We're over halfway through now, and I'll be damned if I'm done with it.
The usual: grade can change between here and Facebook, look out for SPOILERS (there's many in this week's digest), and so on.
Here's my grading system again:
A =
Excellent, a must see
B = Very
good, I’d watch it again
C = Worth
Seeing
D = Maybe
don’t bother
F =
Worthless
+ = Superior
for this grade
- = Just barely
makes it into this grade
This batch of films included my Christopher Lee festival. It was ok, but even if Lee was an excellent specimen of the 50s and early 60s, my interest in that time period only stretches so far. However, one of these films currently holds the best grade of the year. So that's a little exciting, eh?
Onwards...
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Horror Hotel (aka City of the Damned) (John Llewellyn Moxey) - C-
Back in the bad, old days of New England, Elizabeth Selwyn
was burned for being accused of witchcraft. For once, the angry mob got it
right. Just before she burns, Satan grants Elizabeth a brief reprieve to curse
the town of Whitewood forever. Flash forward to modern day, Nan Barlow is
hearing a lecture by Professor Driscoll (CHRISTOPHER LEE). Driscoll is a bit of
a witchcraft buff, and Nan approaches him, revealing her desire to study a
small New England town with a sinister past. Driscoll recommends - where else?
- Whitewood, and from there Nan is lured into a trap that features her as a
living sacrifice. When she is gone for two weeks, her older brother Professor
Dick Barlow, her sweetheart Maitland, and Patricia, a descendant of the
Whitewood's non-witch community, try to find out what's happened to her.
Sounds a bit like Psycho, doesn't it? Just in that a female
protagonist gets slain halfway through, and her family and boyfriend have to
pick up where she left off (not to mention her murder in a hotel). Released the
same year as Hitchcock's classic, there are definitely some similarities
between the two thematically.
However, where Horror Hotel has trouble is that
its second half is too similar to its first. With all the reveals out of the
way, watching Dick and his crew follow after Nan feels kind of tiring. Luckily,
there are plenty of excellent sets, lighting, and ambiance to keep the mood
going, it just gets a little dull. Even the finale, in which Maitland
obliterates the witch coven with the power of Christ, can't save it from this
fate.
Lee as Driscoll is one of the better performances in the
film, though his other nefarious co-stars, Valentine Dyall as Jethrow Keane and Patricia Jessel as Elizabeth Selwyn are suitably sinister. Jessel especially
steals the show, but she gets far more screen time than Lee or Dyall.
The young folks are your typical, hapless college folk though. They're
oblivious to every warning sign, and probably deserve to be blood sacrifices.
The Gorgon (Terence Fisher) - C
Its 1910, and man oh man, has it been a bad week for the
Heitz family. First older brother Bruno was found hanged in the small
community of Vandorf. Then, Professor Jules Heitz, hot on the trail of
the local murderer no one wants to seem to help him find, is turned to stone.
Finally, Paul, youngest of the Heitz clan, arrives to find a note from his
father warning him about the town. Paul attempts to unravel the mystery
himself, but is constantly harangued by Dr. Namaroff (played By Hammer Horror's other star, Peter Cushing), owner of the local
insane asylum. Both of them have fallen for Namaroff's assistant, Carla. Namaroff is resolute in stopping Paul's investigation, and almost gets away
with it until Paul's mentor, Professor Meister (CHRISTOPHER LEE) shows up.
Meister is essentially the Chuck Norris of The Gorgon. He arrives on the scene
only in the last third of the film, but he immediately knows what's up: Carla
is, somehow, the reincarnation of the Greek gorgon Magera. Any who look upon
her will surely turn to stone. He tries to stop Paul from absconding with Carla, but Paul is headstrong, and ends up having a final battle with Namaroff in Carla's statuary lair. In the end, both Paul and Namaroff are
turned to stone, leaving Meister to behead the monster.
In many ways, The Gorgon is similar to Horror Hotel. They
both feature a xenophobic, small town with a dark secret that an outsider has
to unravel. In both films, the character you think you're going to watch save
the day is slain early, and in both films, the community rails against the solving
of its mysteries. What really got me into The Gorgon was watching Christopher
Lee play a hero. You almost never see that, as he was a pretty grim-looking
(and sounding) fellow. He steals the show the second he turns up in Vandorf,
making smart choices and having the foresight many of the Heitz family seems
to lack. There's undeniable chemistry between Cushing and Lee, who, at this
point, were old hands at doing this kind of film for Hammer (though in this
movie, they only share one scene).
The special effects were a bit puzzling, though. On the one
hand, the make-up effects used for characters turned to stone are very well
done (this was long before computers, or Tom Savini, at a time when Hammer's
make up and especially gore effects were held in high regard). On the other
hand, the monster - basically a Medusa - is awful to look at, but not in the
stone-turning way. The snakes in her hair look especially terrible, which says
nothing of the reptilian tone they gave the actress' skin, or the giant, bright
green maternity dress they clothed her in. Thankfully, you only get a good look
at Magera during the finale, so you're not subjected to that horror for long.
And, hey, it’s not every day you'll see a Medusa in a genre film.
A Taste of Fear (Seth Holt) - C+
We open on authorities pulling a woman's body out of the
water in Europe. We later learn that this is Maggie, a friend and helper of
Penny Appleby. Penny is the only daughter of Father (this is the only name Mr. Appleby is given), who owns a chic estate in the
Ivory Coast. The film starts following the wheelchair-bound Penny, who had been
summoned by her father to his estate. She is collected at the airport by
Robert, her father's chauffeur. Robert seems a sweet sort, and he informs Penny
that her father left just before she arrived. At the house, Penny meets Jane,
the woman her father married after her mother died, and Dr. Gerard (CHRISTOPHER
LEE), a local doctor that has been more and more in Jane's company of late. On
her first night, Penny goes into a room she spies a light on in, and comes face
to face with her dead father, gazing at her with dead eyes. But when Jane and
Robert come to investigate, there's no sign of Father's body anywhere. Penny
eventually becomes convinced that Jane and Dr. Gerard have killed her father,
and are now conspiring to drive her mad, thereby negating Penny's claim on Father's inheritance. Penny recruits the sympathetic Robert to help her find
proof of this crime, and bring the guilty parties to justice. Normally, I'd
tell you how it ends here, but there's a few twists at the end of this one
(unprecedentedly clever for 1961), and it's the kind of slow burn you need to
experience for yourself.
A Taste of Fear is a thriller, for sure. The tension amps up
nicely, and there are only a few moments in which you feel the movie stoops to
cheap scares (these almost always come on the form of a Point-of-View shot from Penny, as
she looks around a room slowly, eventually finding her father's corpse). Even
though these scenes are technically as relevant to the plot as the rest of the
film, they feel like they set the narrative back a few minutes. At times, Penny
can be a bit insufferable, as she's almost inexplicably sharp about the murder
of her father, and takes action against Jane and Gerard a lot faster than you'd
expect from a wealthy young lady. This is somewhat explained by the ending,
though. A Taste of Fear features breathtaking sets and locations. Father's
mansion is especially detailed, and the camera does a good job of letting your
eyes drink these details in.
But what about my boy, Christopher Lee? Well, once again,
while he is the top name in the cast, he takes a back seat to Penny, Jane and
Robert. Nowhere in A Taste of Fear does Gerard get menacing or evil, rather,
Lee plays him as a concerned doctor, that truly wants to aid in Penny's
comfort. Also worth noting, Lee pulls out all the stops by using a French
accent for the character (and in the process, no longer has the same dour tone
to his voice). He takes a bit more of the spotlight in the finale, but even
then, it’s mostly a Penny-Jane-Robert affair. Ultimately, Lee steals the show
when he's on camera, but he's not on camera nearly enough.
Troll (John Carl Buelcher) - F
The Potters have just moved into a new apartment building.
Little Wendy rolls her ball into the laundry room, and ends up being abducted
by a troll, a hairy, diminutive, super strong humanoid (some kind of faerie, we
are later told). The Troll has a magic ring that allows him to somehow pose as
Wendy, who then proceeds to become the problem child of the century. Mom
and Dad are a little too busy goofing off through the movie to realize that
their small daughter is throwing their son, Harry Potter Jr, into the the
ceiling. While Harry befriends Eunice, a friendly witch that lives on the top
floor, Wendy starts visiting each stereotyped character's apartment one by one,
zapping the occupants with her magic ring. This turns the apartments into
limitless outdoor fantasy worlds that spawn a bunch of little singing creatures
(or in one case, makes Julia Louis Dreyfus prance around, 90% nude, shooting bad special effects into the air). Eunice informs Harry of what's really going
on: the Troll is her jilted ex-lover that seeks to turn the entire apartment
building into a universe for faerie creatures, thereby allowing such beings
back into the world. When Eunice fails to stop him, it falls to young Harry to
pick up the wizard mantle, and save his family.
Look, I'm giving this an F, but it's pretty absurd and isn't
trying very hard. You could watch this and get a few laughs, but here's why you
shouldn't, and instead, watch its 'sequel', Troll 2 (which is absolutely worse
from pretty much every conceivable angle, and yet, it manages to be probably
one of the funniest movies you could ever hope to see because of it):
- Both child actors are awful. Wendy you can kind of excuse, because she's younger, and actually a troll. But Harry Potter Jr is on the screen a lot, and is just horribly awkward. Not one line he delivers sounds natural, or even fits with the hammy adults he interacts with.
- Pretty much squanders Michael Moriarty, who is amazing in bad movies. No one can deliver a cheeseball line as well as this man, and sadly, he is wasted or off screen through most of the picture.
- When it came to special effects, Troll chose quantity over quality. You'll see a lot of weird, little creatures, but they are pretty much models with maybe one or two moving parts. They sing Latin, though.
- Baffling twist ending. Not one you don't see coming either, it just doesn't make any sense. Plus you get no closure on any of the characters but Eunice.
- Hard to tell who this movie was made for. It has all the elements of being a children's movie, but also features the S-word way too many times for 1986 to get away with marketing it to kids, and features a sleazy, misogynist creep that disappoints random women in his apartment. Oh, and its kinda racist against little people.
So, yeah. Not quality cinema, and nowhere near as
rewatchably terrible as its completely unrelated follow-up. There are moments
that might make you chuckle, but they're few and far between.
Joe Weber is an anthropologist, and while studying
indigenous tribes in South America, he receives a phone call from his ex-wife. It
seems their son, Jeremy, has been incredibly difficult lately, and she wants to
pass him off to Joe. Though he agrees, Joe is currently between homes, and
their only solution is to move to Maine, where Joe's aunt Clara has left him a
house. Within one night of their being there, Joe and Jeremy discover their new
home in sleepy Salem's Lot is a community of vampires (and their servants, whom
the bloodsuckers call drones). The vampires, led by Judge Axel, have lured Joe
there to chronicle the history of their race. Joe is hesitant at first, despite
everyone in town suddenly being real friendly, so Axel secures his loyalty by
starting to turn Jeremy. A bizarre stranger, an old man named Van Buren, and
Joe eventually join forces, and attempt to destroy the vampires to save
Jeremy's soul.
Now, I've never seen Salem's Lot (a Stephen King property, directed by Tobe Hooper).
This film is an unofficial sequel (King's name only appears in the credits once
- inspired by characters written by:), so I can't really tell you how it
compares to that movie. But, as a standalone effort, A Return to Salem's Lot is
actually a very decent vampire adventure flick from the 80s. Likely because of
its sequel status, this one doesn't pussyfoot around slowly revealing what the
town is, or explaining the back story, or detailing what kills the vampires. It
sets out to create a narrative about a problematic father and son, who conquer
diversity, and overcome their selfish differences.
The effects are used very sparingly, and mostly at the
beginning (within the first 20 minutes, the entire town sets upon a carload of
punks that are in the wrong place at the wrong time). While they are not
necessarily impressive, Cohen seems to grasp the effectiveness of not allowing
the camera to linger on them too long. The last third of the film, where Joe
and Van Buren start systematically destroying vampires, coffins and drones,
is especially engaging. Both Michael Moriarty, who plays Joe, and Samuel Fuller, who
plays Van Buren turn in excellent performances too. Cohen knows just how to
blend the comedic timing, and the suspense, making for a very effective
picture. Many of you will probably scoff at this one's age and low budget feel,
but the narrative is solid, and I was consistently entertained.
Larry Cohen is an often unmentioned director of this genre,
but having now seen a good chunk of his filmography, I'm convinced he's one of
the better directors of his day. He might not have the most breathtaking style,
but he does much more with a lot less than many other filmmakers. If you're
looking for something different in a horror movie, try checking out one of his.
This is a good one, as is Q (the Winged Serpent), which I watched last year as a part of MMMMM2014. Something a little more goofy, but still rather solid is
The Stuff, a cult classic about an alien that disguises itself as a marshmallow
dessert, and takes over any human that eats it. All of these films feature
Michael Moriarty in a starring role as well, and displays a range from him that
many other directors neglect to evoke (like in Troll, for example).
In 1994, a New Orleans journalist Daniel Malloy sits down with a vampire,
who is eager to chronicle his centuries of existence. The vampire, Louis, was
turned in the late 1700s by Lestat, a loose-moraled monster that doesn't care
much for his new progeny's squeamishness. Louis is soft hearted, and refuses to
kill any mortals, opting instead to feed on rats and other vermin to slake his
thirst. Not much later, Louis happens upon Claudia, a child that has just lost
her mother to plague. Louis feeds on her in a fit of hunger, but when Lestat
turns up to gloat, Louis finds he no longer has the stomach for it. Lestat
turns Claudia as a companion for Louis, but after 30 years, and realizing
she'll never grow up, Claudia turns on Lestat. With Louis' help, the pair first
slashes Lestat's throat and dump his body in the swamp. He returns almost
immediately to take revenge, but Louis sets him ablaze with an oil lamp. In the
chaos of Lestat's destruction, Claudia and Louis escape to Europe, where they
hope to meet others of their kind. Eventually arriving in Paris, Louis makes
contact with a coven of vampires that run an abstract theatre. The group's
leader, Armand, is very accepting of Louis, but he and the other vampires are
repulsed by Claudia, who is not only in a child's body (something they don't do
in Europe), but also was the ring leader in killing Lestat. And so the Parisian
vampires leave Claudia out for the sun, planning to entomb Louis forever in the
walls of their lair. Armand rescues him, but it is too late for Claudia. Louis
loses all vestiges of his humanity then, and kills all the Parisian vampires,
save Armand, who he abandons to his own fate. Louis travels Europe until the
modern day, where he encounters Lestat, back in New Orleans. Repulsive now to
behold, Lestat has led a life of seclusion and has completely been unable to
adapt to modern times (a helicopter shines a flood light into their window, and
Lestat loses his shit, thinking the sun has suddenly risen). Louis finishes his
story, and Malloy scampers off to publish his article. Lestat intercepts
him on the freeway, and, while showing us he's learned to drive, reveals he
plans to now turn Malloy.
This movie was a big, big deal in its day, featuring the
star power of Brad Pitt (Louis), Christian Slater (Malloy), a
child-star Kirsten Dunst (Claudia), Antonio Banderas (Armand) and Tom Cruise
(Lestat). While you might imagine some of these actors are miscast, keep in mind
that Anne Rice's novel the film is based on was one of the most popular book
series around, and many in Hollywood were probably interested. As it stands,
though, the cast does an admirable job. Sure, no one has an accent, but pretty
much everyone plays their part well. Dunst as Claudia is especially effective, and
you feel the years in her character the most. Montages of her growing up with
Lestat are some of the warmest (though still suitably dark) in horror. Tom
Cruise, who I'm usually not a fan of, is passable as Lestat. I felt he yelled a
lot for a character that's supposed to be so detached, but that's hardly a
major complaint. Also, have you always wanted to watch Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas almost kiss, but never could find the movie to do it with? Well, search no further. There are a truckload of homosexual overtones to our vampires, none of which are really addressed (or acted upon - likely too hot button of an issue for Hollywood to touch in 1994), but it's so blatant that it's impossible not to understand this is exactly what was being implied about these characters. That's fine too. Rice's Vampires' desire for blood is their new sexuality.
But where I do take issue is with the pacing of the film,
and with the details you are given about your protagonists. At just over two
hours long, the first half of the film, featuring Louis and Claudia being
turned, and the eventual 'murder' of Lestat is very long, and very repetitive.
By comparison, the second half has a lot of action, but not a lot of
exposition. Louis' quest for answers just gets violent. It is really
surprising, for example, when Louis manages to wipe out the Parisians because we've never seen him in battle before. In fact, Louis never displayed any
powers, save for when he reveals himself to Malloy, and it's implied that older vampires are much more capable (which
certainly a majority of the Parisian vampires are, compared to Louis). Very little
exposition is given on any aspect of the film's details - the sources of
Lestat's wealth, the extent of Louis and Claudia's powers, and much about
vampiric society is left unexplored. It's all well and good to have a good
looking cast and the budget to afford lavish sets and props, but when there's
gaps in your exposition, it lowers the stakes, and as a result, the action and
drama are less exciting. If you don't tell me how your world works, why should I care? Speaking about things I should care about, let's talk about the movie's score. It is atrocious. The score REALLY misses the tone the film sets out to create, and instead, feels like it should have been in an action/adventure film (one that isn't about vampires). As it is, Interview With the Vampire feels a little flavor of the month to me, likely cashing in on the 90s Vampire craze Anne Rice created (and later destroyed), with little regard for the film surviving with age (featuring the hottest actors of the day, a trendy director of the moment, and MONEY). Bram Stoker's Dracula is better in almost every conceivable way, and still manages to hold up.
Red State (Kevin Smith) - B+
Three young men, Travis, Jarod and Billy Ray, are on their
way to meeting up with a lonely cougar for a night of gangbanging. But soon
after their arrival, they're all drugged and taken prisoner by the fanatical
Christian Cooper family (think a heavily armed Westboro Baptist Church). After
a lengthy sermon by Abin Cooper, the evangelical patriarch of the clan, Jarod
& Billy Ray free themselves and attempt to escape. Billy Ray is caught and
executed, taking one of the Coopers with him. This buys Jarod enough time to
hide. In the confusion, a sheriff's deputy is slain by the Coopers, leading to
back up being called in. ATF agents, led by Agent Joseph Keenan, arrive and lay siege to the Cooper compound, resulting in a major shootout between themselves
and the Coopers (and, surprise, surprise, Jarod is the first casualty). Cheyenne, the Cooper tasked with protecting the children, frees Travis and
attempts to escort him to the agents so that the remaining Coopers can be taken
alive. The agents shoot both Travis and Cheyenne dead, however, as they are under
strict order to take no prisoners. Just then, loud trumpets echo across the
county. The Coopers lay down their weapons, convinced these horns symbolize the
arrival of the rapture. The film cuts from this to Keenan being debriefed by
his superiors. The horns were not the rapture, merely the Coopers' neighbors
fucking with them at exactly the right moment. Keenan managed to take the rest
alive. The film closes on Abil in jail, still preaching, but now to an unappreciative
audience.
I really liked this one. While many wouldn't consider it a
horror film, I'd argue that being abducted by fanatical Christians is a modern
day take in the vein of being abducted by cannibals in 1974. It's a modern
concept, for a modern audience. The first half plays out this way especially,
and lingers far longer on Abil's sermon than most directors would both to give
you a heavy earful of fanatical rhetoric and to make the viewer extremely
uncomfortable, waiting for violence. The escape attempts of our trio are
sufficiently heartbreaking, and each one really gives you hope they'll escape. Michael Parks, playing Abil, steals the entire goddamn show. Abil is exactly the kind of person most of us would never want to be in the clutches of, and the more you learn about him, the worse and worse you feel about his captives' chances of survival.
What Red State does that I've never seen a genre film do
before is displace the focus of the film's protagonist not once, but twice. The
first third of the film is undoubtedly the story of Travis, who is even warned
about the dangerous Cult that lives in the next county. The second third puts
you mostly behind Abil Cooper, and while he's not a protagonist, strictly
speaking, he dominates the camera, and you do feel as though you're watching his story. The final third, and ultimately the ending,
follows Agent Keenan (played by John Goodman). It's worth mentioning that Keenan
rails against a violent outcome through the film, arguably in the face of the ATF agents usurping the mantle of villain from the Coopers. This is a
tricky device to attempt, and director Kevin Smith manages it with grace. It's
also notable that I'd probably rate this as the best Kevin Smith movie I've
seen since Dogma. This film represents a huge shift in his direction, as I'm
fairly certain this was followed up by another genre film Tusk.
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In the coming week, from Monday to Friday, I'll be watching my Asian Film Mini-Festival (featuring, in probably order: House (1979), Tetsuo, the Iron Man (1989), Audition (1999), Noroi; the Curse (2005) and Thirst (2009). This wasn't intended, but it actually gives a pretty good idea of selections that came out of Asia (well, only Japan, really) by the decade. As for the bookends to this festival, the jury is still out.
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