Horrorfest 2010: Black Sunday (The Mask of Satan)

BLACK SUNDAY or THE MASK OF SATAN, as it is also known, is the second film by Mario Bava for Horrorfest 2010. The first was BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. I liked this one better.

BLACK SUNDAY opens with the capture and destruction of a witch and her lover. At first you're prepared to think this is unfair persecution but you quickly realize in the world of BLACK SUNDAY, witches are actually witches and Satan worshippers are actually Satan worshippers. The witch has an iron "mask of Satan" gruesomely nailed onto her face for punishment, after an "S" for "Satan" is branded into her back with a hot iron.

This is the harrowing first ten minutes. The film's off to a good start, not just because of the action, but because of the beautiful black and white cinematography. This elevates the events from the world of garish exploitation to classy horror. Bava not only directed the film, but was the cinematographer as well, which I guess makes sense -- if you look at his credits, he had about a decade of experience lensing flicks for other directors before he took the reins.

Next, we get the kind of title card I live for -- "Two Centuries Later." Dr. Kruvajan (Andrea Chechhi) and his apprentice Dr. Gorobech (John Richardson) are traveling through the same country where the executions occurred on their way to a medical convention. When their stage coach loses a wheel, the two doctors explore a nearby cemetery and crypt while the frightened and superstitious driver makes the repairs. Kruvajan is attacked by a giant bat that he beats to death, and the doctors discover the burial site of the executed witch, still wearing her mask of Satan. Unbeknownst to Kruvajan, some of his blood drops onto the witche's corpse. . .

Descendants of the witch's family still live in the castle on the hill. The father Prince Vajda (Ivo Garrani ) is worried that the witch will attempt to seek revenge against his family -- after all, it has been exactly 200 years since the execution and on the anniversary of the first 100 years some terrible stuff happened. His beautiful daughter (Barbara Steele) looks exactly like the witch, whose painting looms menacingly over the main room of the castle.

The witch begins to rise slowly from the grave, reawakened by the doctor's blood. She telepathically commands her lover Javuto (Arturo Dominici) to rise, as well, to hunt down and destroy her descendants. The witch's ultimate plan is to revive herself entirely by inhabiting the body of her beautiful ancestor, but along the way she intends to destroy the rest of her descendants in the castle, starting with the Prince.

The cool thing about this movie is that it's clear that Bava wanted to imitate and pay tribute to the Universal horror films. The way the movie is shot in gorgeous black and white with generous amounts of fog and gothic sets makes it obvious that this was meant to be a throwback. It is almost a perfect imitation, lacking only the star power but making up for that with a more energetic camera, gliding around everywhere, and brief moments of strategic gore -- like when the titular mask is nailed into place and blood spurts, or when maggots crawl in the eye sockets of the decomposed witch.

There are several great sequences -- a sinister horse and carriage seemingly floating down the road in fluid slow motion, a stake driven into the eye of a living dead corpse, Javuto's rebirth from the grave, even an angry mob with torches. This movie has it all.

Watching the early passages, I thought this movie must clearly be inspired by Tod Browning's DRACULA with Bela Lugosi. Reading about the flick after it was over, I found out Francis Coppolla used this movie as inspiration for his own 90s version of DRACULA. I guess that's the ultimate form of flattery, when you seek to pay homage to the greatest and, in turn, end up being paid homage to.

Horrorfest 2010: Village of the Damned

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is another one I used to always see listed in all the books about horror films I used to read as a kid. I clearly remember seeing the photographs of the creepy kids with glowing eyes. But, since it didn't star a famous monster or a big horror name, I never checked it out until now.

Turns out, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED is great. I was hooked from the first few minutes. Going in not really knowing the premise, beyond the fact that creepy kids eventually show up, was very rewarding. The opening sequence suddenly starts without warning, showing all the people of a small village in England suddenly dropping unconscious in mid-action. The film cuts all around town, showing people in the middle of phone calls, ironing dresses, driving tractors -- suddenly dropping asleep. The town is eerily silent. A record skips over and over in one of those houses.

The military is called in to check out the phenomenon and they quickly find that any living thing that steps within a certain perimeter of the village suddenly drops unconscious. Cows in fields fall on their sides, airplanes fall out of the sky, even military dudes with respirators drop to the ground if they get too close.

And, as soon as the phenomenon suddenly appears, it suddenly disappears, and everyone in the village wakes up, confused but unharmed. Otherwise, everything seems normal, until all the fertile women suddenly show up pregnant without explanation. One woman has only slept with her husband, but her kid clearly isn't his. Another has been separated from her husband for the better part of a year. The women are disturbed, the doctor is disturbed -- the whole town is abuzz. The pregnancies proceed at a fast pace, the kids are born a little larger then normal kids, and develop rapidly.

Three years later, they're all approaching adolescence and apparently abnormally genius, still with no explanation. Scientists guess maybe energy from space came down and caused the phenomenon, others think it might be some kind of sudden genetic mutation, which doesn't explain the sudden unconsciousness of the whole town. It also doesn't explain similar circumstances in other countries across the globe where similar batches of pregnancies sprang up over night.

The kids are all healthy, mature beyond their years, and appear to be Aryan clones. They also seem to have mental powers they can use both to read the minds of those around them and control others' thoughts.

One of the "fathers" of these kids is a scientist (George Sanders) who is able to persuade the military to allow him to attempt to develop these kids' mental powers into something useful and productive over a year of instruction at a special boarding school. Other cultures around the globe have done away with their strange kids (and the mothers) in one way or another, but Sanders' character believes they might have something to offer society -- they may even be the next batch of Einsteins.

Still, the kids seem to have sinister intentions. The don't appear to have any sense of morals or ethics and don't seem to indulge in emotions. Sanders' character's "son" even goes so far as to tell him he could be great if he'd just stop giving into his human feelings.

Unfortunately, people start dropping dead under mysterious circumstances, and this, combined with the strangeness of the children, leads the villagers to believe the children might be evil. A motorist almost runs over one of the children on accident, and the kids gather around his car and stare at it intently until the driver rams himself into a wall. His brother attempts to kill the children for this, and then mysteriously turns his shotgun on himself. It's not long before a an angry village mob is forming.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMND is a good thriller that unfolds at a brisk pace without ever really giving itself away. The audience is always in the dark as far as what exactly is going on, which keeps us on the edge of our seats from the first sequence, which is also probably the best sequence, with the villagers all mysteriously dropping unconscious in mid-action. But, from there, every ten minutes or so, a new mystery crops up, and that keeps us going until the unavoidably tragic end.

Horrorfest 2010: Night of the Demon

NIGHT OF THE DEMON has a weakness that is also a strength -- it shows the demon.

The reason this is a strength is easy to explain: the demon looks awesome. It's a complete scene stealer. It shows up early on and at the climax of the film, appearing in a puff of smoke, a horned, winged, clawed, sharp-toothed monster that always seems to be smoldering. It's a triumph of special effects, especially for the time. I wonder if Peter Jackson had this in mind when they designed the Balrog for LORD OF THE RINGS?

The reason this is a weakness is a little more complex. The story of NIGHT OF THE DEMON involves an American psychologist who is traveling to London to participate in a paranormal psychology convention. This is Dana Andrews playing a total skeptic. Part of his mission in London is to expose a devil worshipping cult as not only a huge fraud, but also potentially a group of dangerous killers. Of course, this puts him immediately on the cult's hit list. Meanwhile, his partner in skepticism (Maurice Denham) has recently shown up dead under mysterious circumstances.

Here's the deal: as the audience, we know Denham's character was menaced by a supernatural demon before he died. We know he visited the leader of the cult (Niall MacGinnis) begging for his life the same night that he ended up dead. Because we know this, it casts a shadow over the rest of the movie, which unfolds like a mystery with Andrews' character teaming up with his love interest, the niece of his dead partner played by Peggy Cummins. We know for a fact something supernatural is going on, so all of Andrews' skepticism, while totally logical and rational, gets a little old and annoying, fast.

The thing is, if we hadn't seen the supernatural death, the rest of the events of the movie leading up to the climax would be ambiguous enough that we'd wonder if Andrews is right to be skeptical. Since we know a demon is involved and saw the evil creature with our own eyes, we know all along Andrews, while totally making sense, is also totally wrong.

So, the demon works as a great visual. But, it kind of overshadows the good aspects of the story, which involve the battle between critical thinking and magical beliefs. The two seem kind of mutually exclusive, but here they are butting up against each other. All that said, the movie is still good. Still, it's a frustrating glimpse at what could have been even greater.

There's a creepy seance scene, a good climax involving the reapparance of the demon, and some good sparring dialog between the skeptic Andrews and the cult leader MacGinnis. MacGinnis is particularly effective, seeming at once to know more than any of the other characters while also projecting an uneasy kind of social unease. Even if he wasn't a sorcerer, he'd make you nervous to be around. He's especially unsettling in his first meeting with Andrews where he's entertaining children at his annual Halloween party dressed as a clown magician, a fake smile and bulbous prosthetic nose attached to his devilish face. Yuck, no thanks.

The movie is shot beautifully in black and white, ironically specifically towards the beginning and end of the film during the demon sequences and has an admirably bombastic score that shifts into super weird gear when the demon shows up. Reading up on the film, it appears there was a struggle between the producer of the film who wanted the demon to be visually represented and the director and writer who wanted to leave the film ambiguous. Again, despite the fact that these approaches seem to be mutually exclusive, they seem to have struck as good of a balance as they possibly could, given the circumstances -- an odd case where the striking visuals of the film are actually at odds with the intellectual ideas the movie leaves you with.

Horrorfest 2010: Re-Animator

My favorite horror films also tend to be comedies. Maybe this is because I tend to like comedies more than horror films, so if a horror film is spiced up with a little bit of comedy, it's easier for me to swallow. I'm not sure. All I know is, from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN to EVIL DEAD and even to the satirical DAWN OF THE DEAD and the recently-seen-by-me AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, it's becoming increasingly clear I like my bloodshed sprinkled with laughter.

So, it should be no surprise that RE-ANIMATOR was right up my ally. RE-ANIMATOR stars the great Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West, a medical student who thinks he has discovered the secret to eternal life -- a glowing green serum that raises corpses from the dead. He even tries it out on his own mentor at an institute in Switzerland. Unfortunately, he overdoses his mentor with tragic results.

Cut to a hospital in Boston, where affable medical student Dan Cain (the equally affable Bruce Abbot) idealistically trains to save lives. After hours, he's secretly dating fellow medical student Megan (Barbara Crampton) who also happens to be the daughter of the school's dean, Halsey (Robert Sampson). Seems Halsey is kind of old fashioned and frowns on fraternizing between students, especially ones who happen to be his daughter.

West shows up to continue his studies, and disagrees with the local brain surgeon Dr. Hill (David Gale). Hill has apparently ripped off some of West's late mentor's theories and, according to West, has gotten them horribly wrong. Needless to say, they immediately dislike each other.

It's not long before West is moving in with Dan, who has posted a notice for a roommate, much to the chagrin of Megan who has enough of a head on her shoulders to be creeped out by West and wonder what exactly happened back in Switzerland that made him leave in disgrace. West sets up a makeshift laboratory in Dan's basement and gets to work on his crazy experiments, starting with re-animating a dead cat.

Here's the thing: West's miracle serum has a disturbing side effect that causes any re-animated life form to immediately go on a kill-crazy rampage. So, it's awesome that it brings people and animals back to life, but it sucks that it turns them into blood thirsty zombies. Still, West and Dan eventually team up to try to perfect the serum and prove its greatness, which leads to a domino effect of bodies piling up and bloody mayhem breaking out in the hospital.

The movie works because of the balance between comedy and horror -- there's plenty of gore that the likes of Lucio Fulci would be proud of, but here it's at the service of an exciting, well paced, break-kneck story and a series of squirm inducing visual and physical jokes.

Aside from that, the rest of the movie falls squarely on the shoulders of Jeffrey Combs as the resident mad scientist, West. Man, is this guy great. He over acts and chews scenery in ways that would make fellow mad scientists like Colin Clive (FRANKENSTEIN) proud. But, he also has a great comic sensibility. It's not just an overactive "evil" performance -- it's somehow also an understated comedic one. Riddle me that one -- how do you overdo the evil and underdo the comedy -- AT THE SAME TIME? Combs does it. Why can't guys like this win Oscars? Oh well, at least he got to play a bunch of good characters in STAR TREK. Nerd alert.

The thing about Combs as West is that he's a total dick, but you also sympathize with him. In the early scenes it looks like he's going to shape up to be the villain, but eventually it's an all out war against an army of the undead, led by a headless doctor who carries his own head around and kidnaps Megan in an attempt o have his zombie way with her. By this time, it's every man for himself, and Combs emerges as somewhat of an anti hero. Not in the sense of, say, Han Solo who is an anti hero in the sense that he's out for himself and begrudgingly comes around to helping the forces of good. More in the sense of. . . I don't know. . . an arrogant asshole who just happens to be right all the time and eventually comes in handy? Sure, West causes all the problems he and Dan eventually have to mop up, but you have to admire his enthusiasm as he wields bone saws and injects glowing green serum into every dead thing he sees.

Anyway, RE-ANIMATOR is a rollicking good time that never stops for a breath. It's one of those movies where you can tell everyone had a good time making it. Just because it's a gory horror film doesn't mean it has to be grim. All the characters are likable, even if you love to hate them, and the momentum effortlessly carries you through to an ever-escalating climax featuring more bodies popping up off of slabs that you can shake a stick (or an axe) at.

Horrorfest 2010: The Vanishing

Now here's a really good one -- THE VANISHING, proof the Dutch can do horror. Even though it's mostly in French.

THE VANISHING plays on one of the most common fears: the idea that a loved one could just disappear, seemingly into thin air, at any moment. The fear is so common, most people don't even think about it. It's the kind of thing that only really enters your mind when your heart suddenly turns cold and drops into your stomach when you realize someone isn't where they're supposed to be, or they're taking a little longer than you think they should be, or. . . and then, if you're lucky, they suddenly pop up and everything is fine and you instantly forget how scared you were.

THE VANISHING is about what happens when the loved one doesn't pop up and it turns out everything is not fine, and your heart stays cold. In this case, we have a young married couple traveling through France on vacation. They stop at a busy gas station / rest stop, leave each others' sight for a brief moment, and never see each other again. Rex (Gene Bervoets) searches the truck stop in vain, but his wife Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) is nowhere to be found.

One interesting thing about THE VANISHING is that it is not really a mystery about what happened. I mean, it is, and it isn't. See, very early on, we get glimpses of a suspicious creep trying on a fake cast and suspiciously loitering around the rest stop. It's fairly clear that this is the guy responsible for Saskia's disappearance, so we know pretty early on that it's definitely foul play and not some strange conspiracy.

In fact, shortly after the opening passages focusing on the married couple, the film switches tracks and begins to focus on this creep, who turns out to be an academic family man, Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu). We start to figure out that the movie has jumped back in time and is now showing us Lemorne's intricate preparations to satisfy his overwhelming desire to kidnap a woman and do God knows what to one. This is some of the most interesting stuff in the movie, as Lemorne meticulously, and sometimes pathetically, plots out his crime. It's chilling to watch as he dispassionately role plays the act of tricking a strange woman into his car, first by himself and later by using his unwitting daughter as a prop, and finally as he fails on several clumsy attempts to act his plan out.

Meanwhile, 3 years after the disappearance, Rex has devoted his entire life to finding out what happened to Saskia. He's broken hearted, sure, but he's also simply obsessed with the mystery. You get the feeling that even though he loves Saskia, he'd almost rather simply know what happened to her than actually find her alive. Lemorne sees the "missing" signs around town and catches an interview with Rex on TV, and becomes obsessed as well -- with the idea of having the power to "show" what he did with Saskia to Rex. He starts sending postcards to arrange for a meeting.

So begins the third act of the film, which, of course, I can't give away, except to say that it features a battle of wills and wits between Lemorne and Rex as they finally meet and discuss what happened that day at the rest stop, how it happened, why it happened, and what Saskia's fate was, all leading to a nightmarish ending.

Most of the power of the movie lies in the suspense -- you want to know what happened to Saskia, even though you basically already know. I mean, she was clearly kidnapped by Lemorne and disposed of in some way. But how and why? Those details gnaw at you, just like the gnaw at Rex. And, even as we're introduced to Lemorne, his sociopathic behavior continues to fascinate, confuse and intrigue.

The sad truth is, there are some actions that can never really be explained, beyond blaming it on a chemical imbalance or mental disease -- the wiring goes wrong at some point. But, that same wiring is designed to make humans intellectually curious, and gives humans the desire to try to connect the dots and find motivations.

In the first shot of the film we see a stick bug, expertly blending in to its surroundings. In the last shot, we see a preying mantis, born to hunt. So, like the basest critters on the face of the Earth, mankind struggles on in an eternal game of hide and seek -- hiding from ourselves, and seeking ourselves.

Horrorfest 2010: Black Christmas

Seems like there's a lot of movies that are said to be the first slasher film. BLACK CHRISTMAS is another one of them.

This time we have a sorority house full of chicks ready to go home for winter break. The house mother is a drunk (Marian Waldman) and the most dominant sorority girl is also a drunk (Margot Kidder). The house has been getting obscene telephone calls, and as we see from the opening point-of-view scene, a stranger has broken into the house and is lurking in the shadows of the attic.

It's not long before the first girl (Lynne Griffin) disappears and is hauled into the attic by the killer where she's propped up in a rocking chair like Norman Bates' mom from PSYCHO, another flick that's supposedly the first slasher movie and predates this one by 14 years. Her dad (Jamed Edmond, Jr.) shows up on campus looking for her, and the investigation begins, led by Lt. Fuller (John Saxon of ENTER THE DRAGON and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET fame).

Meanwhile, another sorority girl (Olivia Hussey) wants to have an abortion, but her tortured artist boyfriend (Keir Dullea) won't hear of it. He wants to get married, she wants a life. He wants to give up on his dreams, she wants to pursue hers. It's a match made in heaven.

Meanwhile, again, the bodies keep piling up and the phone keeps ringing.

Classy cast, huh? Let's review. Margot Kidder owns the first half of the movie as the drunk and sarcastic sorority sister and shows lots of real comic timing and personality. Then, she went on to play Lois Lane. Then we've got the afore mentioned John Saxon, Keir Dullea of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY fame and Olivia Hussey from Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET. These are not the thespians you'd normally expect to see popping up in a low budget horror flick and the movie is stronger for it.

The movie was directed by Bob Clark, who is probably most famous today for the nostalgic comedy A CHRISTMAS STORY. That film has gained such popularity over the years that it has supplanted even PORKY'S as the crowning achievement of Clark's resume. BLACK CHRISTMAS benefits from slightly more interesting direction than your average low budget horror film, including several creative point of view shots that couldn't have been easy to pull off. Clark also shows an obvious flair for comedy, so where some slasher movies are heartless and grim (FRIDAY THE 13th) this one at least has some good character moments.

Another strength of the film is the totally bizarre nature of the killer -- we never find out who he is, what his deal is, and why he's doing what he's doing, which makes him more realistic and frightening, in my opinion. He's simply crazy. And, listening to his insane rambling during the obscene phone calls really is chilling. Yes, it's exaggerated, but the sheer unexplained audacity of them and the fact that they seem to hint at something more gives the movie a little more depth than it otherwise might have had.

A few words on Olivia Hussey. Here's the thing: she is HOT. Like, really hot. Like, hotter than most actresses. What happened? How come she didn't have much of a career after ROMEO AND JULIET? How'd she go from that one to BLACK CHRISTMAS? They could have just made a documentary where they just had one continuous shot of her face for 2 hours and it would have been awesome. But no, she just kind of flew under the radar for decades. She's worked consistently, which is great, but. . . she should have been a super star. When people talk about famous hot chicks, Olivia Hussey should be at the top of the list every time.

I love you, Olivia Hussey.

Seriously.

Horrorfest 2010: The Omen

I tried to watch THE OMEN once before, at the behest of some friends who claimed it was great but then wouldn't stop talking while the movie was actually playing. So, I gave up trying to pay attention halfway through. They did the same thing to me while I was trying to watch DONNIE DARKO, an aborted attempt that has led to a decade of people saying the following sentence to me: "YOU haven't SEEN DONNIE DARKO?!?!?!"

Anyway, now I've seen the whole thing. THE OMEN I mean. Not the other one. And. . . it's okay.

Here's the problem with THE OMEN, and it's not entirely the movie's fault: it has been so thoroughly imitated over the years by so many terrible movies that it's difficult to watch it the way the original audience must have. It's tough to be the movie that gave birth to an entire often-times shitty subgenre.

Granted, ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST -- both superior films -- came first. But maybe it says something about the genre that future filmmakers chose to emulate THE OMEN most closely.

THE OMEN is one of those "creepy kid" movies, where a 5-year-old stares sullenly at the camera and that's supposed to freak you out. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. It works about half the time here. In this case, the creepy kid is the aptly named Damien (Harvey Stephens) who barely has one line of dialogue in the entire film. He's the son of the American ambassador to Great Britain, Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck). Or, actually, the secretly adopted son -- minutes after his actual son apparently died just after birth, Thorn was pushed into secretly adopting Damien by a priest and a few nuns, and raised the kid without ever telling his wife (Lee Remick) what happened.

It's not long before weird stuff starts happening around Damien. His first nanny publicly hangs herself at his birthday party, creepy hellhounds start showing up, every other animal gets freaked out by his presence, he freaks out if he gets near a church, and an ominous replacement nanny (Billie Whitelaw) shows up without being asked. Even Damien's mom can barely stand him, and he doesn't even do anything that annoying early on, other than misuse a billiard table.

Eventually, a priest (Patrick Troughton) shows up to try to warn Thorn that he's raising the son of Satan -- the anti-Christ, but he gets so excited and crazy about his own warnings that he just ends up creeping Thorn out. Before he can really get his message across, the priest is killed in a bizarre "accident" when a bolt of lightning knocks the spire off the top of a church and it impales him. Neat.

As always happens in movies like this, eventually the strange goings on pick up such a fever pace that even Thorn has to come around and consider the idea that his son may actually be evil. He's helped in his quest to figure out what to do about all this by my favorite character, a photo journalist played by the great David Warner. He's the only one who seems to have any intellectual curiosity about what might be going on with Damien.

On its own merit, out of context, is it any good? Well, it's a little boring and about 20 minutes too long, but other than that, if you try to pretend you're watching it in a pop culture vacuum, you can see why it was originally so effective. First, all the performances are good, from a legend like Gregory Peck all the way down to the devil kid. Secondly, the technical credits are impeccable under the direction of Richard Donner. And, there's a killer score by Jerry Goldsmith. Again, this score has been so plundered by other movies that you kind of have to try to imagine what it was like to hear it for the first time, but it really spices up the action and does a lot of heavy lifting to help the somewhat slow and bloated flick move along a little better.

One thing I don't get about this movie is how little screen time Damien actually gets. There's never a scene were Thorn sits down to actually talk to his son about what's going on. Plot wise it probably wouldn't get him very far, but Damien could have been a 1 year old for as much autonomy as the movie gives him. He rarely talks and rarely does anything on his own unless someone else is pushing or pulling him along. I'm no expert when it comes to kids, but it seems like at 5 years old Damien should have at least some kind of personality and not just act as a sinister prop for the grown ups to react to. Rosemary's baby had more personality and it was a fetus.

Another nit pick that always bugs me about movies like this, and real life, I guess, to an extent. Just like some of the preachers at the mega-churches I catch on TV sometimes, the characters in movies like this are always interpreting fantastic Biblical prophecies in the terms of modern every day life. They routinely take complex, sometimes even crazy descriptions from the Bible and write them off as references to boring stuff like politics, the economy, whatever. I don't understand why. These same people have already made the leap of faith to believe in all this seemingly impossible stuff, but then try to reign it all in by explaining all of it away? Is this so guys like me will buy it more? Or, despite their faith, do they still have no imagination? I mean, why can't a seven headed dragon just BE a seven headed dragon, for once? How come it has to be the EU or whatever? I mean, this is God we're talking about. GOD. The almighty, all-seeing, all-knowing, omnipotent, omniscient, beginning, end, all that stuff.

As the wise role model Captain Kirk once said, "What does God need with a starship?"