Halloween Watch: The Omen (1976)

Watched:  10/15/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Donner

Mostly, I watched this at long last because I'm tired of SimonUK assuming I've seen this movie, and then being surprised I haven't seen it.  So here we are.  ARE YOU HAPPY, SIMON?

It's not that I thought the movie would be bad, but once I heard the premise, I basically figured I could guess what the movie would be, and I don't think I was too far off.  Of course I didn't know specifics, but lots of creepy stares from a kid and people dying badly around him as the parents try to figure it out...  check and check.  

But- here's the thing.  It's just really well done.  I mean, say what you will, but kudos to Richard Donner for crafting a movie that has you cheering for a five year old kid to get it.  That's storytelling, kids.

Living at the intersection of two horror genres, (a) the evil child genre and (b) Satanic Panic fodder, The Omen (1976) manages to package the two nicely, pulling in name actors who are past their heyday but can still deliver the goods.  I mean, it's a bit odd to cast a 60 year old Gregory Peck to play the husband to a 40-year-old Lee Remick as the parents of a 5 year old (in 1976.  Now... meh).  Fortunately, both are terrific, unravelling on separate timelines as they deal with the reality of what's happening to them.  And, man, Remick can do more with a look than most actors can with all their tools and tricks.  

The film also stars a young David Warner, and it was great to see him doing his thing in the wake of his passing.

I'm glad I saw it, even if the past 46 years have seen so much in the way of imitation, it may not feel terrifically fresh at this point on a first viewing.  But it also never veers away from the point that there's a 5-year-old bringing about the end of the world, and no magic doo-dad is going to miraculously fix the kid.  And the *scope* of the story was so much bigger and better realized than I was guessing.  

PodCast 216: "Cat People" (1942) and (1982) - a Halloween PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  09/06/2022

Format:  Amazon 

Viewing:  Third/ First

Decade:  1940's/ 1980's

Director:  Jacques Tourneur / Paul Scharader

For more ways to listen

SimonUK and Ryan cover both the 1942 and 1982 versions of a story sure to instill cat scratch fever. Our curiosity doesn't kill us as we check out two films, each a classic in its own way, as relevant meow as they were then! Join us as we compare and contrast, and ponder workplace safety around werebeasts!

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 216: "Cat People" (1942) and (1982) - a Halloween PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Main Title From Cat People - Constantin Bakaleinikoff conducted Roy Webb's score

Cat People (Putting Out Fire) - David Bowie & Georgio Moroder

Halloween 2022 Playlist

The Signal Watch PodCast · Halloween 2022

All Halloween and Horror

The Signal Watch PodCast · Halloween and Horror

Watch Party Watch: The Black Cat (1934)

Watched:  10/14/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  third?

Director:  Edgar G. Ulmer

The Black Cat (1934) imho is a Universal Horror A-Lister that rides the Halloween movie bench because of the lack of "monsters" within the film.  But it speaks much more to where some great horror would come from over the years than, say, Frankenstein, which is it's own genre.  You can feel the echoes of this film in many a future Corman and Hammer movies about deranged dudes with a beef and essentially borrowing from the general world view of Edgar Allen Poe.  

Starring both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, with amazing set design, cinematography, and performances from our leads - both vying for who is the more watchable weirdo - it's a really fun, thrilling watch.  It's also a glimpse into what was possible in a Pre-Code horror/ thriller world with content I'm not sure would have been in a movie by 1941.  But then you look at RKO horror, and, man, who knows?  But it's a movie with mostly uncomfortable thoughts more than anything on screen.  

Karloff's character is clearly way past sociopathic, having sold out his own people during WWI and returned to Austria - having woo'd and won Lugosi's wife (who believed Bela dead).  Bela has finally left prison after being captured during the war and wants revenge - and his daughter if she's there.  A dopey American couple gets mixed up in it all, and unfortunately for them, the woman is the quite fetching Jacqueline Wells (better known as Julie Bishop).  And because everyone here is a psycho, she becomes the MacGuffin.  

Look, this movie has Bauhaus architecture, Satanic cults, hypnosis drugs that go nowhere, and an unfounded and unexplained fear of kitties.  And cat murder that goes uncommented upon.  It's absolutely wild.  And not just for Karloff's extremely comfortable-looking wardrobe of dressing gowns and silky robes.  

The runtime is like 70 minutes, so it moves along at a rocket clip, so it never gets boring and I highly recommend seeing it if you've never checked it out.  If nothing else, it's a lot of weird, spooky fun.

   

Halloween Watch Party: The Black Cat (1934)

This one is real weird.  Like, I don't really feel like anything I can say would really prepare you for or contextualize the movie terribly well, so let's just light this candle.

Day:  Friday - 10/14/2022

Time:  8:30 Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Service:  Amazon 

Cost:  $4

Click here to get weird, y'all

link live 10 minutes prior to show

Marvel Hall-o-ween-Hall-o-Watch: Werewolf By Night (2022)

Watched:  10/10/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  (checks notes)  Michael Giacchino.  Huh.

This fit the dictionary definition of "fine".  I'm not mad I watched it, I wasn't against what the story was trying to do, but as pal JAL rightfully pointed out, the Marvel machinery seems to have taken over for a portion of the film, and I'm not sure it was to the movie's benefit.  

Werewolf By Night is no one's favorite thing in comics, and if I'm tracing the lineage correctly, the character (Jack Russell, which surely is someone @#$%ing about) appeared in 1972 at what I'm assuming was part of the 1970's monster explosion as classic horror became hip for kids again.  But, also, the Comics Code was no longer nun-teacher strict about rules, and things like "no vampirism, no werewolfism" were stricken from the code.  

This thing is a kind of neat experiment by Marvel - making essentially a TV special that works much in the same way we used to get both the famous kids' stuff like Charlie Brown, but also some older-skewing fare.  Werewolf By Night is maybe 45 minutes, has a more humble budget than, say, Endgame, and exists as a fun holiday treat.  But it's Marvel, so it's also opening the door to the weird and horrific corners of the Marvel U from whence we get Blade the Vampire Hunter (still in development), actual Dracula, but also fellows like Man-Thing.  

But as a 45 minute, moderately budgeted film, it's also led by a first time director in Michael Giacchino, who you know as one of the current wave of actually very talented film scorers.  Why direct?  I have no idea.  But I do think, the oddball impact is that you can see what rails Marvel clearly puts around directors as a support system and to ensure certain bits of quality are maintained.  But, in this case, I'd say that's where the film gets away from them.

The film has the vibe of someone trying to borrow from Universal horror pictures who doesn't actually know what made up the 1930's and 40's Universal cycle of horror's look and feel.  It is definitely in black and white (which some Marvel horror was in the 1970's, natch), but it lacks a certainly visual moodiness and the weight of scenes moored by cameras the weight of an automobile.  I am not insisting that anyone shoot everything in American shots for 45 minutes on grainy film, but continuous camera movement is not how Tod Browning and James Whale were shooting movies.  It lacks the expressionistic ethos or methods used in both Universal and RKO horror - ie: anyone can turn down color-gradient, not everyone knows what to do next.  

Angela Lansbury Merges With the Infinite

Angela Lansbury, an actor whose career spanned 1944 - 2018 (not her life, her career!) has passed.  Let it be known that a pre-Murder She Wrote Lansbury was a stone cold fox, which is always a weird revelation about senior citizen TV detectives.  Go watch The Harvey Girls and then come back and we'll discuss.

Because Hollywood is weird, she was like 36 when she was cast to play the mother of the lead in The Manchurian Candidate - roughly 3 years older than her screen son, and it seems she played older characters for years to come - eventually catching up with herself and then maintaining a career as a plucky, sometimes feisty, occasionally insane (Sweeney Todd) individual.  

One of her last screen appearances was in Mary Poppins Returns (2018), but she was just sort of ubiquitous my entire life.  And, of course, as the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which I heard on a loop every 90 minutes for three years at the Disney Store.  

Here's to Ms. Lansbury, one of the last contemporaries of many of my favorite actors and one I count among our most beloved.  

Watch Party Watch: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

just a reminder that nothing in horror goes harder than Rick Baker's AAWWIL wolf

Watched:  10/07/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  ha ha ha ha

Director:  John Landis

On Friday we watched An American Werewolf in London (1981) as an Amazon Watch Party.  Fun was had!  

Here at the Signal Watch, though, we've covered this endlessly.   No reason to write it up.  

Here's me and Si talking about it in 2019.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 068: "An American Werewolf in London"/ "Ginger Snaps" Halloween 2019 w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Here's 2015

Here's 2012

Here's 2016

Here's Jenny Agutter:

PodCast 215: "Lair of the White Worm" (1988) - a Halloween PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan

Watched:  08/23/2022

Format:  Amazon

Viewing: Second

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Ken Russell

For more ways to listen

It seems somehow inevitable that SimonUK and Ryan would cover this 80's horror cult favorite. And what's not to like? We slither our way into more Halloween spookiness with a discussion of caves, England, worms, wyrms, a young Hugh Grant and the relative value of a Dynasty star on your cast

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 215: "Lair of the White Worm" (1988) - a Halloween PodCast w/ SimonUK and Ryan

YouTube

Music:

D'Ampton Worm Song - The Tossers

Halloween 2022

The Signal Watch PodCast · Halloween 2022

Happy Birthday, Sigourney Weaver

Happy Birthday to the great Sigourney Weaver, the one person I think we can all agree on.  Who doesn't think Sigourney Weaver is the best?  Well, I don't want to hear about it if you don't.  The problem is you, not Sigourney Weaver.

Anyway, she's the absolute best and I hope she has a terrific birthday.

Friday Watch Party (Halloween Edition): An American Werewolf In London

 

This one is streaming for free with Prime, which is mind-blowing, and so we're going to do it.  One of my favorite horror pictures, An American Werewolf in London is about what you see in the title. It's scary, funny, grim, and has kind of everything.  Plus:  Jenny Agutter

And it will really make you think twice about taking the subway.

Day:  Friday 10/07

Time:  8:30 Central

Service:  Amazon Prime

Cost:  $4 - $0

Click here to howl at the moon

link live 10 minutes before show