Gothic (1987): or, The Young Romantics are TRIPPING BALLS

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 19!

In the summer of 1816, in Sweden at the Villa Diodati, one of the most legendary gatherings of literary heavyweights in history is about to take place. One of England's most famous young poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Julian Sands) is to be the guest of one of its most infamous, the Mephistophelean Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne). Shelley is accompanied by his beautiful future wife, Mary Godwin (Natasha Richardson)--not yet Mary Shelley, since the poet is still technically married to his first wife--and Mary's fiery, slightly unhinged stepsister Claire Clairmont (Myriam Cyr). Byron's sole companion is his physician, Dr. Polidori (Timothy Spall), a creepy little man with a more-than-professional interest in Byron's body. Once gathered, the group immediately engages in an orgy of free love, laudanum-fueled licentiousness, and nightmarish visions that will drive them to the brink of MADness, and will also give birth to one of the enduring horror myths of all time.

Warning: if you're in the mood for a Merchant Ivory-style biopic about the girl who wrote Frankenstein, this is NOT the movie you're looking for.

I had seen Gothic (1987) before, many years ago, but somehow I had forgotten how relentlessly, jaw-droppingly INSANE this movie is. Director Ken Russell--a man not particularly well-known for his even hand and cool restraint--takes the famous historical event as a springboard into a Phantasmagoria* of frenetic debauchery and borderline-surrealism. Everything is turned up to 11: the dialogue is overblown and operatic--literary references and quotes are dropped repeatedly and with great force. The music (by Thomas "She Blinded Me with SCIENCE" Dolby!) is hyperactive and intrusive, going from 80s synth rock to symphonic tempests to the Diodati Disco.  And the images...dear God, the images!

*Yes, I know.

A fish flopping helplessly (and pointlessly) in a stone birdbath. A writhing python draped around a suit of medieval armor. A merkin-jerkin' automaton. A demonic dwarf crouched on Mary's chest. Byron's menstrual vampirism. Claire's constant CRAZYFACE. Mary's visions of her dead baby. And Percy meeting a dream woman who never has to say, "Hey, my eyes are up here."

None of it makes very much sense, but Russell is clearly not interested in any sort of accurate historical representation--it's all about seeing how many beautiful, nightmarish images he can cram into 90 minutes. Turns out, the answer is "A Metric Shit-Ton."

The acting here is hard to judge. I said it was operatic, and it's true--there's lots of grand gestures, wild expressions, and screaming on key. Byrne really makes a meal of this diabolic version of Lord Byron, and Richardson is vulnerable and passionate as the future Mary Shelley. Cyr is a force of nature, with her wild black hair, huge, almost Steele-ian eyes, and a sensuality so raw it's almost bleeding. On the down side, Sands seems to have been hired solely for his (admittedly uncanny) resemblance to the actual Percy Shelley--even taking into account the over-the-topness of the script, he is uniformly terrible here.

Themes of birth, death, creation and destruction form only the thinnest framework for the unstoppable fever dream that is Ken Russell's Gothic--a movie so incredibly insane, if it were a person, you'd have to lock it up in the interest of public safety. This is, of course, the highest of recommendations. 3 thumbs way up!

This was exactly my facial expression during the entire runtime of Gothic.It will be yours too.

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Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971): or, I Dont Know Who Killed Me

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 18!

In the gorgeous, history-rich city of Prague, the body of American journalist Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) is found discovered by a crow, and shortly thereafter by a lowly street sweeper. The corpse is taken to the city morgue for storage and autopsy--a bit too soon, as we learn via voice-over/internal monologue that Gregory is in fact alive, and fully conscious of what's happening to him! Paralyzed and on the verge of accidental vivisection, the hapless Yank searches his confused, fragmented memory to reconstruct the events of the previous few days. It all has something to do with his girlfriend Mira (Barbara Bach), whose sudden disappearance led Gregory to investigate a series of similar disappearances, the horrible truth behind which is of course the cause of his predicament. Can he remember it all and regain his motor functions before he's sliced and diced in the operating theater?

Though it's packaged and presented as a giallo, director Aldo Lado's Short Night of Glass Dolls displays few of the characteristics we normally associate with the cinematic subgenre. (Though in point of fact, the gialli novels from which the genre takes its name had much more varied plots than just the old stalk-and-slash.) Instead of a black-gloved killer practicing baroque psychosexual violence, here we get an almost Poe-like "buried alive" (or "put in the fridge drawer alive") tale, with a conscious man undergoing mental torture as he helplessly awaits his doom. We also get conspiracy theory and sociopolitical allegory, as it turns out the girls of Prague are (spoiler!) being preyed upon by a kinky sex-cult made up of the rich, powerful, and elderly, somehow draining the life essence of the young to extend their lives and enhance their power. One wonders if Stanley Kubrick was a fan of the film.

Typical of the better giallos, though, is Lado's emphasis on style over plot--the director and cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini deliver some wonderful visuals--a sequence in which Gregory finds himself in a pitch-black room where a white vase of flowers seems to float eerily toward him is a great one, and several shots of quivering chandeliers are also quite beautiful. As for horror, the cult's rituals are stylish and eerie, and there's a rather shocking scene where Gregory hallucinates his girlfriend's corpse in his apartment refrigerator--perhaps a parallel to his own icebox accomodations.

Short Night of Glass Dolls moves rather slowly, but it's beautiful to look at and has some neat ideas. And if you're particularly horrified by the "don't bury me I'm not dead!" idea, you'll be on the edge of your seat as Gregory sweats out his impending autopsy. (Though the dubbing/voice acting kind of undercuts the tension imo.) Those looking for a stylish, out-of-the-ordinary giallo will not be disappointed. 2.25 thumbs.

"Well, I guess it's true what they say about post-mortem muscle contractions. Better get a mop, Johnston."

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Burn, Witch, Burn (1962): or, Under the Double Eagle

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 17!

Everything is coming up roses for stuffy-but-suave college professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde): his students love him, his peers admire him, and despite his brief tenure at the university where he lectures, he seems a shoo-in for the Chair of the Sociology department--much to the consternation of rival professor Flora Carr (Margaret Johnston). Little does the skeptical scholar realize that his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) has been helping his career along by means of Jamaican voodoo and Olde Englishe Witchcrafte. When he discovers his wife's talismans (talismen?) strewn about the house, however, he decides to put a stop to all this superstitious rubbish by tossing the lot into the fireplace--after which his luck goes into what can charitably be termed a death spiral. One student threatens him with a gun for better grades, another claims the dapper dean violated her in the lecture hall, lorries barrel toward him out of nowhere, and his former friends shun him. Has he angered the Ancient Gods with his disbelief, or is there something more scientifically explainable (but no less sinister) at work?

Burn, Witch, Burn takes a little while to get going, but the payoff is definitely worth it. Director Sidney Hayers builds the suspense slowly, painting Taylor as an intelligent, over-confident man in love who clearly feels he deserves all the good that has come his way, then yanking that believe out from under him and letting the pieces fall. (It always helps when you're working from a script by speculative fiction superstars Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, themselves working from a novel by Fritz Leiber Jr.) Blair is excellent as Taylor's slavishly devoted wife, willing to do anything--even make deals with the devil--in order to advance her husband's career. (Think of a darker, more passionate version of Samantha Stevens from TV's Bewitched.) Wyngarde has a face like a Rolls Royce grille and looks simultaneously stuffy and sexy in his waist-high chinos and chest-baring silk shirts, and it's fun to watch his proper facade crumble. Johnston makes a wonderful adversary--petty, but intelligent and ruthless enough to do real damage--and the rest of the British cast is great too.

The movie plays out a bit like an extended Twilight Zone episode (no coincidence, perhaps, given its script's pedigree), but when it hits the barn-burning climax, it ventures out into another dimension of the MAD. No spoilers, but I definitely wasn't expecting the Final Boss.

Well acted, with a good script and efficient direction, Burn, Witch, Burn may be a little old fashioned, but I was entertained nonetheless. 2 thumbs.

Tan, Witch, Tan

(Image shamlessly lifted from Krell Labs--Where the Future is Being Conquered Today!™)

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Captive Wild Woman (1943): or, I'm Going Ape for You, Baby

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 16!

Daring circus man and animal trainer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone) returns from a 2-year journey with a cargo hold full of big cats, zebras, and one very intelligent gorilla named Cheela (Ray "Crash" Corrigan in one of his patented and excellent ape suits). Girlfriend Beth Coleman (scream queen extraordinaire Evelyn Ankers) is happy to have him back, and introduces him to mysterious Dr. Sigmund Walters (a never-more-dapper John Carradine), a brilliant glandular specialist who has been treating Beth's friend Dorothy (The Big Sleep's Carmen Sternwood herself, Martha Vickers) for an overabundance of "the sex hormone." Of course Dr. Walters is a scientist of the extremely MAD persuasion, and hopes to use Dorothy's hormones and his own surgical know-how to transform Cheela into a human/ape hybrid, which will be the first of a race of supermen to help him rule the world, blah blah blah.

He succeeds beyond his wildest expectations, for when the bandages come off Cheela has become the smokin' hawt Acquanetta. However, when the simian sweetie figuratively goes ape for Fred, the strong (sexual) emotions cause a glandular chaos in her system, which results in her going ape literally. As Dr. Walters targets Beth for his next lethal transplant and Fred finds himself at the mercy of a cage full of storm spooked cats, Cheela's animal and human natures fight to decide the fate of all involved.

They sure don't make 'em like this anymore. Captive Wild Woman is a briskly paced mad science thriller whose one-hour running time is packed with action, thrills, and more than a little post-Code perversity. Director Edward Dmytryk does a nice job juggling the circus and laboratory scenes, and even the lengthy lion-and-tiger-taming sequences (comprised mostly of footage lifted from the 1933 circus flick The Big Cage, according to Tom Weaver's excellent book Universal Horrors) kept me on the edge of my seat. (And would likely be the scariest thing in the movie to a modern, ASPCA-sympathetic viewer.) The half-ape/half-woman makeup by the legendary Jack Pierce is, of course, excellent.

The cast is full of wonderful genre actors of the era, including Fay Helm, who played alongside Ankers a couple years earlier in 1941's The Wolf Man, as Dr. Walter's ill-fated nurse. Carradine gives a remarkably restrained performance as the mad doctor, and Corrigan's ape-acting is great as always. While Acquanetta was billed as "A New Sensation in Savagery!" she's not really given much to do in her non-speaking role--still, her exotic beauty and big, expressive eyes make a definite impression.

A fun second-tier Universal flick I'd been meaning to check out for a long time, and am very glad I did. A great Sunday-afternoon popcorn muncher: 2.25 thumbs.

"Gimme some sugar, baby!"

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Hatchet (2006): or, Blood and Gore and Little More

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 15!

 
A group of stupid tourists in New Orleans for Mardis Gras stupidly take a haunted swamp tour from a stupid tour guide and end up stupidly stuck in the swamp being killed off by a hulking, bloodthirsty killer ghost.

Okay, maybe that's a little harsh. I'll try again.

Mopey emo kid Ben (Joel David Moore, whom I was shocked to learn has NOT played Shaggy in a live-action Scooby-Doo flick...yet) and his pal Marcus (Deon Richmond) go to Mardis Gras to help Ben get over being dumped by his long-term girlfriend. Uninterested in boobs and booze--I hate him already--Ben convinces Marcus instead to go on a Haunted Swamp Tour, headed by the Ragin' Asian Cajun Shawn (Parry Shen). Also along for the ride: a would-be pornographer and his two bickering, boob-baring starlets, a stereotypical retired couple from the Midwest, and a silent, brooding local girl with a hidden agenda.

Of course they get stranded in the swamp and are soon under attack by Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder), a hulking, vengeful revenant who kills any and everybody trespassing in his swamp, in extremely gory and bloody ways. Can our hapless tourists survive a night in the swamp, on the run from gators, snakes, and an unkillable, bloodthirsty ghost?

When Hatchet came out in 2006, it got a lot of hype from the horror community, and its easy to see why. In addition to some truly spectacular, gut-wrenching gore and a villain who looks like a mashup of Jason (part 2 era), Madman Marz, and the Freak from Funhouse, it also boasted cameos by such 80s and 90s horror icons as Hodder, Robert Englund, and Tony Todd. (Todd in particular has a hilarious bit part as a bitter former tour guide in the French Quarter.)

I guess I'm just an old fogey, but I couldn't get into this one. While I enjoyed the creature design and the inventive, extremely gory FX (and appreciated even more that they were all practical FX, no CG), I found those scenes consistently undercut by the extremely broad, lowest-common-denominator "comedy" that comprised pretty much all of the plot. The characters are not developed past their one-dimensional sketches--Brian is only ever mopey and heartbroken, Marcus is only ever a wisecracking sidekick, and the Boob girls are only ever ditzy porn stars. Sure, it's nice to see girls baring their boobs and shouting "Woo!" but even that gets old when it's the entirety of a character's personality.

Also, I understand that the movie is meant an homage to the slashers of the 80s, but it felt really by the numbers to me. "Here's the part where they go off the beaten path and get stranded. Here's the part where they learn the truth about the legend. Here's the part where people get killed. Here's the part where they stop running and fight back." There was no tweaking of the formula, which would be fine, except there were also no engaging characters to keep me interested. Writer/Director
Adam Green seemed to keep a hard line drawn between the comedy sections and horror sections of the movie, and as a result I felt detached from both.

I know a lot of people loved this, and Green's personal story is a very inspirational one (look it up) so I don't begrudge him his success. And the practical gore scenes really are something to see, a nice present for fans of the genre starved by the malnutritive properties of CG gore. Maybe it's my age, or my steady diet of 70s exploitation and Italian wackiness, but this just didn't do it for me. I found Hatchet okay, but just okay. 1.5 thumbs.

"Zoiks!"

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Dark August (1976): or, Warlock with a Shotgun

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 14!

Gruff,  no-nonsense Noo Yawker Sal Devito (J.J. Barry), reeling from a messy separation and mid-life crisis, has relocated to rural Vermont to start a new life. Things are going pretty well for him--he's set up as a photographer, started building a studio, and fallen in with anorexic blonde artist Jackie (Carolyne Barry), who cares about neither his still-married status nor his chronic shortage of shirt-buttons. However, when Sal accidently runs over the granddaughter of local occultist Old Man McDermitt, the grieving grandfather hexes Sal with all the powers of Hell!

Dark August starts out extremely well, setting up Sal as man tormented by guilt, not only for the accident, but his failed marriage. Director Martin Goldman does a good job getting Sal's story out visually, dropping hints about his paranoia (he's taken up smoking again, let the housework go, left his loaded shotgun on the bed, that sort of thing) and normal conversations to let the viewer work things out. J.J. Barry is believable and engaging as Sal, and for a while I was really interested in his plight and worried for him.

Unfortunately, it seems all the old man's hex has the power to do is give Sal periodic panic attacks and cause minor hallucinations that don't do anything. (Though I guess being interrupted by hyperventilation while banging a skinny Vermont artist is pretty evil.) The movie drags as Sal gets more and more upset about this mostly harmless curse, leading to some cool 70s occultism/spiritualism from his friend Theo's girlfriend. But it goes nowhere, even when he visits local witch Adrianna Putnam (Kim Hunter, famous round these parts for being Bad Ronald's mom, around others for being Dr. Zira in the Planet of the Apes series), who munches pumpkin seeds while talking about hexes and evil forces and has a surprising exit in the film's otherwise in-name-only climax.

The first half of Dark August was pretty great, I though--artfully filmed, well-scripted and paced, believably acted, giving us some cool creepy occult curse action in dribs and drabs. But unfortunately the film never really delivers on its promise of Eeevil Wizardry and demonic dispensation, leaving the audience wishing something--ANYTHING--would happen. And if there's one thing a Mad Movie should never be, it's boring. 1.25 thumbs.

"Don't mind me. I'm just going to stand here and do nothing for the next 87 minutes."

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[REC] ² (2009): or, 28 Floors Later

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 13!

 
An apartment building in the center of a Barcelona has been locked down, sealed off with plastic wrap, and surrounded by police and officials. It seems the people inside have come down with a particularly bad case of the Extreme Ocular Hemorrhage and Homicidal Violence Flu. The virus is extremely contagious, leading the municipal health department to take drastic measures. A SWAT team is sent in, along with the secretive Dr. Owen (living Pixar character Jonathan Mellor) to locate Patient Zero and get a blood sample, which they hope will allow them to find a cure. But when one blood-spitting murder machine gets surprisingly un-murdery after Dr. Owen holds up a crucifix and lays some scripture on his ass, the members of the police party realize there's something much more sinister than just a virus going on...

Picking up precisely where 2007 hit [REC] left off, [REC] ² is more of the same--but I didn't really mind that much. The demonic possession-as-virus idea is not bad as such explanations go, adding a supernatural layer to the standard 28 Days Later-style infection flick. (Which by now should in fact be its own subgenre.) Once again co-directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza use the first-cameras again, here mounted on the SWAT team's helmets for command and control purposes--to set up some tense "moving through the shadows" shots and frenetic attacks by the infected remnants. The "night vision" shots are back too, and used here to the same good effect. Manuela Velasco also returns in a reprise of her role from the first movie, with a welcome if predictable twist.

[REC] ² doesn't do anything particularly new, but it does deliver an exciting, bloody, action-packed and sometimes creepy ride. 2 thumbs up.

"We're out of jelly."

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