From Zombos' Closet

Movie Review: The X-Files I Want to Believe (2008)

Zombos Says: Very Good

Mulder:
Scully? Why would he say that? "Don't give up." Why would he say such a thing to you?

Scully:
I think that was clearly meant for you, Mulder.

Mulder:
He didn't say it to me. He said it to you. If Father Joe were the devil, why would he say the opposite of what the devil might say? Maybe that's the answer, the larger answer. Don't give up.

Can a summer movie containing no car chases, no explosions, no larger than life monsters still succeed? Yes, according to director Chris Carter and writer Frank Spotnitz, if the movie is The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Replacing the special effects-driven drumbeat of the summer blockbuster with the drama of people wanting to believe in something greater than themselves, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are brought together again to find the truth behind strange disappearances in snowbound, rural, West Virginia (though actually filmed in Canada). Along the way, they must come to a greater understanding of their own truths: the ones that drive both of them to never give up.

For Mulder, the truth is out there, waiting to be revealed if you keep searching for it. For Scully, the truth is deep inside, waiting for you to see it, even when those around you refuse to believe in its possibilities. For Father Joe, the truth is already known: he loathes it and desperately hopes for a greater one to take its place. For Janke and Franz, they want to believe in something the two of them can share, even if it is freaky enough to open an x-file-styled investigation; for them, the end justifies the means, and those means are gruesome. Who will be saved, damned, or remain indifferent? This is the essential quandary that every x-file poses for us as well as Mulder and Scully.

Movie Review: Diary of the Dead (2007) Another Day Unlike Any Other

Zombos Says: Very Good

It was a gloomy scene both inside and out. Gloomy inside because outside it was sunny-bright and barbecue-hot, and "perfect beach weather" as the saying goes, making it all the more depressing for those of us who cherish the cooler Autumn months.

Inside the library, not even the sombre and ominous strains of Midnight Syndicate's The Rage soundtrack could assuage Zombos' contortions across the various furnishings at regular intervals. For Autumn people like us, summer is that seasonal aberration, a temperate nuisance we must endure before the joys of the grayer October Country days take precedence.

The Fantasy Clock on the mantelpiece stuttered the slow passing of time. I put down the book I was reading, 41 Stories by O. Henry, to see if I could charge Zombos with enough energy to get him out of his summer doldrums. His latest contortion had him slumped across the emerald-green velvet upholstered Sleepy Hollow chair.

"How about watching Edges of Darkness in the cinematorium?" I asked. "It's got vampires fretting over their human food supply when zombies invade their home turf?"

Zombos moaned.

"Then how about we go to Adventure Land and we ride the Haunted House again and again?" I asked.

Zombos moaned louder.

I tossed over the scintillating premiere issue of Scarlet: The Film Magazine to him: no galvanic response. Van Helsing's Journal of World Fantastica produced no spark, either. Damn, this was more serious than I thought.

In the hallway, Zimba and Zombos Jr's going-to-Jones-Beach clamour chided us, by intention, as they rushed past the library door. Zombos Jr. made a point of banging his sand toys loudly, and Zimba clip-clopped more heavily in her flip-flops. A whiff of suntan lotion floated into the library causing Zombos' pearly-white skin to sneeze through his nose in allergic terror at the thought of hot sunlight roasting it in cocoa butter.

Chef Machiavelli, another beach-lover, happily joined them in their sandy debauchery. He stuck his head into the room as he hurried off. "Severese," he said with a wink, pointing in the direction of the kitchen.

Zombos sprung to action. The magic bullet had hit its target dead center. For an aging dilettante of horror movies, he sure could throttle into high gear when Brooklyn Italian Ices were in licking distance. His favorite is Jelly Ring, by the way, and mine is Pistachio. We raided the walk-in freezer and devoured large quantities of deliciously flavored ice like zombies chewing on a cornered victim.

"Speaking of zombies," I began to say, verbalizing my thought.

"What's that?" asked Zombos, going for thirds.

"Why don't we watch Romero's Diary of the Dead. Zombies and Italian Ices go together well, you know.

He looked at me for a second; I was not sure if out of perplexity or sudden brain freeze. "Capital idea!" he said. We loaded up with a generous round of Italian Ice flavors before heading to the cinematorium.

Movie Review: Night of the Demon (1957) It's Coming for You!

Zombos Says: Excellent

So...this guy, Hal Chester, messed up the screenplay quite a bit. It was so good, the screenplay, that it couldn't be completely destroyed, only half destroyed. It's still considered a good movie. I think the job Jacques Tourneur did with what Hal Chester gave him was awfully good. Hal Chester, as far as I'm concerned, if he walked up my driveway right now, I'd shoot him dead. (Charles Bennett, quoted in Backstory 1: Interviews with Screenwriter's of Hollywood's Golden Age)

 

It's funny how the same mainstream script-to-screen development journey is undertaken again and again: script gets written, then gets rewritten by Hollywood-type (sometimes plural) who sticks his or her two cents in while pinching every other penny out of production, usually creating a penny-wise but pound foolish cinematic disappointment.

In the case of one film, Night of the Demon (or the shortened version, Curse of the Demon, for the United States), the script actually survives "improvements" by said Hollywood-type—Hal E. Chester—and the vexing Bureau of British Film Censors, to become an effective supernatural chiller in spite of the Woolworth's bargain basement special effects involving a beautiful-in concept, godawful in execution, puppet demon, and bad-boy drinking habits of one American actor determined to climb inside an empty bottle of booze head first. Of all the remakes, reworks, and re-imagines circulating Hollywood these days, this little cult gem of supernatural horror really deserves renewed attention.

But did Hal E. Chester or the censors really hurt the film?

Or did they inadvertently help polish it into a tidy, tension-mounting story showing how psychologist and paranormal debunker John Holden steps into it, only to realize what's sticking to his shoe is real and hairy and cannot be rationally explained away by science?

That the traditionally structured Night of the Demon was produced at all is surprising. Hammer Films, at the same time, was moving away from the don't show, just hint intentional ambiguity of Jacques Tourneur's noir terrors in favor of the brighter, bloodier, mush your face in it gasps of Curse of Frankenstein, which was not ambiguous at all. When Night was released in America it was even double-billed with Terrence Fischer's Revenge of Frankenstein, providing audiences with quite the Mutt and Jeff of horror opposites in visual and intellectual involvement, but keeping one similarity: neither movie was ambiguous.

Contrary to Jacques Tourneur's preference for implicative events and obfuscating shadows to force uncertainty of what's really happening and a did-I-see-what-I-just-saw? feeling, there is no doubt whatsoever a fire demon is coming to horribly mangle one, very skeptical, Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews) for daring to expose devil-cult leader—and part-time children's magician—Karswell (Niall MacGinnis).

Within the opening minutes we race along with Harrington, the doomed predecessor to Holden, as he frantically tries to undo the curse brought about by the passing of a slip of paper to him, written with Runic symbols, marking him for gruesome death. We are introduced to the power Karswell wields and, in no uncertain terms, the reality of the fire demon summoned by his command. To Harrington's horror it first appears as twinkling lights, then emerges from an eerie unfolding cloud of smoke among the trees to be seen—by us—as a poorly executed puppet that looks like it's pedaling on a bicycle toward him (but is actually being pulled on a dolly toward the camera).

Composer Clifton Parker's otherwise effective scoring is compromised here by a rapidly repeating screech, sounding much like squeaking bicycle wheels going round and round (similar to the sound the giant ants make in Them!), unintentionally reinforcing the demon-on-a-bike impression. But it's the building tension in Tourneur's deft direction that surmounts this less than stellar physical effect, while the jarring rough cut close-up of the demon's ghastly face (added when Tourneur wasn't looking, I'm sure since he would have none of that), creates the defining monster image that lingers in the mind long afterwards.

Based on M.R. James's short story, Casting the Runes, screenwriters Charles Bennett, Cy Endfield, and Hal E. Chester (co-producer of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms), expand the story using the "magic 3 + R" of scriptwriting: nasty powerful villain, naive male and smart female, and add dash of unlikely romance between them. It was Chester who insisted on showing the monster much more than Tourneur intended, in hopes of attracting an American audience (I know, shame on us for being so demanding, even then).

While Tourneur wanted to create a psychological thriller similar to his Cat People, Chester wanted no doubt in the audience's mind of the terror coming by night. Between the two, the story becomes a supernatural version of 1949's noir D.O.A; although here it's dead-man-walking Holden's growing realization he's been marked for death propelling the story forward. By eliminating any doubt the threat is real, we know Holden is in danger: but will he realize it? Will his growing suspicion that sometimes a monster is just a monster, and not a figment of a superstitious imagination or autosuggestion, galvanize him to action? In this respect, Chester's Night is truer to James' story than Tourneur would have made it.

Karswell is not all that nasty, either.

In James' story, Karswell is evil through and through, but in Night, Karswell has his softer side (he gives a children's magic show each Halloween). He is also secretly fearful. In a revealing speech, unwisely cut from the American version, he chastises his kindly mother for not realizing the predicament he's in:

 

Karswell-
You get nothing for nothing. Listen, mother. You believe in the supernatural. I've shown you some of its power and some of its danger.

Mrs. Karswell-

Yes, Julian.

Karswell-

Well, believe this also. You get nothing for nothing. This house, the land, the way we live. Nothing for nothing. My followers who pay for this do it out of fear. And I do what I do out of fear also. It's part of the price.

Mrs. Karswell-

But if it makes you unhappy. Stop it. Give it back.

Karswell-

How can you give back life? I can't stop it. I can't give it back. I can't let anyone destroy this thing. I must protect myself. Because if it's not someone else's life, it'll be mine. Do you understand, mother? It'll be mine.

 

This mum and son chat reveals how much he's stepped in it, too, but willingly, unlike Holden. Under that calm and commanding veneer lies a man trapped into doing what he must to keep from being stepped on by something far nastier and even more powerful.

And that something is coming closer and closer toward Holden every day. After Karswell surreptitiously passes along the Runic spell, Holden starts feeling cold all the time, keeps hearing an odd and mournful tune playing in his head, and smokes and drinks like a fish while Harrington's niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins), berates him for being such a non-believing, smug, chowder-head. She knows how and why her uncle died from reading his journal, and now she's trying to save Holden from the same fate before it's too late. Even Mrs. Karswell, against her son's will, wants to help.

In what some critics consider a weakening sidestep from the mounting tension, she has Joanna bring Holden to a seance she's arranged. The incredulous psychologist reluctantly joins the proceedings as the medium, Mr. Meek (Reginald Beckwith), humorously channels his spirit guides until he is taken over by Joanna's uncle. Harrington's voice, frantically warning of the coming danger, ending in a shriek of fear as he relives the night of the demon attack "It's in the trees! It's coming!" Holden, not impressed by the proceedings, ignores the warning; but uneasiness is beginning to chink his scientific armor more and more.

Tourneur turns down the light and lengthens the shadows for the revelation of the little slip of paper in Holden's possession, exactly as Harrington describes it in his journal. Is it the wind from an open window that whips the paper from Holden's hands and sends it flying toward the fire on the hearth, only to be stopped from bursting into flame by the ember screen? Or does it have a life of its own and desperately tries to reach the fire, even after he closes the window?

Joanna insists it's alive and is trying to seal his fate by burning, but Holden tells her it's the draft going up the chimney keeping it tight against the screen; but as he says that it suddenly drops motionless to the floor, draft or not. "What made it stop?" asks Joanna. "I don't know," says Holden, deep in thought, for once without a rational explanation.

He carefully tucks the paper into his wallet for safekeeping.

More strange events unsettle Holden, forcing him to question his senses enough to burgle Karswell's house to find answers. A terrifying encounter with Grimalkin, the Karswell’s familiar and watch-cat, reinforces Holden's growing concern that he's dealing with things outside the scope of his understanding. Ignoring Karswell's suggestion to avoid the woods, Holden becomes more unraveled when the fire demon puts in a brief appearance. Through the use of diffused light, shadows, and increasingly unexplainable events, Holden is pushed more and more toward a realization he's still not fully willing to accept.

The turning point comes when Holden interviews a former cult member who, having survived Karswell's witchcraft by passing the runic-covered paper to his brother, is left in catatonic shock. While the scientific plausibility of the hypnotic session to awaken him is questionable, Tourneur's direction sums Holden's disquieting supernatural encounters into one riveting moment of desperate action. He learns enough to know he must return the paper to Karswell, but can he do it in time?

The final confrontation between Holden and Karswell, two men frightened and desperate—one anxious to return the paper, the other anxious to keep it from being returned—moves the film to its smoke-filled, demon demon, who's going to get the demon? denouement at a brisk pace.

Night of the Demon, while it has its faults (mostly due to budget), rises above them through its story of a rational, scientific man pitted against the inexplicable, and Tourneur's noir direction that transitions Holden's uncertainty to certainty in incremental encounters with an unknown that's gunning for him while we pray he wakes to the coming danger before it is too late.

The Ruins (2008) When the Vegetation Eats YOU

Zombos Says: Very Good

A better tagline for this movie would have been "What's Eating You?" That "Terror has Evolved" line is so predictable, so yesterday.

I’m not saying that The Ruins, directed by Carter Smith, is predictable or yesterday's terror, but it does contain some old, some new, and some very intense gore-toned frights; especially for the man sitting next to me in the theater who was so excited during one bloody, bone-crushing scene he had to stand up and shake it off. I could empathize. As for me, I just got cold sweats and tried to keep the squishing, tearing sounds from making me even more nauseous. I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a wimp when it comes to meaty scenes embellished with nasty sound effects.

Novelist Scott Smith adapts his story for the screen leaving it essentially the same, though he shuffles his characters a bit, placing more emphasis on the girls, Stacy and Amy, and less on the sentient, flesh-eating vines that mimic human voices and drip corrosive sap that burns like hell. And instead of Eric becoming infected with the hungry plants, as he does in the novel, onscreen it's Stacy (Laura Ramsey) who's driven to madness and self-mutilation. She looks better in underwear than Eric would have anyway (just saying).

Four Americans are talked into visiting Mayan ruins deep in the Yucatan jungle by a German stranger, Mathias (Joe Anderson), who they meet poolside. He asks them to join him on a visit to a dig site his brother and an archaeologist friend are working on.

Sure, why not? It only takes five minutes of chat to convince them to go deep into a jungle with a total stranger. Haven't these people seen Hostel?

Young Americans abroad in horror movies are always portrayed as irresponsible, fun-loving, and itching to get into mischief. Director Carter Smith dotes on their buff bodies and rosy cheeks as they splash away in the sun, providing quite an eyeful of Stacy and Amy. At first I thought he was doing the usual eye-candy for the teen crowd, but when Jeff, Eric, Amy, and Stacy become trapped at the top of the Mayan temple, he dotes on their increasingly dirty, disheveled appearance even more, exemplifying how unprepared they are, rushing into the jungle without a thought or a backpack. After the taxi drops them off and drives away, they worry how they'll get back to the hotel. Amy (Jena Malone) complains she can't walk through the jungle in her flip-flops.

Political commentary on American arrogance? A social metaphor for American youth's shallowness? No. Just dumb American tourists getting themselves into trouble as usual to prime the terror to come.

And the terror for this foolhardy group sinks in quickly when they realize they're badly screwed and help is not a cell phone call away. Bickering about the food they didn't bring with them, and with no 7 Eleven in walking distance, it's the lively vegetation that's happy to have their company for dinner. The local villagers come and try to warn them, but not understanding each other's language, or the danger, the villagers must force them to the top of the ruins after two of the no comprende touristas inadvertently stomp through the deadly plants during a tense standoff.

At the top they find the deserted dig site. A windlass and rope lead down into the ruins. Mathias insists on climbing down the rope, only managing to break both legs when it snaps. Jeff and Eric send the girls down to help him. The girls move the back-crackling and screaming Mathias into position to be hoisted out.

You'll be reaching for the Tylenol yourself as they move him.

It gets worse when Stacy gashes her leg while helping Mathias. The next morning her leg turns into a flower pot and sprouts a beautiful new vine.

The gore-o-meter hits the yellow zone starting here and goes into the red when Mathias' legs become a bloody trellis for more vines. Jeff, the first-year medical student, decides they have to remove his infected legs. Not much is left after the vines start growing in and around them, but the ensuing graphic double amputation is not for the squeamish. Not to be outdone, Stacy becomes crazed by the growing vegetation squirming around inside her. Grabbing a knife she decides to do surgery on herself.

She's not a medical student.

You may want to buy an extra-large popcorn bucket for this movie just in case. No popcorn; just the bucket. It may come in handy.

The continual ringing of a cell phone sends both girls down into the temple again to look for it. Perhaps it's a sat phone, or maybe Verizon's service really is that good. Or maybe there's something else going on and waiting in the dark rooms of the ruins for them. While the novel delves deeper into the sentience of the plants, the lesser disconcerting glimpses shown in the film provide an adequate sense of mystery and dread.

The Ruins is a straightforward and humorless study in terror, greatly aided by the foley artists. One can only imagine the glee they had in coming up with all those stomach churning sounds. Sure, you can heap on thematic, political, and all the social-allegorical and subtextual discussions you like, but this movie is body horror, visceral terror, and scary as hell, plain and simple. While there have been other movies and novels dealing with people-eating plants, the gore and pretty, but rash, young people come together here in a way that's quite unnerving. While the histrionic acting is par for the horror course, it's still done well to raise the tension. Applying realistic gore where it can do the most damage to your piece of mind, when depicting the novel's more harrowing scenes, doesn't hurt either: except for Jeff, Eric, Stacy, and Amy.

Bring a date to see this movie. I guarantee he or she will be clinging to you just as much as those hungry vines do to their victims. But in a nicer way.

Movie Review: Cloverfield (2008)

Zombos Says: Very Good

In 1954's classic horror movie, Gojira (Godzilla), the atomic age of mass destruction spawns the monstrous reptile Godzilla, a prehistoric creature rising from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to wreak havoc on Tokyo. As city buildings crumble to dust and thousands of people die, a humbled military fight back in a futile attempt to stop the destruction. A renegade scientist is finally convinced to use his own weapon of mass destruction to destroy Godzilla, but he takes his own life to make sure the weapon will never be used again.

In Cloverfield, we have a newer horror movie more suited to our age of uncertainty and unreason, in which a monstrous creature of unknown origin comes from the depths of the Hudson River (or so it seems) to destroy New York City. With no conclaves of nodding scientists struggling to understand why and no military strategy sessions to explore best options for defense, it's not clear where it--a huge bat-like creature that looks very much like the huge bat-like creature in The Angry Red Planet--comes from or why it's destroying everything in sight; but the sudden appearance leaves no time for heroics, strategies, or any of the characters making sense out of what is happening. As Manhattan crumbles into dust and people die, a desperate and overwhelmed military fight on as the creature and the many smaller multi-legged beasties tagging along with it wreak havoc and death.

This is not the first time New York City has been laid waste by a giant monster that comes out of the harbor. In 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms another prehistoric reptile, awakened by nuclear radiation, stomps and chomps down on the city and Coney Island until a radioactive isotope, shot from a rifle held at the top of the Cyclone roller-coaster, enters the creature's earlier bazooka-induced neck wound to stop it cold; but not before a virulent contagion, spread by the blood oozing from that neck wound, takes it's devastating toll on the population. The Manhattanites in Cloverfield do not fare much better.

What is different here is we get to see the carnage from the civilian perspective, at street level, without miniatures being stomped on, when a going-away party turns into a nightmare for five twenty-something friends. There is no renegade scientist (sane or questionably sane) to save the day, no atomic age rationale to explain and provide a simple solution, and the friends are only trying to stay alive under killer circumstances. Keeping us shoulder-to-shoulder with them is director Matt Reeves shaky camcorder view of the carnage and chaos throughout. Yes, it is one of those point of view, found footage movies. But stick with it even if you are not all that into such techniques of storytelling as it is worth your time.

What you will see is the non-stop recording of Rob’s (Michael Stahl-David) party by his friend Hud (T. J. Miller) morph into a reasonable contrivance for the found footage delivery. We follow Rob and friends up to the rooftop to see what is going on after the building shakes and the power goes out, then hastily run down the stairs and onto the street with them as things heat up. When the Statue of Liberty's head comes, very impressively, crashing and rolling down the street, confusion and fear kick in, leading to an escape run to get out of Manhattan. The rough handling and sudden gaps in scenes as Hud mishandles his camcorder creates realistic, nerve-wracking tension, and a damn-it-Hud-stand-still annoyance from us; but the quality of his experience, and therefore ours, is exactly what you would expect from anyone using a camcorder during a crisis situation, responding to events unfolding in rapid succession while trying not to trip over their own feet in the process.

This is where a suspension of disbelief comes in handy: Hud keeps filming EVERYTHING through his camera, even though any normal person would chuck the bloody thing and run like hell for safety. All found footage movies must, eventually, rely on the viewer to disengage common sense for the story to work; some use a more natural integration of it, like Troll Hunter, where a bunch of college students are already filming a documentary within the movie’s framework, so they would, naturally, want to record everything that happens. Their found footage is plausible enough, because of this, for us to accept.

Cloverfield integrates its shaky cam with precision, providing enough visual teasers to keep scenes tense and visually engrossing. Given the twenty-something generation's need to be constantly connected socially to share every storm and urge, it is not a long stretch to believe Hud would keep filming through thick and thin. YouTube and Instagram love you-are-there footage like that. I wish I knew the brand name of that camcorder, though, since its battery life is amazing. It never wears down

Also amazing are the claustrophobic and dismal scenes of turmoil. While the man-in-suit Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion monsters were state of the art for the 1950s, today's minute-timer, media-savvy, audiences require more realism and relevance. Seen through Hud’s camcorder, the mix of scene staging, tantalizing creature glimpses, and frenetic action stay believable through its lens. Highlights include Rob turning on the camcorder's night vision in the subway tunnel to see what's spooking the rats—really should have done that sooner—and Hud's close-encounter of the monster kind, giving us a long hard look at the skyscraper-sized creature's face: classic terror elements jazzed up for the digital age. Scripter Drew Goddard knows his horror: the Brooklyn Bridge encounter, reminiscent of a similar monster-whump in It Came From Beneath the Sea is a terrifying jolt.

While Cloverfield is classic horror at heart, there is a love story driving the action in the right direction too (gladly for us horror fans; sadly, not really well for the characters).

After Rob has a blow-out with his girlfriend at the party, when she later calls his cell phone, hurt and pleading for help, he is off and running to save her, even though his path leads right into the chaos. His friends decide to stay close. Reaching the building where Beth (Odette Yustman) lives, Hud's "don't tell me that's where she lives!" line sums it up best. This is when the struggle really begins.

For all its social-generational look and feel, Cloverfield relies on good old-fashioned horror themes like big monsters whumping big cities to deliver the shocks.

Movie Review: Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Zombos Says: Excellent

The best horror film of 2007 is a musical about an unkempt barber who gives nasty-close shaves and an unkempt woman who bakes meaty pies with lots of heart (and other body parts), plying their trades in an unkempt 19th century London  gorging happily on its Industrial Age.

And, yes, there is blood. Hammer horror bright, fire-engine red, hissing through the air like steam from a boiling teapot, or pooling on the floorboards like piss from a mangy dog. Mingling with the hiss and the puddles are songs; vindictive and forlorn, and sung deeply from the throat of damnation, crying out for vengeance through the unkempt, morose alleyways and lawless byways of Fleet Street, home to the courts, the barristers, and Judge Turpin.

Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) is unkempt in body and soul. He covets Benjamin Barker's wife. The lecherous cur has Barker imprisoned on false charges, rapes his wife, steals his infant daughter, and becomes the object of vengeance that consumes Barker, now calling himself Sweeney Todd, who returns fifteen years later to his decrepit flat above Mrs. Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) failing pie shop. Mrs. Lovett covets Sweeney--always has--even as Sweeney covets his glistening silver set of  straight razors. All these Grand Guignol ingredients whip together in Tim Burton's mighty tasty version of this Gothic and gory folie à deux, which leaves out any whimsy to be found in the stage version. 

The Stephen Sondheim musical, in Burton's hands, becomes an unrelentingly dark tale of deliverance to sin for some, and the loss of innocence for others. This is Saucy Jack's London; an oily smudge from endless smokestacks coats everything, and daylight barely filters through the grime. The only bright spots to appear in this otherwise gloomy environment are the splotches of red spraying from severed necks, and there are lots of them--both severed necks and splotches.

Promptly taking care of Signor Pirelli's blackmail attempt, the necessity for getting rid of the foppish con man's ample frame leads to a mutually satisfying business agreement between Todd and Mrs. Lovett, and sets both on their merry way to hell in the bargain.

With a shock of white in his hair to show how much his soul has lost, Johnny Depp's Sweeney Todd is the perfect instrument for wielding death. In John Logan's screenplay and Christopher Bond's musical adaptation, not a hint of remorse nor glint of redemption show in Todd's ashen face or in his words as bodies follow one another down the chute to the oven room below.

Burton dotes on a long, disquieting interlude of song and blood with Sweeney slashing necks and slack bodies dropping effortlessly. The absurd blood-letting lulls you into a comforting sense of surrealism until the jarring thwacks of his victims, with limbs akimbo and brains splattered, hit the hard cellar floor with a smack.

Burton skillfully uses the advantages of camera and angle here, increasing the horror of the deed by bringing us closer to it than the stage play ever could; we see the terror-filled expressions of disbelief on his victims' faces as the razor slices deeply through skin and artery, and we cringe as their bodies are unceremoniously dispatched. It is a moment of sublime terror rarely captured in a horror film, let alone any musical I know of, so let this be a nightmare warning to those of you prone to such things.

While Sweeney Todd sinks deeper into the abyss, young Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower with a bit of Goth about him), happens upon Johanna--Todd's daughter, now the beautiful prisoner of Judge Turpin--as she looks out her bedroom window. Hope and Todd arrived on the same ship into London, one filled with innocence and expectation, the other with experience and hatred. Parting ways as they disembarked, their paths meet up again as Hope runs afoul of Judge Turpin and his bully-boy, Beadle Bamford. More wicked than the beadle Mr. Bumford in Oliver Twist, Timothy Spall's repugnant, ratty Bamford, with his extendable and lethal walking stick, exudes all the grimy detritus around him with malicious glee. It's an unsavory performance to be savored.

But the machineries of young love and seething hatred will not be stopped. As Hope seeks to rescue Johanna from the clutches of Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford, Todd's hatred consumes him, turning his singular revenge plans for Judge Turpin into a plurality. Aided by Mrs. Lovett, reaping the burgeoning profits from his modus operandi, the madness begins in earnest. Soon her pie shop is buzzing with eager patrons munching away on their fellow Londoners.

Toby, the street urchin formerly in Pirelli's abusive charge, unwittingly helps serve up the meat pies until a thumb winds up in a most unexpected place and he realizes what the huge meat grinder in the cellar is really used for. His dashed hope of finding a home with Mrs. Lovett is not the greatest tragedy in this story of loss and no redemption. More tragedy awaits as another unpleasant discovery is made and more blood is spilled.

Oh, yes, there will be blood. In the ending of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, there will be much, much more.

Movie Review: Dead of Night (1945)

Zombos Says: Classic

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
(from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night)

"You must be kidding," said Zombos, tossing the DVD over to me.

"No, really, it's a hoot," said Paul Hollstenwall. This time he brought along the straight to DVD movie The Blood Shed. The man has gone too far this time.

"Your average inbred, hillbilly, cannibalistic family," I read out loud from the DVD cover. "Paul, I'm not sure this is appropriate. I can't imagine watching this while sipping my hot chocolate and Sambuca. How about we start with something more apropos of the holiday season? A cozy journey into hysteria and terror by a roaring fireplace might be good. And a twist ending. There's nothing like hysteria and terror with a twist ending."

"Something with a touch of ghosts and evil spirits, I think, and British accents," added Zombos.

"Dead of Night," we both volunteered.

"Well, okay. But then will you watch The Blood Shed afterwards?" asked Paul eagerly. "It goes great with popcorn."

We grimly nodded yes. Such are the vagaries of the horror movie fan's life. Maybe I’ll have the League of Reluctant Reviewers deal with The Blood Shed. They are my go-to people for reviewing the most questionable (or is that objectionable) in horror cinema. But for now, the Dead of Night beckons.

 

It is the starched collar, stiff upper lip in the face of the irrational that gives this British horror entry an unusual cadence, which still works its devilish magic today. Mervyn Johns, the quintessential Bob Cratchit in 1951's Scrooge, plays architect Walter Craig. His modest appearance, his earnest demeanor, and his nightmare-bedeviled mind come up against the weird at a country estate where he unexpectedly meets those persons, now real flesh and blood, rattling him in his sleep. Is it déjà vu, or is something more sinister afoot?

Assembled in the living room of the country house he's come to remodel, they are, at first, surprised by his assertions of familiarity. They quickly warm up to his odd precognition, however, and eagerly describe their own brushes with the preternatural, one by one, including the pooh-poohing psychologist, who saves the most chilling encounter for last.

This sets up the movie's stories within a framing narrative, with each tale delivering a stronger jolt of the inexplicable intruding into the mundane world; culminating in a whirligig ending, with Craig smack in the thick of it, twisting back to the beginning. But the beginning is the main question he desperately puts the puzzling pieces together in search of an answer.

The caliber of acting is A movie. Michael Redgrave caps off the strong cast with his portrayal of a frazzled ventriloquist whose vent dummy won't shut up. In the last and strongest story to be told, this one by the psychologist who admits he's baffled by the encounter.

Ventriloquist Maxwell Frere no longer does all the talking in his act. When his dapper but nasty alter ego, Hugo, goes looking for a new lap to sit in, Frere goes off the very deep end and winds up bashing the dummy's face to pulp. But you just can't keep a bad dummy down in horror, so Hugo returns to run the act his way. Madness? Perhaps. But there's still an air of the weird with Hugo appearing larger than his wooden life would normally allow.

Another strong segment involves a three-panel mirror bought in an antique shop. Old, ornate, and decidedly evil in its reflections, the mirror bodes ill to the poor fellow who receives it as a birthday present from his wife. Obviously not a watcher of the Antiques Roadshow, she decides to learn the provenance of the damned thing after she buys it, much to her regret. Of course, when the shopkeeper tells her about the mirror's previous owner's misfortune, prefacing his horrifying story with his hope she's not superstitious, the chill-to-her-bone realization of what's happening to her husband sends her straight away to set matters right. This story’s mood of impending doom comes from the mirror's reflection of a sinister-looking Victorian room, and the deleterious effect it has on her husband who only sees himself standing in it even when his wife is by his side.

Separating these two tales of stark terror is a pawky romantic rivalry between two quirky golfers and their infatuation with a woman who can't decide which to marry. Loosely based on H.G. Wells' The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost, it is often criticized as the weakest of the five stories. However, it does provide an absurd humor interlude from the more serious scares. Told by the host of the country house who doesn't have a real supernatural encounter to relate—but makes one up anyway—it's an Alfred Hitchock Presents-styled twist ending involving an unwanted haunting and the need for fair play. Its whimsical nature fits in with the host's personality, and provides contrast to the overall narrative of Craig's predicament. It also provides a showcase for the British comedy duo of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (Charters and Caldicott in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes).

As each story is told, Craig and the psychiatrist argue over their true supernatural experiences. More and more, the architect becomes trapped by events playing out according to his dream, leading him to an inescapable compulsion. But what is real, and what are whispers and shadows heard and seen only in the dead of night is anyone's guess; especially Craig's.

This portmanteau movie's five segments were handled by four directors, and each story supports the main narrative of Walter Craig's nightmare dilemma. In its initial American release, the opening Yuletide ghost story and the lighter golfing interlude were cut, muddling the pacing and leaving one lodge guest without a story to tell.

This classic compendium of the macabre had a strong influence on subsequent horror movies because of its eerie moodiness and is well worth a view, especially in the dead of night.

Movie Review: 30 Days of Night (2007)

Zombos Says: Good

I award the movie two and a half stars because it is well-made, well-photographed and plausibly acted, and is better than it needs to be...Otherwise, this would be a radio play. I have pretty much reached my quota for vampire movies, but I shouldn't hold that against this one. If you haven't seen too many, you might like it. If you are a horror fan, you will love it. (Roger Ebert, from his review of 30 Days of Night)

Dear Roger,

I must take umbrage to your potentially snarky comment regarding horror fans. Not all of us automatically gush in delight at the sight of crimson fountains of blood spewing from severed jugular veins, torn open by shark-toothed vampires ripping into screaming victims. To the contrary, many of us are quite demanding in our never-ending search for skillfully crafted storylines that merge terror and drama competently, above and beyond the usual frights.

Right off the bat I can tell you weren't paying close attention to the movie: it's Barrow, Alaska, not Barlow. The only Barlow I know is in Ohio, and they certainly don't have to worry about 30 days of night or ravenous vampires for that matter. On the other hand—

 

"You are getting a little off topic," said Zombos, peering over my shoulder.

"You're right." I stopped typing and collected my thoughts. "Maybe I should start over."

“Good idea,” he agreed.

 

Dear Roger,

I take exception to your cavalier comment regarding horror fans liking 30 Days of Night just because it's a horror film; especially after you begrudgingly gave it two and a half stars. Not all of us children-of-the-night critics pile on the hyperbole when a highly anticipated vampire film hits the big screen, even if it does contain an interesting premise. I can't believe no one thought of it before Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith grabbed it for their graphic novel.

Speaking of the graphic novel, originally conceived as a three-issue series containing very evocative illustrations that grab each panel and—

 

"Are you writing about the movie or the comic book series?" asked Zombos.

 

—But I digress. I agree that the story becomes the usual struggle for survival against murderous fiends, but what did you expect? It's a horror movie, where victims usually struggle against nightmarish fiends, and try their best not to be eaten, bitten, hack-sawed, disemboweled, tortured, and, generally speaking, grievously harmed in any way.

I'll grant you the Sheriff doesn't do too good a job of it—saving townspeople, that is—but at least he gives it his best shot. It's nice, too, that his estranged wife can finally find something they both can share in, like staying alive.

The opening events, with the mysterious burning of all the mobile phones, and the butchering of all the huskies in town should have alerted Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) that trouble was brewing. And when Renfield's cousin (Ben Foster) shows up to chill us with his icy words heralding approaching doom, I'd be hauling my ass out of town right quick. But then we wouldn't have much of a horror film, would we?

Granted, when the vampires do arrive, they're the usual Goth-looking, shark-toothed, black-eyed night-crawlers with just a hint of fashion. And like you said, they are "a miserable lot." One thing you didn't mention, however, is the odd way they spill copious pools of blood. It never ceases to amaze me when scriptwriters turn vampires into werewolves, having them rip out throats in geyser-like sprays of arterial blood, wasting their food source in an orgy of sadistic destruction. More blood winds up in the snow than in the stomachs of these guys. Go figure. Sure, as you said, they shwoosh around a lot, teasingly just out of sight, but they aren't zombies you know.

Zombies dawdle; vampires shwoosh. It's the nature of the beast.

I agree with you on that whole non-Hammer speaking thing; bad call here. If there's anything worse than vampires ripping out your throat in large chunks, it's having to listen to their really tedious pontifications before they do it. The dialog here is not a keeper, and the subtitles to translate their click-clack-clucking speech is irritating. For some odd reason, I kept imagining they came from Russia, though I can't fathom why.

 

"I thought you were writing this review to refute Ebert's two and a half stars, not agree with him," commented Zombos. "Maybe you should focus on that?"

"Oh, right. Let me think this through again. You're right. I'll start over."

 

Dear Roger,

I don't think it fair to award only two and a half stars to 30 Days of Night. The acting is earnest and effective and the cinematography captures the setting sunset and onset of darkness beautifully, exemplifying the isolation of Barrow in the cold Alaskan winter. The action sequences are handled well and move the story at a brisk pace, holding the tension well as vampires descend on the town and systematically wreak havoc, breaking into homes in search of prey, and snatching people in fast shwooshes of action across the snow banks.

After awhile it does all seem to blur into the same old vampire stalking, victim-dying pattern, but while the story becomes the usual struggle for survival, the interplay between Sheriff Eben and his estranged wife (Melissa George), a law-enforcement type herself, adds depth to the storyline, and more involvement from us: there's nothing like a couple getting back together to bring out our concern for their safety.

Horror films could use more romance.

That interlude with the little vampire girl in the general store is worth noting. So what do you do with a blood-thirsty little vampire girl anyway? Cute kid? No, but still a kid. It's nice to see some good old axe swinging, vampire head-chopping, here and there. The film could have used more of that. There's nothing like romance and heads flying to spice things up.

I must admit I was a tad disappointed after Sheriff Eben's inspiring speech about the townspeople being natives and using their experience with the cold and darkness to fight the interlopers. Not much in the way of that experience shone through, and everyone pretty much froze their asses off in the dark instead. After that dangerous foray to the general store to get supplies and potential weapons, not much was done with that stuff after all that, either.

Speaking of that 30 days' full moon lighting that permeates the streets and buildings of the supposedly darkness-enshrouded town, you do have a point. I found it odd, too. The film starts off with things going dark after the blood-thirsty cretins disable the generator, but interiors and streets suddenly become brightly lit, with light coming from somewhere. So much for that 30 days of darkness thing. More murkiness in the town would have shaken things up better.

 

"Damn, I did it again, didn't I?" I said.

Zombos nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, hell."

 

Dear Roger,

I agree with you: the film is a solid two and a half stars and horror fans should love it in spite of its few inconsistencies. 

Yours Truly,

Zoc

PS. We miss you.

Movie Review: Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007)

Zombos Says: Fair

Half-way into the movie I started to wonder why I wasn't feeling the love. Where was the lingering taste of candy corn on my lips, the smell of burning pumpkin innards, charred by candle flame, in my nose? Certainly there was no suspense, or even anticipation of it, from the unstoppable bogeyman as I watched Rob Zombie's re-imagining of John Carpenter's 1978 retelling of The Hook urban legend, Halloween. Of course, Zombie didn't have actors like Jamie Lee Curtis or Donald Pleasence to bolster his story, but since he spent much of the film focused on the unkempt Daeg Faerch as the young Michael Myers, perhaps that's a moot point. Or maybe not?

Making Myers more psychotic serial killer than ghost-like supernatural force to reckon with may be the cinematic equivalent of getting toothpaste and dental floss in your trick or treat bag instead of mouth-watering chocolates and sugary sweets. With Zombie's penchant for dysfunctional, white-trash families, and potty-mouthed, libidinous characters you really really don't care about, and lingering stares at his all too familiar blood-splattered tableaus, the hairs-rising-on-the-back-of-your-neck quality of the original story has been carved out and replaced with the pedestrian graphic violence prevalent in today's horror repertoire. 

Subtlety is not one of Zombie's stronger directorial abilities. He prefers to show everything, raw and bloody, and provide a rationale for why Michael Myers slices and dices like crazy. With a stripper for a mom, a Bowery bum for a father, a very loose unsisterly sister, and school chums that despise him with a passion, Michael will either become a born-again Christian, or a serial killer. While some may argue both cases can be the subject for a horror film, Zombie chooses the latter, and promptly drains the Jack-O-Lantern life out of the franchise.

The adversarial quality of Carpenter's film, exemplified by Jamie Lee Curtis struggling to survive the normally festive Halloween night, and Donald Pleasence earnestly warning of the bogeyman, sustained the tension and suspense of Michael's return to Haddonfield. Zombie erases this adversarial plotline by perfunctorily moving from sex-romping victim to sex-romping victim in well-orchestrated, but uninvolving mayhem as Michael goes after his now grown up baby sister. There is no anticipation of violence here, and therefore no suspense or real scares from the unexpected. Michael kills anything in sight so knowing what he's going to do next is a no-brainer. He's going to kill everyone in sight. Ho-hum.

Malcolm McDowell's Dr. Loomis is more social worker than psychiatrist, and doesn't have the vulnerability that made Donald Pleasence's more fearful Loomis more interesting. When McDowell tells Michael—after the body count has been steadily rising—that "I've failed you," I thought to myself "Ya think?" Zombie's Dr. Loomis laments why Michael is so screwed up he can't be helped; Carpenter's Dr. Loomis realizes Michael is just plain evil, he's dangerous, and needs to be locked away forever. Which one do you think would sustain more tension in the storyline?

The trend toward making serial killers humongous in stature also works against subtlety here. Tyler Mane's Michael Myers is visually imposing, but evil is most devilish when it comes in  average height. And how the hell did little Mikey grow so big anyway? Mask-making is hardly a resistance-exercise, and that's all he did in his little cell; make paper-maché masks of all kinds to hide his face.

Zombie does toss in a few nods to the original film, and makes good use of the original soundtrack. There's also a nod to his former band, White Zombie, as  Murder Legendre briefly pops up on a television screen. Zombie continues this theme as classic horror movies appear on television screens here and there. Numerous cameos include Micky Dolenz and Sid Haig.

Zombie knows his craft, but relies on trash-violence and unsavory characters to tell his story every time, demeaning the level of artistry Carpenter showed in the original. Giving Michael Myers a sordid background, filled with animal cruelty and vicious murder, removes the mystery behind the mask, making this just another slasher film whose action  could have taken place at any time during the year. But this movie’s monster is supposed to be the Halloween bogeyman, damn it.

Re-imaginings like these make us realize what makes a classic so classic. That, at least, is a good thing.

Movie Review: Phantasm (1979) Beware the Tall Man

Zombos Says: Very Good

 

Welcome to your nightmare, Mike.

Your parents are dead and your brother Jody is thinking of dumping you off to your aunt while he hits the road in his Plymouth Barracuda muscle car. I'd be depressed, too. It's no wonder your imagination starts running wild. I'd start imagining all sorts of phantasms if loss and abandonment were uppermost in my mind.

Being a kid in the 1970s doesn't help much, either. After that exuberant, but now defunct, 1960s high, Tom Wolfe's aptly named "Me Decade," is spinning out of control like a bad, long, hallucinatory trip that begins with a glittering disco ball and quickly morphs into one of the Tall Man's sentinel spheres sticking out of your forehead, drilling into your brain.

Phantasm is Don Coscarelli's acid trip on the dark side. With many social institutions losing their veneer of propriety in the 70s, Coscarelli made sure to beat up our quaint notions of peaceful death, comforting undertakers, and simple horror movies. His low-budget film, initially financed by his dad and picked up by Universal after a rough-cut showing, is a tad dated in the special effects department, but remains a scary, bizarre, trip centering around Morningside Mortuary with Mini-Me versions of recently deceased people popping up, flying metal balls with nasty skull-drills popping up, and a tall sneering gentleman from another place far far away popping up. Able to lift long coffins with a single arm, and endowed with abilities far beyond those of mere mortals like Jody, Mike, and Reggie—the guitar-playing ice-cream man—the Tall Man is one cantankerous and dangerous undertaker.

So go ahead, toss an ABBA platter onto the old turn-table and crank up the volume if that will help make you feel better for a little while. It's time to have that safe, comfy, feeling blown out from under you, when even in death you get no respect.

Can you dig it?

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes Phantasm a cult classic. While the direction is a bit rough, there's a distinct momentum in scenes, like a deck of cards being neatly shuffled with each card crisply riffling into the interweaving pile. While the acting is also a bit amateurish, there's a disarming simplicity to each of the characters, making their nightmarish ordeal stand out against the ordinariness of their lives. While some of the effects are low-tech, they play on the absurd terror of the situation, and the eerie, almost dreamlike—or nightmare-like—situations that reveal more of the sardonic Tall Man's alien nature, and his sacrilegious dwarfing-down of the bodies of loved ones supposed to be at rest.

The film opens with a glimpse of sex and murder precipitated by the Tall Man's more feminine side. In a weird twist that disorients with its shock-blink between her and him, we're hustled into a funeral that brings together best-buds even though the unexpected death of their buddy, Tommy, breaks up their musical trio for good. Now with little left to hold him down, Jody is ready to leave the small town, but Mike, his younger brother, doesn't want to lose the only close family he has left. But Mike has little time to be depressed; the mortuary's undertaker is a queer sort, and Mike starts to suspect why.

Or is Mike just punch-drunk from grief and imagining things?

Not knowing which end is up, Mike heads to his local psychic for help. She plays the old stick-your-hand-in-the-box trick and tells him to control his fear. But fear from what? Leaving the psychic, he's more confused than when he went in, so he stays close to his big brother. Trolling the local bar, Jody picks up the same "woman" who iced his bud, Tommy. Lucky for him, Mike interrupts his brother's nocturnal romp in the cemetery before she can do any harm.

The next day, while following Jody around again, Mike sees the Tall Man walking across the street. A blast of cold air from an ice-cream truck attracts the Tall Man's attention. Angus Scrimm is surreal as the lean, mean, undertaker-machine. His voice, his face, his whole body makes you want to run the other way when he approaches. Like the alien harvester in 1957's Not of This Earth, the Tall Man is up to no good, and Mike aims to find out just what that is.

Taking a sharp knife with him, Mike heads to Morningside Mortuary.

Late at night, of course.

A quick kick through the basement window later, he's prowling around the creepy marble hallways. In no time at all, he's barely escaping encounters with an oversized ball-bearing from hell and the Tall Man and his Jawa-looking munchkins. After slamming a big metal door shut before he's caught, he's startled to find the Tall Man's hand, flattened, still moving, and sticking out of the tiny crack in the door frame. He lops off a few of its fingers, spilling yellow ichor from the stumps. Mike realizes it's time to high-tail it out of there. Before he goes, he grabs one of the fingers as evidence.

More nightmarish events ensue after underage Mike downs a beer or two and convinces Jody not all is right with Morningside Mortuary. Jody loads up the old family gun and heads there—again at night—but gets attacked by a dwarf and makes a run for it. Worse yet, a hearse chases after him, driven by a much shorter—didn't we just bury him?—Tommy. Underage Mike pulls up in the bitchin' Barracuda, and the race is on. Reggie pulls up in his ice-cream truck after the hearse crashes and they discover the diminutive Tommy at the wheel.

Jody sends Mike to Sally's antique store for safety while they stuff the little guy into Reggie's truck so the squirt can ooze yellow ichor over all the popsicles. While perusing the antiques back at Sally's, Mike's eyes pop out when he comes across an old tintype photo of the Tall Man that comes alive (Stephen King uses the same effect in his novel, IT).

Looks like the guy's been around for a long, long time. Great. Time to rethink their fighting strategy.

Reggie, the ice-cream packing, guitar-strumming dude, joins in the fight. Being an ice-cream packing, guitar-strumming dude, he gets whooped good when Tommy bounces back to angry life among the popsicles. When the three of them—Mike, Jody, and Reggie—regroup and converge on the mortuary, they find the gateway to another world, lots more angry munchkins ready for UPS Global pickup, and all about what the Tall Man's been up to. Just when you think the story is nice-and-tidily ended, Coscarelli throws in a curve-ball. With three sequels, the Tall Man is unstoppable.

Phantasm will leave you wanting more flying balls of death, more of the Tall Man's shenanigans, and more munchkin-madness.

 

Movie Review: Silent Hill (2006) Dear Mr. Ebert

Zombos Says: Good 

Dear Mr. Ebert:

I am aghast that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, cannot describe the plot for this movie. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so I think the plot woefully obvious. Allow me to illustrate it, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this gripping horror story.

But before I begin, I was wondering what you use for a light source when you take notes during the movie? I've tried various book-lights and pen-lights, but they're either too bright, annoying those sitting around me, or too awkward to position, or uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. I was lucky with Silent Hill as there was an Exit sign which cast just enough reddish light for me to see what I was writing. Of course, I had to sit on the floor next to it, but it wasn't too uncomfortable; except for the occasional person stepping over me to go to the bathroom or concession stand. It's a good thing I don't review Disney movies as I'd have had the little monsters and their rude parents incessantly running back and forth, trampling me.

Getting back to Silent Hill, the plot is a simple one, often repeated in horror and science fiction movies. It even reminded me of the Star Trek episode, And the Children Shall Lead, where Gorgon, an evil alien who appears to children as a friendly angel (played by real-life attorney Melvin Belli), takes advantage of their naivety to further his evil plans. He uses them as a conduit for his nasty powers. Now instead of an evil alien, in Silent Hill we have a kid, Alessa, who's being used by a malevolent demon to exact malicious mischief and revenge on the titular (I always love using that word: it sounds so naughty) townspeople that did her wrong.

Now—oh, wait a minute—is it a demon that is using the girl as a conduit or is it actually the dark half of the girl that's taking revenge on the townsfolk? The convoluted explanation toward the last quarter of the movie, oddly done in an inappropriate grainy faux-home-movie-styled flashback, describes how badly the poor kid was mistreated, and how she eventually split into a dark half who curses and destroys the town and everyone in it, and a good half the dark half sends away, only to call it back after nine years.

But then why bother to send the good half away, only to have it return after nine years?

I missed something. I better start over.

 

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I'm surprised that you, as mentioned in your review for Silent Hill, can't describe the plot for this move. I, as you, have not played the video game, but even so, I think the plot fairly obvious. Allow me to illustrate, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this atmospheric horror story.

Alessa, born out of wedlock, is tormented by her classmates, victimized by the school janitor, and cooked like a hot dog by a wacky religious cult. The poor kid, amazingly, survives all this rude treatment and, naturally, develops an evil personification that can reach out from her badly scarred and bed-ridden body to maliciously destroy her tormentors. No wonder there.

Then again, you could look at it this way: a demon from hell takes advantage of the poor girl’s revengeful, hate-filled state of mind to kill everybody in town and lock their souls into a very imaginatively depicted hell-like limbo filled with endless horrific punishments. 

After wreaking chaos and horror on the townsfolk, she realizes she's been acting rather badly and decides to create a good version of herself—pre-nastiness and all that, which she then sends away to live with total strangers until precisely nine years pass. Demon Alessa—or just a hell-spawned demon along for the ride—then summons pre-nastiness Alessa (now Sharon) back to town to…to...what?

And what’s that weird, confusing backstory about a witch burned by townsfolk and the town being on fire for years and years?

Oh, bugger! I thought I had it this time. I have to start over.

 

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I'm not surprised that you can't describe the plot for Silent Hill. It can be confusing to those not all that familiar with horror movies. Allow me to explain, with as much brevity as possible, so you can better appreciate the nuances of this visually stunning and creepy movie.

But first, I must give kudos to the art direction.

It's a wonderful creaturefest of makeup, CGI-enhanced sets and coloration, and icky-monster costuming that's quite a treat to watch. The creatures are nightmarish, in that nifty damned-to-hell kind of way, and the sounds and music when Alessa's mom goes deeper into that cursed town—especially when the siren blares a warning that the town is going ‘into the darkness’—is goosebumps inducing, evoking quite a horrific mood; and those embers glowing on the damned creatures’ bodies, and all that falling ash and pall over the town—again, Dante himself couldn't have done any better.

The script is another matter entirely.

The dialog, for instance, is atrocious. Many of the lines are eye-rollingly bad. The acting also needed better acting, especially during the climactic Barkeresque Hellraiser-styled confrontation in the church between Alessa’s mom and those evil cult members.

Mom does manage to walk through a congregation of crazed, kid-roasting individuals with amazing ease, doesn't she?

And the verbal showdown between them is so contextually dry; I wish I had Visine to squirt in my eyes each time they rolled around those groaners.

While I'm at it, what's with the black, skin-tight, leather uniform on the female motorcycle cop: I mean really, could you get it any tighter? How DOES she get on the motorcycle dressed in those tight pants? All she needs to complete her ludicrous ensemble is a pair of stiletto heels. Her weak acting during her own barbecue scene in the church is also very disappointing, especially when she’s the one being barbecued. A little more Ouch! or Ooh! would have provided more drama.

But before I go off on a tangent, let me explain the plot.

Alessa, a poor kid born out of wed-lock and who winds up roasted like a turkey by an evil religious cult while HER mom puts up little resistance, takes revenge on the townspeople of Silent Hill.

Though I'm not sure if this occurred before the fires broke out in the mines or afterwards. I'm also not sure how the witch burning, thirty years beforehand, fits into the events with Alessa. There seem to be a few storylines going on here and little explanation to tie them together.

Anyway, from her hospital bed, the badly scarred and immobile Alessa, either through sheer malevolent will power, or by the assistance of a hellish demon (maybe the witch’s familiar?) destroys the town and its citizens, forcing their spirits to ‘live’ in a nightmare world that puts Dante’s Inferno to shame. They must endure not only the hellish Limbo they've been caught in, but also the Darkness that brings Pyramid Head (you need to have played the video game, but a guy with a pyramid on his head) and his agonies (give or take a few like in the video game) to torture them if they're unlucky enough to be caught outside their only sanctuary, the church.

Alessa, for some reason, sends off a good version of herself as a baby, now named Sharon, and then summons Sharon back to Silent Hill after nine years. Since Sharon sleepwalks and blurts out "Silent Hill" in her sleep a lot, her mom, casting caution to the wind, takes her to Silent Hill.

Not exactly sure why since Sharon’s scared sh+tless of the place. Perhaps her mom is just taking that confronting your fears thing a little too seriously?

Yes, Silent Hill! The one with all the well-known, evilly-cursed stuff attached to it. A place so notorious, Sharon’s father reads about it on the web at www.ghosttowns.com. This is the ABANDONED place that has had toxic fires burning beneath it for years, so much so that ash continually falls from the sky, and deadly fumes reek forth so badly not even a Glade Plug-in Air Freshener could cover it up.

So her mom takes her there, AT NIGHT, hoping to find out why her daughter keeps sleepwalking and saying “Silent Hill” a lot and seems so frightened of the damned place.

Along the way they're almost stopped by a dominatrix-looking motorcycle cop who dresses in impossibly tight leather motorcycle garb (minus stiletto heels, though), but her mom is determined to bring Sharon (really Alessa) to that deserted, fires-still-burning, town (that nobody else wants to go near)—in the middle of the night no less—so she puts the pedal to the metal, promptly crashing her car in the process.

Mom wakes up, finds her daughter missing, and heads into town on foot. The motorcycle cop follows them, promptly crashes her motorcycle, and heads into town on foot, too.

Now, Mr. Ebert, here is where the subtlety begins.

You see, Sharon (really Alessa), her mom, and the motorcycle cop are actually dead, but they don't realize it. They died in their respective vehicular crashes. This is why they can be affected by the creatures and hellish darkness of Silent Hill while her husband, and the others searching for her, walk through the town unaffected and unaware.

Now Alessa, as Sharon, has her mom and the cop go through quite a few trials and tribulations to find her so she can use them to get into the church to send those evil cult members to Hell—well, more Hell that is, seeing as they're all ready knee deep in it. Much gore ensues as Alessa gloats and tears them apart in a scene of ripping butchery that Pinhead would be proud of. Sharon as Alessa--or Alessa as Sharon--and mom then walk back to the car, buckle themselves in for safety—this time—and head home.

Of course, there's the confusing sequelization-antic ending (my term for forcing a sequel: clever, huh?), where the husband is home as they return home, but he can’t see them and they can’t see him. The scene shifts between husband in his nice sunlit home and them in their bleak, ominous-looking home. Sharon-now-Alessa, or the demon posing as Sharon-now-Alessa, gives us that sinister, look, so common in horror movies these days, to tip us off that it isn’t over until the franchise says it’s over.

With them being dead, though, how, exactly, does dead Alessa benefit from taking over now dead Sharon’s body?

And they (the script writers, I mean) still haven't explained why the witch was burned or why the fires started in the mines in the first place.

Oh bloody hell. I thought I finally had it right this time. Crap.

 

Dear Mr. Ebert,

Never mind. You were right as usual.

Yours Truly,

Zoc

PS. We miss you. 

Movie Review: The Return of the Vampire (1944)

Zombos Says: Good

Bela Lugosi's career didn't fare well after his initial fame withDracula. Having apparently failed the makeup screen test forFrankenstein—though he wasn't overly found of playing the monster anyway—his reserved and aloof demeanor kept him from ingratiating himself with the Hollywood in-crowd. That, and the rapidly rising stardom of Boris Karloff after his noted portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster, put Lugosi in a deteriorating career position.

Although he created intensely unique and effective characters such as Dracula, Murder Legendre in White Zombie, and Ygor in Son of Frankenstein, he spent much of his time acting in lesser roles. After Dracula, he portrayed a "real" vampire onscreen only two more times; as Armand Tesla in The Return of the Vampire, and as the more comedic count in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Lew Landers' The Return of the Vampire plays like a Brothers Grimm fairytale. You have your evil villain, the occultist turned vampire, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), his reluctant servant who is tragically caught between good and evil and lycanthropy, and a wartime beleaguered, bomb-ruined London as backdrop seething with revenge creeping in the foggy night.

The story begins as the first World War ends. Lady Jane (Frieda Inescot) and Dr. Saunders (Gilbert Emery) must come to terms with a vampire in their midst. After he attacks a child, Dr. Saunders convinces Lady Jane that their problem goes beyond scientific understanding, and the two set out to find the blood-sucking fiend. But not before Dr. Saunders reads up on the annoying supernatural pests, written by one Armand Tesla, noted authority in the field.

It is an ironic, somewhat foreboding comment Dr. Saunders makes regarding the limitations of science to convince Lady Jane of the existence of something not analyzable under her microscope; only a few years later, the inexplicable horrors of the supernatural world will be supplanted by the inexplicable mutant horrors wrought by science and radiation. After World War II and the atomic bomb, vampires and werewolves would appear less frightening compared to the threats from giant ants, giant spiders, and giant blobs.

The shift from personal destruction to mass destruction has begun.

As night approaches, Lady Jane and Dr. Saunders find Tesla in his coffin and drive a steel spike into his heart, freeing Andreas (Matt Willis), Tesla's werewolf servant, from his evil grasp, and ending Tesla's reign of terror. Years later, in the aftermath of a World War II Nazi bombing raid, civil defense workers mistakenly remove the spike from Tesla's heart, freeing him to seek vengeance on the family that stopped his vampiric-evil many years before. The scene is reminiscent of a similar scene inFrankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, when Larry Talbot is freed from his tomb by two similarly bumbling, but not very civil-minded, grave robbers.

Andreas, whom the good Lady Jane took in as her laboratory assistant, once again succumbs to Tesla's evil mind control and turns back into his rather huggable werewolf form, gleefully killing people in order to help Tesla assume a new identity and execute his nefarious plan of vengeance against Lady Jane and her loved ones. Andreas' hirsute persona is more Jekyll and Hyde than a straightforward, rip-out-your-throat, bay at the full-moon, kind of werewolf. He's fully conscious of what he's doing, but simply loves killing people and being downright nasty when under Tesla's control.

Against the backdrop of bombed-out London—the aftermath of real horror brought about by the "Jerries"—Andreas and his undead master walk quietly amid the ruins unnoticed, anachronistic folkloric monsters in a tableau of a larger monstrosity, the death and destruction of war. It is an eerie composition; dark spookshow theatrics of cemeteries and fog mingling with scenes of carnage and black-out curtains.

The film moves well and Lugosi, while older, still plays the vampire with a sufficient touch of malice. The addition of his werewolf servant is an odd touch, especially since his servant doesn't act like a werewolf—he talks a lot and wears a suit—but it does provide a unique aspect to the storyline and the need for redemption as Andreas fights for his salvation at the end. Why he becomes a werewolf when Tesla takes control of him is not explained, but Andreas retains his tie and voice whether he's hairy or clean-shaven, which is either sublimely ridiculous or deeply meaningful.

I vote for the former as it's more fun to watch than try to explain.

After Dr. Saunders dies in a plane crash, his manuscript, detailing the exploit with Armand Tesla many years before, falls into the hands of Sir Frederick Fleet of Scotland Yard (Miles Mander). Lady Jane is warned she may be implicated in a murder if Tesla's body is found, but Lady Jane takes up the good fight as she tries to convince Sir Fleet that body is still above ground and a vampire is prowling London. In true stiff upper lip fashion, she pouts in calm determination as Sir Fleet tish-toshes the notion politely, but both still work together to stop Tesla for good. As a woman of science and reason, Lady Jane's strong-willed professionalism foreshadows the career women that will soon grace many a sci-fi horror film in the decade to follow.

The Return of the Vampire is a good B-Movie that got lost in the transition from the Gothic-horror cycle to the scientifically-induced horrors of the 1950s. By 1944, Lugosi, the talking movie screen's first great monster star, exchanged his opera cape for a lab coat in Voodoo Man, and again in 1945 in Zombies on Broadway, playing a mad scientist. In the emerging world of science gone amoral, mad science became all the rage.

For poor Bela, his return was short-lived. He got lost in the transition also.

He deserved better.