60's British Horror Part One

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED
(1960)
Dir - Wolf Rilla
Overall: GREAT

German director Wolf Rilla's most famous cinematic accomplishment Village of the Damned stands up all these decades later as one of the best British horror films probably ever made.  Similar in some respects to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, (another obviously landmark work), for its tale of an emotionless, malicious force hell-bent on survival after presumably arriving on Earth from the cosmos, Village forgoes Cold War paranoia symbolism for straight out creepiness.  The premise is exceptionally unnerving and the very mysterious set up wastes zero time getting to the point with Rilla wisely choosing to play it out with no dramatic score for quite some time.  Watching the film now, it is unlikely that anyone will be surprised or even perplexed the way that is intended since it has long been a mainstay in pop culture.  White haired, white-eyed children sinisterly staring at the camera and speaking exclusively in logical, proper British grammar has been parodied more than enough times for everyone to be familiar with what is happening even with going into the film for the first time.  This is hardly a problem though as the film does not rely on any shock value, instead working marvelously as an unsettling and eerie work that pushes every bottom for an audience to witness innocence masked as malevolence.

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS
(1962)
Dir - Steve Sekely
Overall: GOOD

One of the best large scale, big scary monsters/science fiction films from the 1950s-1960s era when they were certainly aplenty, the John Wyndham novel adaptation The Day of the Triffids delves deep into the horror pool, much to its effectiveness.  The first act is particularly strong, with a swell introduction, nerve-wracking premise, a slow boiled and gruesome greenhouse killing, and very impressive shots of an isolated hospital and London cityscape.  If that last part sounds familiar, you would be correct in recalling a little zombie film called 28 Days Later that either intentionally or coincidentally borrows more than a bit from Triffids' post-apocalyptic aesthetic.  The ensemble cast is rather solid and supply just enough audience relatability to never bog the overall pace down.  Script wise, it is pretty tight up until a point where the final solution to the would-be unstoppable triffid plague is bum-rushed over almost as an afterthought.  It also recalls The War of the Worlds' ending a little too intentionally, (presumably to maximize commercialism potential), which is made more noticeable by the fact that the novel wrapped things up rather differently and in more detail.  Yet only if the majority of Triffids was not so expertly done before that and the film itself had emerged at a time when such genre pictures were more experimental with more of their details would such shortcomings be too detrimental.

WITCHCRAFT
(1964)
Dir - Don Sharp
Overall: MEH

Lon Chaney Jr. had a rather lackluster track record near the end of his career, though a small number of appearances in decent movies, (Spider Baby, The Haunted Palace), kept it above complete embarrassment.  Don Sharp, (who directed some typically solid Hammer films such as The Kiss of the Vampire and Rasputin the Mad Monk), helmed the 1964 Witchcraft with Chaney acting as a wicked, foul-tempered decedent of ancient magic with his deep, gargly voice lathered in alcohol.  It is not one of the best of the veteran, Universal monster actor's portrayals as he is not only very one-note, but he even says the wrong characters name in one scene.  The film itself has a few other missteps as well as some becoming qualities.  The script is as simple as they come which is in no way a detriment, but the pacing during some would-be climactic scenes is not kept up to appropriate levels.  During the final third of the film, a great deal of time is spent watching characters very slowly walk down stairs and through endless corridors and it is tempting to nod off while viewing.  There are also a couple apparent technical mistakes such as when a room full of witches walk into a chamber completely oblivious to their victim having been removed.  Plus, there are two scenes that take place with reoccurring cuts to a car driving on clearly two different terrains from the inside and outside view of the camera.  Still, the occult atmosphere is effective and even rather creepy at times, particularly when it is not accompanied by obvious "horror movie music".

80's American Horror Part Two

DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE
(1980)
Dir - Joseph Ellison
Overall: MEH

Joseph Ellison's Don't Go in the House is both one of the many "Don't" movies out there, one of the many to liberally borrow narrative tropes from Psycho, and also one of the many unapologetically ugly and lurid, independent video nasty that is made to shock its audience first and foremost.  A modernized and more gruesome version of a disturbed Mama's boy-gone-cuckoo-in-a-homicidal-manner story with "people doing dumb horror movie" things aplenty, it is at least set up and delivered in an off-kilter way.  This makes it easy to buy into its illogical universe where a character that is clearly unstable can also get away with such unwholesome things, let alone the amount of such unwholesome things.  That said, the film seems rushed at several instances with a jarring ending and a big reveal which implies that several scenes are missing.  It all becomes as increasingly one-note as it is unpleasant and could easily be skipped by anyone besides the most steadfast of trash enthusiasts.

EYES OF A STRANGER

(1981)

Dir - Ken Wiederhorn

Overall: MEH

 

Few could award Ken Wiederhorn's Eyes of a Stranger with many points for originality, but it still manages to pull-off a halfway decent final act and features an impressive performance from Jennifer Jason Leigh in her theatrical debut.  The tired tropes here go all the way back to giallos from a decade or more prior, with the killer making repeated, pervy phone calls to his victims, wearing pantyhose over his face as well as a black trench coat and a hat, and with a headstrong pedestrian trying to track him down when the police are having no such luck doing so themselves.  Tom Savini does the gore effects for what it is worth, yet none of them are particularly clever or memorable and the kill scenes are few and far between anyway.  Eventually though, Lauren Tewes' protagonist follows through on her suspicions and is actually proven right, something that keeps the viewer on edge during the final cat and mouse sequence involving her mute/blind sister, (Leigh).  Everything before the last fifteen or so minutes is poorly paced and barely worth paying attention to though, ultimately making this one of countless forgettable slasher movies from 1981 alone.

THE STUFF
(1985)
Dir - Larry Cohen
Overall: WOOF

To best articulate how incredibly inept The Stuff is, one could realize that if writer/director Larry Cohen submitted the finished result to his film class, he would have gotten a big, fat, very deserving F in every basic film structure category.  To be fair, Cohen's shtick has always been left-of-center, but here he displays a Troll 2 level of incompetence with a nearly complete abandon of basic scene arrangement.  From the very first shot, the camera cuts and moves haphazardly around and one can lose count of how many scenes abruptly take place that appear to have huge chunks left missing from the editing room.  Michael Moriarty is by far one of the most obnoxious protagonists of all time.  His very first scene is so bizarrely staged, (not at all helped with how badly everyone's voice is ADRed in it, something that is not isolated to just this segment), and his persona so aggravatingly smug that his heroic charm is impossible to fall for.  He is but one of many problems though.  By the time that we meet Paul Sorvino as a cartoon character, right-wing, randomly racist for one second, beyond conveniently and geographically located ex-Army Colonal with a giant compound and his own arsenal of soldiers, the movie is so off the rails that throwing one's hands up in disbelief is the only fitting response.  Spending the entire movie going "wait...what now?" followed by wanting your eighty-seven minutes back is to be wholly expected.

80's American Horror Part One

THE BURNING
(1981)
Dir - Tony Maylam
Overall: WOOF

As one of the many, many slasher films emerging at the turn of the 80s, Tony Maylam's The Burning is as trite and obnoxious as any.  The premise of a bunch of horny teenagers in peril at a summer camp is already textbook and lazy, emerging only a year after Friday the 13th came out.  The Weinstein brothers, (particularly everyone's "favorite" sexual predator Harvey), were heavily involved in the production and presumably conceived of this film before the 13th came out, but it was also deliberately re-written to heed to as many trendy cliches as possible and boy does it show.  A completely inconsequential prostitute murder early on seems thrown in there just to distract from the rest of the body count not starting until more than halfway into the film.  Tom Savini did the make-up, Rick Wakeman did the score, and several very young, future-famous, (Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter) or "Hey, I know that guy/girl" character actors make up the cast, which brings a tiny bit of enjoyment to the proceedings.  Everywhere else though, (from the POV killer shots equipped with scary and dated keyboard music every single time, bait and switch "somebody's gonna get killed...oh never mind they're not" scenes, a mind-numbingly predictable plot, inexplicable super powers granted to the killer, awful day for night shots, teenage bullies vs teenage dorks), The Burning represents absolutely everything scornful about slasher movies.

DEAD AND BURIED
(1981)
Dir - Gary Sherman
Overall: MEH

There are some provocative moments in Gary Sherman's Dead and Buried to be sure.  Particularly the opening scene which takes a very left turn and sets everything in motion in an intriguing way as many excellent horror films have done before.  Once we are brought into this uncomfortably odd world, several more dark and mystifying set pieces play out and many of them are nice and uncomfortably grisly.  Horror movies and their ability to wrap up of their mystery at the end more often than not proves a difficult undertaking though and this one is regrettably no exception.  One is left scratching their head and running the film back in their brain afterwards, getting increasingly let down in how sloppy the script was ultimately put together even though it was mostly entertaining to see played out.  The great Dan O'Bannon's gets a screenwriting credit, but according to him, he was either gracious enough to throw it on there so his Alien co-writer friend Ronald Shusett could use it for more clout or he was embarrassed with the turn out and just made that anecdote up to distance himself from the finished product.  Still, Stan Winston's involvement and an eccentric and creepy performance from Jack Albertson further provide some commendable moments.

NEAR DARK
(1987)
Dir - Kathryn Bigelow
Overall: MEH

Vampire films were plentiful and mostly excellent in the 80s and early 90s and Mrs. Ex-James Cameron Kathyrn Bigelow's Near Dark has gone on to be recognized as one of the best of them, if not the best.  With others such as Vamp, The Lost Boys, and Fright Night coming out within two years of this one, the prominent comedic leanings of those are replaced by gruff, dark Western aesthetics here.  Though Bill Paxton is a natural treasure at this point and he was never more Bill Paxtony than here, (saying something), the majority of the "Yee-haw I'm a badass", one-liner shtick of the undead family as a whole is groan inducing and very, very forced.  All at the same time, it rides a thin line of being too ridiculous to be entertaining in fitting with the intended tone.  Bigelow and Eric Red's script is equipped with plot holes and idiotic "people in horror movies" behavior, which comes to a head with a disappointingly illogical ending.  The editing is a problem as well, with several scenes playing out as if pieces are missing and other scenes ending up rather predictably foreshadowed.  None of this makes Near Dark anything like a trainwreck and it follows movie structure to a tee, but outside of its visual appealing genre blending and a handful of fun, popcorn crowd-pleasing moments, it is too underdeveloped everywhere else to fairly consider exceptional.

60's José Mojica Marins

AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL
(1964)
Overall: GOOD

The seminal Brazilian horror villain Coffin Joe was first brought to life in At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul.  Shot on non-existing sets with hardly a budget to be noticeably seen and using actors of the lowest revere, José Mojica Marins' first of several staring ventures for himself as the despicable, nihilistic, blasphemously hedonist undertaker Zé do Caixão is laudable for a few reasons.  As an independent film made in a country with virtually nothing in the horror camp preceding it, Marins was taking on uncharted terrain and the lack of restraint he shows makes At Midnight one of the more violent and uncompromising genre works of the day.  There is a determination on display to go beyond making just an offensive exploitative drive-in movie, especially considering the fact that such exploitation films were not really a thing yet in 1964.  Marins vigorously attempts something more cautionary in a comeuppance way, but also pushes the boundaries by having such a vile, remorseless protagonist.  There is good ole spooky stuff and plenty of cliches present, (two fourth-wall breaking introductions, a cackling gypsy witch, fog ridden cemeteries and crypts, gruesome deaths, superstitious villagers), but the themes are more profound if still presented in an amateurish yet fun way.

THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE
(1967)
Overall: GOOD

For round two, (produced three years after At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul), José Mojica Marins returns with an apparently larger budget and the standard, "go bigger" sequel approach with This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse.  Taking place immediately where Midnight wrapped up, Marins is Coffin Joe again, gets his eyes miraculously fixed because movie scripts, and then sets up shop in presumably another town with a hunchbacked/burn victim assistant and limitless resources for some reason.  These are the kind of details that are deliberately glossed over to make way for gruesome set pieces and what Marins seems to be setting up as Coffin Joe trademarks.  Amping it up from the very no-budget preceding film, instead of just one woman and one spider, several are tormented with many.  Also, Marins' nails are even longer and more ridiculous, plus there are snakes, a slow moving stone/head crushing, a swamp that acts as quick sand, and Zé do Caixão gets lucky with a willing lady to take his seed.  Marins portrays his top-hat wearing, Nietzsche-quoting bad guy with a hint more anti-hero qualities, (he has a less-creepy soft-spot for children), but his diabolical tortures are even more over the top and remorseless, even with a Catholic influence overtaking things at the end.  Everywhere else, he incessantly denies all delusions of his guilt ridden visions, including the best scene in the movie, being a nightmare hell quest in color no less.

TRILOGY OF TERROR
(1968)
Additional Dir - Luis Sérgio Person and Ozualdo Candeias
Overall: MEH

Teaming up with two other Brazilian directors for an anthology film consisting of three stories adapted from the TV show Além, Muito Além do Além, (Beyond, Much Beyond the Beyond), José Mojica Marins handles the final "Macabre Nightmare" segment which is the most straight-laced horror outing of the bunch and ultimately the most rewarding.  Marins' "favorite" on-screen representations of squeamish terror, (rape and spiders), find a home here again and the director shows a consistent knack for notable visuals.  Unfortunately, the sum of all the parts bogs the film down  as the other two portions are either dull or very baffling.  Luis Sérgio Person's "Procession of Dead" is filler-level forgettable and has the absolute worst "day for night" sequence ever filmed, (unless its sudden jump from an unmistakable broad daylight midnight to pitch black was intended).  Though Ozualdo Candeias' opening "The Agreement" rides the line of being so oddly overblown that it comes out good, it is also messy and impossible to follow.  Out of the three stories, this inadvertently makes it a disastrous one to lead with as it sets the later two up on very rocky footing.  Still, this is an unusual yet somewhat recommended Brazilian horror vehicle that often gets buried under mountains of more noteworthy works.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF COFFIN JOE
(1968)
Overall: GOOD

Another anthology outing from José Mojica Marins, (this time handling every story himself from the director chair), The Strange World of Coffin Joe has a misleading title in that it is not part of the Zé do Caixão saga.  Marins' famous character only appears in the film's introduction, spouting more rambling, "true nature of fear and man" nonsense.  Every story quite typically varies in quality and they all continue Marins' fascination with mankind's vileness.  They also all feature rape, which is unfortunate from an "entertainment" level yet perhaps necessary for Marins' depraved, religious transgression message.  The filmmaker's insistence on depicting his villains as diabolically over-zealous degenerates is certainly intentional, but the extent to which he skews the moral message to the point of often having the bad guy "win" is not something for everyone's tastes.  Speaking of taste, this is the most nasty of Marins' 1960's works, the ending segment "Theory (Ideologia)" acting as a sadist horror fan's wet dream.  The middle "Obsession (Tara)" is rather pointless really, only serving as a silent, macabre breather and the opening "The Dollmaker (O Fabricante de Bonecas)" is a rather predictable excuse to have more women get manhandled.  This whole is considerably captivating though and definitely worthy of the word "Strange" in the title, as is most of Marins offbeat, stylized work.

2015 Horror Part Five

THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER
Dir - Oz Perkins
Overall: MEH

Made before the tediously lousy I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House yet given a wider release after it, The Blackcoat's Daughter is Anthony Perkins son Osgood Perkins to-date other film that drops the ball down several flights of stairs.  To compare, Blackcoat's is noticeably more successful in some aspects.  Perkins deserves a pat on the back for maintaining a consistent mood, one that is crawling along at a deliberately slow and eerie pace.  The performances from the three leads, (all female), are also ideal and no one at any time chews the scenery in a B-movie manner.  This is certainly a serious movie with a serious feel.  Yet Perkins does not quite have all the pieces in place to deliver what he seems to be going for.  The film is irritatingly inconclusive which is really only a problem since both the characters and premise are too vaguely formed.  Even though they are done more subtly than most horror films allow, there are still a handful of genre cliches and twists that rear their predictable head and unintentionally cheapen the proceedings.  Perkins certainly could be on to something just as easily as he could be doomed to make the same mistakes again with future film vehicles, but if anything, he seems well-equipped at creating a consistently menacing tone.

BASKIN
Dir - Can Evrenol
Overall: GOOD

Turkey has produced very, very few horror movies over the last century, making Can Evrenol's full-length debut Baskin, (based off his own 2013 short film of the same name), something to take note of simply on its geographical origin.  It was shot in Istanbul exclusively at night with a less than half a million dollar budget and from an optical standpoint, the gore enthusiast horror fan will be most pleased.  Influences from the Hellraiser franchise, Silent Hill games, Lucio Fulci's "Gates of Hell" trilogy, and the contemporary New French Extremity movement pile on top of each other as everything flies off the rails, almost cartoonishly so by the end.  Evrenol's concocted a gruesome sensory overload to be sure, but he also keeps it on the mysterious side of the fence, keeping the viewer invested even once it became clear that this is just a mishmash of random themes, bizarreness, and freakish visuals.  There are more than enough earnestly creepy moments that brew up before the "I would've shit my pants forty times if that was me" ones take center stage and as probably too unnecessarily vile as the torture porn moments get, (aren't they always though?), the film is strange and even silly enough to enhance its balls-out brutality.

THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE
Dir - Perry Blackshear
Overall: GREAT

Another very commendable venture of independent, horror filmmaking, They Look Like People was made on what has to be a diminutive budget, (any special effects shots are sparse in quantity and severity), by newcomer Perry Blackshear who handled pretty much every technical aspect of the production solo.  It not only lives up to the respect it deserves in its formation, but it surpasses it in its achievement.  First off, points are deservedly won for skipping right past oodles of genre tropes that could have cluttered up the place, with insulting jump scares and twitchy, deformed things never showing up.  From a story standpoint, it is simple and believably portrayed, and such subject matter is voluntarily distanced from how it would normally appear in other such movies.  This is a triumphant aspect for not only Blackshear, but his small cast and their well-mannered and crafted performances that kept things thoroughly unpredictable.  An exemplary bit of contemporary horror, it proves what kind of intelligent, effectively different and creepy ways there are to breathe exciting life into this genre.