Horrorfest 2011: The Changeling

THE CHANGELING was a nice spooky way to close out Horrorfest 2011. What starts out as a fairly slow, moody flick quickly ramps up into a compelling mystery as a composer played by George C. Scott investigates some strange goings-on in his newly rented mansion. Scott has moved across the country to Seattle after he lost his wife and daughter in a tragic car accident, but before he can settle into his cavernous new digs, he has to do some ghost busting.

First we get the usual stuff like faucets turning themselves on and loud banging noises coming from somewhere deep within the house. Later, Scott discovers an ominous blocked off staircase to an abandoned attic room furnished for a little kid right down to a pint sized wheel chair. How come old timey wheel chairs are so creepy? It's not long before Scott is seeing visions of murder and his friends suggest he bring in a local medium to conduct a seance.

Scott also investigates the history of the house and starts to piece together what seems to be a murder cover up among a wealthy, well-respected family. The well respected Senator (Melvyn Douglas) might hold the key to the mystery, so Scott goes head to head with him in an electrifying scene.

The movie is shot interestingly, mostly in wide angles, so the house seems to travel around Scott as he explores it, instead of Scott traveling around the house. This lends itself well to the story, which is basically about a ghost desperately trying to lead Scott from clue to clue to help put himself to rest. There are also several scenes that use deep focus to great effect as characters are seen in the foreground as well as glimpsed through portals in the background, whether it's a mirror, a hole in the ground, or a window. This adds phsical depth and layers to scenes in which characters are figuratively (and sometimes literally) digging for answers.

The movie probably wouldn't work half as well as it does without Scott as the lead. Always a great acting presence, Scott is no different here, and it is interesting to see a main character in a haunted house movie who won't take any shit from the haunted house. Scott's curiosity is challenged at first, and then he intuits that the ghost is asking him to help solve a mystery, which he does. But then, as the house continues to shake with ghostly stirrings, Scott loses his patience, gets fed up, and actually yells at it, "What do you want? I've done what you asked! What else can I do?" This is a lot more engaging than characters in similar haunted house movies who simultaneously want to get the hell out while inexplicably lingering around. This also eliminates the annoying moments in which characters either scoff at obviously supernatural occurrences or are disproportionately frightened by seemingly explainable goings on.

Thus ends Horrorfest 2011 and my mission to watch 31 horror movies I've never seen before in 31 days, and write about each of them. I actually watched more than 31 horror movies this month, but I can't count the ones I've already seen and/or didn't write about, can I? No, that's against the rules.

Time for some stats:

I watched 14 flicks from the USA. Japan came in second with 5 films and Germany and Canada tied for 3rd with 3 each. Spain and the UK tie for 4th with 2 each, and I watched 1 film each from Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Italy, Mexico and South Korea. You may notice this adds up to more than 31 -- that's thanks to a couple co-productions.

I watched 6 movies from the 60s. The 80s, 40s and 70s were tied for 2nd with 4 movies each. The 30s and 20s each had 3 movies, the 2000s, 90s and 50s each had 2 movies and the current decade had 1.

4 of the movies I watched were silent and the remainder were talkies. 17 were in black and white, 12 were in color, and 2 were primarily black and white with color segments.

My least favorite film of the month was WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? It was the only one that really had no redeeming qualities.

Most of the rest ranged from kinda okay to absolutely great. It would be difficult for me to decide which one was my favorite, so I'll give you my top 5 in the order watched:

THE UNKNOWN

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

SANTA SANGRE

THE OLD DARK HOUSE

THE BODY SNATCHER

Horrorfest 2011: I Saw the Devil

I SAW THE DEVIL is a 2010 Korean film about a secret agent (Lee Byung-hun) whose pregnant wife (Oh San-ha) is murdered by a serial killer (Choi Min-sik). The secret agent takes a couple weeks off work and sets out to find the killer. At first we think the secret agent has just gone vigilante, but after he captures the killer and lets him go, only to hunt him again, we realize things are a little more complicated.

The secret agent wants revenge, but he also wants to torture the killer. Using GPS tracking technology, the secret agent is never far behind the killer, and shows up just in time to stop the killer from striking again, a couple of times. A couple of other times he doesn't show up quite on time. Each time, after a severe maiming and beating, he lets the killer go, only to pursue him some more.

This premise is both the strength of the film and the drawback. On one hand, the idea of this willful game of cat and mouse in the name of revenge is interesting. This is more than just a guy torturing another guy in an isolated location. It becomes a sort of hunting game. On the other hand, it stretches the audience's suspension of disbelief pretty thin. There are so many opportunities for disaster in this plan, including collateral damage, that it becomes hard to believe that the revenge fueled secret agent would take the risks he takes just to torture the killer.

Because of the collateral damage, for the first half of the movie I was thinking the secret agent isn't much better than the killer he's hunting. Yes, the killer is insane and evil and must be stopped, but the secret agent is presumably sane and has some kind of morals while also allowing the killer to be out on the loose, thus putting other people (just like his late wife) in danger. To the movie's credit, about halfway through, some characters finally start giving this idea some lip service -- the secret agent is turning into a monster, etc.

That would be fine except that the movie doesn't allow much room for things to escalate. It starts off so brutally and violently, both on the part of the killer and on the part of the secret agent, that we don't realize we're supposed to think the secret agent is getting out of control until other characters tell us. To us, he just seems ruthless from the get go, as he ruthlessly attacks suspects who aren't even the killer he's looking for.

The movie is beautifully shot and has some good performances but it is too long and has an overblown musical score that gets in the way of what could have been some more subtle emotional moments. There isn't much that is subtle about this movie, thanks to the over the top violence and gore, so cutting back on the orchestral score might have been a step in the right direction. When stuff on the screen is already extreme, the audience doesn't need to be pounded over the head by the composer.

Early in the film I started to wonder, what's a beautifully shot movie when the subjects being filmed are ugly? What's the point? In cases like these, there damn well better be some kind of message, and I'm not convinced there is one here. Revenge movies are tricky -- you want to identify with the guy getting revenge for the satisfaction, but if the revenge is too brutal, you don't want to identify anymore. On the other hand, if the villain is awful enough, and the filmmakers go out of their way to show you how awful he is, as they do here, then this might help make it easier to stomach the brutal revenge scenes later on.

What this means, though, is that now we, as an audience, have to sit through unpleasantly long, drawn out, meticulously detailed scenes of violence between a sick serial killer and his innocent victims. A little of this would have gone a long way, and you begin to wonder what the point of lingering so much is -- are we supposed to enjoy this first, then enjoy the revenge even more, later? Or would the type of person who enjoys the murder and rape scenes for the visceral thrill even care about the difference in motives between the killer and the secret agent?

In any case, with the inflated running time, I kept thinking, moral ambiguity aside, we could have shaved some time off this movie by not indulging every little tiny moment of violence so much. But then I began to wonder, without all this magnified violence and gore, what would be the point of the movie? I mean, in a sense, isn't the movie about the violence and gore? Taking that stuff out would be like taking the sex scenes out of a porn flick.

So, I don't know. I SAW THE DEVIL was okay, but I think there was a much better movie buried within it. I think the misguided attempts to shock and titillate the audience with ultra violence actually got in the way of this movie being as good as it could have been. When I watch a movie, I want to be in the moment, not thinking, "Why am I watching this?"

Horrorfest 2011: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

I took a look at the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS from the 1950s for Horrorfest 2009, so now it's time for the 1978 version of the same name. This remake is well regarded as a good film in its own right, and from what I can tell some viewers believe it is superior to the original. I still prefer the original, but this one was definitely a good flick.

Donald Sutherland stars as a San Francisco health inspector whose co-worker (Brooke Adams) becomes convinced that her live-in boyfriend (Art Hindle) is some kind of impostor. At first Sutherland recommends Adams consult his psychologist friend (Leonard Nimoy!) who is also a best selling author. But soon, Sutherland's buddy (Jeff Goldblum) discovers a weird body that seems to be from another world, and things start to come together. As crazy as it seems, our heroes come to the conclusion that humans are being replaced with clones from outer space.

As more and more of the city becomes possessed, our group of heroes is forced to go on the run, only there isn't really anywhere to run that isn't already taken over by the bad guys.

Although both films are about paranoia and loss of identity, I think the original INVASION did a better job of setting an overall paranoid tone for the movie. The isolated small town atmosphere made a more frightening counter point to the horror than San Francisco does in this film. In the original, the characters seems insulated enough that it was additionally horrific to them that anything bad could be going on at all in their seemingly perfect world. In this one, the characters seem world weary enough that we lose a little bit of that innocence and the invasion becomes more of a confirmation as if to say, "See, the conspiracy kooks were right all along."

On the other hand, some of the updates are welcome. The movie goes into more detail showing where the pods came from, how the grow, and how they infect people. It makes use of more modern fads like self-help and health spas. It was a nice surprise to have Brooke Adams walking around naked in the finale. Sutherland, Adams and Goldblum all turn in good performances and Nimoy is particularly well cast as a character who starts off as an arrogant blowhard and ends as an outright villain. And, there's a great ending.

Anyway, next time someone starts bitching and moaning about how all remakes suck, point out INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS was good. It doesn't matter if a movie is a remake, a sequel, or based on something that came before. If it's good, it's good, and if it sucks, it sucks. And this one's good.

Horrorfest 2011: Eraserhead

Growing up as a movie nerd, of course I heard of ERASERHEAD and its dark brand of weirdness many times. The famous black and white shot of Jack Nance as Henry Spencer with his wild tower of hair has become iconic and writer/director David Lynch has become synonymous with cult films. Now, I've finally seen it first hand.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, partially based on ERASERHEAD's widely known and notorious weirdness, but also based on my experiences with the David Lynch films I have seen. He has made films I honestly enjoyed like THE STRAIGHT STORY and ELEPHANT MAN, films I like in spite of the fact that they're a giant mess, like DUNE, and films I wanted to like but just didn't vibe with like LOST HIGHWAY.

Now that I've seen it, I'm still not sure what to think. ERASERHEAD is just as weird as they say. The movie doesn't go to very far lengths to explain itself, but goes a long way to set a creepy, foreboding tone using stark black and white photography and a lot of disturbing white noise on the soundtrack.

ERASERHEAD seems to take place in some kind of post apocalyptic world -- there doesn't seem to be many people around and everyone seems to live in abandoned buildings in urban industrial areas. The white noise droning in the background makes it clear industry still survives and that this urban area is not pleasant to live in. Wandering this wasteland is the afore mentioned Jack Nance as the wild haired Henry Spencer, an unassuming single man living in a tiny rathole of an apartment.

At the outset of the film, Nance is invited to his ex-girlfriend's (Charlotte Stewart) house to have dinner with her parents (Jeanne Bates and Allen Joseph). The gathering is suitably awkward and weird, and ends with Nance finding out that he has apparently impregnated his ex and now must marry her.

"They're still not sure it is a baby," Nance's future wife says, ominously.

The couple moves in together to raise the baby, and sure enough, we see why there was some confusion on the doctors' part. The baby doesn't look human -- it is nothing more than a monstrous, alien head poking out of a sack of bandages, constantly wailing, eventually breaking out into diseased boils. Nance's wife can't take it and bails early on. Nance can't take it either, but he won't leave the kid, so instead he descends into his fantasies, flights of madness, dreams and nightmares in an effort to escape.

That literal description of what little plot the film has doesn't really do it justice. Like most weird movies, this one must be seen to be believed. The plot tells us very little about the movie's intended "meaning" -- that's all conveyed in mood and tone, both of which the movie has plenty, laid on nice and thick. Most of the movie is a succession of striking visuals, including a grotesque woman singing on a stage while alien like creatures reminiscent of sperm drop from the ceiling on her and a sequence in which parts of Nance himself are recycled into pencil erasers, hence the name of the movie.

A movie like this, heavy on imagery and light on exposition, leads viewers to think there must be some deeper underlying meaning. These images must be symbols, right? I'm not 100% convinced there's much here beyond what's literally shown in the film, but it is definitely a uniquely stunning piece of work. My own guess is that the whole movie is just a nightmare manifestation of some common deep rooted fears among young, single males -- the fear of being alone, the fear of women, the fear of fatherhood, the fear of losing your freedom, the fear of death. Basically, the entirety of human experience.

One thing that saves this film from getting too full of itself is the central performance by Jack Nance. He plays Henry Spencer as bemused, confused, naive, shy, and often times nonplussed by the weird things going on around him. Most of his line readings have an open tone to them, giving us a character who is not cynical or self conscious, which stands as a stark contrast to the feelings a viewer might get about the film itself. This also helps provide a little bit of dark humor to keep the movie from dropping entirely into the realms of despair. Still, it gets pretty damn close.

Horrorfest 2011: Cure

Time for another detective story. CURE is a Japanese film starring Koji Yakusho as a detective investigating a series of strangely similar murders. Victims are turning up with "X" marks slashed into their necks. This at first seems like the mark of a serial killer, but each victim seems to have been killed by a different murderer, usually someone close to them who is easily caught and readily admits the crime while offering little or no motive.

Meanwhile, a mysterious transient (Masato Hagiwara) wanders into and out of innocent bystanders' lives, confusing them with his endless questions repetitive questions. He seems to be suffering from extreme amnesia, and eventually seems to be connected to this string of murders.

CURE builds a lot of suspense and has a definite overwhelming sense of dread throughout, exploiting disturbing sound design to put the viewer on edge. The film moves along at a slow, deliberate pace with lots of long takes and long shots, using pacing and framing to keep the viewer somewhat removed from the action on screen.

This distance between the viewer and the movie is similar to the distance between Yakusho's detective and the other characters in the movie. Yakusho plays a workaholic who attempts to hide his feelings both at work and at home where he takes care of his wife (Anna Nakagawa) who seems to be slowly and quietly losing her mind. As Yakusho gets deeper into his investigation and becomes more involved with the mysterious amnesiac, we get the feeling his mind is starting to go, too. He struggles not only with his sanity, but with his attempts to repress his normal, human feelings.

One interesting aspect of the film is that the central villain is more annoying and frustrating than he is evil and frightening. As played by Masato Hagiwara, the villain here is not suave and charming like Hannibal Lecter or cold and brutal like various slasher monsters. Instead, he seems to enjoy passive aggressively taunting his victims and the investigators as a petulant child might. This is both a unique approach to a villain for a movie and, I suspect, a fairly realistic one -- rather than building up the criminal as some kind of misunderstood genius or otherwise romantic figure, he's revealed to be little more than an anti-social weirdo you wouldn't really want to hang around.

The film has a frustratingly ambiguous ending, and there are several theories floating around about what it might mean, but like the last episode of the SOPRANOS I think all that stuff is secondary to the mood and tension the film creates while it's rolling.

Horrorfest 2011: Angel Heart

ANGEL HEART starts like detective noir and ends like a horror movie and has some comedy in the middle. This is my kind of movie.

Mickey Rourke stars as Harry Angel, a private eye in 1955 New York who is summoned to a Harlem church where some form of devil worship seems to be going down and hired by a creepy dude played by Robert DeNiro to find a missing person. DeNiro has long hair, a Satanic beard, fingernails filed into points, and seems to sit on a throne as he fills Rourke in on his mission, ominously noting, "I feel like I've met you before." So, early on, we get a feeling something supernatural is going on here.

The supernatural overtones continue as Rourke's investigation takes him to New Orleans where he finds himself associating with a fortune teller (Charlotte Rampling), a voodoo priestess (Lisa Bonet) and an aging blues man (actual aging blues man, Brownie McGhee). As often happens during Horrorfest, the bodies start to pile up. The investigation seems to get more confusing the deeper it goes and Rourke starts to fall apart, both mentally and physically, as he gets closer to the truth of this mystery.

I basically guessed the twist ending early on, though didn't exactly nail it, but I think that's a result of two decades of similar movies coming out after this one. I'm pretty sure if I saw this as an adult in 1987 the solution to the mystery would have taken me completely by surprise.

British filmmaker Alan Parker wrote and directed this film, and his trademark visual flair is fully present. The whole movie is beautiful to look at, particularly an early scene in which Mickey Rourke interviews a couple on the beach on a cloudy day shot almost entirely in long shots. Some say Parker's somewhat detached approach to filmmaking leaves his movies lacking a little humanity, and I can see where they're coming from sometimes (see ANGELA'S ASHES) while I totally disagree at others (see PINK FLOYD - THE WALL, one of my favorites). Here, Parker goes way out of his way to make sure the film looks beautiful, is period accurate, and he definitely nails the classic style of the noir and horror genres. Still, his critics would be correct in pointing out the character development and motivation is a little lacking here.

The one thing that rescues the movie from being totally emotionally cold is the performances. Mickey Rourke, as usually, pours his entire self into this role, and can deftly handle drama, horror and comedy with little ego displayed on screen. He's totally content to let it all hang out, and that's the kind of actor you need for a flick like this. Even when the screenplay asks him to ascend to ridiculous heights of lunacy in the final act, he doesn't back down and rises to the challenge.

DeNiro's performance is the opposite, but just as effective. He's so minimalistic, it's almost infuriating, but that's good. It's interesting to see him in this kind of more fantasy based role, and I'd like to see him as some kind of super villain again before his career is over.

Bonet is compelling as the young voodoo priestess, and of course ANGEL HEART is famous for her graphic sex scene. This caused some controversy with fans used to seeing her on the decidely G-rated COSBY SHOW, and that controversy is probably partially why she never had much of a career after this, which is a shame, because she definitely has a presence here.

Watching this film, I couldn't believe I could go so long without seeing a movie with so many elements I love -- noir, Mickey Rourke, Alan Parker. On one hand, it's crazy that this movie has been out since 1987 and I'm just now getting around to watching it. On the other, it's great that I can watch so many movies so often and still find totally awesome stuff I've never seen.

Horrorfest 2011: The Ghost Breakers

It's funny, as famous as Bob Hope is, I never actually saw one of his movies until now.

THE GHOST BREAKERS is a charming little comedy set against the backdrop of a haunted house. Bob Hope stars as the star of a gossip radio show who goes on the lam when he runs afoul of some gangsters and ends up accidentally stowing away aboard a ship bound for Cuba in a trunk belonging to Paulette Godard, who has recently inherited a castle and is on her way to check it out.

Godard's plagued with warnings of how dangerous and haunted the castle is, and receives ominous threats in the form of voodoo trinkets, but with the help of Hope, she soldiers on to check out her new property.

Hope takes it upon himself to check out the supposedly haunted castle -- mostly to impress Godard, but also because he simply refuses to buy the local legends. He brings along his reluctant servant, played by Willie Best, to find out if the ghosts are real or an elaborate scam to keep Godard away from the castle.

The plot is pretty simple and most of the movie deals with the mishaps that lead to Hope making it onto the boat to Cuba. It's about an hour before our heroes actually get to the haunted castle, so most of the ghost hijinks work as the finale of the movie as opposed to the bulk of it. Aside from ghosts, there are also a couple supposed zombies -- the caretaker of the castle (Virginia Brissac) and her son (hey, it's Noble Johnson again!).

Anthony Quinn is on hand in a mysterious dual role, along with Richard Carlson as a little bit of romantic competition for Hope and Paul Lukas as a solicitor who tries to dissuade Godard from taking over the haunted property.

For a fairly light hearted comedy, THE GHOST BREAKERS has some great, creepy atmosphere. While it is never outright scary, the castle and its surroundings are beautifully built and lit sets, and even scenes in the hotel at the beginning of the film and on the decks of the ship to Cuba are shot as if this is a big budget special effects picture instead of a humble comedy. I also like that the plot has Hope investigating the hauntings as a skeptic who dismisses the existence of ghosts out of hand.

The thing I liked most about this movie is also the thing that challenged me most, and that is the performance of African American actor Willie Best as Hope's cowardly servant. Best gets all the choicest lines and has great comic timing, both verbally and physically. He makes the perfect sidekick for Hope and the two are an engaging team. He's the highlight of the flick. Unfortunately, he's in one of those roles that's a little cringe inducing these days -- a bumbling black servant to a superior white guy. If you have even a teeny little bit of social conscience, you'll probably find yourself wondering if you're "allowed" to laugh at this material or not.

I finally settled on not being too uptight. The fact of the matter is, Best is hilarious. He basically steals the movie. Regardless of the historical context or the broader meaning of his role, the way it was written and conceived, and what that might say about society at large, he's still funny. It sucks that certain truths about racism made me have to think twice about an otherwise brilliant performance, especially a comedic one, especially when so few black actors had a chance to shine in this period.

Best got into this movie both because of and in spite of racism, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to give his performance its due.

Horrorfest 2011: Who Can Kill a Child?

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? sucks. It is officially the first shitty movie of Horrorfest 2011. It was bound to happen. I’ve enjoyed some more than others, but all had redeeming qualities until now. Even HOUSE! How this movie came to be so well regarded among movie buffs is beyond me. Maybe the people who claim to like it have never actually seen it? I guess that’s a possibility.

The premise sounds okay – it’s about a British couple (Lewis Fiander and Prunella Ronsome) on vacation in Spain. They travel to an isolated island and find it eerily devoid of any adults, but crawling with creepy kids who seem to watch their every move. Of course, it turns out the kids have been killing the adults, and the vacationing couple becomes the next potential victims.

Director Narciso Ibanez Serrador makes a false step that’s hard to recover from right out of the gate, starting off with a montage of documentary footage. As a narrator intones how the wars of adults take their worst toll on the innocent children who are caught in the crossfire, we see disturbing and graphic footage of Auschwitz, the Korean War, and other atrocities. The images specifically focus on the plight of the children involved, so we get at least 5 minutes of footage of emaciated kids, both living and dead, intercut with freeze frames so the credits can roll over the sound of children laughing and playing. That’s irony, folks.

Is this approach heavy handed? Yes. Is it also totally inappropriate to use this sensitive footage for the purposes of a shitty exploitation movie? Yes. These are images of real people with real lives that really had unimaginably terrible things happen to them, right in the middle of their complete misery. The last thing they need is the added insult and indignity of having their misery cheaply exploited.

So, after this immediate derailment, the movie goes on to show us our lead couple on holiday. Here we get endless shots of crowd celebrations as the couple looks on. They try to get a hotel, they buy film for their camera, they watch fireworks. It’s boring as hell, the couple has nothing interesting to say, they don’t seem to have any chemistry, and they don’t seem to be particularly pleasant people. The woman is so pregnant that she’s clearly showing, and her husband ruminates right in front of her about whether or not it’s wise to bring a child into this world. Good one, asshole.

The couple is also exceedingly stupid. This must just be a result of the filmmakers giving them stupid shit to say. The wife has never heard of Federico Fellini, she doesn’t know how to say “Thank you” in Spanish (it’s “gracias,” by the way) and she doesn’t know what a piñata is. When a local clearly motions for her to move from the back of a boat to the front of the boat, she shrugs happily and says, “Sorry, I don’t understand!” and just sits there. All this wouldn’t be so bad except it’s clear that the audience is not supposed to think these people are stupid. The filmmakers don’t even realize how dumb they’ve made their central characters.

This stupidity extends to their interactions with the killer kids on the deserted island, which they finally get to about 45 minutes into the movie. Under normal circumstances his wouldn’t be so bad (see JAWS and KING KONG) except that in this movie 45 minutes seems like 4 hours. Here, our heroes are about as stupid as your average horror victim – they back themselves into corners, they refuse to run away when it makes sense to run away, they give the murderers the benefit of the doubt – all the stuff teenagers usually do in an effort to help Freddy and Jason kill them.

To its further disservice, the movie also attempts to have a couple ideas and fails miserably. The first thought the movie has is, “With all the innocent kids suffering in the world, what if they suddenly fought back?” I guess that’s the excuse for the documentary footage at the beginning of the movie – it’s all at the service of making this shallow, pseudo-philosophical point. Unfortunately it’s totally disingenuous because none of the events in the movie are in any way tied to any of the events in the gruesome opening.

The only possible connection would be if the children have some kind of collective unconscious they’re acting on or if God has reached down and directed them to murder adults in an act of vengeance for their kind. Even that would be ridiculous, however, since all adults used to be children and all children eventually become adults. What about the fact that no kid would make it past the first few days of life without adults keeping them alive? Huh? Riddle me that one, Narciso Ibanez Serrador!

The other half baked “idea” this movie has is that the murderous children have a built in defense mechanism since any adult in their right mind would be averse to hurting them. Once again, this is ridiculous, since we’re treated to footage at the beginning of the movie of innocent children suffering at the hands of adults, directly refuting the premise. On top of that, the innocence of children kind of goes out the window when you witness one killing someone in cold blood right in front of you. At that point, for most rational people, the survival instinct would kick in and it would quickly become a case of “him or me.”

Let’s face it, Narciso Ibanez Serrador – you included that documentary footage for nothing more than cheap shock value. The footage was free, doesn’t require any special effects, and allows you to show real dead and dying children, which you’d never be able to show in any other context. You didn’t have to shoot it, or light it, or cast it, or anything. All those victims were kind enough to be tortured and killed for you, just for your shitty movie. Asshole.

Horrorfest 2011: I Walked with a Zombie

Here’s another Val Lewton flick, this time directed by Jacques Tourneur, who helmed both the classic quintessential Lewton flick CAT PEOPLE , along with the noir classic OUT OF THE PAST and another great Horrorfest film from last year, NIGHT OF THE DEMON (or CURSE OF THE DEMON, depending on who you ask).

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE takes place in the West Indies as a nurse (Frances Dee) goes to work for a wealthy sugar plantation owner (Tom Conway) taking care of his invalid wife (Christine Gordon). Conway’s mom (Edith Barrett) runs a medical clinic for the natives and his brother (James Ellison) is a drunk, tortured by some family secrets.

At first the nurse is happy to be in paradise, but soon the ominous jungle drums start beating, she starts to hear local voodoo legends and learn of superstitions, and it starts to look like the woman she’s caring for just might be a zombie. As she falls for her boss, the nurse decides she must try anything to cure her patient, and turns to voodoo for help.

As usual with a Val Lewton production, a lot of the horror is implied in the overall tone and feeling of the movie and there’s not a lot of actually horrific stuff that occurs. However, things do ramp up after a fairly slow start, as the nurse descends further into the world of voodoo and comes upon some legitimately chilling moments and characters.

To the film’s credit, it takes the voodoo subject more seriously than you might expect of a film of this era. Also, because of its setting, the movie features a more diverse cast than most 40s horror productions, providing some nice moments for the beautiful Theresa Harris as the maid, the interestingly named Sir Lancelot as a Calypso singer, and, most memorably, Darby Jones as a startlingly blank-faced and staring voodoo disciple who may or may not be a zombie.

These aspects make the film more memorable than it would be otherwise. It’s my least favorite of the Lewton flicks I’ve seen so far, falling a little more flat and just feeling a little more bland overall than its predecessors. Still, there are some genuinely creepy moments and a good finale, so it’s still worth a watch.

Horrorfest 2011: The Body Snatcher

I put THE BODY SNATCHER on my list of flicks for Horrorfest thinking it would be yet another version of the alien invasion story, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn this was a Val Lewton produced vehicle for Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. I watched the Lewton-produced flicks CAT PEOPLE And CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE for Horrorfest last year and loved them. Lewton was the RKO producer known for making quality flicks, both entertaining and artistic, with small budgets, so a lot of his pictures are leave more to the imagination and deal with more abstract subjects than the Universal horror movies of the day.

THE BODY SNATCHER takes place in 1830s Edinburgh and opens with a mother (Rita Corday) taking her wheel chair bound daughter (Sharyn Moffett) to the only doctor she believes can help – Dr. MacFarlane (Henry Daniell). MacFarlane turns her down because he considers himself more of a teacher than a practitioner, though his new assistant, Fettes (Russell Wade) is young and idealistic and wants to help.

Fettes soon finds out Dr. MacFarlane is not all that he seems, however, when it becomes clear that the doctor is supplying his medical school with fresh cadavers by way of cabman by day, grave robber by night John Gray (Boris Karloff). That’s not all – there also seems to be some personal history between MacFarlane and Gray, as the commoner Gray perversely delights in forcing the gentleman MacFarlane to squirm as he insists on publicly associating with him. Meanwhile, MacFarlane’s servant, Joseph (Bela Lugosi) also catches onto the macabre scheme and formulates a blackmail plot.

Without getting into too many spoilers, I can say the movie deals mostly with moral and ethical dilemmas. MacFarlane thinks he is doing the right thing because he is helping mankind and furthering the studies of scientific medicine. He views the social taboos against the use of dead bodies in clinical settings as primitive and feels he is forced to sneak around with criminals because of these beliefs. Fettes is more naïve and idealistic, and therefore even more torn on the subject – he, too, wants to help people, and admires MacFarlane, but can it possibly be “right” to rob graves?

The only one who seems fairly comfortable with his station in life is Gray, the criminal grave robber, who hides his activities just enough not go get caught, but has no delusions about the grand scheme of things. Still, he, too, is a slave of social mores, as his obsession with the class distinction between himself and MacFarlane, despite their close association, begins to rule his life.

As is the case with these things, they quickly unravel and get out of hand, and it’s not long before murder comes into the picture. Karloff is great as Gray, delighting in every single line of dialog, rolling it over his tongue like he’s reciting Shakespeare, and using a fake geniality to frighten both MacFarlane and the audience, as opposed to acting outright sinister. Daniell is similarly captivating as MacFarlane, who quietly unravels as he attempts to keep a stiff upper lip.

My only complaint about the flick is that I would have liked to have had some more Lugosi. He has one great scene with Karloff but is otherwise wasted in what amounts to a bit part. I mean, if you can get Lugosi to fill out a small role for atmosphere’s sake, of course you have to do it. I just wish he had more screen time and a little more to do. But, that’s just a minor nitpick in an otherwise great film.

Horrorfest 2011: The Old Dark House

I’ve been wanting to check out THE OLD DARK HOUSE ever since James Rolfe reviewed it a few years back – not only was the review good, but the movie itself was directed by James Whale, a master of horror responsible for the first two FRANKENSTEIN films and THE INVISIBLE MAN, and stars Boris Karloff (Frankenstein’s monster himself) along with Ernest Thesiger (Dr. Pretorius in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, possibly the greatest mad scientist of all). So, the movie has a good pedigree.

This must be among the first instance of the by-now familiar plot device of a group of travelers forced to stay in a strange house after their car breaks down in a storm. In this case, the travelers are a married couple (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart, the latter of TITANIC fame – who knew, she used to be hot) and their bachelor pal (Melvyn Douglas). Later, they’re joined by a couple more stranded travelers, a self-made tycoon (Charles Laughton) and his arm candy (Lilian Bond).

At first, the titular old dark house is merely a bit weird. Soon, it starts to grow sinister and dangerous. The house is inhabited by the Femm siblings, the mostly deaf and self-righteous sister played by Eva Moore, and her fussy, nervous brother, played by the afore-mentioned Ernest Thesiger. Their invalid father (Elspeth Dudgeon, in an off-putting gender-bending performance), over 100 years old, is laid up in an upstairs bedroom. Another upstairs bedroom, the door bolted with ominous locks, houses the third sibling (Brember Wills), said to be murderously insane. Even the butler is weird – this is Boris Karloff, as a mute hulk who unintelligibly mumbles his dialog and becomes dangerous once he gets drunk.

There’s a funny disclaimer at the beginning of the movie assuring us that this is indeed the same Boris Karloff who played the monster in FRANKENSTEIN. That was his breakout role, and there he was also mute and covered in makeup, rendering him almost unrecognizable. Once again, in this flick, he’s mute and covered in makeup. It’s a good performance, but you can see why the filmmakers felt the need to go out of their way to point out that this is Karloff, because it’s not readily obvious.

One cool thing about the movie is how funny it is. Although the dark house and its inhabitants are scary and have their fair share of fright moments, their eccentricities, when mixed with the “normal” people who stop by for the night, can’t help but lead to humor. This is especially evident in Ernest Thesiger’s awesome portrayal – he’s simultaneously weird and frightening to his guests, while also being afraid of his own family and the house itself. He’s so uncomfortable in his own skin while attempting to remain a classy gentleman that his every move and word drips with sarcastic double meaning.

There’s also a little refreshing love triangle between the lazy bachelor, Douglas, the ambitious business man, Laughton, and the businessman’s companion, Bond. Laughton (later to play the tragic lead in HUNBACK OF NOTRE DAME), as always, is great, and his character is interesting – he’s heart broken and driven, but realistic about the wavering affections of his dame. He also can’t help but be charmed by Douglas, who is a raffish n’er-do-well. And Bond is cute as a button. The love scenes between Douglas and Bond are a little less cloying and more witty and realistic than some scenes I’ve had to sit through in other films of the era.

In fact, the whole movie is refreshing and original. Although it marks the beginning of a cliché that won’t go away, I can assure you you’ll never see anything quite like THE OLD DARK HOUSE.

Horrorfest 2011: Santa Sangre

Now to change things up a little bit, here’s a completely normal movie. No, I’m just kidding – SANTA SANGRE is about as weird as they get. Not HOUSE weird. But close.

SANTA SANGRE is the life story of a circus performer named Fenix. We first see him played by director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s son, Axel, as an adult in an insane asylum, but we quickly flashback to his days as a child magician in a Mexican circus, now played by the director’s other son, Adan. Fenix is traumatized early on when he witnesses the result of his knife-throwing father’s (Guy Stockwell) affair with the Tattooed Woman (Thelma Tixou). Fenix’s mother (Blanca Guerra), a religious cult leader by day and trapeze artist by night, disfigures his father with acid, and his father responds by chopping off her arms and slitting his own throat. The Tattooed Woman escapes with her life, dragging along her adopted daughter, Fenix’s best friend and young love, a deaf/mute tightrope walker (Faviola Elenka Tapia).

After this set up, we cut back to the present, as Fenix (Axel again) breaks out of the insane asylum with the help of his armless mother, starts a new act with her, and begins exacting murderous revenge on her behalf. In the stage act, the revenge plot, and in domestic scenes at home, Fenix acts as his mother’s arms, standing behind her, putting his arms through her sleeves, and performing all of her wants and needs for her, whether it’s playing the piano or stabbing a hooker to death. Meanwhile, we see that Fenix’s childhood love has grown into a pretty young woman forced into prostitution (Sabrina Dennison).

As I watched SANTA SANGRE unfold, I couldn’t help but be reminded of THE UNKNOWN from earlier in Horrorfest – that was the flick with Lon Chaney as the armless (and murderous) knife thrower. I wonder if Jodorowsky ever saw that one?

This movie is never boring. Much like the other Jodorowsky flick I’ve seen, the equally infamous and weird EL TOPO, the narrative seems to reinvent itself once every 15 minutes or so. It is one long story that makes sense, sure, but we follow Fenix through so many settings and adventures that it’s almost like we’re watching six movies about his life instead of just one. For every plot device and twist, there are even more stunning images, including a tragic elephant funeral, a nightmare in which Fenix’s victims rise from the grave, and a shocking finale in which Fenix’s circus clown friends help him exorcise his demons and claw his way back to sanity.

The interesting thing here is that despite the horrific things he does, the nightmarish visions, and the overall weird setting, Fenix comes off as a likable, sympathetic character who might be just as at home in a silent comedy as he is here. Part of this is thanks to the naïve, wide-eyed, affable double performance from Axel and Adan Jodorowsky.

Like HOUSE, SANTA SANGRE benefits from not taking itself too seriously. Like HOUR OF THE WOLF, SANTA SANGRE also benefits from seeming like it has something important to say about the human condition. Added up together, it is my favorite of the “weird” trilogy I’ve put myself through during this stretch of Horrorfest.

Note to self: watch everything else Alejandro Jodorowsky ever made as soon as possible.

Horrorfest 2011: Hour of the Wolf

Here’s another weird one – HOUR OF THE WOLF, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, stars Max Von Sydow as a tortured painter living with his pregnant wife (Liv Ullmann) in an isolated cabin on a mostly deserted island. As the painter seems to descend into insanity he’s helped along by nightmarish visions, memories, and encounters with a strange brood living in a nearby castle who may or may not be figments of his imagination. Meanwhile, the painter’s hapless wife tries to help, staying up sleepless nights with the crazed artist as the insanity possibly begins to rub off.

I’m not ashamed to say I didn’t understand exactly what was happening from one scene to the next, and I don’t think Bergman is particularly interested in spelling things out for the audience. The movie is more about what goes on in someone’s mind than any kind of literal plot. I read several interpretations of the movie after I was done watching it, and kept coming across the claim that this is Bergmans “only” horror film. I’d argue THE VIRGIN SPRING is at least as horrific, if not moreso. But I guess horror is in the eye of the beholder.

The movie starts off as a fairly dry and depressing drama, and the horror elements start to creep in around the edges later. My own interpretation of the movie is that Von Sydow’s character is having some kind of nervous breakdown – an identity crisis brought about by a creative block that is making painting very difficult for him. As he slips into old age, he becomes more and more obsessed with his past regrets – a woman he had an affair with (Ingrid Thulin), sexual and violent urges he either did or did not act on – and these present themselves to him in the form of dreams, visions and hallucinations. Bergman’s direction does not make it readily obvious what is real and what is imagined, and for all we know, some of it might be half real and half imagined.

What sets this film apart from some other “descents into madness” I’ve seen is the involvement of the painter’s wife – most of it is through her point of view, observing her husband’s despair, and the narrative explores the idea that by being so open and emotionally tied to her husband, the wife might be just as crazy, or end up just as crazy if she’s not careful.

The painter’s insanity reaches its apex when he’s invited by the local Baron (Erland Josephson) to attend a dinner party at the nearby castle. Here, Von Sydow completely unwinds as he is teased, taunted and made a fool of by the inhabitants of the castle who seem to represent Von Sydow’s darkest fears and desires. One nightmarish image follows another – an old woman (Naima Wifstrand) pulls off her own face, Von Sydow recounts a creepy, violent encounter he once had (or did he?) with a young boy (Mikael Rundquist). Throughout it all, as usual, Von Sydow is great.

This movie is a good rebuttal to the anarchic weirdness of HOUSE. Both are deliberately weird, but HOUR OF THE WOLF seems to be saying something.

Horrorfest 2011: House

HOUSE may be the single weirdest movie I've ever seen, and I've seen some weird ones. It almost defies explanation. That kind of sucks, because movies that defy explanation both demand to be seen and are destined to be hated by half the people who see them, so it's hard to say what you really want to say when asked about this kind of movie, which is, "You have to see it to believe it." While that is literally true, it's not a helpful recommendation.

Movies that are weird for the sake of being weird are often love or hate affairs but if you see enough them you start to get immune to extreme feelings and end up somewhere in the middle. Several hundred movies ago, when I was 15, I imagine I would have loved or hated this movie. Now that I'm an old man, I didn't love or hate HOUSE. I was mildly amused by it while also waiting for it to end.

HOUSE, a Japanese film from the late 70s, has a fairly flimsy plot that's just an excuse for a bunch of hallucinatory visuals, some wacky sound design and a lot of counter intuitive editing tricks. It's like live action anime directed by Ken Russell.

Basically, this is the story of seven teenage schoolgirls in little sailor uniforms who go for a summer vacation at the country house of one of the girls' aunts (Yoko Minamida). The girls all have nicknames describing their personalities -- Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) is preoccupied with her looks, Prof (Ai Matsubara) is a nerd, Fantasy (Kumiko Oba) has her head in the clouds, Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo) does kung fu, and so on. The aunt has had a sad and lonely life since her husband died in World War II and it isn't long before weird stuff starts to happen at the house. At first the girls think it might be their imagination but eventually it becomes pretty clear the place is haunted.

The thing is, for the viewer, weird shit starts happening in the first second of the film and never stops. Music and sound effects are often completely at odds with whatever is going on onscreen, multiple editing tricks are used to transition into and out of scenes within seconds of each other, sometimes unnecessarily in the middle of a scene, the characters are cartoony and simplistic, and the backgrounds are obviously overwrought dramatic paintings. So, by the time weird shit starts going on in the narrative, it isn't that big of a deal to the audience because as far as we're concerned the whole thing has been weird all along. But, the girls in the movie don't realize they're living in a nightmarish cartoon fantasy acidland until people start disappearing and bodies start piling up. The house itself seems to be possessed as one girl is buried by a bunch of futons (seriously) and another is eaten by a piano (no kidding).

I don't want this to come off like some of this doesn't work. It undeniably does, on some level. I mean, you don't stare at it thinking whoever made it was incompetent. No, director Nobuhiko Obayashi definitely had a vision and you can tell this was all deliberate. So, it's not in the "so bad it's good" category because it's not bad -- not charmingly bad, or offensively bad. But, it doesn't quite reach the heights of greatness, either.

Granted, it must have been mind blowing to walk into a theater and see this unfold before your eyes with absolutely no preparation. But is that enough to make it a satisfying movie? I don't really think so. I think this works more as a piece of art to be looked at for art's sake, or maybe even as a novelty, and not so much as a traditional narrative that says much about the human condition or engages viewers on any kind of emotional level. Not that a "great" movie has to be a traditional narrative or any of that stuff, but... I don't know how to explain it.

I guess what I'm struggling to say is that this movie is just "okay." Normally that wouldn't be so much of a struggle, but it seems like an odd thing to say about a movie as unique as this one. I feel like I should either be wowed by its audacity or offended by its stupidity, and I'm neither.

At the very least, HOUSE is always interesting to look at, and for a horror flick with some exploitation stuff thrown in, it tends to keep a fairly positive vibe the whole time. Even though it's about a bunch of schoolgirls getting knocked off by ghosts, it never veers into disturbingly dark and dirty territory. Everyone seems to be having fun with the production, and that might be the secret of its redemption because there's nothing worse than a weird movie that takes itself too seriously.

At least these weirdos are fun weirdos.

Horrorfest 2011: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte

The whole time I was watching HUSH... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE I was convinced I had watched and reviewed WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? for Horrorfest 2010 or 2009. Both films are directed by Robert Aldrich and written by Henry Farrell and Lukas Heller. Both star Bette Davis as lonely, crazed, aging women who have fallen from youths during which they were placed on pedestals.

So, I went back to look at my BABY JANE review and found that it did not exist. I did watch that movie for the first time within the last couple years, and it was definitely horrifying, but I guess it wasn't for Horrorfest. Weird. My mind had played a trick on me, but luckily I'm not as crazy as Davis' character in HUSH... HUSH.

Davis stars as an old shut in, living in a crumbling plantation house that was once the scene of her "perfect" childhood as a southern belle attending formal parties. She's days away from being thrown off the land so the city can tear down the house and build a bridge. She refuses to leave the property even though she is the victim of much local gossip -- almost 40 years before, Davis was planning on running off with a married man (Bruce Dern) who was found with his hand and head hacked off. Although the authorities never solved the murder case, it was a media sensation and everyone in town thinks Davis did it except her loyal, if rough around the edges, housekeeper (Agnes Moorehead).

Davis has called on her only living relation, her cousin (Olivia de Havilland) to come visit in the hopes that she'll be a helpful ally in her attempts to fight the eviction. The local doctor (Joseph Cotten) is also on hand to help, but he's disturbed by Davis' insistence that there's some conspiracy or feud against her perpetrated by the widow (Mary Astor) of her long dead beau. Although Davis seems clearly disturbed, it's not all in her mind -- she is receiving anonymous accusatory notes in the mail, local kids do dare each other to break into her house, and she is awakened in the middle of the night either by ghostly visitations or possibly hallucinations that constantly remind her of the murder.

So, we have the natural drama of the trainwreck of Davis' character, along with the intrigue of the murder -- who did it? On top of that, everyone surrounding Davis suspects each other of attempting to take advantage of her. Is Moorehead, as the loyal housekeeper, trying to stay close to Davis to get into the will? Has cousin de Havilland returned to try to get her inheritance? And what about the old romance between de Havilland and Cotten that I forgot to mention before, or the journalist who keeps snooping around (Cecil Kellaway)?

Not only does this movie cash in on the similarities between it and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, but I also found it reminiscent of JEZEBEL and GONE WITH THE WIND. In JEZEBEL, Davis played an antebellum southern belle who could have possibly turned out like Charlotte in this movie given the right circumstances, and of course de Havilland is famous for her turn as the sweet and kind Melanie in GONE WITH THE WIND, both a friend rival to Scarlett O'Hara.

HUSH... HUSH has a bunch of twists and turns so I can't exactly go into anymore plot details without giving stuff away. I will say that it is fun how the story allows most of the characters to play both good and evil -- the plot surprises us enough that some characters who seemed honest and true turn out to be snakes and others who seemed to be creepy turn out to be good people. So, not only do we get good performances out of everyone, but we get multiple good performances per actor. The way the story unfolds also allows for a variety of different scares -- actual violence, potentially supernatural events, people conspiring against each other, a woman sliding into insanity.

It's also cool to see four middle-aged actresses really going at it with their acting chops -- Davis, Moorehead, de Havilland and Astor all have multiple great scenes in various match ups and it's a shame that that seems like a rarity, but unfortunately we don't get good stories involving older women all that often in the movies.

Man, I used to be in love with Olivia de Havilland when I was little. I first saw her as Maid Marian in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, so I was already in love with her by the time I saw GONE WITH THE WIND later. I was pleased to see that she still looked good in HUSH... HUSH, almost 30 years after the other performances I'd seen. I was also pleased to see that she had some more stuff to do in HUSH... HUSH beyond just being sweet and perfect. In this one, de Havilland really gets to dig in and show what she can do, playing a totally three dimensional character with a lot of surprises.

Of course, Davis is great as well -- she's kind of doing a riff on her Baby Jane character, here, but this one may even be a little more complex, if not quite as showy. In any case, the two performances show the same bravery and ambition of a once young and beautiful movie star not being afraid to get downright dirty, ugly and over the top.

Just a quick note on Joseph Cotten's character -- his name is Dr. Drew. First we have Steve Martin in GODZILLA, now Dr. Drew in this one. Sheesh.

Horrorfest 2011: The Most Dangerous Game

I've been wanting to see THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME ever since I read a fantastic article about in the newsprint pages of my favorite film buff magazine, FILMFAX. You know, back when magazines existed? It was the only publication in the mid-90s running regular articles about Ed Wood and Bettie Page, so I read it religiously.

But we're here to talk about THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, in which a shipwrecked big game hunter played by Joel McCrea washes up on the shore of a private island owned by a mysterious and sinister Russian count played by Leslie Banks. Banks has two other guests, siblings who are also the survivors of a recent shipwreck -- a drunk (Robert Armstrong) and a beauty (Fay Wray). There's also a creepy, mute servant lurking around the house (Noble Johnson, a black actor in white face, oddly enough).

Apparently there were other shipwreck survivors as well, but they have mysteriously disappeared after being invited to go on a hunt with Banks after viewing his locked off trophy room. Wray suspects foul play on the part of Banks, but Armstrong wants to party and be pals. McCrea is interested in the hunt, being a hunter himself, but Banks refuses to reveal what "special" game he hunts on his island.

If you don't know where this is going yet and don't want to, stop reading. The most dangerous game is people! No shit. At first Banks wants to hunt with McCrea, but McCrea won't have it, and it isn't long before Armstrong has disappeared and McCrea, along with Wray, become the game in Banks' next hunt.

This is a good film on its own merit -- it has great pacing, doesn't overstay its welcome, and is about as action packed and suspenseful as they come. It's also a great premise fully exploited, and all the central performances are good, particularly Banks as the villain and Armstrong as the drunk. And, Fay Wray is easy on the eyes.

Still, it's hard not to enjoy the film on another level, as well, because of its close association with KING KONG. I've loved KING KONG ever since I was little, so it was fun to see THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME partially because of all of the similarities between the two movies. They were shot pretty much simultaneously in 1932 -- they had the same producing/directing team -- Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper -- some of the same stars -- Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray and Noble Johnson -- the same composer -- Max Steiner -- and even the same sets! Most of the action takes place on the magnificent jungle set used for KONG's Skull Island. And this isn't just a case of moving a few bushes around -- they even run across the exact same log bridge!

So, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME is fun on a couple different levels and never fails to entertain. Some modern movies could take some lessons on brevity and efficiency from this flick, which is among the best edited early movies I've ever seen.

Horrorfest 2011: Godzilla, King of the Monsters!

GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS! is another in a long list of movies I feel like I've seen that I never actually sat through until today. The giant reptilian monster is so iconic that probably anyone you meet on the street could tell you the basic plot of the movie whether or not they've seen it. I'd seen parts of the original and its many sequels over the years, and I saw KING KONG VS. GODZILLA countless times as a kid since I owned it on VHS. But never the whole original.

I still kind of haven't seen the whole original -- just the American cut. Still, the American cut is probably the most famous version of the original, so close enough. The major difference between the American cut and the original Japanese release of GODZILLA is the addition of a foreign correspondent character played by Raymond Burr (named Steve Martin, oddly enough). The idea was to edit Burr seamlessly into the movie to give American audiences a character to latch onto, and to minimize the amount of voice dubbing necessary, instead relying on other characters translating to Burr, or Burr simply narrating over a scene, summarizing it for the American audience.

Unfortunately this process is not so seamless. Since Burr was nowhere near the sets when the original Japanese film was shot, he spends most of the movie reacting to shit he's not actually seeing. We're meant to believe he's standing in the corner of a room during a big important meeting, or among a crowd during an attack scene, but instead he looks like he's standing in an empty studio staring into a camera. Which he is. The few scenes he is not inserted into play out with Burr narrating over top of them. The American meddling gets so overwhelming at times it's a wonder they didn't just scrap every shot except the special effects shots and just make a whole new movie. But, no. Instead, they try to make it look like Burr is interacting with the Japanese actors.

Godzilla, of course, is a giant dinosaur-ish creature who has been accidentally created by nuclear weapons testing. He first attacks boats at sea, then a remote island of superstitious villagers and finally sets his sites (and atomic breath) on Tokyo. Paleontologist Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura) wants to study the beast. His daughter Emiko (Momoko Kochi) is betrothed to another scientist (Akihiko Hirata) who has developed a mysterious and deadly weapon that could be used against Godzilla, but she wants to break off the engagement so she can hook up with a ship captain (Akira Takarada). All the while Raymond Burr carries on broken conversations with doubles playing these characters who carefully keep their backs to the camera.

To the movie's credit, the whole story is approached with an impressive level of seriousness. It's a well known fact that both the monster Godzilla and the first movie he starred in were symbols for the terrors ravaged on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombs, as well as the fire bombing of Tokyo. So, unlike many later imitators, GODZILLA actually shows the aftermath and consequences of a giant monster attack and how it impacts the citizens of Tokyo. We get shots of bodies in rubble and makeshift hospitals packed with refugees, and they're effective.

Although for the most part Godzilla is portrayed by a guy in a monster suit stomping on tiny models of buildings, it is important to note that the black and white photography in this film goes a long way to make the creature look as sinister and mysterious as possible. The monster attack scenes are shot in such a way that moody shadows and smoke add to the atmosphere. Later giant monster movies forgot the importance of lighting and shooting your monster carefully so as to cover up the more cartoonish aspects of the whole endeavor. The dark look of the movie, and the way it dwells on the casualties, almost make it feel like a docu-drama about a disaster that really occurred, as opposed to a silly sci-fi flick.

Godzilla, the monster, is mostly frightening as a force of nature. It's creepy how he just pops up with little explanation and goes on a rampage and seemingly can't be stopped. He can't be reasoned with, he has no motivation. He just destroys for destruction's sake. That is a chilling notion, but it is also a slight drawback to the narrative -- since none of the human characters are engaging (Burr can't even be bothered to look scared when Tokyo's burning down), it'd be nice to have a monster with a bit of a personality. But would that personality take away from Godzilla's "act of God" status? Or would it enrich the movie, like the sympathetic monster in KING KONG?

The movie does almost take it to the next level during the climax, in which the humans work together to reluctantly unleash a super weapon, and one character makes an unexpected sacrifice. So, not only is the monster created by and inspired by real life nuclear attacks, but the plot to destroy the monster reveals philosophical questions about whether or not to use a weapon like a nuclear bomb -- when is it okay and can it be done responsibly? Or is mankind doomed to repeat his mistakes? This sequence is set to surprisingly tragic and mournful music, instead of your usual monster movie bombast, and it is that kind of detail that really helps set GODZILLA apart from some of his more brain dead monster colleagues.

That's two movies in a row with an exclamation mark in the title, by the way.

Horrorfest 2011: Them!

Nuclear bomb tests in the deserts of New Mexico give spawn to mutated giant ants in THEM!, the first giant bug movie in a decade known for giant bugs movies, the 1950s. It even predates GODZILLA as one of the first of the nuclear age of monsters.

First, I was confused. The movie opened against a black and white desert back drop and I thought, "Oh, that's weird, I figured based on the poster that the movie would be in color." Then, the title appeared on the screen IN COLOR. So I thought, maybe the movie is in color. But, then the rest of the movie was in black and white. Okay. . .

After that little bit of confusion, I was pleasantly surprised. See, I thought I was in store for some magnified footage of real ants super imposed in phony process shots with the actors, but I was glad to find that most of the monster work was done with full size puppets. Of course the special effects aren't that special compared to what can be accomplished today, but they at least put the monsters and the people physically in the same locations and don't look any more fake than they have to.

The movie gets off to a compelling and suspenseful start as a dazed little girl (Sandy Descher) is found wandering the desert and a cop (James Whitmore) investigates some mysterious killings in the area. Soon the FBI gets involved, sending a square jawed agent (James Arness) out to partner up with the cop. A father and daughter team of entomologists (Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon, respectively) are also flown in to follow up on giant unidentified foot prints found in the desert sand.

Unfortunately, this team of giant ant slayers is pretty bland and they're all about as one dimensional as you can get. The mystery and wow factor of the giant ant story takes center stage here and the audience is left with little else to latch onto. Almost every character, aside from a couple scared locals, are officials just doing their job -- there isn't anything personal at stake here. Well, I mean, I guess there is, given the fact that the ants left unchecked will exterminate the human race, but there's nothing to make us care about our heroes. The only one with any personality is the scientist played by Gwenn, a character actor probably known best for playing Kris Kringle in MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, who is able to infuse some eccentricities and comic relief into an otherwise thankless role.

Still, at first, the ant plot was enough to keep me engaged until about halfway through the film when the action and momentum seemed to slow from a good clip to a crawl as the first anthill is vanquished and our characters spend several scenes attempting to track down a few escaped queen ants who might be building nests elsewhere in the area. Things pick up again just in time for a pretty good finale as the ants attempt to build a new home under Los Angeles, using the L.A. River as part of their new system of tunnels.

I couldn't help but think of James Cameron's ALIENS as our human heroes wandered the dark tunnels, blasting ants and their eggs with flame throwers. I also thought about my own battles with the ants who have dared enter my apartment over the years and how vinegar seems to be a surprisingly potent weapon against them. But, why bother with vinegar when you've got bazookas, flame throwers, machine guns and grenades?

Like I mentioned before, THEM! is the first of its kind, as horror moved from its gothic roots in the first half of the 20th century into the realm of science fiction, replacing the horrors of superstition and folk tales with the paranoia of rapidly developing modern technology. Since this is the forefront of this kind of movie, it was a major production with a healthy budget that became Warner's big hit for the year, so it's not as hokey or cheesy as other movies that came later in the same genre.

As far as giant bug movies go, THEM! is about as good as can be expected, and about as credible as can be expected, and is pretty fun, effortless entertainment for the first half. But then it loses a little bit of its magic, none of the characters step up to bring anything to the table, and the finale comes a little later than I'd like.

But, the movie gets extra points for having an exclamation point in the title. That's moxie, folks.

Horrorfest 2011: Cube

Like [REC], I went into CUBE a little prejudiced. Ever since CUBE hit the new release wall in 1997, it has been one of those movies friends and acquaintances tell me they've "discovered" and that I have to see. I was always reluctant because it seemed like one of those movies that relied a little too heavily on its premise -- a group of strangers wake up in a mysterious cube shaped maze made of booby trapped rooms and have to figure their way out of there. I mean, once you know that, what else is there to know? I can see sitting through 25 minutes of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, but an entire feature film?

Anyway, I've finally seen it. I have to say, even though the premise is gimmicky, it was not the film's undoing. The film's undoing was basically everything else.

To be fair, we're dealing squarely in the realm of low budget filmmaking, here, so you have to at least give these guys credit for coming up with an interesting idea for a puzzle and a credible solution to that puzzle. The movie doesn't rely on cheating or withholding clues from the audience. The central mystery makes sense, basically, even if the existence of the "cube" itself could probably never be satisfactorily explained. To the movie's credit, it doesn't do much in the way of trying to explain. Wise move.

Unfortunately, clever ideas do not a good film make. They help. But they have to have backup. And there's not much in the way of backup here. The whole movie is shot, edited and designed about on par with a syndicated sci-fi show of the era. Even the music, what little there is, is laughable in its attempt to be mysterious. There are a couple effects that belong in the majors, including some nifty gore moments, but these are few and far between and most of what we're stuck with is a series of stock sci-fi rooms (actually one set redressed a bunch of times). I mean, that's the premise -- characters stuck in a cage. But, at least make the cage interesting.

The acting is also wildly uneven with a cast of mostly unlikable characters. Normally I don't like to shit on actors because they're at the mercy of so many variables it's hard for anyone to really know who's a "good" actor and who's a "bad" actor without being on set to see what went down, but there was clearly no one on this production charged with the task of making these poor bastards look good. The cliche ridden dialogue offers nothing interesting for them to say and the director's primary performance note seems to have been, "Yell more!" When you're stuck with one set, you've got to do better than that.

Our cast includes Maurice Dean Wint as an angry cop, David Hewlett as an angry office worker, Nicky Guadagni as an angry doctor, and Wayne Robson as an angry escape artist. They're all angry. Got that? Of these, Wint has the most heavy lifting to do as his character goes through the most changes, but he seems to play it all on about the same level, robbing the movie of some momentum along the way. I was hoping for a good death scene for Guadagni early on since she seemed to be the worst offender in the yelling contest. Robson doesn't get much screen time and Hewlett is probably the most likable of the bunch if only because he seems to hate the movie about as much as I did.

Of special note is Nicole de Boer, who plays a high school (or college?) math whiz. I say special note because she's cute as hell. You might remember her as the second Dax from DEEP SPACE NINE. I mean, if you're a nerd, like me. And if you're watching CUBE, you probably are.

Just when you think things can't get any more unintentionally hilarious, Andrew Miller shows up as a mentally challenged individual. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to whether or not he has a super secret, borderline magical, special skill. Sheesh.

The movie does eventually manage to get around to ratcheting up some tension towards the end, after a long slow wind up, and it is fairly clear there was a genuinely good movie buried in here somewhere. A couple more rewrites, maybe a little more attention given to the actors, a little moody lighting, and we might have had something.

Now that I've seen CUBE I'm a little confused as to how it has gathered the following that it has. It is among the highest voted horror movies on IMDB. I think it might be the result of a phenomenon where people embrace it because it wasn't a pre-packaged thing that was marketed to death and shoved onto the movie going public. It's something people found for themselves. And, once found, it was slightly more interesting than your average low budget sci-fi horror flick. So, back in 1997 it must have been a rewarding experience to rent it on a whim and have your mind blown, relatively speaking.

I guess maybe I should have watched it 14 years ago when I had the chance.

Horrorfest 2011: [REC]

I was a little wary going into [REC]. Having heard about the 2007 film for a few years now, I was aware it was yet another of those BLAIR WITCH inspired handy-cam flicks where we're supposed to be scared by how real and immediate everything seems. Still, I was pleasantly surprised that [REC] is one of the better examples of the genre I've seen.

[REC] opens as raw footage for a late night show in which a cute host (Manuela Velasco) interacts with different people who are up working while most citizens are sleeping. This episode happens to be about firemen and gets off to a slow start before an engine is finally called to respond to an apartment building where a woman is trapped in her apartment. Unfortunately for everyone, the woman turns out to be a blood thirsty zombie, and before the building residents, the two person TV crew or the firemen know what's happening, they're being quarantined in the building.

For the rest of the film the quarantined people argue, run up and down the stairs several times, become infected, kill each other, and attempt to escape, all shot from the point of view of the camera man (Pablo Rosso) in a fairly realistic manner. There are very few cheats in the film to interrupt this point of view, though when they do pop up they're a little more glaring than they probably should be, most notably in a sequence in which the camera is rewound and a key scene is replayed for us. This suggests within the fictional world of the movie some editor touched the footage after it was shot and discovered, and if that's the case, how come a bunch of other stuff wasn't edited out? There's another sequence in which man in being interviewed and his audio is spoken over a montage of shots of injured residents, which could have only been done by an editor after the fact, which again, makes you wonder, if that's the case, why not cut out the endless runs up and down the stairs and the multiple gaffes committed by the TV host early on?

But, I'm being a little too nerdy and nitpicky here. That stuff hardly matters. Let's concentrate on the main strength of the: it does not suffer from the one thing that plagues most of these films the most which is the complete unwillingness to actually show any monsters or suitably supernatural events to the viewer. I'm not saying all movies have to be graphic and I realize there is something to be said for holding back the monsters for suspense's sake. However, too many of these "amateur" pseudo-documentary horror flicks use their own premise seemingly as an excuse not to deliver the goods. Too many of them suffer from thinking their premise is good enough. Not [REC] -- this one promises zombies, and you get zombies and more, including a particularly frightening creature who emerges from the shadows during the film's freaky climax, easily the best part of the movie.

Ironically, the pseudo-documentary style of the film ends up making it seem a little longer than it actually is. It's not quite 80 minutes but seems to move a little slower than you'd think an 80 minute zombie outbreak movie would, and I guess that's mostly due to repetition. In some ways, while being one of the best examples of its genre, the movie is also a victim of its own set up -- a slave to a camera man who must run from one place to another in seemingly real time, tied down to a script consisting mostly of panicked people shouting the same things to each other over and over again. This is probably a little easier to put up with if you speak Spanish (oh yeah, this movie is from Spain) but it gets a little old when you're reading subtitles super imposed on top of shots that never stop moving.

The actual story almost eclipses the wow factor of wondering how they pulled this off, but not quite. Probably the best audience for this film is a group who can appreciate watching the filmmakers pull off all their tricks while also looking for a good scare. If you're just in it for the scare, you may not make it all the way through the set up to the payoff. But, if you do, it's totally worth it.