Purging John Carpenter

Warning - This post is rife with spoilers!

 

I'm a big fan of the Purge movies, and am looking forward to seeing the newest one, Election Day.  When I watched the first film, I remember thinking, "This is the most John Carpenter-like film I've seen of the new John Carpenter wannabes."  I thought the same thing about the even-better sequel.  They carry on Carpenter's great strengths - pounding synth scores and completely batshit-insane, yet brilliantly simple, central concepts.  On reflection, though, I realized it wasn't just the music or the stories that reminded me of Carpenter films... They're actually remarkably step-by-step remakes, with new titles. 

Consider:

Assault on Precinct 13 - A traumatized man seeks shelter inside a fortified station which comes under waves of attacks from subhuman gang members. There is a focus on race relations as the black captain and the white convict must cooperate to survive, gaining mutual respect in the process.

The Purge - A traumatized man seeks shelter inside a fortified home which comes under waves of attacks from subhuman Young Republicans. There is a focus on race relations as the white family must decide whether to sacrifice the black victim to save themselves.  

In neither movie do we learn much of anything about the primary target - He's simply there as a magnet to draw down the wrath of the horde.  Assault gives us a middle-class Average White Guy, who attracts the gang's attention by shooting one of their members in anger over the death of his daughter.  We don't know who he is, why he was there, and he's virtually mute for the rest of the film.  The Purge is even simpler - We're given zip about the main target except that he's a black man of lower social class, and presumably that's all that's needed to make him a target for the rich kid psychopaths.  

 

The interesting thing is the total inversion of the villains. In Assault, it's two working class men defending the middle class against the zombie-like attacks of a subhuman street gang - Characterless, near-mindless killing machines that are invading the safe neighborhoods. In Purge, it's wealthy people with consciences defending the lower class and themselves from the psychotic attacks of... their own young. Assault fears the street gangs consuming the working class, Purge fears the upper class consuming itself and the lower class both.  It's a testament to the times and the decades between the films that there simply is no middle class in the Purge movies.  Everyone is either the wealthy or the working poor or homeless. 

Also diverging are the final messages - Assault is ultimately a much more positive film, despite its grimness.  In Assault, the black guy and the white guy, the hardworking policeman and the "gentleman criminal", come together in understanding and realize that their values are far closer than the creatures they're fighting.  When Bishop insists that Napoleon not be chained, and that they walk out to meet the dawn together, it's a triumphant moment.  The values of hardworking decency have been defended, and even though Napoleon is going back to jail, you understand that the day is won for civilization, for the moment.

Purge is very similar in structure - The black man sides with the white family and in the end, saves those who sheltered him.  The victorious survivors walk out to meet the new day in an almost identical ending scene, except... in Purge-Land, there is no victory.  The chasm between the wealthy family and the poor guy remains, and now the wealthy family realizes the depth of the hate and loathing and jealousy that their own "kind" have for them also.  They've survived the night, but they're living in a nest of people who all want to kill them, just because they're perceived to have a little bit more than the next wealthiest household.  There's no real victory, and only a thin veneer of icy smiles and cocktail parties will cover the seething violence that's being held in check until the next Purge Night.

They make for a fascinating comparison, back to back.  If time and interest permit, look for a follow-up post to this on the virtually identical storylines of The Purge 2: Anarchy and Escape from New York.

Space Monsters ATTACK!

Sadly, this is NOT the title of a great new movie I'm reviewing, but maybe it's something even better - An all-new magazine devoted to classic science fiction and fantasy films!  The style and look should be familiar to everyone who grew up on battered issues of Starlog, way back when, and I suspect that diving into it will provoke more than a few happy childhood memories.  Even better, Yours Truly has a couple of articles in the first issue and a little comic strip, so if you want to help support my writing in a printed mag, be sure and head over to their website to order a copy!

To celebrate this occasion and help promote this venture, I put together a little interview with Space Monsters publisher Richard Gladman on his favorite films, his love of this genre, and why he felt crazy enough to take on a project like this...

For starters, tell me a little bit about your existing blog(s), your Cyberschizoid page, etc.  How long have you been doing this?

I started writing the Cyberschizoid blog way back in 2008 then added the Cyberschizoid group on Facebook and a Twitter account to build the brand. The word “cyberschizoid” is even in the Urban Dictionary! After this I started the Classic Horror Campaign to try and encourage the BBC to bring back their iconic horror double bill seasons and bring classic sci-fi and horror films to a wider and younger audience. This led to the successful Frighten Brighton classic horror film festival in my home town co-hosted by Horror Host and scream queen Emily Booth. 

So, you decided to create your own magazine.  What was the big nudge that pushed you into this?  And what is your plan to make it successful, given how many print magazines seem to be dying off these days?

I’ve always wanted to have my own magazine ever since I was a little kid drawing my own comics and monster magazines. When I was 10 years old I didn’t want to be a train driver, I wanted to be Dez Skinn (British magazine editor and publisher famous for House of Hammer and Starburst magazines)! I was encouraged by my friend Eric McNaughton who publishes We Belong Dead magazine and is a fellow classic horror enthusiast. The thing about print magazines is that in terms of numbers and variety, horror fans have never had it so good; there are more horror and sci-fi magazines being published now than ever before so print is not dead yet! For Space Monsters to be successful we need to have a good mix of articles, interviews, reviews and original artwork and to get the word out there that it exists! 

In connection to that last question, do you have plans for a digital version, perhaps for the iTunes subscription model?

Yes, there is a digital version in the works that should be available from Dead Good Newsstand soon. (http://deadgoodnewsstand.blogspot.co.uk/).

I'm sure putting together the first issue has been a learning experience.  What was the biggest pleasant surprise, and what was the most unexpected and/or unpleasant discovery?

The biggest pleasant surprise was the amount of help and goodwill I have received from talented people all across the world – in many ways making Space Monsters a joy to produce. Unpleasant discoveries? To be honest I try not to focus on the negatives so I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

I had a friend in the states who single-handedly published an award winning horror mag for many years (Deathrealm magazine, for whomever might be interested).  It pretty much ate his life.  Have you got plans for dealing with this?  Are you going to have a staff, or try to do it all yourself? Are you looking at this as a hobby project, or a future career?

I already have a whole bunch of people helping me so I don’t feel I’m coping with the project alone. Who knows what will happen in the future? I guess it depends on the success of the magazine and all the other pies I have my fingers in at the moment. Watch this space….

Tell me about why you chose to devote the magazine to classic SF and fantasy.

There are already so many magazines devoted to horror in all its forms and current sci-fi films and television but none that focus on classic sci-fi. Personally I prefer the classic eras and am becoming bored with the unimaginative CGI trash that comes from Hollywood these days so as a fan I’d rather read about the sci-fi movies and TV shows that I love.

What's your favorite spaceship if you had to pick one from movies between the years 1950 and 1980?  And is that roughly the year range you'll be focusing on in the magazine?

My all-time favourite spaceship is the Eagle from the Space:1999 TV show – a truly iconic design – beautiful! Space Monsters magazine will cover the silent era to the mid-eighties but I think the fifties thru the seventies will be concentrated on more as the true golden age of classic film and television sci-fi. 

On the same note, which classic SF alien would you LEAST want to be trapped on a spaceship with?  

The Blob! There’s just no escape or reasoning with that evil mound of jello is there?

Finally, the question everyone asks -  Name your top 5 classic SF films, and tell me why for each.

OK, in no particular order –

1. GOJIRA (1954) – I am obsessed with giant monster movies and kaiju in particular. This film introduced the world to a legend and begat so many fun sequels – and I just love sequels! Unlike most of the films that followed, Gojira is a very serious and sombre piece with a message; very moving and incredibly well shot. I simply cannot fault this film.
2. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1978) – When all the other kids were still crazy about Star Wars I was much more intrigued by this much scarier, more grown-up science-fiction film. Typically, I loved the film that my friends and the public weren’t quite so keen on – always supporting the underdog!
3. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) – Combining horror and sci-fi, my two favourite genres, I found this film really scary when I was a kid and the story is still frightening now. I think they could remake it every decade until the end of time and it would always be relevant.
4. THE THING (1982) – I never tire of watching this movie for its astonishing special effects, great acting and terrifying story. I have fond memories of seeing this on the big screen in London when I was very underage; my friends couldn’t get in as they didn’t look old enough so I think they went to see Indiana Jones instead!
5. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) – I love anything cheesy and trashy and Ed Wood was a genius! This film is so iconic and entertaining and I had the pleasure of seeing this on a late night show at the gorgeous Duke of Yorks cinema in Brighton. Happy days….

There are so many others that probably could have made the list – Forbidden Planet, Alien, THEM!, Planet of the Apes, The Time Machine…so many classic movies! 

Annnd... That's a wrap!  Now all Richard's mates know to get him an Eagle model kit for Christmas and to chase him around in Blob costumes every Halloween.  I hope you've enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes, and be sure to - 

ORDER a COPY!

The Norliss Tapes (1973)

NetFlix 2.9/5
IMDB 6.5/10
My Rating: 7.5/10

I haven't featured a guest review in a while, so I thought it was time for another - Especially since I've been so incredibly busy lately with work and the KFP web comic that I haven't had time to keep up with the movie reviews as I'd like.  This KFP guest review comes to you from my friend Joel Schama, and he managed to pick one of my favorite 70's made-for-TV horror flicks to kick off with.  I'll drop in a few comments of my own, and put my commentary in green...  and now, over to Joel!

The Norliss Tapes, circa 1973, directed and produced by William F. Nolan of Dark Shadows fame (and directed by my childhood favorite, Dan Curtis!), is a Night Gallery meets Kolchak: The Night Stalker pastiche. The story begins with David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) being unable to even begin a book he has been commissioned to write one year prior. Following David’s disappearance, his publisher finds stacks of tapes upon which David recorded the events of his investigation. Hoping these will provide clues as to Norliss’s whereabouts, his publisher begins to listen to the first tape.

The story unfolds following David’s descent into the realm of attempting to debunk certain paranormal activities, only to find himself within a situation that his skeptical mind finds most difficult to believe. Norliss’s character narrates the film throughout, juxtaposed with scenes of the actual events. Much in the same way Kolchak: The Night Stalker presents itself.

(The key...and unfortunate... difference for me between this and Night Stalker is in the main characters. Norliss Tapes was a terrific movie but it never had the cultural impact of Night Stalker, and I put a lot of that down to Norliss vs Kolchak - Roy Thinnes gives a good performance in a fairly dry and serious role, and that's his problem.  Kolchak the character was one of horror's all-time greats.  He was a loud, raucous, scenery-chewing loser you just had to cheer for, and IMO that made him a lot more fun to watch than Norliss, alas...)

In his attempt to debunk the occult, his research leads him to a wealthy widow (played by Angie Dickinson) who believes her husband no longer resides within the crypt within which his body was entombed. Her husband’s final wish was to be buried with the scarab ring of Osiris; a ring bought from an antique dealer specializing in the occult, which he believed would help grant immortality. Left only with Norliss’s tapes, his publisher continues to search for reasons for David’s disappearance.

Throughout the movie, the widow Ellen’s undead husband is seen only by his victims; victims later found by the sheriff (Claude Akins) to have a pale pallor, the explanation of which can only be attributed to the complete and total lack of blood!

The scarab purchased by Ellen’s husband, it is later shown, was for the purpose of allowing him to rise from the dead in order to finish his sculpture of Sargoth. By combining the blood of his victims with the clay, the Sargoth would gain entrance into our world and grant him immortality. Or so he believes.

(And just as an addendum, I saw this when it first aired, when I was only a wee little 7 year old Kentucky Fried Popcorn.  It scared me senseless.  One of my most frightening memories of the film was the underground tunnel lair of our vampire, which was strewn with the pale corpses of his victims - Heady stuff for a TV movie!)

We, as viewers, are left at the end not knowing what really happened to David Norliss, or what was to come after the Sargoth was brought forth into our dimension. However, if you enjoy 70’s made for television horror movies, and don’t mind an ambiguous ending, then this is one you must not miss.  

Ask me for my favorite 70's TV horror films and you'll get a list of three - Night Stalker, Norliss Tapes, and Spectre.  There were plenty of other good ones, but those are the Big Three to my mind, and every one is something I can watch again and again and still enjoy.  In fact, I think I'll go dig out my DVD of this now...

Tranzor's "The Thing"

Recently I've been sending some time browsing at fanedit.org, a site dedicated to amateurs re-editing their favorite movies for various reasons - Sometimes improvement, sometimes drastic alteration, and sometimes just fun tinkering.  This is a case of the latter, and it's a generation-targeted nostalgia missile in the extreme.  You see, what fan editor "Tranzor" has done is not try to improve John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing in any way - Instead, he has transformed it into an edited-for-television late 70's Midnight Movie.

Before I go on, a word about legality.  Fan edits exist in a weird sort of murky grey zone in copyright law - It is legal to make them and it is legal to watch them and it is legal to own them... provided you actually own the original DVD as well.  So, while I can download this fan edit with impunity, someone who didn't own the original DVD would essentially be committing a file sharing copyright breach by downloading it, which is why I'm not posting any download links with this article.  If you want to see this yourself... Well, let's just say that Google is your friend.  That said, on with the show!

Remember the late night monster movie?  There was the news at 11, then Benny Hill or Monty Python, then some sort of late night horror movie in edited-for TV mode, usually something from the 50's.  For all the talk about the "grindhouse" theater experience, this sort of midnight movie had its own strange charms - Missing reels, terrible film quality, choppy cuts, dropped-out profanity, etc.  What this fan editor has done is to recreate this experience with The Thing.  The movie is reformatted into 4:3 and changed to B&W, with a few other tweaks here and there.  You know you're in for fun when you put the disc in...

Right after an intro that will throw you straight back to age 12, you start realizing that this is going to be a wholly different "Thing" viewing experience:

The funny thing about this is how GOOD the movie looks in black and white - The setting is pretty timeless and with the color and the cussing gone, you could almost think you were watching a genuine 1957 drive-in classic.  It's funny how some films time-travel well and others do not.  We were watching the original Alien the other night and it could have been shot last week - Other than some amusing computer nostalgia (A text-prompt green screen monitor on a starship), the look and style were timeless.  Compare it to something like Logan's Run, which immediately says, "1975-1978" really loudly.  I wouldn't have thought that The Thing could get more brooding, but then I saw it in B&W:

There's a great irony here that I've spent most of my adult life avoiding commercials, and yet the commercial breaks in this are the highlight of the experience.  You'll be totally into the movie and then it will hit a crisis point and BAM! - Commercial cutaway:

I haven't watched commercials since the day I got my first VCR - I'm a little hostile to the messages advertisers try to shout at us.  I don't mind informative advertising, but 99% of TV commercials amount to either, "Use our product or no one will ever have sex with you!" or, "Use our product because all our competition sucks."  Thanks, but no thanks.  However, in this case the nostalgia factor wins out, and I'm sitting there watching original 1977 commercial blocks all over again, filled with cheery disco music and ads for Tab cola.

Yes, Tab has even less calories than water.  Never knew THAT, did you, you fatty water drinkers...
Overall, this DVD is a blast, right down to its custom printable DVD case cover.  If you have fond memories of staying up for the late movie, then watching it in wide-eyed childish terror and running to the kitchen for snacks during the commercial breaks, then this is an experience to love.  If you were born after, say, 1978, then I suspect you'd only find this confusing - A bizarre re-edit of a great move for no understandable purpose.  Like the man says, ya just had to be there...

Black Christmas (1974)

NetFlix 3.2/5
IMDB 7.2/10
My Rating: 9/10

During Christmas break, a sorority house is terrorized by an obscene phone caller who begins secretly murdering the resident girls.

Part of the Kentucky Fried Popcorn Christmas Review Series.

One of my all-time favorite horror movies.  This little seasonal gem is directed by Bob Clark, better known for 1983's A Christmas Story, that inescapable haunter of holiday television repeats.  Black Christmas's place in horror history is secured as the (arguable) first official "slasher" film - There were plenty of giallos before this, but they tended to feature motivated and more or less sane killers, whereas with Black Christmas, the slasher formula fell perfectly into place.  Insane killer, many screaming female victims, Final Girl.  I'm not really a big fan of slashers - I find most of them a bit boring, and don't look at the endless Friday 13th/Freddy sequels of the 80's with the same sort of nostalgia that a lot of folks have for those franchises.  Black Christmas, however, grabbed me (Though only on the second viewing, interestingly - This is a movie that gets better with repeat watching).  One of the fascinating things about it is to see it through the lens of Halloween, which typically gets the bigger accolades and public recognition.  A great deal of Halloween is taken almost directly from Black Christmas, from the opening sequence through the killer's eyes, to the bedroom body pile that ignites the climax, to the long, slow camera pans through the empty house that close the movie.  I previously called Halloween my favorite slasher film - Now Black Christmas ties it, and may well top it. 

The plot is as basic as you can get.  Over the Christmas holiday, a sorority house gradually empties out as most of the girls go home for Christmas.  The few who remain are frightened by a series of vulgar phone calls and one by one they begin to disappear as an unseen killer stalks them inside the supposed safety of the group home.  Our heroine, Olivia Hussey, struggles both with this escalating sense of dread and also with a borderline-abusive boyfriend enraged by her decision to have an abortion.  Inept police help only complicates matters, and ultimately Olivia is left alone to face this extremely twisted madman.

The movie is filled to the brim with entertaining characters - No stock victims here.  Every person in this has their own unique voice, though some speak louder than others.  Particularly entertaining is the den mother, Mrs. Mac:

Marian Waldman dives into this role with relish, giving us a sly, cantankerous, alcoholic old den mother whose life spent looking after girls who would, "hump the Leaning Tower of Pisa if they could get up there!" has left her endearingly cranky and brilliantly clever in hiding her bottles of whiskey.  Alternating between protective and scathing, she's a trip and she provides a lot of the film's humor, of which it has a surprising amount.  John Saxon shines as the one cop smart enough to realize there's real trouble, while Doug McGrath's Sergeant Nash is comedy gold as he grapples ineffectually with these modern college girls.  Olivia Hussey, our Final Girl, was beautiful and ethereal, but my own favorite character was definitely the loudmouthed Barb, played by a pre-Superman Margot Kidder.

Barb is the sort of brash, pushy, brassy girl that manages to offend everybody, yet she's also brave and surprisingly sympathetic (Subtly overheard phone calls and remarks suggest a very troubled home life).  It helps that she's drop-dead sexy in this, too.  In fact, she's the sort that would be one of the first victims in any other slasher film, but this is just one of the ways that Black Christmas breaks the not-yet-written slasher film rulebook.  Overshadowing all these people is the movie's looming central character, however, and it isn't the killer, it's the house itself.

The girls' sorority house is an echoing labyrinth of a building, dressed up in holiday cheer and yet dark and secretive... A sort of mini Hill House where doors are sensibly shut.  It wraps around the entire story and provides the backdrop for events, and somehow manages to be both a festive place for friends and warmth and also a place of private rooms and secret spaces.  The girls are together for Christmas, and we cozy up with them, and yet the killer is also in there somewhere and all the decorations don't make the place any less dangerous.  The killer himself is a cipher - There are clues scattered throughout the film that a dedicated viewer can piece together to understand him better (Pay attention to the characters in the phone calls, especially the parents, Billy, and Agnes), but ultimately he is death personified.  This isn't a Jason-like villain with a personality and modus operandi.  Billy the killer is simply a presence, a sort of incandescent rage bottled up in one body, that pops out and strikes like some deranged Jack-in-the-box.

Scary movies are made and broken by their scary moments, and this film has one of the best in the horror genre:

(Warning - Minor spoiler ahead)  Barb's phone conversation with Billy is the movie's best scene, in my opinion - It's Black Christmas's "Who was holding my hand?" (from The Haunting).  The killer has been phoning the girls repeatedly.  Each call is a barrage of cacophony - Insults, profanity, lewd sexual propositions, animal noises, baby sounds, barking, and more - and the sheer inhuman-ness of the caller is disturbing enough to start with... The idea that it's just one person making this range of sounds.  When the catty Barb gets involved, the exchange escalates as Barb returns tit for tat ("Could that really be just one person? ""No Claire, it's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir making their annual obscene phone call.").  When Barb finally goes too far, all pretense drops and the killer replies calmly, "I'm going to kill you" in a manner so offhand as one might say, "I'm going to get the mail."  It's a supremely creepy moment and one of the best that horror cinema has to offer.

Black Christmas is light on gore - The kills are more artistic and reminiscent of a Dario Argento movie than something that would make for a bloody Fangoria cover.  Its specialty is creepy discomfort, not gross-out splatter.  Part of this is due to the unseen killer, a feature that sets Black Christmas apart from nearly all other slasher films.  I've often wondered if Bob Clark has kicked himself over the years for lost income from toys and marketing, but this is one of my favorite aspects of the movie, the fact that we simply do not see the killer.  We see a hand here, an eye there, a silhouette in the background, but at no time do we get the "big reveal"...  Unlike Freddy and Myers and Jason, Billy is not a marketing commodity.  He's psychotic, not prepackaged, and he has none of the "Killer as superhero" trappings that would come to dominate slasher films in later years.  You might say that it isn't Billy who is the star, it's his work:

The lack of a marketable killer is just one of the ways that Black Christmas sets itself apart from the slasher wave that would follow  - Aside from the lack of grue, it also breaks the "rules" in many ways.  The smart & virginal girl doesn't become Final Girl... Instead, she's the first victim (Making Black Christmas more like real life, perhaps?).  Our heroine Jess (Olivia Hussey) is pregnant and planning an abortion, regardless of the protests of her slightly-crazy boyfriend.  This is a theme that would never fly in the Puritan-esque world of American slasher films, where girls are punished for being sexual and saved by being virtuous.  Jess is no-nonsense - She knows what she wants from life and intends to pursue it, damn the setbacks.  I've heard this described as a feminist film and it works well that way.  The ladies are all well-developed and independent of males, and they're far more believable than the usual bevy of bust-flashers.  Best is that not one character in this screams "Cannon Fodder"... You'll like them all and it makes it that much more harrowing when Billy strikes.

My favorite movies are ones I can rewatch.  The mark of a quality film, to me, is one that I like better the second or third time than I did the first, and that's certainly true here.  The first time I saw this, my reaction was largely, "Meh"...  I thought it was OK, but nothing all that great.  Circumstances convened to have me see it a second time, and I was blown away by how good it was, and it's only gotten better with each repeat viewing.  I was really lucky this holiday season to be able to see it in high def at the Sinister Cinema film screening, hosted by Budd Wilkins of Slant Magazine.  He and his wife Tina gave a great presentation and made the whole event a perfect little seasonal treat.

If by some chance you've never seen this obscure horror classic, curl up by the fire and watch it on Christmas Eve.  Twice.

Dead of Night (1977)

NetFlix 2.8/5
IMDB 65./10
My Rating: 6/10

A Made-for-TV movie from 1977 that is composed of three stories - A young man restores a vintage car which takes him back in time, a wealthy couple are being terrorized by an apparent vampire, and a grieving mother uses black magic to resurrect her dead son.

The 1970's were a golden era for made-for-TV horror, with all sorts of wild flicks running that would never be touched by the major networks today.  Night Stalker, Norliss Tapes, Trilogy of Terror, Don't be Afraid of the Dark...  It seems so strange now to think that these were being produced by networks like ABC as Friday night movies.  The only horror movie-producing network I can think of today is Syfy, and their output is pretty dire compared to the writing and mood of these older features.

Dead of Night was a pleasant discovery for me.  I'd never seen it before!  Granted, after watching it, it was apparent why it hasn't lodged in a generational memory quite as vividly as Karen Black fighting the Zuni doll, as it's a fairly middling movie.  Still, it's worth seeing just to enjoy the pairing of TV horror veteran Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, Night Stalker) and horror writer/screenwriter Richard Matheson (I am Legend, Hell House).  It's possible the reason I missed it the first time is just that it isn't really horror, at least except for the final story.

It opens with an enjoyable Ray Bradbury-esque tale about a young man restoring a 20's roadster, which promptly takes him back into 1926.  It's a romantic fantasy story, nostalgic and warm, and not at all spooky, which makes me question why it was included in this package.  It was better than the second story, though, which sees Patrick MacNee wasted as a village aristocrat trying to protect his wife from the nightly visitations of a vampire.  While it has the trappings of a gothic scare story, it's really a bit more Twilight Zone, with a twist ending that is fun but doesn't exactly zing.

The real prize of the package is story #3, titled "Bobby", about a grieving mother who uses magic to bring back her drowned son.  To very ill effect.  You'd think she'd have read "The Monkey's Paw" in school, but alas...  And the meat of this story is what takes place after the dead son returns.  To quote from the Book of Wallace, "He's gone wrong, Gromit!"  The prolonged stalk-and-hide struggle between mother and son takes place all in one dark house, and the tension is really well developed and palpable.  Overall, the Bobby story is just plain spooky - An unnerving combination of "Monkey's Paw", Halloween, and The Shining.

Special mention must go to the Netflix DVD, which is loaded with special features, soundtrack music, and an entire 52 minute pilot for another Dan Curtis horror series from 1969.  Given how some studios have begun stripping out all the special features from their Netflix discs, it's nice to get some extra goodies with this one.  (And no, Big Studios, removing the Making Of feature on your latest summer movie DVD for Netflix is not going to spur me to go out and buy the DVD instead.  If it's a movie I want to own, I will buy it anyway, whether the special features are on the renatl disc or not.  Stripping out extras just makes me hate YOU, Big Studio, it does not manipulate my purchasing decisions.)

Children of the Stones (1977)

NetFlix 2.8/5
IMDB 7.2/10
My Rating: 7.5/10

An astrophysicist and his son investigate the standing stones of secluded village Milbury and find the people eerily happy and under the control of the creepy Hendrick.


I had NEVER heard of this before, and for some bizarre reason it has only been rebroadcast once since its original airing in '77, but it's now out on DVD and Netflix has it for rental. If you can pick up the single DVD (all 7 eps are on 1 disc), I recommend it highly, providing you are a patient viewer and well-attuned to the sort of no-budget ambiance of 60's-70's British TV.  Fortunately, it eschews FX for the most part and depends instead on a smart screenplay and a slow-building atmosphere of tension that makes it seem much more than just "kid's telly", as it was originally marketed.

It's the story of a professor and his son moving to a small village that's completely surrounded by a circle of standing stones, and populated by strangely cheerful villagers under the thrall of the Tall Man... excuse me, Hendrick, the town's Big Hat. He's the guy in the poster above and geez, what a performance. His resemblance to the Tall Man from Phantasm is unnerving, but Hendrick is a happy fellow, no Scrimmian growls of "BOYYYY".  In fact, he's positively delighted that we've come to visit him in his weird little village with its weird little customs.   This is the first clue that our intrepid leads should run away screaming, but then we wouldn't have this disturbing tale to revel in.

It's a lot like 70's Doctor Who in style - plot-heavy, talky, lots of running back and forth to the same few sets, few FX, mood-heavy - but it's still enjoyably creepy and really well done. I have to give special bonus points to the soundtrack, which is composed entirely of human voices - it's a chorus doing moaning and wailing and multi-level harmony, rather than the usual instrumental music, and it works great to give the whole thing a really disturbing feel. Here's the music from the intro and the first few moments of the series opener, which nicely sums up the feel of the whole show:

Much is made of the old Doctor Who shows sending kiddies hiding behind the couch, but I never found them scary.  This, on the other hand, is a little unsettling even to me as an adult, and despite being marketed as a YA show, in many ways it's perfectly enjoyable for adults also...  In fact, probably more so, because I doubt you could get modern kids to even sit still for this, given how slowly it moves.  ADD teens will nod off during the long scenes of characters standing in the library and talking - Static cameras, puzzle-solving, debate, etc.  Imagine, if you will, The Wicker Man recreated as a miniseries for children...  with perhaps a bit of Stepford Wives stirred in.  The village's "Happy Ones" are Prisoner-eerie, and the mix of science and folk magic and space/time distortions give it a prototype-Lost ambiance.  I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who's a fan of off-kilter television such as old Who, Twin Peaks, and the like. 

And as a tidbit of personal info, I was much inspired by the show's logo shot when I designed the title graphic for our workshop's Ligne Bretagne pipes - Spot the similarities!

Hausu (1977)

NetFlix 3.7/5
IMDB 7.5/10
My Rating: 9/10

 A schoolgirl decides to spend her summer at her aunt's country house with her friends, but disturbing events after their arrival prove the house is haunted and OH MY GOD THE COLORS, MAN!  THE COLORSSSS!  MY FEET ARE NOT TOUCHING THIS FLOOR AND NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND THE RUG, GIVE ME ANOTHER HIT OF THAT LIZARD, MAN...


OK, Hausu is not your typical haunted house film, not at all.  And by that I mean, Hausu is like a haunted house film as Dennis Hopper on acid is like Captain Kangaroo.  Holy hell, this was amazing! One of the most imaginative movies I've ever seen. I strongly recommend any working visual artist to see this, because it will give them creative inspiration for a year.  I don't even BEGIN to know how to describe or review this thing. Imagine the Partridge Family mashed up with Evil Dead and directed by the Pan's Labyrinth guy against a Dario Argento color palette.  Virtually every shot of this was a framed artwork, and the scene transitions were constantly cool - If you thought the guy's dead body in Heavy Metal becoming the landscape was a clever scene switch, you need to see this. It is not actually a plotted movie so much as it is an experience.I do

But there is a story, of sorts.  The first past of it resembles a musical chunk of that guilty pleasure, the Brady Bunch movie (I won't admit to liking it, nor will anyone else, but really, it was a dark and secret cupcake of joy, and easily one of the best of the usually dreary movies made from old TV shows).  Our heroine, Gorgeous, heads off to the countryside accompanied by friends with names like Melody, Kung Fu, and Sweet.  The skies are blue... I mean REALLY blue, like the blue that you'd experience after doing mushrooms and LSD and watching The Yellow Submarine all night...  The clouds are fluffy and painted on, and life is a Sunshine Day.

And yes, the girls are standing in front of a painted backdrop from which we just panned out to reveal the identical painted backdrop in larger scale, all while the Partridge Family bus drives away.  If you're having problems already, stay far away from this because this is a movie that believes mental circuit breakers are pointless if they're not tripped as often as possible.  At any moment you're fully expecting Gorgeous and her friends to burst into singing, "Keep On Dancing".

Things start to go Twilight Zone as the girls arrive at the house.  Well, perhaps not so much Twilight Zone as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but, you know, more surreal.  The fun kicks off with one of the girls being chased around the yard by a floating head that bites her on the ass, and events get more bizarre from there.

Is the house haunted?  Is the aunt really crippled?  What's up with her evil white cat?  While virtually every scene in the film remains gorgeous, like our title character:

...Things quickly go from bad to worse for our cast of attractive young victims:

And not to belabor the point, but yes, that's a girl being eaten by a piano.  This is just one of the film's endless surrealist sequences which bombard the audience with horror, animation, comedy, over-the-top gore, and several Picasso's worth of color palette.

I'm not spoilering anything with these caps because the visual overload in the film is so intense that they don't even scratch the surface. Many scenes are set against painted backdrops instead of actual locations, giving it a really weird ambiance that wavers between HR Puffnstuf and Nightmare before Christmas. The killings, when they happen, are some of the most memorable I've ever seen. I can't recall a single distinct death from any Friday the 13th movie, but I won't forget the piano scene for a very long time.  Seriously, this is one worth seeing for the sheer bizarreness of the whole thing - You won't see another film like it.

Here's the trailer, for an idea of what you're in for:

Messiah of Evil

NetFlix (Not Available)
IMDB 6.2/10
My Rating: 8/10
Amazon Special Edition DVD

A young woman travels to a small seaside town, Point Dune, to find her father.  There, she encounters his deserted and strangely haunting house and a trio of people investigating unusual activities in the area.  The increasingly bizarre behavior of the townspeople builds to a horrifying state of chaos.

I have a special passion for the surreal, arthouse horror films of the 70's.  I think this started when I first saw Phantasm on the Late, Late Show.  The sense that it was a movie that could literally go anywhere, do anything, and wasn't going to play by the expected rules of a scary movie... I loved it, and moreso, I loved the beautiful cinematography of so many of the scenes and the way they were visually assembled.  Later I discovered the lush colorscapes of Dario Argento and I was hooked.  Messiah of Evil is another of these little gems, a beautifully assembled microbudget indie horror treasure that's been mostly forgotten with time.

I have to stress a few points - This is a love-it-or-hate-it movie, for one.  People generally give it ratings of either 8-10 or 1-2, with little in the middle.  A lot of viewers will fire it up and see the dime store opening murder scene, hear the Dark Shadows-esque narration, and roll their eyes and go watch Rob Zombie's Halloween.  This is fine, and they are cheeseheads.  The rest of us have a treat in store.  It's a movie all about slow building dread.  There are shocking bits, true (In fact, it has some of the most shocking scary scenes in horror films, IMO), but overall the mood is somber and mounting doom...  It plays very much like a Lovecraft story rendered to film, providing something unsettling at every turn.  Also, amusingly, I can recommend it to any fans of Dean Koontz's abortive "Moonlight Bay" series, never finished, which had a similar atmosphere of creeping dread in a seaside town full of people "becoming".

Our heroine returns to Point Dune to find her father, who's gone missing.  What she finds instead is his empty house, a home totally painted with shadow-scapes of silhouetted people.  Townsfolk are reluctant to talk and often downright bizarre, and eventually she falls in with a trio of characters led by a sort of young RPG adventurer - A fellow who seems to have come here because there's dire goings-on to poke into, and this is how he has fun.  The warnings get worse, the signs grow more ominous, and the town begins to disintegrate around them as people slip into somnambulistic zombie-like madness, all in preparation for the return of a terrifying "Man in Black" from the ocean depths.

When I first saw this, my reaction was very much, "What the hell?" and I thought it was entertaining but middling.  A second viewing sucked me into the mood more, and I've found it gets better with repeat watching.  It is not so much a story as it is a series of surreal events loosely strung together which play like a half-remembered nightmare.  Dream logic abounds.  Why do the people gather on the beaches each night to stare into the sky?  Because.  Why are the locals in the supermarket at midnight eating raw meat from the butcher's counter?  Because.  I have to say, it can creep you the hell out.  It isn't full of moments that will make you jump off the couch, but rather sequences that will make you terribly uneasy - It's impossible, for instance, to ever imagine being comfortable in the artist's painted home.

I can't conceive of sleeping in a house so filled with pale, staring figures on every wall.  In many ways, the Point Dune house is far more disturbing than the Overlook managed to be.  But that's the movie in a nutshell - Imagery.  You can discuss and debate the underlying plot afterwards, but what sticks with you are the visuals:

The visuals and the vignettes, at least - Characters meet their various fates in enclosed scenes that are miniature horror films unto themselves.  One girl finds peril at a late night grocery store, another foolishly goes to kill time at a cinema showing Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and we're treated to a standout scene as undead (?) and mindwashed townsfolk gradually fill the seats around her until she realizes just how odd her fellow patrons are.  One review called the film, "A perfect microcosmic nightmare world" and I fully agree - It takes you to a disturbing place where nothing that you know makes sense, and the dead must be burned, not buried...

So!  Watch if you dare.  But remember, "They're coming here. They're waiting at the edge of the city. They're peering around buildings at night, and they're waiting."

A word about versions - This film has been available in the public domain for many years now.  One can find it on a variety of cheap, multi-movie DVD packs, or download it from any movie site.  However, the public domain print is a cropped VHS-quality piece that thoroughly loses much of the power of the imagery due to the poor resolution and lack of widescreen.  Code Red has recently produced a remastered, high quality print of this for DVD and that's the version I have linked to in the Amazon link at the top of this article.  There are other versions of the movie floating around on Amazon for much less (They're selling the public domain copy smacked to DVD for $8, compared to the $22 price of the Code Red remaster).  Beware!  This is definitely a case where it's worth the extra cash for the better copy.