Okay, last scary movie of the season, and we come to The Babadook, a movie who a couple people recommended to me as a really scary, really well-done movie. They weren't wrong! Let me just say right now my discussion of it is going to have spoilers, because I've got some ideas or theories about this movie.
When the movie opens, Amelia is a single mother in Australia to her six-year-old son, Samuel. Her husband, Oskar, died in a car crash when she was on the way to the hospital to give birth to Samuel. He's a troubled little boy--he spends his time building weapons out of wood and household objects to fight off some imaginary threat, he gets in trouble constantly at school, and worst of all, he wakes his mother up every night in the middle of the night because of his fear of monsters. Amelia has trouble falling back asleep after being woken up every night, and because of her sleep deprivation she has trouble staying awake at work. She is generally at the end of her rope.
When Samuel wakes up in the middle of the night, Amelia usually reads him a book with the story of the Three Little Pigs. One night, however, he brings her a new book he found on his shelf called the Babadook. It looks like a kid's book on the outside, but once Amelia starts reading it, it's about a horrible creature in a top hat and a long coat and the words are really menacing--"If it's in a word or it's in a look, you can't get rid of the Babadook," it starts off, and halfway through it reads, "And once you see what's underneath, you're going to wish you were DEAD!"
Not surprisingly, the book only worsens Samuel's anxiety and now he really, really won't go to sleep, saying he doesn't want his mother to die. Not only that, weird things start happening--sounds in the house at night, and at lunch she finds glass in some food she's eating. Samuel assures her the Babadook put it in there. At a birthday party for her niece, who is about Samuel's age, Amelia makes a scene with the other guests and Samuel pushes his cousin out of a treehouse after she makes fun of him for not having a father, breaking her nose in two places. And even though Amelia tore the Babadook book up the day before, she finds it taped back together and waiting for her on the front stoop when they arrive home.
Severely sleep deprived, Samuel having finally been kicked out of his school and she taking sick leave from work and cut off from her sister who won't talk to her after the fiasco at the party, Amelia finds herself isolated, with only she and Samuel in the house alone together all day. She becomes increasingly unhinged and even experiences hallucinations and lapses in her memory, tearing the wallpaper from the kitchen walls to find the source of roaches she imagines crawling everywhere, finding herself clutching a kitchen knife she wasn't aware of, and watching TV late at night where her half-sleeping nightmares mix with the programs on the screen.
All of this leads to the final confrontation with the Babadook in some very disturbing scenes. But after the Babadook is defeated, we get a final scene showing it's still in the house. In fact, she and Samuel dig up worms to put in a bowl, and she takes it down to the basement, her late husband's workshop that she's left completely undisturbed, and leaves it on the floor for the Babadook to retrieve and eat in the shadows. It seems the Babadook cannot be really destroyed, only managed.
Okay, I'll start with the theory that a quick perusal of the internet shows is everybody's theory: the Babadook is Amelia herself, or at least it's a physical incarnation of her own resentment for Samuel, whom she subconsciously blames for Oskar's death. It's easy to see that after Oskar's death on the day Samuel was born, she never had time to properly grieve for him what with a newborn to take care of, and over time that repressed emotion grew into something huge and powerful enough to break into the real world. That's why at the end, the Babadook can't truly be killed--it's her own emotion. The only way to control it is to acknowledge it and deal with it.
But now for a couple questions I didn't see addressed anywhere else. First--where did the Babadook book come from? Answer--Amelia wrote it herself.
How do we know this? First, in the party scene at her sister's house, Amelia mentions she used to be a writer, until her son was born, so she has the skill to have done it. Second, if you read the words of the book, they sound threatening at first, but on closer examination, they are actually a warning. Third, we know that Amelia frequently doesn't remember things she did, for instance finding herself in different parts of the house without knowing how she got there, etc., especially in her hazy periods in the middle of the night. I think it's a book she wrote during one of those hazy periods to warn herself and Samuel against the terrible period of madness she knew was coming. (Notice, the previous book they read together was the Three Little
Pigs--all about protecting your house against the wolf, an outside threat. But
the Babadook book makes clear that doesn't work--the threat is already
inside.)
Second, how does Samuel know the Babadook is coming? Remember, in the beginning, he's making weapons to protect he and his mother against monsters--the final thing he does to get kicked out of school is to take one of his homemade weapons to school in his backpack. He also claims he's waking her up every night to protect her. But this is all before they've found the Babadook book. How does he knows his mother's madness is on the way?
I think the reason he knows the Babadook is coming is because it's happened before. Keep in mind, his seventh birthday his approaching, and as Amelia's sister mentions at one point, Samuel has never celebrated his birthday on the actual day, because that's the anniversary of Oskar's death. That approaching anniversary seems to be what is driving the surge in Amelia's madness. And of course there are her memory lapses--she doesn't remember previous years on Samuel's birthday, when the Babadook must have come out. This is a recurring thing. Samuel remembers past years and knows it is coming, and Amelia knows it too, at least subconsciously.
And I think that's the point of the movie--she hasn't dealt with her feelings of resentment, her grief, all the complicated stuff that goes together with the death of her husband, and she knows it's finally reached a point where she can't put it off anymore. Her son is getting kicked out of school and she's lost all her friendships and relationships with her family. She knows she finally has to confront her feelings/the Babadook, even if it means one final fight against the Babadook that risks her killing herself and/or her son. It turns out she is strong enough to survive this final fight, but only just barely.
The Babadook (2014)
Story/Plot/Characters-- Great acting, realistic dialogue, perfectly paced, characters are utterly believable and psychologically complex. (4 points)
Special Effects--Beautifully done effects. I've read director Jennifer Kent intentionally avoided computer-generated effects and did everything old school, and it works exactly as intended. (2 points)
Scariness-- Scary on many levels--things jumping out of the dark, plus suspense that builds throughout the movie, plus psychological horror. (2 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--So, so freaky, especially Amelia's TV watching late at night, where her nightmares mix with the programs on the screen to create truly frightening, surrealistic scenes. (2
points)
Total=10 points (Best Ever)
And what do you know, our second perfect score ever, matched only by Alien! There are a few other movies I suspect might earn a perfect score, but we'll have to wait until future years for those reviews....
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
The Babadook (2014)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
Creepshow (1982)=5.5 points
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Scary Movies: Creepshow
It's October, and as usual, we're behind on reviewing our horror movies! Okay, this time, we're doing Creepshow, a horror-comedy anthology from 1982. Stephen King wrote the script (and acted in one of the segments!) and George Romero directed it, so we're dealing with horror royalty. How did the movie measure up?
Well, there are five segments, and the quality of them vary widely. The framing story is pretty simple--a kid is reading a horror comic instead of doing his chores, and his dad gets mad at him and throws out the comic. As it sits on top of the trash can outside, we see the cover--it's titled "Creepshow" and it looks like the old EC comics of the 1950s--and the pages fly open. It turns out each of the segments in the movie correspond to a story in the comic. So right away we know these will be in the style of those old comics--horrible things will happen, but only to people who deserve it in such a way that their comeuppance will appear ironically appropriate. And indeed, that's how it goes.
I think the my favorite segment was the fourth--"The Crate." At a wine-and-cheese party, we're introduced to nebbish professor Henry Northrup and his harridan wife, Wilma. Wilma is loud, obnoxious, drinks too much, and puts Henry down at every opportunity. Henry has little fantasies about strangling Wilma but doesn't have the guts. Meanwhile, department head Dexter Stanley gets a call from a custodian at the college about an old crate he found under a stairwell, marked "Antarctic Expedition, 1834." Dr. Stanley is excited about this find and leaves the boring wine-and-cheese party to see about the crate.
In a lab, Dr. Stanley and the custodian open the crate, only for something inside to reach out and grab the custodian, pulling him in and eating him as blood drips out and bones crunch. Truly frightened, Dr. Stanley grabs a grad student and they take the crate back down to the dusty stairwell, but the creature inside, which in a brief glimpse looks something like a really monstrous baboon, escapes, pulling the grad student into a dark corner for a snack.
Dr. Stanley flees to the house of his friend, Henry Northrup, who by now is at home. Dr. Stanley is in a panic but as Henry pieces the story together--voracious monstrous ape-thing on the loose and no way to get it back in its crate--he has an idea. He tells Dr. Stanley he'll take care of things and leaves a note for his wife, who has gone out drinking with the girls. The note reads that Dr. Stanley has made sexual passes at a young co-ed who was so frightened she's hiding in a crate at the college, and could Wilma come and help Henry coax her out? Knowing his wife will never be able to resist the gossipy note, Henry meanwhile prepares his trap, setting up the crate in just the right place and cleaning up all the blood.
Of course when Wilma arrives, Henry tricks her into looking into the crate, way back in a dusty corner, where the hidden baboon-thing attacks her, giving Henry a chance to put the lid back on, and nail and chain it up with both Wilma and monster inside. He takes the crate out to the old quarry where he drops it in the water and returns home to tell Dr. Stanley the story over their weekly chess game. Only, in the cold water back at the quarry, the crate is shaking, and finally the top bursts open, letting the creature escape....
This is tough to review, as "The Crate" and another segment titled "They're Creeping Up on You" were great, while some of the other segments held a lot less interest. The one Stephen King acted in--"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"--felt especially pointless. Let's see if we can work this out:
Creepshow (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- By necessity, stories have two-dimensional characters--there's simply no time to develop them. However, Stephen King does throw in lots of little details to let you know these are real people with quirks. Dialogue is fairly witty, acting is pretty good (umm, except for Stephen King's segment--good thing he had a day job). Still, while a couple segments are really good, with the black humor really effective, others feel like filler or paint-by-numbers. (2.5 points)
Special Effects--Good stuff from horror special effects savant Tom Savini--rotting corpses, monstrous baboon-things, and in one segment, roaches bursting out of a living human. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Not especially. Segments are generally played for laughs. My daughter watched this with zero problems. More disgusting in parts than scary. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--To an extent. The segment titled "Something to Tide You Over" had the best atmosphere, with its isolated beach house setting, miles from the next property. The final segment, "They're Creeping Up On You," with its thousands of roaches, was genuinely freaky. (1 point)
Total=5.5 points (Okay)
With 5.5 points, Creepshow ends up at the top of the Okay category. That seems about right. Although if the whole movie had been up to the standard of the two best segments, it would've scored a lot higher.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
Creepshow (1982)=5.5 points
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Well, there are five segments, and the quality of them vary widely. The framing story is pretty simple--a kid is reading a horror comic instead of doing his chores, and his dad gets mad at him and throws out the comic. As it sits on top of the trash can outside, we see the cover--it's titled "Creepshow" and it looks like the old EC comics of the 1950s--and the pages fly open. It turns out each of the segments in the movie correspond to a story in the comic. So right away we know these will be in the style of those old comics--horrible things will happen, but only to people who deserve it in such a way that their comeuppance will appear ironically appropriate. And indeed, that's how it goes.
I think the my favorite segment was the fourth--"The Crate." At a wine-and-cheese party, we're introduced to nebbish professor Henry Northrup and his harridan wife, Wilma. Wilma is loud, obnoxious, drinks too much, and puts Henry down at every opportunity. Henry has little fantasies about strangling Wilma but doesn't have the guts. Meanwhile, department head Dexter Stanley gets a call from a custodian at the college about an old crate he found under a stairwell, marked "Antarctic Expedition, 1834." Dr. Stanley is excited about this find and leaves the boring wine-and-cheese party to see about the crate.
In a lab, Dr. Stanley and the custodian open the crate, only for something inside to reach out and grab the custodian, pulling him in and eating him as blood drips out and bones crunch. Truly frightened, Dr. Stanley grabs a grad student and they take the crate back down to the dusty stairwell, but the creature inside, which in a brief glimpse looks something like a really monstrous baboon, escapes, pulling the grad student into a dark corner for a snack.
Dr. Stanley flees to the house of his friend, Henry Northrup, who by now is at home. Dr. Stanley is in a panic but as Henry pieces the story together--voracious monstrous ape-thing on the loose and no way to get it back in its crate--he has an idea. He tells Dr. Stanley he'll take care of things and leaves a note for his wife, who has gone out drinking with the girls. The note reads that Dr. Stanley has made sexual passes at a young co-ed who was so frightened she's hiding in a crate at the college, and could Wilma come and help Henry coax her out? Knowing his wife will never be able to resist the gossipy note, Henry meanwhile prepares his trap, setting up the crate in just the right place and cleaning up all the blood.
Of course when Wilma arrives, Henry tricks her into looking into the crate, way back in a dusty corner, where the hidden baboon-thing attacks her, giving Henry a chance to put the lid back on, and nail and chain it up with both Wilma and monster inside. He takes the crate out to the old quarry where he drops it in the water and returns home to tell Dr. Stanley the story over their weekly chess game. Only, in the cold water back at the quarry, the crate is shaking, and finally the top bursts open, letting the creature escape....
This is tough to review, as "The Crate" and another segment titled "They're Creeping Up on You" were great, while some of the other segments held a lot less interest. The one Stephen King acted in--"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"--felt especially pointless. Let's see if we can work this out:
Creepshow (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- By necessity, stories have two-dimensional characters--there's simply no time to develop them. However, Stephen King does throw in lots of little details to let you know these are real people with quirks. Dialogue is fairly witty, acting is pretty good (umm, except for Stephen King's segment--good thing he had a day job). Still, while a couple segments are really good, with the black humor really effective, others feel like filler or paint-by-numbers. (2.5 points)
Special Effects--Good stuff from horror special effects savant Tom Savini--rotting corpses, monstrous baboon-things, and in one segment, roaches bursting out of a living human. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Not especially. Segments are generally played for laughs. My daughter watched this with zero problems. More disgusting in parts than scary. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--To an extent. The segment titled "Something to Tide You Over" had the best atmosphere, with its isolated beach house setting, miles from the next property. The final segment, "They're Creeping Up On You," with its thousands of roaches, was genuinely freaky. (1 point)
Total=5.5 points (Okay)
With 5.5 points, Creepshow ends up at the top of the Okay category. That seems about right. Although if the whole movie had been up to the standard of the two best segments, it would've scored a lot higher.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
Creepshow (1982)=5.5 points
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Scary Movies: The Brain That Wouldn't Die
I've actually got two movies to add to the list this time out. Let's start with The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a movie from 1960 that my daughter and I watched on Friday night, though I've seen it before. It's a definite B-movie: sleazy, freaky, and bizarre. It's one of my favorites.
Dr. Bill Cortner and his father are working to save a patient in an operating room. The patient is about to die on the table, and Bill wants to use an unorthodox technique involving exposing his heart and brain to save him. His father objects, but at the last moment is willing to let Bill have his way if it will save the patient's life. Bill performs the rest of the operation his way and the patient is saved.
In a conversation after the operation, Bill's father warns him that he saved the patient this time, but his unnatural experiments will be dangerous in the long run. Bill waves him off, and one of the nurses, Jan, who is also Bill's fiance, wonders when Bill will finally take her out to his secluded country house. He agrees after she begs to come with him that weekend.
On the long drive to the country house, Bill drives too fast and they crash into a tree. Bill is thrown from the car and when he comes to the car is on fire. He tries to rescue Jan but is unable to, yet is able to retrieve something from the car that he wraps in a cloth. He runs to the country house, where he has a laboratory set up in the basement. The thing he wrapped in the cloth turns out to be Jan's head, and with the aid of his assistant, Kurt, they are able to keep the head alive with lots of tubes and blinking lights and the use of a new serum he's developed.
Jan's head has only 48 hours to live, so Bill needs to find a body to transplant the head onto. He heads off to town in search of one. In the lab, we learn Kurt is missing an arm that Bill has replaced with a foot, and we also discover there is a padlocked closet in the laboratory holding some sort of growling, incredibly strong past experiment of Bill's gone awry. Jan's head wakes up and, though Bill's serum keeps her alive, she is in excruciating pain. The serum also gives Jan psychic powers, so she knows what he's doing.
And what is Bill doing? Um...visiting a local go-go club and later a swimsuit contest, trying to find a beautiful replacement body for Jan. At one point, he's actually cruising the town's streets, searching for women with hot bods who might be suitable. An old flame of his in the audience at the swimsuit contest reminds him of Doris, a mutual female acquaintance of theirs who has a great body, and mentions she works now as a model. Bill heads over to Doris's place, where she is in the middle of a modeling session. Bill realizes she does indeed have the body he wants, and once the photographers have left, he convinces her to come out to his country house for dinner.
When they arrive back at the country house, Bill discovers the experiment in the closet has somehow killed Kurt, and Jan is awake and super-pissed because of the never-ending torment her existence has become. Bill covers up Jan's mouth with tape, Kurt's body with a sheet, and grabs a couple sleeping pills for Doris, still waiting upstairs. When he comes back down with Doris's unconscious body, the experiment breaks down the closet door and turns out to be a giant, hideous monstrosity. He fights with Bill, and during the fight they set the laboratory on fire. The creature kills Bill with a vicious bite to the throat, and flees the house with the sleeping Doris. The credits role with Jan's insane laugh on the soundtrack.
Okay, nobody would say this is a good movie in an objective sense, but in contrast to most B-movies, it keeps things moving. No slow parts, and an endless unfolding of weird and ridiculous plot developments, combined with an unembarrassed boldness in using its cheap but effective special effects, give the audience its money's worth. This movie only rates Okay on our rating scale, but it's a highly entertaining okay.
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)
Story/Plot/Characters-- The script is ludicrous but fast-paced and certainly creative, the characters thin but with believable motivations within the story, the acting bad but not terrible. It's not that it's good, it's that it could've been so much worse. (1.5 points)
Special Effects--Special effects are ultra low-budget but surprisingly well deployed for what they are. (1 point)
Scariness--No. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Oh yes. Some of the weirdest scenes in horror movie history. The secluded country house, the lab with something pounding in the closet in the corner, the insane doctor cruising the streets of the local town to find female bodies for his tasteless experiments. Freaky as can be. (2 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Dr. Bill Cortner and his father are working to save a patient in an operating room. The patient is about to die on the table, and Bill wants to use an unorthodox technique involving exposing his heart and brain to save him. His father objects, but at the last moment is willing to let Bill have his way if it will save the patient's life. Bill performs the rest of the operation his way and the patient is saved.
In a conversation after the operation, Bill's father warns him that he saved the patient this time, but his unnatural experiments will be dangerous in the long run. Bill waves him off, and one of the nurses, Jan, who is also Bill's fiance, wonders when Bill will finally take her out to his secluded country house. He agrees after she begs to come with him that weekend.
On the long drive to the country house, Bill drives too fast and they crash into a tree. Bill is thrown from the car and when he comes to the car is on fire. He tries to rescue Jan but is unable to, yet is able to retrieve something from the car that he wraps in a cloth. He runs to the country house, where he has a laboratory set up in the basement. The thing he wrapped in the cloth turns out to be Jan's head, and with the aid of his assistant, Kurt, they are able to keep the head alive with lots of tubes and blinking lights and the use of a new serum he's developed.
Jan's head has only 48 hours to live, so Bill needs to find a body to transplant the head onto. He heads off to town in search of one. In the lab, we learn Kurt is missing an arm that Bill has replaced with a foot, and we also discover there is a padlocked closet in the laboratory holding some sort of growling, incredibly strong past experiment of Bill's gone awry. Jan's head wakes up and, though Bill's serum keeps her alive, she is in excruciating pain. The serum also gives Jan psychic powers, so she knows what he's doing.
And what is Bill doing? Um...visiting a local go-go club and later a swimsuit contest, trying to find a beautiful replacement body for Jan. At one point, he's actually cruising the town's streets, searching for women with hot bods who might be suitable. An old flame of his in the audience at the swimsuit contest reminds him of Doris, a mutual female acquaintance of theirs who has a great body, and mentions she works now as a model. Bill heads over to Doris's place, where she is in the middle of a modeling session. Bill realizes she does indeed have the body he wants, and once the photographers have left, he convinces her to come out to his country house for dinner.
When they arrive back at the country house, Bill discovers the experiment in the closet has somehow killed Kurt, and Jan is awake and super-pissed because of the never-ending torment her existence has become. Bill covers up Jan's mouth with tape, Kurt's body with a sheet, and grabs a couple sleeping pills for Doris, still waiting upstairs. When he comes back down with Doris's unconscious body, the experiment breaks down the closet door and turns out to be a giant, hideous monstrosity. He fights with Bill, and during the fight they set the laboratory on fire. The creature kills Bill with a vicious bite to the throat, and flees the house with the sleeping Doris. The credits role with Jan's insane laugh on the soundtrack.
Okay, nobody would say this is a good movie in an objective sense, but in contrast to most B-movies, it keeps things moving. No slow parts, and an endless unfolding of weird and ridiculous plot developments, combined with an unembarrassed boldness in using its cheap but effective special effects, give the audience its money's worth. This movie only rates Okay on our rating scale, but it's a highly entertaining okay.
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)
Story/Plot/Characters-- The script is ludicrous but fast-paced and certainly creative, the characters thin but with believable motivations within the story, the acting bad but not terrible. It's not that it's good, it's that it could've been so much worse. (1.5 points)
Special Effects--Special effects are ultra low-budget but surprisingly well deployed for what they are. (1 point)
Scariness--No. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Oh yes. Some of the weirdest scenes in horror movie history. The secluded country house, the lab with something pounding in the closet in the corner, the insane doctor cruising the streets of the local town to find female bodies for his tasteless experiments. Freaky as can be. (2 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Scary Movies: Poltergeist
Well, I have a book to review and a movie to review, but since it's October and I don't want to fall behind on the scary movies, let's do that one. The movie this time out is Poltergeist, written and produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame). Apparently there was a lot of controversy at the time over who really directed it, though, as Spielberg was highly involved and on set every day.
Poltergeist was the first horror movie I ever saw, at age 8. A lot of kids at school were talking about this one and I really wanted to see it, so one night when it was on HBO, my parents and I watched it together. Did it scare the daylights out of me? Yes! Did it spark a lifelong interest in scary movies that continues to this day? Yep, that too! And did it hold up for an adult viewer? Let's find out.
Poltergeist is a pretty straightforward haunted house story. The Freelings have three kids and live in an idyllic house and neighborhood in a southern California suburb. Their youngest daughter, Carol Anne (5), has started waking up and talking to the static on the TV when Dad passes out after the late show and the channel signs off. She says the TV people talk to her. Weird things start happening around the house--for example, the dining room chairs will rearrange themselves when no one is looking, and the dog is acting like strangers are around. But at first it's not too worrisome, almost fun.
One night a big storm comes up and the old tree outside the house comes alive, attacking the Freeling boy, Robbie (8) in his room. While the family is outside trying to pull Robbie out from the suddenly hungry tree, Carol Anne disappears. They search everywhere, only to discover they can only hear her through the TV's speakers. The TV people have kidnapped her, and apparently taken up residence in the kids' bedroom, where they conduct a 24-hour ghost party, including flying toys, random screams, and a blinding light in the closet. The Freelings contact a paranormal investigative team at the University of California-Irvine who tell them their house is haunted by one or more poltergeists.
Because poltergeist hauntings tend to be short-lived, they really need to get Carol Anne back from whatever realm the ghosts have spirited her off to in a hurry, or she'll be gone forever. The paranormal researchers bring in Tangina Barrons, an exorcist and little person who knows just what to do. Tangina and her method of reaching into the world beyond are really quite clever (you'll need rope, two tennis balls, and a bathtub of warm water...) and form the heart of the movie. I won't say what happens next except to mention that their attempt to get Carol Anne back really, really pisses off the spirit world.
So did the movie hold up? I think so, mostly! Actually, what I didn't realize as a kid is that Poltergeist is really a black comedy. I think a lot of scenes are somewhat tongue in cheek or played for laughs in a way I didn't get as a kid. It's also something of a satire, in which the modern trappings of prosperity--a big house, a customized kitchen, televisions in every room of the house--are shown to be empty materialism. In a metaphorical way, it isn't the ghosts who've kidnapped Carol Anne, it's the Freeling family's unthinking lives of mindless consumption. In the end, when the haunting is revealed to be the fault of a greedy developer who moved the tombstones of a century-old cemetery but left the coffins in the ground underneath his new subdivision, disturbing the sleep of the dead, it represents an American tendency to advance a materialistic suburban life that has little respect for older, more spiritual traditions.
Poltergeist (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- Excellent acting, tight script from Spielberg, humor and great pacing. But, somewhat uneven tone, almost as if a horror-minded director and a highly-involved producer were working somewhat at cross-purposes. Loses all subtlety in the final act. (3 points)
Special Effects--Heavy on the special effects, state-of-the-art at the time, feel a bit dated now but still effective. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Some scary parts, including a scene with a toy clown under the bed that will stay with every kid who ever sees this movie. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--A typical American suburb might not seem likely for an atmospheric movie, but scenes such as a parade of spectres slowly descending the house's curving central staircase, or the kids' closet to the spirit world that seems to stretch on and on, or corpse-filled coffins popping up out of the half-drained pool, prove that suburbs can be the freakiest places of all. (1.5 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Poltergeist was the first horror movie I ever saw, at age 8. A lot of kids at school were talking about this one and I really wanted to see it, so one night when it was on HBO, my parents and I watched it together. Did it scare the daylights out of me? Yes! Did it spark a lifelong interest in scary movies that continues to this day? Yep, that too! And did it hold up for an adult viewer? Let's find out.
Poltergeist is a pretty straightforward haunted house story. The Freelings have three kids and live in an idyllic house and neighborhood in a southern California suburb. Their youngest daughter, Carol Anne (5), has started waking up and talking to the static on the TV when Dad passes out after the late show and the channel signs off. She says the TV people talk to her. Weird things start happening around the house--for example, the dining room chairs will rearrange themselves when no one is looking, and the dog is acting like strangers are around. But at first it's not too worrisome, almost fun.
One night a big storm comes up and the old tree outside the house comes alive, attacking the Freeling boy, Robbie (8) in his room. While the family is outside trying to pull Robbie out from the suddenly hungry tree, Carol Anne disappears. They search everywhere, only to discover they can only hear her through the TV's speakers. The TV people have kidnapped her, and apparently taken up residence in the kids' bedroom, where they conduct a 24-hour ghost party, including flying toys, random screams, and a blinding light in the closet. The Freelings contact a paranormal investigative team at the University of California-Irvine who tell them their house is haunted by one or more poltergeists.
Because poltergeist hauntings tend to be short-lived, they really need to get Carol Anne back from whatever realm the ghosts have spirited her off to in a hurry, or she'll be gone forever. The paranormal researchers bring in Tangina Barrons, an exorcist and little person who knows just what to do. Tangina and her method of reaching into the world beyond are really quite clever (you'll need rope, two tennis balls, and a bathtub of warm water...) and form the heart of the movie. I won't say what happens next except to mention that their attempt to get Carol Anne back really, really pisses off the spirit world.
So did the movie hold up? I think so, mostly! Actually, what I didn't realize as a kid is that Poltergeist is really a black comedy. I think a lot of scenes are somewhat tongue in cheek or played for laughs in a way I didn't get as a kid. It's also something of a satire, in which the modern trappings of prosperity--a big house, a customized kitchen, televisions in every room of the house--are shown to be empty materialism. In a metaphorical way, it isn't the ghosts who've kidnapped Carol Anne, it's the Freeling family's unthinking lives of mindless consumption. In the end, when the haunting is revealed to be the fault of a greedy developer who moved the tombstones of a century-old cemetery but left the coffins in the ground underneath his new subdivision, disturbing the sleep of the dead, it represents an American tendency to advance a materialistic suburban life that has little respect for older, more spiritual traditions.
Poltergeist (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- Excellent acting, tight script from Spielberg, humor and great pacing. But, somewhat uneven tone, almost as if a horror-minded director and a highly-involved producer were working somewhat at cross-purposes. Loses all subtlety in the final act. (3 points)
Special Effects--Heavy on the special effects, state-of-the-art at the time, feel a bit dated now but still effective. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Some scary parts, including a scene with a toy clown under the bed that will stay with every kid who ever sees this movie. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--A typical American suburb might not seem likely for an atmospheric movie, but scenes such as a parade of spectres slowly descending the house's curving central staircase, or the kids' closet to the spirit world that seems to stretch on and on, or corpse-filled coffins popping up out of the half-drained pool, prove that suburbs can be the freakiest places of all. (1.5 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Scary Movies: Freaks
Yay, it's October, and that means it's time for the annual Bruner Halloween movie festival! Our first movie this year was one I've wanted to see for a long time, Freaks, from 1932. Freaks is famous, indeed notorious, for using actual circus sideshow exhibits from the time in its cast--little people, people suffering from microcephaly (called pinheads in the movie), Siamese twins, people born without legs or arms or both, and many others. It's something that could never be repeated today, making this a movie unique in film history.
The plot of Freaks is fairly straightforward. The freaks are part of a traveling circus where, as a circus barker explains, the freaks live as outsiders and by their own code--"Offend one, and you offend them all!" One of the freaks, the little person, Hans, has fallen in love with the beautiful but normal-sized trapeze artist, Cleopatra, much to the chagrin of his fiance, Frieda. Cleopatra realizes Hans has a crush on her and encourages it, perhaps out of vanity, but when she learns Hans is the heir to a great fortune, she decides to make him really fall in love with her so they'll get married. Then she'll poison him and inherit the money. Cleopatra's lover is the circus strongman, Hercules, who's in on the plot and thinks it's a great joke.
Hans and Cleopatra do get married, and at the wedding feast, the freaks have a little ritual to induct Cleopatra into their circle, when they pass around a huge wine goblet for everyone to sip from communally while they sing a chant. (Gooble gabble gooble gabble We accept her! We accept her!) However, Cleopatra is drunk and takes offense at the presumption that the freaks are accepting her, and causes a big scene. She also kisses Hercules and everyone realizes her love for Hans was a sham.
Cleopatra has poisoned Hans's drink and he falls ill after the wedding. Back at the circus, she dotes on Hans in his sickbed and tries to convince him she didn't mean what she said during her outburst at the wedding, even as she's poisoning his medicine. However, Hans is spitting out his medicine when Cleopatra leaves the room. Meanwhile, the freaks, whose code dictates they must take revenge if one of their own is harmed, wait for their moment.
On a rainy night, when the circus wagons are en route to a new city, one of the wagons overturns and the whole train of wagons must stop. During the confusion, the freaks, armed with knives and cudgels, corner Hercules under one of the wagons and kill him, and carve Cleopatra up, making her into a freak like them. She shows up in the final scene with her tongue cut out, her fingers missing, and her legs amputated, and the show's impresario has put feathers on her and billed her as "The Human Duck."
My daughter pointed out afterwards that this isn't really a horror movie. Indeed, I'd call it a melodrama. The only way it works as a horror movie is if you think the freaks themselves are horrifying, but that just doesn't work. The dapper, well-spoken little person Hans, the friendly and outgoing Half Boy (born without legs), the quite pretty Daisy and Violet (Siamese twins), the sad-eyed and gentle Koo Koo the Dancing Bird (microcephaly), the happily married Human Skeleton and Bearded Lady, and many others--these people are simply not horrifying, so long as you overlook their physical deformities. Indeed, the real freaks are Cleopatra and Hercules, who are beautiful on the outside but deformed morally, and who get what they deserve in the end.
In fact, I'm a little worried that this movie won't score very well on my horror movie rubric, despite being an interesting movie in its own right. Let's see how it goes.
Freaks (1932)
Story/Plot/Characters-- A fascinating premise never to be repeated in film, with highly memorable characters and a well-executed plot, if a bit slow-paced at the beginning. Dialogue not too sparkling, the only real flaw. (3 points)
Special Effects--No real special effects, but none needed--the sideshow freaks are the special effects. (2 points)
Scariness--Simply not scary. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--As you'd expect, a movie named Freaks is awfully freaky. The wedding feast with the chant and the final scene with the freaks hiding in the dark under the wagons as it rains all around are pretty atmospheric. (2 points)
Total=7 points (Excellent)
Well, it turned out to score Excellent according to my system, although just barely. Still, I don't think that truly does justice to this movie, which has been on my mind often in the days since we've watched it. What's really interesting is an accompanying video on the same DVD with short biographies of each of the freaks, even those mostly in the background. The variety of deformities and their lives in circus sideshows or on the margins of society make for fascinating if often sad (but not always!) life stories, in particular the little person Harry Earles (Hans in the movie), who had a substantial movie career from the 1920s to 40s, including as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.
Just a note: I've added a category (Best Ever) and slightly recalibrated the rankings, below:
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
The plot of Freaks is fairly straightforward. The freaks are part of a traveling circus where, as a circus barker explains, the freaks live as outsiders and by their own code--"Offend one, and you offend them all!" One of the freaks, the little person, Hans, has fallen in love with the beautiful but normal-sized trapeze artist, Cleopatra, much to the chagrin of his fiance, Frieda. Cleopatra realizes Hans has a crush on her and encourages it, perhaps out of vanity, but when she learns Hans is the heir to a great fortune, she decides to make him really fall in love with her so they'll get married. Then she'll poison him and inherit the money. Cleopatra's lover is the circus strongman, Hercules, who's in on the plot and thinks it's a great joke.
Hans and Cleopatra do get married, and at the wedding feast, the freaks have a little ritual to induct Cleopatra into their circle, when they pass around a huge wine goblet for everyone to sip from communally while they sing a chant. (Gooble gabble gooble gabble We accept her! We accept her!) However, Cleopatra is drunk and takes offense at the presumption that the freaks are accepting her, and causes a big scene. She also kisses Hercules and everyone realizes her love for Hans was a sham.
Cleopatra has poisoned Hans's drink and he falls ill after the wedding. Back at the circus, she dotes on Hans in his sickbed and tries to convince him she didn't mean what she said during her outburst at the wedding, even as she's poisoning his medicine. However, Hans is spitting out his medicine when Cleopatra leaves the room. Meanwhile, the freaks, whose code dictates they must take revenge if one of their own is harmed, wait for their moment.
On a rainy night, when the circus wagons are en route to a new city, one of the wagons overturns and the whole train of wagons must stop. During the confusion, the freaks, armed with knives and cudgels, corner Hercules under one of the wagons and kill him, and carve Cleopatra up, making her into a freak like them. She shows up in the final scene with her tongue cut out, her fingers missing, and her legs amputated, and the show's impresario has put feathers on her and billed her as "The Human Duck."
My daughter pointed out afterwards that this isn't really a horror movie. Indeed, I'd call it a melodrama. The only way it works as a horror movie is if you think the freaks themselves are horrifying, but that just doesn't work. The dapper, well-spoken little person Hans, the friendly and outgoing Half Boy (born without legs), the quite pretty Daisy and Violet (Siamese twins), the sad-eyed and gentle Koo Koo the Dancing Bird (microcephaly), the happily married Human Skeleton and Bearded Lady, and many others--these people are simply not horrifying, so long as you overlook their physical deformities. Indeed, the real freaks are Cleopatra and Hercules, who are beautiful on the outside but deformed morally, and who get what they deserve in the end.
In fact, I'm a little worried that this movie won't score very well on my horror movie rubric, despite being an interesting movie in its own right. Let's see how it goes.
Freaks (1932)
Story/Plot/Characters-- A fascinating premise never to be repeated in film, with highly memorable characters and a well-executed plot, if a bit slow-paced at the beginning. Dialogue not too sparkling, the only real flaw. (3 points)
Special Effects--No real special effects, but none needed--the sideshow freaks are the special effects. (2 points)
Scariness--Simply not scary. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--As you'd expect, a movie named Freaks is awfully freaky. The wedding feast with the chant and the final scene with the freaks hiding in the dark under the wagons as it rains all around are pretty atmospheric. (2 points)
Total=7 points (Excellent)
Well, it turned out to score Excellent according to my system, although just barely. Still, I don't think that truly does justice to this movie, which has been on my mind often in the days since we've watched it. What's really interesting is an accompanying video on the same DVD with short biographies of each of the freaks, even those mostly in the background. The variety of deformities and their lives in circus sideshows or on the margins of society make for fascinating if often sad (but not always!) life stories, in particular the little person Harry Earles (Hans in the movie), who had a substantial movie career from the 1920s to 40s, including as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.
Just a note: I've added a category (Best Ever) and slightly recalibrated the rankings, below:
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Friday, November 30, 2018
Scary Movies: Alien Resurrection
Okay, last horror movie from my family's annual October horror moviethon. At my son's strong request, we watched the fourth movie in the Alien franchise, Alien Resurrection. Previously on this site, the first Alien movie was the only horror movie I've reviewed to receive a perfect score, Aliens got a rating of Pretty Good, and Alien 3 scored only a 3 on my 10 point scale. I did note that Alien 3 actually had an interesting premise that it didn't really follow through on--I've since learned that the movie that director David Fincher turned in was rejected by the studio as "not commercial enough" and radically re-edited. Apparently there is a director's cut that's 20 minutes longer and I bet it's a much better movie. Maybe I'll get to it someday!
But for now, on to Alien Resurrection. Unlike Alien 3, a movie with an original and creative premise poorly executed, this one basically returns to the same story well as Aliens, but is quite well-executed. Acting and script are top-notch, with Sigourney Weaver returning as Ridley, Ron Perlman and Winona Rider (!) also having roles, and a script by Joss Whedon (!!).
The movie is set 200 years after Alien 3, and Ridley has been cloned using her human DNA mixed with that of an alien queen, for some reason. She is held on a remote outpost in space where a team of military scientists is using her to breed embryos for new aliens to experiment on. A small spaceship manned by outlaw traders comes in with a delivery of human bodies for the head of the scientific mission. During an incident while the traders are on board, the aliens escape their confinement and start hunting the humans down. Ridley and a select group of the outlaws must battle their way back to the outlaw ship to escape.
So, not a huge leap from Aliens. But what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in tight pacing, Whedon's trademark witty repartee--this is the first Alien movie with a sense of humor--and at least a couple fun innovations on the alien chase scene. (A setpiece where the characters have to swim through a flooded galley while chased by water-breathing aliens is something to behold.) Final ranking? It has some high points but as a whole is only Okay.
Alien Resurrection (1997)
Story/Plot/Characters--Top-notch acting and script outweigh the by-now tired premise. (2.5 points)
Special Effects--Technically accomplished, and a couple scenes are truly marvels, but overall somewhat perfunctorily presented. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Very few frights to be gotten out of the franchise at this point. You know what's coming. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--What was atmospheric in previous movies is by now predictable and stale. (.5 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
But for now, on to Alien Resurrection. Unlike Alien 3, a movie with an original and creative premise poorly executed, this one basically returns to the same story well as Aliens, but is quite well-executed. Acting and script are top-notch, with Sigourney Weaver returning as Ridley, Ron Perlman and Winona Rider (!) also having roles, and a script by Joss Whedon (!!).
The movie is set 200 years after Alien 3, and Ridley has been cloned using her human DNA mixed with that of an alien queen, for some reason. She is held on a remote outpost in space where a team of military scientists is using her to breed embryos for new aliens to experiment on. A small spaceship manned by outlaw traders comes in with a delivery of human bodies for the head of the scientific mission. During an incident while the traders are on board, the aliens escape their confinement and start hunting the humans down. Ridley and a select group of the outlaws must battle their way back to the outlaw ship to escape.
So, not a huge leap from Aliens. But what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in tight pacing, Whedon's trademark witty repartee--this is the first Alien movie with a sense of humor--and at least a couple fun innovations on the alien chase scene. (A setpiece where the characters have to swim through a flooded galley while chased by water-breathing aliens is something to behold.) Final ranking? It has some high points but as a whole is only Okay.
Alien Resurrection (1997)
Story/Plot/Characters--Top-notch acting and script outweigh the by-now tired premise. (2.5 points)
Special Effects--Technically accomplished, and a couple scenes are truly marvels, but overall somewhat perfunctorily presented. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Very few frights to be gotten out of the franchise at this point. You know what's coming. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--What was atmospheric in previous movies is by now predictable and stale. (.5 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Scary Movies: Day of the Dead
Still wrapping up the horror movie reviews from October... Now we come to the third in director/writer/producer George Romero's zombie trilogy, Day of the Dead. The first two (Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, which I reviewed here) are among my favorite scary movies of all time, but I'd never seen this one before. Did it hold up compared to the first two?
Not quite, although it's by no means a terrible movie. Where Night takes place the first evening of the zombie infestation, and Dawn a few weeks into it, as society is crumbling, Day takes place several months later, when society is long gone and most of humanity is dead. This one is set in Florida--an odd choice, since the first two take place around Romero's hometown of Pittsburgh. And except for a few scenes at the beginning in a nearby town, we don't even see much of Florida, because nearly the entire running length of the film is set in a miles-long underground cavern where various government records are stored.
The heroine is Dr. Sarah Bowman, one of a team of about half a dozen scientists working on a cure for the zombie infestation. There's also another a similar number of soldiers in the cavern, there ostensibly to protect the scientists but actually at odds with them under their petty-tyrannical leader, Captain Rhodes.
The head scientist, Dr. Logan, thinks he's close to a breakthrough. He's figured out the zombies can learn, and has even trained one zombie, Bub, to respond to voice commands and listen to music through headphones (!). He keeps his experimental zombie subjects in a fenced-off portion of the cavern, and also runs a disgusting lab where he's generally elbow-deep in blood and innards, trying to figure out how those zombies work.
However, Captain Rhodes thinks it's all a waste of time, and the scientists and their dumb experiments a waste of resources. It's not long before the camps led by Captain Rhodes and Dr. Logan are in open conflict, with that zombie pen just waiting to be opened....
Unfortunately, the monotony of the cavern setting and the reliance on melodramatic yelling matches between the members of the two groups to advance the plot mean this one drags at parts. On the other hand, it has by far the best gore and special effects--make-up artist Tom Savini won a Saturn Award for his work on Day of the Dead, and the awesomely disgusting zombies are still among the best work ever done in horror. This one's not for everyone, but if you like zombies and have a strong stomach (the gore dial here is really turned to the maximum), it's not a bad way to pass an evening.
Day of the Dead (1985)
Story/Plot/Characters--I don't think you'd say it was Shakespearean or anything, but the Dead movies prior to this one at least had better acting than your typical horror flick. Not here. Decent premise but plot's a little thin. Characters not totally stereotypical but not real well-rounded either. Better than most low-budget horrors but feels perfunctory after the horror magnificence of the first two movies. (1.5 points)
Special Effects--Superb. Best zombie make-up and prosthetics ever, awesome gore. (2 points)
Scariness--Relies too much on gore and melodrama to be really scary, but definitely has its moments. (1 point)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Dr. Logan's zombie lab and the zombie pen definitely give this a freaky vibe. A half point off for the endless samey-ness of the caverns, though. (1.5 points)
Total=6 points (Pretty Good)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Not quite, although it's by no means a terrible movie. Where Night takes place the first evening of the zombie infestation, and Dawn a few weeks into it, as society is crumbling, Day takes place several months later, when society is long gone and most of humanity is dead. This one is set in Florida--an odd choice, since the first two take place around Romero's hometown of Pittsburgh. And except for a few scenes at the beginning in a nearby town, we don't even see much of Florida, because nearly the entire running length of the film is set in a miles-long underground cavern where various government records are stored.
The heroine is Dr. Sarah Bowman, one of a team of about half a dozen scientists working on a cure for the zombie infestation. There's also another a similar number of soldiers in the cavern, there ostensibly to protect the scientists but actually at odds with them under their petty-tyrannical leader, Captain Rhodes.
The head scientist, Dr. Logan, thinks he's close to a breakthrough. He's figured out the zombies can learn, and has even trained one zombie, Bub, to respond to voice commands and listen to music through headphones (!). He keeps his experimental zombie subjects in a fenced-off portion of the cavern, and also runs a disgusting lab where he's generally elbow-deep in blood and innards, trying to figure out how those zombies work.
However, Captain Rhodes thinks it's all a waste of time, and the scientists and their dumb experiments a waste of resources. It's not long before the camps led by Captain Rhodes and Dr. Logan are in open conflict, with that zombie pen just waiting to be opened....
Unfortunately, the monotony of the cavern setting and the reliance on melodramatic yelling matches between the members of the two groups to advance the plot mean this one drags at parts. On the other hand, it has by far the best gore and special effects--make-up artist Tom Savini won a Saturn Award for his work on Day of the Dead, and the awesomely disgusting zombies are still among the best work ever done in horror. This one's not for everyone, but if you like zombies and have a strong stomach (the gore dial here is really turned to the maximum), it's not a bad way to pass an evening.
Day of the Dead (1985)
Story/Plot/Characters--I don't think you'd say it was Shakespearean or anything, but the Dead movies prior to this one at least had better acting than your typical horror flick. Not here. Decent premise but plot's a little thin. Characters not totally stereotypical but not real well-rounded either. Better than most low-budget horrors but feels perfunctory after the horror magnificence of the first two movies. (1.5 points)
Special Effects--Superb. Best zombie make-up and prosthetics ever, awesome gore. (2 points)
Scariness--Relies too much on gore and melodrama to be really scary, but definitely has its moments. (1 point)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Dr. Logan's zombie lab and the zombie pen definitely give this a freaky vibe. A half point off for the endless samey-ness of the caverns, though. (1.5 points)
Total=6 points (Pretty Good)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Friday, November 2, 2018
Scary Movies: The Haunting
Ach! Behind by three scary movies! Okay, last time I promised I would review a bad one and a good one, and I did the bad one. This time, we'll do a good one, The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise in 1963. This was remade just this year, and the reviews are terrible. I think I'll stick with the older version.
You see so many b-movies when you're a horror fan, it's refreshing every once in a while to see a movie that actually had a budget, A-list actors, and a real director (the film Wise directed just before this was West Side Story, and the one right afterwards was The Sound of Music--although he also directed The Day the Earth Stood Still and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so this may not have been as big a departure for him as it appears at first).
The plot, based on a short story by Shirley Jackson, is pretty simple. Dr. John Markway is a paranormal researcher, and Hill House in rural Massachusetts has the reputation of being the most haunted house in New England. He decides to spend a week investigating the house, and invites several guests who have past experiences with supernatural phenomena, although only two arrive--including Theodora, a psychic who can sometimes read minds, and Eleanor, who had a run-in with a poltergeist as a child-- as well as Luke Sanderson, the nephew of the house's owner, who stands to inherit the place and is completely skeptical.
I don't suppose it's a surprise to learn that bizarre things start happening almost immediately. Does Luke Sanderson become a true believer in ghosts? Does Dr. Markway get material for his research? Do any of the characters have secrets that come out in the course of the film? I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying the answer is yes to all three of those.
I will say, unlike many other movies of this era, the movie doesn't cheat by trying to explain away the various ghostly events at the end. It is also genuinely scary, or at least creepy. My daughter (age 9) watched it with me and though there's no gore, or really anything inappropriate for a kid, she said she might have trouble going to sleep that night. I can't blame her--the scares in this movie are really effective.
The Haunting (1963)
Story/Plot/Characters--Great script, great acting, great pacing. I might have wanted a little more development of the characters. Theodora seems really fascinating but we hardly learn anything about her, and Luke Sanderson is two-dimensional. But that's quibbling--Eleanor is well-rounded, and Dr. Markway turns out to have some surprises. (3 points)
Special Effects--Not really a special effects movie, but what's used is done well. (1 point)
Scariness--It's a little hard to pinpoint what's so effective here, because not a whole lot actually happens--strange noises, things moved around when people aren't looking, but it's all done so well that the suspense builds throughout the film. Very scary for a movie from 1963. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--This is almost the definition of atmospheric-- a haunted house in a rural New England setting. (2 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
You see so many b-movies when you're a horror fan, it's refreshing every once in a while to see a movie that actually had a budget, A-list actors, and a real director (the film Wise directed just before this was West Side Story, and the one right afterwards was The Sound of Music--although he also directed The Day the Earth Stood Still and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so this may not have been as big a departure for him as it appears at first).
The plot, based on a short story by Shirley Jackson, is pretty simple. Dr. John Markway is a paranormal researcher, and Hill House in rural Massachusetts has the reputation of being the most haunted house in New England. He decides to spend a week investigating the house, and invites several guests who have past experiences with supernatural phenomena, although only two arrive--including Theodora, a psychic who can sometimes read minds, and Eleanor, who had a run-in with a poltergeist as a child-- as well as Luke Sanderson, the nephew of the house's owner, who stands to inherit the place and is completely skeptical.
I don't suppose it's a surprise to learn that bizarre things start happening almost immediately. Does Luke Sanderson become a true believer in ghosts? Does Dr. Markway get material for his research? Do any of the characters have secrets that come out in the course of the film? I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying the answer is yes to all three of those.
I will say, unlike many other movies of this era, the movie doesn't cheat by trying to explain away the various ghostly events at the end. It is also genuinely scary, or at least creepy. My daughter (age 9) watched it with me and though there's no gore, or really anything inappropriate for a kid, she said she might have trouble going to sleep that night. I can't blame her--the scares in this movie are really effective.
The Haunting (1963)
Story/Plot/Characters--Great script, great acting, great pacing. I might have wanted a little more development of the characters. Theodora seems really fascinating but we hardly learn anything about her, and Luke Sanderson is two-dimensional. But that's quibbling--Eleanor is well-rounded, and Dr. Markway turns out to have some surprises. (3 points)
Special Effects--Not really a special effects movie, but what's used is done well. (1 point)
Scariness--It's a little hard to pinpoint what's so effective here, because not a whole lot actually happens--strange noises, things moved around when people aren't looking, but it's all done so well that the suspense builds throughout the film. Very scary for a movie from 1963. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--This is almost the definition of atmospheric-- a haunted house in a rural New England setting. (2 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Scary Movies: House of Wax
As usual in October, I'm running a little behind on my horror movie reviews! Okay, we've seen a good one and a bad one in the past couple weeks. Let's start with the bad one!
The House of Wax stars Vincent Price as Dr. Henry Jarrod, a sculptor who creates wax figures for a wax museum in New York. Dr. Jarrod is a real artist and creates sensitive representations of historical figures such as his masterpiece, Marie Antoinette. But his partner is a hard-nosed businessman, and wants Dr. Jarrod to sculpt figures from crime scenes, like the public wants. When Dr. Jarrod refuses, his partner burns down the museum for the insurance money. Dr. Jarrod seems to die in the fire as well.
A year later, a new wax museum opens up across town. The owner has badly burned hands and is confined to a wheelchair, but he is a genius at designing wax figures with the help of his assistant, Igor (played by Charles Bronson!). Around the same time the museum opens, Dr. Jarrod's former partner disappears, while a wax figure that looks a lot like him appears in the new museum. Soon after, the partner's girlfriend also disappears, while a Joan of Arc wax figure who could be her double becomes the museum's new hit exhibit. Can you guess the secret of these new wax figures, or who the proprietor of the new museum really is?
I bet you can guess from the very first minute. This was not a subtle movie, and it has a number of weaknesses. First, apparently at it's original showing in 1953, the movie was displayed in 3-D, and there are at least two long scenes in the movie that have little to do with the plot but must have been meant to demonstrate the 3-D technology. One of these, of an annoying man with a grating schtick and playing with a paddleball to advertise the opening of the museum, goes on for at least five minutes and is really unbearable. But these scenes are just indicative--practically every element of the movie screams amateurishness. Not like a low-budget B movie where the people involved have passion but no idea what they were doing--this was Warner Bros. Production values are perfectly adequate, it's just a film where nobody cared or gave much effort.
The main exception is Vincent Price, whose performance as both the sensitive Dr. Jarrod, and later the deformed and revenge-crazed proprietor of the new wax museum, is really superb. In fact, Vincent Price is the only thing that makes this movie watchable. At the time, this movie established his reputation as a master of horror.
There are also a couple effective scenes--the shots of the wax figures melting in the fire, with Dr. Jarrod trying in vain to put out the flames destroying his beloved Marie Antoinette, are really done well. Later on, a scene of the deformed man chasing a woman through the streets of New York is pretty spooky, so long as you don't stop to wonder why multiple streets in SoHo have absolutely no pedestrians or trafffic. (I've been in NYC in the middle of the night--there are people out even at 3AM!)
In the end, though, I can't really recommend this movie, unless you have a special love for Vincent Price. Even then, you'd be far better off watching, say, one of the Edgar Allen Poe movies he did with director Roger Corman, or practically any of the dozens of other horror movies he starred in.
The House of Wax (1953)
Story/Plot/Characters--Dull script with merely functional dialogue. Insipid characters. Story was a potentially interesting mystery, but all the mysterious aspects were fumbled. Inclusion of pointless, time-wasting scenes. Vincent Price's acting is the only saving grace here. (1 point)
Special Effects-- Great make-up job on Vincent Price after the fire, and the fire in the wax museum was well done. (1 point)
Scariness--Not scary. My nine-year-old daughter watched this with no problems. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Some nice spooky atmosphere in the wax museum at night, and the New York night scenes. Some surprisingly freaky bondage-type stuff in the finale, as the endangered young lady is about to have boiling wax poured over her writhing handcuffed body. (1 point)
Total=3 points (Avoid)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
The House of Wax stars Vincent Price as Dr. Henry Jarrod, a sculptor who creates wax figures for a wax museum in New York. Dr. Jarrod is a real artist and creates sensitive representations of historical figures such as his masterpiece, Marie Antoinette. But his partner is a hard-nosed businessman, and wants Dr. Jarrod to sculpt figures from crime scenes, like the public wants. When Dr. Jarrod refuses, his partner burns down the museum for the insurance money. Dr. Jarrod seems to die in the fire as well.
A year later, a new wax museum opens up across town. The owner has badly burned hands and is confined to a wheelchair, but he is a genius at designing wax figures with the help of his assistant, Igor (played by Charles Bronson!). Around the same time the museum opens, Dr. Jarrod's former partner disappears, while a wax figure that looks a lot like him appears in the new museum. Soon after, the partner's girlfriend also disappears, while a Joan of Arc wax figure who could be her double becomes the museum's new hit exhibit. Can you guess the secret of these new wax figures, or who the proprietor of the new museum really is?
I bet you can guess from the very first minute. This was not a subtle movie, and it has a number of weaknesses. First, apparently at it's original showing in 1953, the movie was displayed in 3-D, and there are at least two long scenes in the movie that have little to do with the plot but must have been meant to demonstrate the 3-D technology. One of these, of an annoying man with a grating schtick and playing with a paddleball to advertise the opening of the museum, goes on for at least five minutes and is really unbearable. But these scenes are just indicative--practically every element of the movie screams amateurishness. Not like a low-budget B movie where the people involved have passion but no idea what they were doing--this was Warner Bros. Production values are perfectly adequate, it's just a film where nobody cared or gave much effort.
The main exception is Vincent Price, whose performance as both the sensitive Dr. Jarrod, and later the deformed and revenge-crazed proprietor of the new wax museum, is really superb. In fact, Vincent Price is the only thing that makes this movie watchable. At the time, this movie established his reputation as a master of horror.
There are also a couple effective scenes--the shots of the wax figures melting in the fire, with Dr. Jarrod trying in vain to put out the flames destroying his beloved Marie Antoinette, are really done well. Later on, a scene of the deformed man chasing a woman through the streets of New York is pretty spooky, so long as you don't stop to wonder why multiple streets in SoHo have absolutely no pedestrians or trafffic. (I've been in NYC in the middle of the night--there are people out even at 3AM!)
In the end, though, I can't really recommend this movie, unless you have a special love for Vincent Price. Even then, you'd be far better off watching, say, one of the Edgar Allen Poe movies he did with director Roger Corman, or practically any of the dozens of other horror movies he starred in.
The House of Wax (1953)
Story/Plot/Characters--Dull script with merely functional dialogue. Insipid characters. Story was a potentially interesting mystery, but all the mysterious aspects were fumbled. Inclusion of pointless, time-wasting scenes. Vincent Price's acting is the only saving grace here. (1 point)
Special Effects-- Great make-up job on Vincent Price after the fire, and the fire in the wax museum was well done. (1 point)
Scariness--Not scary. My nine-year-old daughter watched this with no problems. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Some nice spooky atmosphere in the wax museum at night, and the New York night scenes. Some surprisingly freaky bondage-type stuff in the finale, as the endangered young lady is about to have boiling wax poured over her writhing handcuffed body. (1 point)
Total=3 points (Avoid)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Scary Movies: The Raven
It's October, and time for the annual Bruner horror movie festival! Our first movie this year is The Raven, the third Roger Corman-directed Edgar Allan Poe movie we've watched (last year I reviewed Tales of Terror and somehow neglected to review The Pit and the Pendulum). It will also probably be the last for a while, because we've now exhausted the Poe movies on our DVD collection.
The Raven is a horror-comedy, starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff (!), and a very young Jack Nicholson (!!). The main character is Dr. Erasmus Craven, a magician of some power who lives a quiet life of drinking warm milk before bed and worrying over his teenage daughter, Estelle. He also mourns his late wife (Estelle's stepmother), Lenore. One evening, a raven taps on the window to his study, and when Dr. Craven lets it in, is surprised to find the raven speaking to him.
The raven is actually Dr. Bedlow, who was transformed into the raven in a wizard's duel with the evil Dr. Scarabus, and has come to Craven for help because they met at a wizard's convention some years back. The restored Dr. Bedlow sees a picture of the late Lenore and tells Dr. Craven he saw her at Scarabus's house that very evening. Bedlow and Craven decide to pay Scarabus a visit--Bedlow wanting revenge for losing the duel, and Craven to find out if Scarabus has somehow imprisoned the spirit of his beloved Lenore. What they find at Scarabus's castle will surprise them both, and viewer as well.
This movie was fun from start to finish, well-paced and never flagging in interest. I can't say the humor was hilarious or the scares were very frightening, but the various wizards' duels, unexpected magical transformations, and double crosses kept my interest and my childrens' as well. We'll rate this at the high end of Okay on the rating scale.
The Raven (1963)
Story/Plot/Characters--Fine acting and a great script with extra points for originality. Characters were somewhat stereotyped, but overall well-done. (3 points)
Special Effects-- Dated, although they must have been something in 1963. (1 point)
Scariness--Well, zero. Not scary at all. As a horror-comedy, maybe I should be rating this on humor, then. A nice jovial atmosphere, but specific jokes were pretty lame--this was no Young Frankenstein. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Scarabus's castle was pretty cool, with its elaborate, floating fire braziers. (1 point)
Total=5.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Day of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
The Raven is a horror-comedy, starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff (!), and a very young Jack Nicholson (!!). The main character is Dr. Erasmus Craven, a magician of some power who lives a quiet life of drinking warm milk before bed and worrying over his teenage daughter, Estelle. He also mourns his late wife (Estelle's stepmother), Lenore. One evening, a raven taps on the window to his study, and when Dr. Craven lets it in, is surprised to find the raven speaking to him.
The raven is actually Dr. Bedlow, who was transformed into the raven in a wizard's duel with the evil Dr. Scarabus, and has come to Craven for help because they met at a wizard's convention some years back. The restored Dr. Bedlow sees a picture of the late Lenore and tells Dr. Craven he saw her at Scarabus's house that very evening. Bedlow and Craven decide to pay Scarabus a visit--Bedlow wanting revenge for losing the duel, and Craven to find out if Scarabus has somehow imprisoned the spirit of his beloved Lenore. What they find at Scarabus's castle will surprise them both, and viewer as well.
This movie was fun from start to finish, well-paced and never flagging in interest. I can't say the humor was hilarious or the scares were very frightening, but the various wizards' duels, unexpected magical transformations, and double crosses kept my interest and my childrens' as well. We'll rate this at the high end of Okay on the rating scale.
The Raven (1963)
Story/Plot/Characters--Fine acting and a great script with extra points for originality. Characters were somewhat stereotyped, but overall well-done. (3 points)
Special Effects-- Dated, although they must have been something in 1963. (1 point)
Scariness--Well, zero. Not scary at all. As a horror-comedy, maybe I should be rating this on humor, then. A nice jovial atmosphere, but specific jokes were pretty lame--this was no Young Frankenstein. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Scarabus's castle was pretty cool, with its elaborate, floating fire braziers. (1 point)
Total=5.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Excellent
Alien (1979)=10 points
Day of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
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