American Silent Horror Part Two

THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE
(1914)
Dir - D.W. Griffith
Overall: MEH

Immediately proceeding the landmark, one-two punch of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance was his very loose adaptation/hybrid of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart and Annabel Lee.  The Avenging Conscience or Thou Shalt Not Kill spends a scant couple of minutes indulging itself in macabre, nightmarish visuals, most of which come near the finish line.  It qualifies as a horror film in a lax context, but despite Griffith's noticeable ability to stage a few moments of tightly-wound tension here or there, it is most prominently a bore.  Two lovers are initially thwarted to marry each other by the one's domineering uncle, (as was the style at the time), and for the most part it is just a back and forth with people being in love, then being sad and being in love, some intertitles of Poe's writings, and repeat over and over again until some ghosts and ghouls finally show up.  It is not to say that anything else going on in a film besides spooky stuff does not work; it is just that here it does not really work, at least not in any compelling fashion, despite how keen Griffith's eye is at the cusp of his creative peak.

WOLF BLOOD
(1925)
Dir - George Chesebro/Bruce Mitchell
Overall: WOOF

There is really no level of historical curiosity that justifies any viewing of what is considered to be the earliest surviving werewolf film Wolf Blood or Wolfblood: A Tale of the Forest.  First of all, (which cannot be stressed enough), there is no werewolf.  Not only is there literally not a single shot of one in silhouette form even, but the main character ultimately does not even succumb to lycanthopy as the last act vaguely alludes to.  Instead, all that happens is a jealous doctor telling a guy that he gave him a blood transfusion from a wolf so he would go crazy since his fiance was falling for him.  There are a small handful of shots of actual wolves if that counts as something, (it does not).  Secondly, the tremendous bulk of the movie's narrative could not be more atrociously boring or dated as it pussyfoots around a lame romance and rivalry between two competing logging companies.  Talk about exciting stuff.  By the time even the most bare bones superstitious ideas are introduced, hardly any viewer could be expected to still be invested.  The fact that there is nothing remotely resembling a payoff just further solidifies this as an early bit of celluloid most logically left forgotten to time.

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
(1928)
Dir - Paul Leni
Overall: GOOD

The third film directed by Paul Leni for Universal, (though second to still exist, 1927's The Chinese Parrot considered lost), The Man Who Laughs had an influence over future horror films if not being a horror film on its own merit.  Well, it is also famous for inspiring in part the creation of DCs The Joker with all three of the character's creators giving credit to a photograph of Conrad Veidt for providing them something to base the Clown Prince of Crime's trademark, exaggerated grin off of.  In fact it is Veidt's performance that acts as The Man Who Laugh's saving grace.  Having appeared in a number of landmark German horror films, Veidt excels in a role here originally planned for Lon Chaney, utilizing his eyes for all of the emotion needed to make the focus of every one of his scenes be exclusively on him.  Adapting another of Victor Hugo's novels after the success of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (which likewise was a historical melodrama as opposed to a horror movie), Universal's soon to be maverick make-up man Jack Pierce was responsible for the title character's unsettling deformity.  Said design is actually given a far more subtle look than the artist's future work, let alone the more elaborate make-ups of the studio's then current, top billed Man of 1,000 Faces Lon Chaney.

American Silent Horror Part One

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
(1920)
Dir - John S. Robertson
Overall: MEH

Already adapted to the screen a number of times in the silent era, the first full-length cinematic telling of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was the Paramount produced, 1920, John Barrymore-starred version, (two more would be released by other studies the very same year).  It is in fact a tour de force for the stage actor who achieves marvelous results during his transformation scenes, (one of which involving zero camera tricks or even make-up), and in provoking genuine unnerve as the Edward Hyde half of the persona.  Contorting his body language and tilting his head back to prominently display his fiendish grin and overall highly expressive and deliberately grotesque facial features, Barrymore's Hyde is as good as any the film medium has ever seen.  This was also the first time that the female characters Millicent Carew and the exotic dance girl were introduced into one of the films from Thomas Russell Sullivan's stage production, but even still, the movie is a tremendous bore outside of Barrymore's performance.  These pacing issues would be no more come the Fredric March version eleven years later, but this one is still a spectacle at least when the second half of its title character is on screen.

THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN
(1922)
Dir - Edward D. Venturini
Overall: MEH

Allegedly this 1922 version of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hallow is the oldest existing film adaptation and the first feature-length movie of any kind to be filmed entirely in panchromatic stock.  It is therefor a historically important work, but unfortunately its place as a cinematic footnote is all that it is really worth.  It is odd in and of itself that they went with the title The Headless Horseman since it almost could not be more misleading.  Said iconic horror literature villain is given a whopping two and a half minutes of screen time if one was to be generous.  Which is bad enough.  Added to that fact is that his "blink and you'll miss 'em" appearances are void of atmosphere and shot in unconvincing day for night scenes with no emphasis on any even remotely moody lighting.  Added AGAIN to that is the fact that they are not even given a supernatural origin; it just ends up being some asshole pulling a practical joke, which is essentially what the entire movie feels like.  The actual hour and some change that makes up everything else is numbingly uninteresting and just revolves around the Sleepy Hollow village prattling on about their own business and bickering with their new school master for no reason.  There is simply nothing else here worth investigating any further.

THE CAT AND THE CANARY
(1927)
Dir - Paul Leni
Overall: MEH

Having snagged German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni from his native country, Universal gave him The Cat and the Canary as his first project for the studio.  An adaptation of the stage play by John Willard, Leni got to bring some of the impressive, stylistic flare to this textbook haunted house comedy that would get remade a handful of times, most notably with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in 1939.  Inventive intertitles and camera movements, dissolves, superimpositions, and set designs by both Leni himself and Charles D. Hall who would later go onto to do such work on both Dracula and Frankenstein, it certainly has the appropriate, spooky look going for it.  The presentation is far more interesting than the slow, predictable story where a bunch of people are cooped up in a ridiculously creepy house with an equally creepy housekeeper, waiting for everyone to get either picked off or startled into fainting spells while an old relative's will is fought over.  As far as the humor goes, it is certainly present though not necessarily gut-busting.  Visually it is captivating enough, but nothing else really latches onto you the way it probably should.

American Silent Horror Shorts Part Two

DANSE MACABRE
(1922)
Dir - Dudley Murphy
Overall: GOOD

Made by American filmmaker Dudley Murphy's ultimately very short lived production company Visual Symphony Productions that set about syncing orchestral music to on screen visuals, Danse Macabre was the first and only movie the company ever made.  Superimposed footage of a skeletal, violin-playing Death character on a large soundstage makes for an alluring visual all on its own.  Yet as a six minute dance sequence with Russian-born choreographer Adolph Bolm, his partner Ruth Page, and all based off of the tone poem of the same name by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, it is an interesting, brief snapshot of the silent era just before sound was beginning to reinvent the entire medium.  It was not the first work of its kind to be deliberately set to a live musical accompaniment, but it is a striking one that also manages to utilize animation, as well as being essentially a ballet showcase.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
(1928)
Dir - James Sibley Watson/Melville Webber
Overall: GOOD

Coherent storytelling is willfully abandoned in James Sibley Watson and Melville Webbers' avant-garde short The Fall of the House of Usher.  Not to be confused with the French, full-length version released the same year, this one is in fact far more expressionistic with dutch angles, superimpositions, experimental lighting, backgrounds made of primitive, pointy shapes, tracking shots, and most of the scenes being shown through various prism effects.  There are no intertitles, but those familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's source material and/or the numerous screen adaptations that would continue to be made should be able to follow the incessantly empirical visuals.  The unmelodic score which was later synced and added by original composer Alec Wilder in 1959 is appropriately distressing as well.

THE TELL TALE HEART
(1928)
Dir - Charles Klein/Leon Shamroy
Overall: MEH

"A picturization of Edgar Allan Poe's immortal classic" as the opening titles proclaim, The Tell Tale Heart is yet another Poe adaptation from 1928 that leans heavily on German Expressionism.  Handwritten, chickenscratch is overlayed over closeups of penetrating, vulture eyes and the sets and props are once again made of abstract, jagged shapes.  The lead performance from Otto Matieson, (done up deliberately to look like Poe himself), is more subdued than most from the silent era, even as he is playing the author's token madman.  With some humor coming into play by the odd, in-sync behavior of the two investigators, (who speak and nod in unison), and an overall penetrable presentation, all of the positive elements still cannot quite overcome the incredibly laborious pacing.  For such a condensed telling of the source material, nearly every shot drags far too slowly and if all of the other pieces were in place with a more hasty flow, it would certainly hold up more prominently than it does.

American Silent Horror Shorts Part One

FRANKENSTEIN
(1910)
Dir - J. Searle Dawley
Overall: GOOD

Around the turn on the century, Edison Studios made roughly twelve-hundred films.  While these represented some of the absolute earliest examples of this then new medium, most were less technically innovative and are more noteworthy for being pioneering works that just so happened to show "the first such and such" ever committed to celluloid.  The fourteen-minute, 1910 version of Frankenstein as you could guess was the very first movie adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel that was ever made.  Presumed lost as so many works from an early era either were or still are, it has since been restored over the years and is still a significant, historical watch.  The monster creation scene is the most memorable as human tissue begins to form around a skeleton that comes to life in a huge cauldron, (the electricity and neck bolts would come later via Universal Studios), and liberties are taken with the source material turning it more into a morality play than a straight horror outing.

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
(1912)
Dir - Lucius Henderson
Overall: MEH

While it is not the first film adaptation of Robert Lewis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ever produced, the 1912 version by the Thanhouse Film Corporation is the earliest existing one.  Staring film director and actor James Cruze in the dual title lead and only twelve minutes in length, it is understandably a highly condensed telling of the often filmed Stevenson novel and even the 1887 stage play by Thomas Russell Sullivan.  As is the case with nearly all silent movies from this time frame, it is simply a series of shots filmed with a single, non moving camera set up on properly lit stages and locations, none of which emphasis any importance on proper atmosphere befitting the material.  Still, the Hyde make up is excellently fiendish and the transformation scenes are elementary, but effective enough.  Many more versions would emerge in somewhat quick succession in the coming decades, each one for the most part improving upon what was done here.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE
(1921)
Dir - Buster Keaton/Edward F. Cline
Overall: MEH

One of the few Buster Keaton movies to tip its prat-falling toes into horror, The Haunted House is essentially another tweak of a bunch of people chasing each other and hiding out in a house where other people wear skeleton costumes and bed sheets over themselves to try to scare people because flimsy reasons.  It is not to be taken seriously of course as in fact none of Buster Keaton's films are, but ole Stoneface gets to do his usual falling down, jumping over and through things, getting in the middle of a misunderstanding shtick.  As far as being one of the iconic actor's funniest outings, it does not come all that close and as a haunted house movie as the title implies, it barely qualifies.  The most memorable gag is a staircase that consistently turns into a slide, most humorously as when Keaton dreams about ascending it to heaven only to be denied entry, then having to plummet all the way down to hell instead.

Segundo de Chomón Horror Shorts

THE RED SPECTRE
(1907)
Overall: GOOD

The Spanish Georges Méliès for all intents and purposes, Segundo de Chomón made a massive amount of short films mostly while working for the Pathé Frères production company in the early nineteen-hundreds.  Many of these works employed a number of then newly innovative filmmaking techniques, The Red Spectre, (Le spectre rouge), still being famous as an early example of utilizing stencil-colored film prints.  A nine-minute magician's showcase hosted by a playful be it macabre guy in a skeleton costume, it is structured identically to Méliès' more known works of the day, meaning that it is essentially a stage play made to look like it is done in one continuous shot.  The set pieces are clever and technically impressive, most notably how the skeletal wizard brings three jars right to the front of the screen, fills them with a liquid, and then lets us watch his three captive ladies emerge inside.

LEGEND OF A GHOST
(1908)
Overall: GOOD

An elaborate, dark fairytale where a woman gets approached by a hooded skeleton in a graveyard and then descends into hell on a frightfully pimped-out ride to meet Satan, reptilian men, maidens, and other fantastical creatures who also have a ghoulishly decorated car to drive around in, Segundo de Chomón's Legend of a Ghost, (La légende du fantôme), offers up a slew of captivating images to go along with its rather faint storyline.  While three yeas later, Italy would make L'Inferno, (the country's first feature-length film), and produce hellish visuals that not only put what is in Legend of a Ghost to shame, (comparatively), what is here still stands up.  A hundred plus years later, the somewhat silly costumes and locations which were the best available at the time still produces the fitting, illusory tone.  Also, Chomón makes the most out of yet another chance to indulge in some nifty visual tricks.

THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS
(1908)
Overall: GOOD

More of a whimsical nature, The House of Ghosts, (La maison ensorcelée), is one of the earliest haunted house films, proving that the premise for the most part was more about being lighthearted than scary in its cinematic infancy.  Getting generous mileage out of stop-motion animation as well as busting out various camera and editing tricks to animate clothes, tilt the set, make furniture disappear, and have a positively strange looking demon/ghost man emerge in a painting and then again as a full-fledged giant, Segundo de Chomón plays much of it for chuckles.  Even still, having specters made up of a giant bed sheet who can move objects around while flashing some rain and lightning on the house of the title, there are some now firmly cemented tropes making an early introduction into the horror genre here.  So if for any other reason, historical curiosity should make this a logical place for a pit stop.

THE FROG
(1908)
Overall: GOOD

While it does not fit uniformly into the horror camp, The Frog, (La Grenouille), is nevertheless surreal and perhaps unintentionally unsettling enough to warrant discussion amongst said works.  Once again featuring stencil-colored film stills and presented on a single stage for one long take, a large fountain rotates throughout the duration with a fairy, a giant, a goofy head, some armored soldiers and their gold horses while a guy hops around in a frog suite like some kind of pet to the lady that is presumably in charge.  It is little more than another bit of harmless, fantasy-based movie making done in the Mélies style, though who was copying who, (if either indeed was), is a mute point as both were working simultaneously in the same country at the time.  It is certainly an interesting watch for its strange visuals, not to mention the fact that the frog man is oddly convincing.

Georges Méliès Horror Shorts

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL
(1896)
Overall: MEH

By many historian's accounts, the horror film was birthed here.  French illusionist and filmmaker Georges Méliès was one of the most innovative in the medium's earliest beginnings and the title character in the three and a half minute short The House of the Devil, (The Haunted Castle in the US and The Devil's Castle in England), could also be interpreted as a vampire since he does transform into a bat and cowers at the emergence of a large crucifix.  Then there are some people in sheets which could logically be interpreted as ghosts, understandably qualifying this as the first movie to feature such macabre visuals.  Presumed lost for almost a century yet rediscovered in the New Zealand Film Archive in 1988, it is interesting for film scholars to be sure, but rather stale otherwise as it just featuring some substitution splices and characters running around a clunky set.  Have to start somewhere though.

THE DEVIL IN A CONVENT
(1899)
Overall: GOOD

An admitted critique of the Catholic church by Georges Méliès, The Devil in a Convent, (The Sign of the Cross in the UK), is a fun parody that once again has a fabulously mustached, shenanigans-causing fellow stand in as the Great Deceiver who here is played by Méliès himself.  Perhaps inspired by the phantasmagoria theatre productions of an earlier French magician Étienne-Gaspard Robert, the sets are rather elaborate and it is noteworthy by possibly being the first of Méliès' works to use dissolves.  Featuring an ambitious enough finale where St. Michael emerges to rid said convent of its diabolical trouble maker and thus having good triumph over evil, it is still a sly satire for its time simply by having Satan pose as a clergyman to begin with.

BLUEBEARD
(1901)
Overall: GOOD

Georges Méliès' adaptation of Charles Perrault's version of the folktale of Bluebeard, (or Barbe bleue in its native French), is one of his more ambitious works, clocking in at ten minutes in length.  Still presented as a stage play be it a highly embellished one, numerous hand-drawn sets and props are used, perhaps most strikingly as well as humorously a giant champagne bottle carried by some servants.  Though the movie certainly goes down some dark alleyways, (a locked, forbidden chamber with seven dead wives hanging from a pole anyone?), the tone is still playful and Méliès performs the title character as more of a bloated buffoon than an intimidating menace.  Plus someone accidentally falls into a giant cauldron in the kitchen and is reduced to merely his clothes, which further emphasizes the film's somewhat ghastly, amusing nature.

THE MERRY FROLICS OF SATAN
(1906)
Overall: MEH

Based on the Victor de Cottens stage play Les Pilules du diable, (which was a reworking of an earlier féerie from 1839), The Merry Frolics of Satan, (Les Quat'Cents Farces du diable), is a more silly, modern version of the Faust legend.  This is highly difficult to decipher though being such an early silent film with no intertitles and it instead plays like a series of very busy set pieces where furniture disappears into the floor, trunks seem to fit any number of people and other trunks inside of them, lots of running about and dancing behavior, and a skeletal horse and celestial chariot ride through the cosmos.  The latter sequence, (which Georges Méliès had used from a previous stage production, titled Le Voyage dans l'éspace or The Space Trip), is the most memorable, but even still, at seventeen minutes, the film grows a bit monotonous and lingers on its fantastical visuals to a fault.  It still looks fantastic though as Méliès' optical eye is as imaginative as ever.

Foreign Silent Horror Shorts

THE DEVIL'S SEVEN CASTLES
(1904)
Dir - Ferdinand Zecca
Overall: GOOD

One of the comparatively lesser known but still pioneering early French filmmakers was Ferdinand Zecca, who was brought up in the theater and cut his teeth acting, stage managing, and doing voice overs for Pathé Frères's phonograph records before making his own films for said company.  The Devil's Seven Castles, (Les sept châteaux du diable), is yet another liberal interpretation of the Faust legend, this time depicting a man who signs a contract with the Devil, indulges in the seven deadly sins, and ferries across the River Styx.  Also at one point a giant demon head gets fed all kinds of elaborate entrees as well as a full grown man, plus some midgets or children, kind of hard to tell.  It is very akin to the work of George Méliès with busy, fantasy-styled sets, hand-painted film prints, and stop tricks and it holds up just as well.

THE PEARL FISHER
(1907)
Dir - Ferdinand Zecca
Overall: GOOD

An loose adaptation of French composer George Bizet and librettists Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré's Les pêcheurs de perles that at the very least lifts its title from said opera is The Pearl Fisher, (Down in the Deep).  It does not seem to be a morality play unless you are stretching to find such meaning as everything seems to work out for all parties involved.  The biggest obstacle our carefree main character faces is swimming with a bunch of fish.  Instead, it is a simple fantasy where a man lounging on the beach gets beckoned to enter a watery, mystical underworld by a bunch of sea maidens, ending up with a bride and a string of giant pearls at the end.  It is essentially just a display of wonderful and elaborate sets and another prime example of the hand-coloring technique used by Pathé film production company, once again handled by director Ferdinand Zecca here. 

AU SECOURS!
(1924)
Dir - Abel Gance
Overall: GOOD

Apparently made on a bet, Abel Gance and actor Max Linder's collaboration Au Secours!, (translated to "Help!" in English), was completed in three days and financed entirely by the director.  A dark, ultimately harmless comedy revolving around the old set up of a bet to stay one hour in a haunted house, Gance busts out the cinematic tricks of the day including an elevated tracking shot, superimpositions, and morphing the actual film print.  Various other amusing visuals are present such as a convincing "wax" figure and a butler who gets his head cut off before walking around with it in his hands.  Other things like skeleton costumes, ghosts made up of white bed sheets, (including one on stilts), and random zoo animal footage further the lighthearted insanity.  It makes for a fun enough, early spooky castle entry and sort of a way to blow off steam for Gance who would follow it up with the massively ambitious and landmark Napoleon three years later.

Neil Peart - In Memoriam

September 12th, 1952 - January 7th, 2020

Ten days into the new decade and the drumming world has already suffered about as huge of a loss as is humanly possible.  The Professor Neil Ellwood Peart is no more.  As I have previously discussed briefly on this blog before, Peart was to rock drumming what Eddie Van Halen was to rock guitar; a virtuoso with nigh a contemporary at the time who forever changed what could be both possible and accepted as far as hard rock skin-bashing is concerned.  Fusing intricate fills with highly inventive drums parts, a pristine kit sound, taste and finesse, and arguably the most precise execution out of anybody, Peart has long been one of the most cherished and impressive drummers who has ever breathed air.  His influence is vast enough to the point where it has become a cliche that even people who do not like Rush, (meaning people who do not like Geddy Lee's vocals), admit one and all that Neil at least was the goddamn man.

Beyond Peart's unanimously lauded drumming, he just seemed to be a gem of a human being.  He succumbed to a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer on Tuesday, January 7th of this year, but in his typical and fiercely private personal life, he kept his diagnosis completely out of the public, only notifying close family and friends.  This included his band mates and collaborators for over four decades, both Geddy Lee and Alex Liefeson who honored Peart's wishes in the respectful way that they always had.  Peart's passing at only sixty-seven years of age after less than only five years since the band wrapped up with their unofficial farewell R40 tour seems particularly unfair.  It was heavily hinted that Peart was the one who wanted to walk away from touring life once and for all to quietly retire and spend more time with his family.  Though it was sad for the rest of us to be told that he had lost all interest in ever sitting behind the kit again, it is nowhere near as sad as the reality that he can NEVER sit behind the kit again.

For such a beautiful thing as this to forever collect dust is a crime if ever there was one.

I started playing drums at the age of twelve, almost entirely because of John Bonham.  Yet Neil Peart was a name you cannot be ignorant to once you pick up a pair of sticks.  Probably because no one in my family was a huge Rush fan, they were one of the rare classic rock bands that I had to go and discover on my own.  Thankfully, the high school I went to in southern Illinois, (shout out to my fellow Red Bud alumni), was full of Rush fans from top to bottom.  So by the time that I was playing in my first house party band, Neil Peart's inevitable influence was already seeping in.

I have grown increasingly fond of not only Rush's music and Peart's masterful playing over all these years, but Peart as a human being.  I have always found it amusing that Peart's smiles while playing were few and far between as he always took his performance deadly seriously.  On the flip side of that though, I never saw a single second of any interview that he ever gave where he was not grinning from ear to ear while enthusiastically discussing all things music or just his overall passion for life.  After losing both his first teenage daughter to a car crash and ten months later, his first wife to another bout of cancer, Peart chose to temporarily retire and travel through North and Central America on his motorcycle for fourteen months.  He discussed in his book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road how spending all of that time with no goals, no plan, and no destination in mind where no one he ran into even recognized him ultimately mended the horrible emotional wounds that he had suffered.  He eventually came back to the band that had been his home with as much dedication and positivity as ever.  You do not have to be a drummer or even a musician to find that remarkable.

It may not be as cool as his drum kit, but a home on the road is a home all the same.

As a lover of his instrument, Peart was a beckon of drum admiration.  A huge big band fan, he was ultimately humbled by his performance at the Buddy Rich Memorial Scholarship Concert in 1992 which showed that even amongst his top-notch abilities in his band of choice, he was in over his head when playing with dazzling jazz technicians like Omar Hakim and the like.  Unphased though, he chose not to skitter away with his tail in between his legs and instead he produced and performed on the tribute records Burning for Buddy: A Tribute to the Music of Buddy Rich, (which continued to get Rich's big band even more work).  Then all of these years already into a successful career, he took lessons from Freddie Gruber to up his chops and re-approach his instrument even further.  Such dedication to his craft is the stuff that any musician anywhere can wholeheartedly admire and even though the man himself can pursue his passions no more, it is undoubtable that he will continue to inspire just as he always has.

Peart's life was up and down as well as far more than the typical rock star.  On that note, he hardly conducted himself as such.  He refused to do the all too standard band meet and greets near the end of Rush's touring cycle, but not due to any pretentious arrogance on his part; more because he was openly honest about how uncomfortable it made him to be fawned over and treated above just a normal, everyday person.  Even if Peart was far from a normal everyday person, he would never admit it or accept anyone telling him such nonsense.  Still, he never disrespected his fans who gave him such accolades either and remained thankful for all that he had through and through.  A class act all the way.

A class act with a bitchin' mullet to boot.

Kiss told funny stories about how lame Rush was on the road back in the excess, groupie-ridden days of the 1970s.  As you would expect then, they rarely if at all partook in such sleazy shenanigans.  Peart in particular was commonly found knee-deep in reading materials, always fueling his creativity as the band's lyricist as well as their percussionist, even when swarms of willing, naked ladies would have politely ran their fingers through that glorious mullet of his, amongst other things of course.  Yet who has time for that when you got all those Ayn Rand books to read?  2112 is not going to write itself after all.

It will be hard for so many to say goodbye to Neil Peart's physical form, but as is always the case, the man's work is going nowhere.  It shall remain here to fuel all of us in any creative endeavor that we may have.  On that note, I think it is best to leave with a quote from Peat's The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa, one of many where he sums up, (or scratches the surface more likely), of his intellectual, elegant, and above all else sincere take on life in general:  “I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty.  Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books.  And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation.  I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder.  I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.”

Peace be with thee Mr. Peart.

2011 - 2019 Horror Shorts

BLINKYTM
(2011)
Dir - Ruairí Robinson
Overall: MEH

This Twilight Zone-esque short from Irish-born filmmaker Ruairí Robinson is the kind that toys with only mildly futuristic ideas that could conceivably be upon us in a more timely fashion than we would be comfortable with.  So in other words, it could also be a Black Mirror episode.  Blinky™ sets up its premise quickly and it is almost immediately foreseeable where it will lead.  So, you cannot say that there is any real tension built up over its brisk, thirteen-minute running time.  It is also a bit annoying to watch a brat kid, (who granted has two parents who seem to make yelling at each other around him a thing they routinely do), treat the adorable title robot like his own punching bag slave, but this may be the point as it almost makes the inevitable finale sit comfortably, (or uncomfortably), in the dark comedy realm.  A bit too obvious maybe, but still harmlessly well made.

THE ONLY MAN
(2013)
Dir - Jos Man
Overall: GOOD

With filmmakers young and old still scraping the barrel as far as zombie apocalypse ideas are concerned, it is a rare thing when a successfully engaging entry in the field can emerge this day and age.  Jos Man's The Only Man is one of these acceptable ideas that portrays the final few days of the title human's predetermined transformation into the undead.  What exactly has transpired to make Earth the desolate wasteland that it is and what exactly has stripped everyone of their humanity to the point that they look like extras in a George Romero movie with cheap rubber masks on, (the film's only minor fault), is not explained, but we are given some potent clues.  The antagonist pits his will against the zombie plague that is clearly overtaking him, desperately proclaiming that he is going to be the one to make it since the rest of mankind willingly did this to themselves, seeing the lack of formidable thought and reason as more of a release than a damnation.  Interesting concepts to ponder and ones that come across excellently here.

VALIBATION
(2013)
Dir - Todd Strauss-Schulson
Overall: GOOD

Teetering on that line of being so on the nose as to be annoying, Valibation is just clever and funny enough to get on board with despite its tongue in cheek, quasi-preachiness.  Written and directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, (The Final Girls), with an impressive amount of visual showmanship and the budget to feature Cocoa Puffs, a Billy Idol dancing montage, and footage from both David Cronenberg's The Fly and Singin' in the Rain, it beats you over the head almost immediately with the same complaint that the cell phone addicted, information age generation gets routinely reminded of.  Strauss-Schulson has a lot of fun with this cliche though.  It makes for an ideal body horror send up that surprisingly has an uplifting, (be it still warped), final outcome and it is futile to try and not laugh at several of the ridiculous set pieces along the way.

UNEDITED FOOTAGE OF A BEAR

(2014)

Dir - Ben O'Brien/Alan Resnick

Overall: GOOD

The second Adult Swim infomercial from the creative team of Ben O'Brien and Alan Resnick and not the last to fall into the horror camp, Unedited Footage of a Bear is a darkly sly, nowhere near subtle commentary on the dangers of possible side effects attributed to innocently advertised pharmaceutical drugs.  Briefly beginning and ending as what the title misleadingly lays claim to, the short is actually made up almost entirely of a faux-commercial for the miracle stress-relieving drug Claridryl.  Because it is an Adult Swim program which ergo equals drugs, things escalate before too long into a disturbed, highly bizarre nightmare that offers up no possible explanation besides "YouTube adds and drugs are both bad folks".  As a parody, it is impressively convincing and once it makes the complete 180 shift into full blown horror movie, it is just as earnest in its off the rails, disconcerting approach.

THIS HOUSE HAS PEOPLE IN IT
(2016)
Dir - Alan Resnick
Overall: MEH

The guys from Unedited Footage of a Bear fame back at it again and comparatively less on drugs this time.  This House Has People in It follows that staunch tradition for the network of being something that people void of such drugs in their system "don't get".  An entire subreddit was dedicated to cracking the code of this whatever the fuck it is which includes deciphering YouTube comments and visiting various websites.  So yes, plenty of work for people with time on their hands.  Foolishly watching it raw and simply walking away from it, there is really not much to say.  Since it was designed to be investigated, the almost twelve minutes of footage by itself is just a puzzling mishmash of tones, with every potential clue whizzing right over your head if you are not constantly pausing every frame to take notes.  Even then, it is still hard to contemplate how anybody out there is coming up with anything.  It gets points for being a unique, post-interactive media experience at least, but still, you gotta have drugs.

DON'T HUG ME I'M SCARED

(2011-2016)

Dir - Rebecca Sloan/Joseph Pelling

Overall: GOOD

This bizarre project from Kingston University Fine Art and Animation graduates Rebecca Sloan and Joseph Pelling was a series of six independently made shorts which were released online through their website beckyandjoes.com, YouTube, and Vimeo.  Don't Hug Me I'm Scared can be described as Sesame Street on drugs to give it a fair assessment.  It mixes traditional, stop-motion, and computer animation, live action, and puppetry and on a technical level, it is quite impressive while blending its various styles rather seamlessly.  Even if the visceral results are purposely jarring.  More dark humor than explicitly horror, the amusingly childish songs and psychologically disturbing nature grows gradually over the series, culminating in a final episode that hearkens back to the previous five in a satisfyingly trippy way.  It could all mean a whole mess of things or virtually nothing at all, but it is a surreal and manically fun ride either way.

2011 Horror Part Six

HARD LABOR
Dir - Juliana Rojas/Marco Dutra
Overall: MEH

This uneven, highly tranquil feature-length debut from Brazilian filmmakers Juliana Rojas and Marcon Dutra, (arriving after over a decade of the duo producing a number of shorts), barely qualifies as a horror movie or anything remotely entertaining at all.  At first, the tone is so lackadaisical as to be refreshing with all of the characters dialed down just a notch or so above zero, barely any music anywhere, and the story itself spending about an hour on what would otherwise have been just an initial set up.  It is unmistakably about the class system and economic hardships faced in contemporary Brazil, but just how its infrequent, strange and/or supernatural elements play a role is barely touched upon, let alone explained.  If there are even such elements present in the first place.  This is precisely because the film never seems to get going and it rather abruptly ends just as it begins to finally wake it's audience up.  The last scene is also remarkably out of place and seems to paint the whole thing as a comedy, making it more of a practical joke than giving it a frustrating, ambiguous climax which would have even been far preferable.

THE THING
Dir -  Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Overall: MEH

The word "pointless" is assuredly the most accurate to describe the inevitable remake, reboot, prequel, premake, preboot, repre, quelmake, makeboot, or whatever the fuck 2011's The Thing is.  The creative team involved have gone on record as desperately trying to defend its existence in the first place, saying it pays homage to John Carpenter's seminal 1982 version and calling it a companion piece that retreads the same themes of paranoia and isolation.  Which is all a very polite and respectable way of saying they really like John Carpenter's movie and wanted to make it themselves because having one movie that already did all this stuff is not enough apparently.  This argument can be made for every film that is not left to be its own thing, (pun intended), in the past, but this The Thing is so deliberately derivative of the last one that it not only cannot hope to possibly compare to such a lauded and beloved movie, but it also cannot NOT be compared to it.  In this regard, it cannot be viewed on its own terms by its very design.  It does not attempt to one-up its predecessor thankfully, but just exists parallel to it with less memorable characters, less memorable special effects, less memorable directing, less memorable music, Mary Elizabeth Winstead in place of Kurt Russell, and interchangeable everything else.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN
Dir -  Pedro Almodóvar
Overall: GOOD

Described by Pedro Almodóvar as "a horror story without any screams or frights", The Skin I Live In is a cross between the often influential Eyes Without A Face and well, pretty much every other Pedro Almodóvar movie.  The renowned filmmaker's fascination with sexual kinks, the female body, and how complex his emotionally-driven characters are finds an ideal environment to thrive here under the umbrella of Thierry Jonquet's novel Mygale from which this is an adaptation.  It is also the first pairing between Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas in just over two decades and the actor predictably excels in the very non-textbook, mad doctor role here.  Speaking of pleasant predictability, the film is as wonderfully photographed and meticulously designed as any of Almodóvar's works and the way that the plot deliberately reveals its intentions is something that could have fallen into utter nonsense in the hands of a lesser director.  The audience is taken to uncomfortable places so gradually and in such a controlled fashion that the way Almodóvar succeeds in making something so bizarre and downright horrifying also so engaging is one of the reason's his films are routinely talked about and admired in the first place.

Anime Horror - Berserk: The Golden Age Arc

THE EGG AND THE KING
(2012)
Dir - Toshiyuki Kubooka
Overall: GOOD

Adapted into a novel and television show before, Toshiyuki Kubooka's extravagant Berserk: The Golden Age Arc is a to-date three part retelling of the said section of manga artist Kentaro Miura's celebrated series.  Depicting often unflinching violence and sex, it is adult dark fantasy through and through.  The first entry The Egg and The King introduces us to the Band of the Hawk mercenary company led by the enigmatic, strikingly angelic and feminine looking Griffith and his heavily-leaning, homoerotic obsession over the impossibly difficult to put down tank Guts.  The horror elements are kept mostly at bay here, only truly emerging with some curious dream sequences and a memorable battle against the demon lord Nosferatu Zod, (which is a funnier name than the ridiculously powerful character ends up actually being).  Things are set into motion captivatingly enough here in the first act and the animation is beautiful throughout, though for those who stick around, the truly striking stuff occurs later on.

THE BATTLE OF DOLDREY
(2012)
Dir - Toshiyuki Kubooka
Overall:  GOOD

A proper, mostly indistinguishable companion piece to The Egg and the King, part two of the Berserk: The Golden Age Arc film series The Battle of Doldrey ushers in some more character depth and ultimately climaxes with what one would presume to be a rock bottom moment for the Band of the Hawk or more specifically, its charismatic and cryptic leader Griffith.  Of course things get considerably darker later on, (spoilers).  Taken as its own film, some of the plot points may seem a bit arbitrary and the ending might not add up from a logical perspective, but this is not a problem when viewing the trilogy as a whole, which in all honestly was its precise intention anyway.  Similar to the previous installment, this one is rooted firmly in medieval dark fantasy and actually sticks the most out of the three to the earthbound, war-torn European elements of the arc's story.  Thankfully, the lack of demons and monsters is not a problem as the battle sequences are superbly dramatic and enticing.  In that regard, this is an excellent in-part "finale" before shit truly goes off the rails in the next chapter.

THE ADVENT
(2013)
Dir - Toshiyuki Kubooka
Overall: GREAT

After two top-notch acts where badass mercenaries slaughter badass knights during badass war sequences one after the other, the last segment to Toshiyuki Kubooka's film adaptation of The Golden Age Arc to Kentaro Miura's Berserk manga finally brings us into actual hell.  The results in The Advent really could not be more impressive.  There are a good amount of "nick of time" comic book level saves and plot conveniences plus the story brings itself to such an epic conclusion that it seems unwilling to wrap itself up a handful of times.  Yet all of this is not only forgiven, but also understandable due to the demonic spectacle on display.  Visually, this is as thrilling as over the top horror anime gets with gigantic demon monsters emerging in a dimension where every walk-able surface is made of screaming heads, all the while bloody limbs are thrown everywhere and munched on.  The hardcore sex is as disturbing as the profound violence, but the series has built itself up to this moment so meticulously that it is a highly appropriate amount of bizarre nastiness in every positive way.  Whether or not future volumes are in store as the end credit scene clearly sets up, this is very much a solid trilogy as is.