-building suspense with ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances, and incompetent police not prepared for what actually goes on at the quiet motel.

Amy and David are the two ordinary people whose failing relationship is in need of some serious bonding. There’s nothing like a bunch of psychos trying to kill you to work out the kinks in a rocky marriage and bring you closer together; at least if you can’t live together, you might as well die together.

The barbs start flying when Amy wakes up to find they’re lost on an empty, winding road; David’s shortcut to nowhere. Empty except for that cute little raccoon in the middle of it—hey Dave, watch out! The car skids off the road and breaks something in the process, forcing them to stop at the creepy, desolate, gas-station-stuck-in-time that appears in many horror movies these days.

The attendant pops up, all smiles and giggles—at two in the morning—and gladly helps them out as he pops the hood, does something, then sends them on their merry way with confusing directions to get back on the Interstate and a lit sparkler. Now maybe I’m just naturally paranoid, but I would never trust any overly nice gas station attendant who refuses to be paid and insists on giving you a lit sparkler near flammable gas tanks at two in the morning.

No sooner do they get going when the car breaks down again, forcing them back to the gas station. The attendant is gone now, but say, there’s that nice Bates, oops, sorry—Pinewood Motel over yonder. Better rent a room for the night and worry about the car in the morning after a good night’s sleep, right?

The screaming and crying they hear when they enter the registration office should have clued them in right away, but David, intent on hitting that annoying bell on the desk, isn’t swayed. Mason, the motel manager, pops his head out to see who it is. He quips about boring nights when they mention the ominous sounds, and he goes back into the office to turn whatever he’s watching off.

When you finally get a good look at Mason, you realize he’s stuck in time, too. Seventies, I’d say. He’s an oily type of creepy, and there’s something sinister behind those beady little eyes of his and that snake-like tilt of the head. He insists on giving them the guest suite that has hot and cold running cockroaches, stiff bed linen that could fold itself, and a wonderful mix of banged up video tapes filled with lots of screaming, pleading people being horribly killed by Michael Myers wannabes. This is some guest suite.

With nothing playing on the TV, David shuffles through those videos and pops one into the player. As Amy tells him to tune it down, he slowly recognizes the “set” in the tape looks awfully like their guest suite. Bingo! Vacancy now shifts into gear and the hairs stand on the back of your neck just as his do.

The fight to stay alive begins, and while Vacancy is not a blockbuster, it does have its share of shocks and nerve-wracking mayhem to make it all worthwhile. No wimpy victim-fodder here, either. Even as Amy and David panic and bicker and scramble to find a way out of their dire situation, they suck it up and work on staying alive. Horror film victims that actually don’t want to be victims is another refreshing change of pace from the usual hurry up and slowly die fare inundating us these days, don’t you think?

Ironically, as they struggle to find a way out of their terminal accommodations, they invariably find themselves scrambling back into them, again and again. They can’t run and they really can’t hide for long. Will they survive? And who can they trust? Who is involved in the deadly room service that goes on at the Pinewood Motel?

An interesting twist has David and Amy alternately take the lead in saving their necks, and director Nimrod Antal goes against horror movie type by playing with our expectations toward the end as the small body count goes higher.

Vacancy is an entertaining homicidal psycho-buddies along the “road less traveled by” scenario often used in horror. What helps it stand out are the performances by, Frank Whaley, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale, that provide tense moments of terror, anguish and momentary triumph in a straigtforward and suspenseful mix of classic horror elements.

And I like rooting for the would-be victims: payback can be such an entertaining b*tch after all.

Alone with Her (2006)

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Meet Doug. Full-time profession: stalker.

In Alone with Her, a film by Eric Nicholas, we get to know just about everything there is to know about Doug. It isn’t pretty, but we do get to realize that Doug is a loser; a loser in relationships, a loser in his approach to life, a loser that, simply put, has nothing better to do than to keep trying at creating artificial relationships with women to boost his superficial ego.

That’s where Amy comes in. She’s just coming off a failed relationship so she’s vulnerable. Just the kind of woman Doug likes: someone he can fabricate a fantasy world of ‘Doug the Magnificent’ around. Maybe shes the one who will buy his fantasy world of perfection, maybe not, but in Alone with Her, we get to watch every sordid detail of Doug’s relentless infatuation with Amy, and how he manipulates her to believe he’s a nice guy; a guy that has lots in common with her. But that’s only because he’s bugged her home and her life, and he’s there every single minute, watching and listening.

We first see Doug as he truly is: a camera stuck surreptitiously in a black bag. He doesn’t go anywhere without it. He sees through it, feels through it, even hunts vulnerable and lonely woman through it. In fact, his whole point of view is always through the camera’s lens, and Nicholas films most of the story that way. We watch Doug through a camera lens as he watches Amy through his camera lens.

He first glimpses Amy in the park as she’s watching lovers get it on. She starts crying. One failed relationship worn on a sleeve to go, please, and that’s the hook for Doug. He’s a sucker for stuff like that. A brief trip to the electronic surveillance store and Doug’s next stop is Amy’s apartment. He rigs it with cameras and microphones to pick up every conversation, every bathroom break, and every personal nuance of Amy’s lonely life.

Through his camera and intrusion into Amy’s life, we’re forced to see and hear Amy as he does. But there’s no voyeuristic pleasure in this because Nicholas also forces us to see and hear Doug as he contrives ‘chance’ meetings with her at the local coffee or spends alone time with her in her bedroom—through a small monitor that he watches constantly. In one chilling moment, Doug puts his head down to sleep as Amy, on the monitor, puts her head down on her pillow to sleep; an indication that he has no life without play-acting himself into believing she matters to him. And when she pleasures herself with the handle of a hairbrush, he’s there pleasuring himself, too, but through the monitor: the epitome of safe sex.

We begin to see the breakable side of Doug when Amy gets a phone call from Matt. Doug hates competition, and anything or anyone that would get in the way of his twisted, fabricated relationship with Amy. More and more, Doug ingratiates himself into Amy’s life. She’s an art student, so he plays that up and helps her with her website. She likes this music or that movie, and amazingly, he likes this music or that movie, too. “Funny how much we have in common,” they say, but it’s not funny at all.

But Doug’s emotional instability can’t stand Matt’s attentions for Amy, so Doug swabs her bed linen with something nasty. One itchy night later, her skin is covered with red blotches, and she tells Matt to cool his heels while she recovers. At this point you also realize that he’s an old pro at this sort of thing. The hairs on the back of your neck should be standing up by now.

Then there’s Amy’s friend Jen, who starts upsetting the delicate balance of Doug’s plans when she becomes suspicious of him. Guys too good to be true usually aren’t that good. During a get-together with Amy, Jen and Doug, he just can’t deal with not having Amy all to himself and begins losing his superficial composure. He breaks down in the bathroom and fakes a phone call to get him out of the apartment.

Doug begins to resort to more interventions to bring him and Amy closer together. He gets her paintings sold, but we aren’t quite sure who actually bought them. He rushes to her side when she steps on broken glass in the dark. He neatly takes care of Jen when she begins to confront him about his past.

Doug the social-nebbish, the electronic felon, the camera creep who needs to fabricate his whole life around a fictitious relationship, is really a monster in disguise. This monster-side of him begins to show itself more and more, and roars to life just when he has the chance at a real emotional connection with Amy instead of one of his contrived events.

Nicholas, who directed and wrote the story, moves his camera, and Doug’s, in a straightforward manner. Occasionally resorting to monochrome tints as Doug’s point of view surveillance shows Amy or Doug himself, Nicholas eschews the sensational and directs the unsettling events in the story with pragmatism. Colin Hanks plays Doug in a low-key, fatalistic way, presenting a depressingly realistic portrayal of this human monster who can’t handle uncertainty or spontaneity in his life.

This low-budget thriller is low-key, but that makes it all the more realistic; and truly horrifying because of it.

Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o’Gold Part 3
The Ghosts You Know
The Haunting (1963)

/ Movies (Ghostly) / 1 Comment

Haunting
Tap Dancing to Hell and a Pot o’Gold Part 3 (Part 2)

Zombos Says: Classic

“Do you see him?” asked Curly Joe.

“No.” I shone my flashlight down the long tunnel. “This is just great.”

The tunnel we were standing in was long, narrow, and filled with doors; ominous, gray, metal-clad doors that practically screamed “Stay Out!” They were the types of doors you see in movies like Hostel. I hate doors like that.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“‘Help Zombos Go Home,’” I read out loud, in the dim light of my flashlight. The large letters were written in script across the brick wall, with a kid’s pink chalk stick by the look of it.

“Who the hell’l want ta write in pink chalk down here?”

“No, not chalk,” I said, touching it with my fingertip and tasting it. “Like chalk, I’d say.”

“I should’a listened ta the other plumbers ‘bout this place. Now I’m playin’ in Zork-land.” He sat on his rump and put his head in his hands. “Ya realize yer gonna get one hell of a bill, don’t ya?”

Zombos pays the bills so I ignored him. “You know, this writing reminds me of that scary Shirley Jackson ghost story directed by Robert Wise, The Haunting.”

Curly Joe perked up. “Say, I remember dat movie; pretty scary, even though ya never see any ghosts.”

 

Perhaps this is the best way to describe The Haunting: a frightening ghost story because it doesn’t show any ghosts. Unlike today’s vivid use of Japanese Onryô apparitions—in need of a shampoo and cut—vindictively mauling everyone onscreen, Wise only suggests ghosts, creating one of the scariest movies by sound and implication.

Taken from Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, Nelson Gidding’s psychological screenplay uses her ambiguous supernatural inferences occurring within the house and leaves out those happening outside (such as the unsettling phantom picnic); keeping the tension-building squarely in the house as Dr. Markway’s (Richard Johnson) skittish paranormal investigators experience the teasingly malevolent manifestations of Hill House’s former tenants.

In the foreboding opening montage, Dr. Markway relates the sordid history of Hill House, from the tragic death of Hugh Crain’s first wife before she actually sees the morose mansion, to the mysterious death of his second wife down a long flight of, and finally the suicide of Abigail’s nurse-companion. Abigail was Hugh Crain’s repressed daughter. The companion, who inherited the estate because there was no one else to give it to after Abigail died a lonely death, hung herself from the wrought-iron spiral staircase in the sunless library; perhaps because she was never really left alone in the sprawling, gloomy house.

Clearly, Hill House has issues, and that’s what draws the attention of Dr. Markway: he’s looking for “the key to another world,” and believes Hill House will provide it. And boy does it do so with relish. As he assembles his team from the dwindling group of people that still dare to enter Hill House after they learn about its unsavory past, he chooses Eleanor (Julie Harris), a fragile woman with no life of her own. She’s a walking, living, ghost herself, and after spending the last eleven years taking care of her invalid mother, has nothing to call her own: not a relationship, not a career, not a hobby, not even her own place to live. She sees Dr. Markway’s invitation as her great escape, her final chance to spread her wings and breathe freedom. This makes her dangerously vulnerable to the influences of Hill House. And Abigail, whose declining years were spent isolated, with only her companion to provide company.

Another member of Dr. Markway’s team is Theo, a psychic sponge who knows everyone intimately on first meeting. She’s hip, she’s smart, and she takes a fancy to Eleanor, but Eleanor’s fancy is tickled more by Dr. Markway, which leads to earthly tension in a house where Hugh Crane derided earthly pleasures. Just look at the ugly bible illustrations of damnation for the wicked he foisted on poor little Abigail: it’s the proverbial bible for horror movie victimology 101: enjoy thyself and die, oh wicked one!

Luke (Russ Tamblyn) is the skeptic. Not part of Dr. Markway’s team, he’s there because he’s inheriting the house and wants to look after his future interests. He doesn’t believe in spirits unless they’re bottled. Tamblyn’s Luke is armed with quick-with-a-quip resolve. He jokes to dispel the awkward feeling the unknown gives him when explanations are needy.

Julie Harris, Wise’s choice for the role of Eleanor, or Nell as Theo calls her, is the character everyone and everything in the house becomes enamored with. Her clumsy shyness hides her need to desperately belong somewhere, anywhere, even if it is here; and Claire Bloom’s alluring but predatory “nature’s mistake” Theo resents the house’s need for Nell as much as she resents her own need for Nell. Both women alternately bond, break apart, and bond again,
trading biting insults as their relationship becomes as difficult to navigate as the house’s hallways.

The outside shots of Hill House—in actuality the Ettington Park Hotel in England—are made even more ominously brooding by Wise’s shrewd use of infra-red movie to sharpen and darken the arched, neo-gothic windows and towering brick facade to the point of austerity. His technique of darkening the mansion under angry clouds, when a supernatural event is about to happen, cues the chills for us even more. Choosing the naturally more gritty and spooky quality of black and white movie stock over color also intensifies the brooding interplay of stark shadows and lightness in the interiors of the mansion, emphasizing the not-quite-right nature of the house that Hugh Crain built, where doors shut themselves, walls meet at odd angles, and “nothing seems to move until you look away.”

Looking for ways to enhance the foreboding atmosphere of his movie, Wise jumped at the chance to use a newly available prototype 35mm lens that presented a slight distortion for his Panavision landscape, increasing the unnaturalness of the mansion’s rooms and exteriors in a subtle way. He had to sign a waiver releasing the manufacturer from any liability before he could acquire it (Bryan Senn, Cinematic Hauntings).

Wise’s unique visual styling of the movie aside, it’s his minimalist depiction of terrifying events assailing Nell and Theo that turn The Haunting into a classic, adult tale of suspenseful frights. The violent nighttime encounter with something conspicuously making its way through the halls to find them in their bedroom, the intense pounding on the door, the scuffling, and the heart-stopping turning doorknob as it seeks to get in is a nerve-tingling blend of spiraling camera work, fearful reactions as Nell and Theo look to each other for support, and loud, disorientating banging following by silence. This impression of what may be
trying to get in generates genuine scares. I dare you to watch this late at night and alone.

Wise builds friction between the investigators as Nell begins to lose herself to the intoxicating and liberating influence of Hill House, between alternating bouts of willingness and reluctance. As a kindred spirit—albeit a living one—to Abigail’s companion, it is never made clear who or what exactly is enamored with Nell aside from Theo. Is it Abigail, seeking a companion again, or is it the companion, trapped alone, seeking release from a vengeful Abigail?

‘Help Eleanor Come Home,’ found written in large letters with “something like chalk,” is seen on a hallway wall. Dr. Markway now realizes what we already know: how vulnerable Nell really is to this key to another world. One side of him wants Eleanor to leave for her own safety, but the other realizes she is the lightning rod, the attractor for the haunting. Or is he becoming more amenable to Nell’s obvious infatuation with him, or maybe he’s concerned she has no
other place to go?

When Dr. Markway’s wife (Lois Maxwell), another skeptic, unexpectedly visits, pleading with him to end his ridiculous ghost-hunting nonsense, Nell, in a fit of jealous pique, mentions the nursery when Mrs. Markway asks for the scariest room to sleep in. Although Nell realizes the seriousness of what she said—the nursery is the evil heart of Hill House—Mrs. Markway insists on staying in the room. Although Mrs. Markway refuses to stay with the others, Dr. Markway insists everyone else spend the night together for safety, while he and Luke take turns watching the nursery for any sign of trouble. When Luke sneaks into the parlor for a quick, fortifying drink, the door slams shut with a loud bang, waking the others. Once again, a door becomes the only separation between the living and the unknown, and Luke comes to an abrupt realization that he’ll have a lot of trouble trying to sell Hill House. Wise ups the ante for terror here with a simple, non-CGI, effect that will send chills down your spine.

When whatever is doing the pounding heads upstairs to the nursery, Luke, now a card-carrying believer in the supernatural, fights Dr. Markway to keep the door closed, and Nell, visibly and metaphorically, retreats into the bowels of Hill House. Like Abigail’s companion, she heads to the library where, at the top of the rickety spiral staircase, she contemplates a similar fate.

Will Hill House have what it wants? Will Eleanor? What happens to Mrs. Markway? Will she live long enough to become a believer in the supernatural, too?

The Haunting must be watched at night with the lights off, or in a darkened theater, well into the evening. It is a sophisticated, well-crafted foray into the ghostly realm, and one that will leave you exhilarated and scared and happy such horror movies still may be found.

Do not confuse this movie with its befuddled remake. This one’s the real scary deal.

Part 4