Hallo-Watch: Nosferatu - a Symphony of Horror (1922)

Watched:  10/10/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  first straight thru

Director:  FW Murnau

I've seen this film in bits and pieces, but never in one shot.  So, technically, this is either my first view or not, and I'm calling it my first as I spend this Halloween watching films I should have already seen and have not.  

Yes, I've seen Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) - or most of it - before, here and there.  

Structurally, Nosferatu is more or less a very watered down Dracula - infamously so as the movie was immediately sued into oblivion by Bram Stoker's widow (yes, Dracula came out so recently that Stoker's widow was around in 1922).  

Briefly - A Transylvanian fellow entertains a young solicitor come to sell him property in his hometown.  He sees Count Orlock doing weird things, lusting for blood, etc...  And the Count runs off to his hometown with crates of soil, murdering a transport ship along the way.  But in London Wilborg, instead it focuses on a plague of rats, and our Mina stand in doesn't fall ill, she realizes she must sacrifice herself as a sinless woman to the Count so he'll have overplayed his hand.

Unshockingly, this movie is mostly here for the spooky vibes and to tell everyone else how to do this for the next 100 years.  It's not the first horror movie by a long shot, but it is a highly influential one.  And - in my opinion - is maybe more in the spirit of the novel than all the romantic versions made since Lugosi made women swoon in 1930.  Orlok is a straight up weirdo, and our leads know it.  He's bringing illness and plague with him, he's a soulless killing machine.  

But what folks remember, rightfully, are the visuals of the film.  Flexing some Expressionistic bona fides, Murnau leans into strange and eerie sequences of shadow moving, some in-camera tricks of the day, and long, oddball takes to build tension in a single shot.  Our vampire is a homely bastard - not as described in the novel, but his own, unique look that echoes some of what's there - the grasping, claw-like hands.  But you know all this.  It's a gorgeous film, and worth a look for spooky season, even if you just put it on during your Halloween party.  That's the power of the Nosferatu vibes.

There's little question in my mind that Orlok and Dracula both represent some fear that folks living in times of less exposure to other people held when it came to foreigners or even their own neighbors who were different from them.  Ie: The Other.  Whether that's intentional or the casual racism of Grandpa thinking "that's how things are", I suspect the latter case.

What's odd is the lore around this movie - from the notes in Wikipedia about it being made by German occultists who wanted to, like, employ the dark arts.  To the lawsuits and upsetting Mrs. Dracula, to the film almost being lost, to the 2000 movie Shadow of the Vampire.

But, look... here's what Bacall has to say.

So, be like Lauren Bacall, people.  Refrain from shoe-based violence and check out the OG vamp feature.

I should mention, the Werner Herzog version is really good, and we're looking at a remake coming this Christmas from Robert Eggers, who I think is maybe the right dude to do this justice with modern cameras, etc...  

Hallo-Watch: Christine (1983)

Watched:  10/09/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Director:  John Carpenter

This spooky season, I'm mostly trying to check off movies I should have already watched - also movies I haven't seen since I was a kid, so I don't remember the films well at all.  This isn't that - but Jamie had not seen Christine (1983), and I kind of consider it worth a viewing.  So it's her version of that, I suppose.

I read the Stephen King novel when I was in 6th grade.  But I didn't see the movie until some time later - maybe when I was fifteen.  I've seen it a couple of times since, including in a hotel room during a  conference over a decade ago.  It's a bizarre movie - how compelling should a movie about a haunted car be?  And yet.

Christine is a John Carpenter movie, and - I think - should be included in consideration of his run of solid work there in the 1980's.  I know Carpenter seems grumpy about all of the movies he did as a work-for-hire director, but the pairing of his sensibilities with King really does work.  I'd love to see someone re-do Christine without having to strip it down for a movie audience and make it as weird as the book, but as a movie - separate from the book but using the core of it - I think this movie works as a kind of horror, just not the horror of "oh no!  A car will get me!" that you might guess on first blush.

To me, the horror of the movie is not so much about a killer, possessed car - which, fair enough (that is a problem!).  Instead, it's about helplessly watching a friend go down due to a change in their life, be it addiction, a toxic partner, or some other obsession.  This is two lifelong pals who went two different directions, and one of them goes off the deep end, and the other has to deal with the fallout as that person hurts other people.  

Hallo-Watch: Phantasm (1979)

Watched:  10/08/2024

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Don Coscarelli

I didn't know anything about Phantasm (1979) coming in, despite the fact it's a horror staple and much beloved.  And that's a bit odd.  Generally you get the idea.  There's a chainsaw massacre in Texas.  A Freddy.  A Jason.  All I knew about this one was "there's a gangly older gentleman and a flying sphere with knives on it".  How those two things were employed, I could not guess.

Perhaps taking a page from the semi-psychedelic horror of the preceding decade and the impact of European horror making its way to the US - think Suspiria - it opened the doors for horror to show that part of horror could be the confusion of the audience - that the audience is also in a place of confusion, just as much as the protagonist, as the movie runs its course.

The approach gives the movie an odd, dreamy feeling - where the edges never quite match-up and attempts to force the narrative into a sensible pattern are a bit useless.  It's sort of about a teen/ tweenage boy who has lost his parents and whose older brother is now saddled with his care, just as the brother is set to go out into the world.  While the brother and his friends seek female companionship and go about the business of young adults, the younger brother, terrified of being alone, follows at a distance.  

It seems the mortuary in town (Dunsmuir House, famous from this, A View to a Kill, Burnt Offerings and other films...) is where a tall man and a bunch of cloaked dwarves live, and are maybe murdering people?  Or weirder?

They involve their friend, Reggie - an ice cream man with a terrible look - and try to unravel the mystery, especially as their parents were sent to the same mortuary, and as they discover what the mortuary is doing with the dead bodies... * they decide to take it all down, as one does.  Because this is a horror movie where the heroes are well armed, including the under-16 kid.

I was surprised how much of the dialog and reactions of the characters in the movie felt... natural.  Like, this isn't canned dialog or reactions to just push the movie along.  People do things that make sense in a movie that is defying sense and logic, and it really helps.  Like - if you're going to break into a place with potentially murderous beings - do bring a gun if you can get it.  Don't just go creeping around hoping for the best.  And, the kid is oddly sensible - they don't make him an idiot just because he's under 20 years old.

That said - I did spend the first hour of the film waiting for the plot to kick in before realizing what kind of movie I was watching,  when my brain said "oh... this is one of those movies".  And while I enjoyed it up to that point, once I realized "yeah, this thing is just not caring if there's any internal logic" it was even better.

I'm too old for this to be my favorite thing, but if I'd seen it as a kid or teen, I think I would have really dug it for going all-out to be a weird movie and not bother with any answers.  Scenes that don't go anywhere, characters who make no sense... it's all good in dream-land.  I don't know if I ever felt anything was scary beyond being frightened I had no idea what was happening, but it still had a nice creep-factor from the very start.

I was a bit surprised they wholesale stole the gom jabbar, and that the end of Nightmare on Elm Street is essentially the same as this movie.  But, whatevs.  

*turning them into slave dwarves?

Hallo-Watch: Re-Animator (1985)

Watched:  10/07/2024

Format:  Midnight Pulp on Amazon

Viewing:  First?

Director:  Stuart Gordon

In my post on From Beyond, I said I'd previously seen Re-Animator (1985), but in watching this - I had not actually seen this movie.  I'm wondering if I inadvertently watched the sequel.  Or not enough of the movie to actually remember it.  We'll find out when I take in the sequel.

This movie is chaotic, gory, fun, and speaks volumes about someone's ability to convince actors to walk around naked.  It's funny, bizarre, and I dug it.

A brilliant young scientist loses his mentor in Switzerland, coming to ye olde Miskatonic Medical School where he moves in with nice-guy med student, Dan, who is sleeping with the dean's daughter (Barbara Crampton, natch).  Herbert, the brilliant fellow, has invented a formula for bringing dead bodies back to life - demonstrating with Dan's pet cat (who, Herbert likely killed himself).  Meanwhile, Dr. Hill (Bob Gale) has made his career by stealing Herbert's mentor's work, and Herbert publicly calls him on it.  

Soon, chaos ensues as they try out Herbert's formula down in the morgue, and then on someone they didn't intend to be a useful body.  

I dunno.  It's like trying to describe a riot in detail.  There's a lot going on.

Everyone gets their assignments.  Jeffrey Combs is great as Herbert, Bob Gale unhinged as Dr. Hill, Robert Sampson all in as Dean Halsey.  Crampton is lively as Megan Halsey.  

This movie is just crazy nonsense for 90 minutes, and I dug it.  I think as a kid this would have spooked the crap out of me.  As a jaded adult, I'm just sorta chuckling to myself about "wow, they're doing this" as Dr. Hill's decapitated body lugs around his head.  

I'm not sure there's a deeper meaning in the film than "whoops... do not reanimate the dead!" which - lesson learned, amigos!  But it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the general tone and can-do-horror spirit of the thing.

The FX aren't as cool as From Beyond, but for something done on a budget, they really knock it out of the park.  Maybe minus the cat puppet, which is just good stuff.

Hallowatch: Ghostwatch (1992)

Watched:  10/04/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing;  Second

Director:  Lesley Manning

I'd already seen this movie back in April of this year, and you can read my thoughts from 5.5 months ago here.

I basically wanted to make Jamie, Dug and K watch it, and I have no idea what anyone thought at the end.  It's also not the "The Dog Who Saved Halloween" suckage we usually put on if we're going to do a watch party.  

Personally, knowing what's coming, I enjoyed seeing all the pieces come together.  If you're going to do this kind of thing - where you try to make something look "real" - filmmakers really need to review Ghostwatch (1992).  Which really does benefit from not trying to be a period piece, but reflect the idea that "it's happening now".

On a second viewing, I liked seeing how they set some things up, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that does work - but on a first viewing seems like random stuff you're hearing as you go along - which totally makes sense.  Visually - it absolutely works.  It's all practical, so there's no reason to ever get taken out of what you're watching (see: Late Night With The Devil for a counter example) and maybe that's a lesson to horror movie makers?  I know one of the scariest, to me, movies is The Haunting, and there's approximately zero FX of any kind in it.

Anyhoo... a fun Halloween viewing.  Now on Amazon for, like, $2.00.

  

Hallo-Horror Watch: From Beyond (1986)

Watched:  10/05/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First (all the way through)

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Thanks to seeing half of this movie in the mid-1980's, in later years when it came up in classes, I'd already know what the Pineal Gland is.  And, probably, set all sorts of toggles in my head thanks to Barbara Crampton.

There's no era that doesn't have it's own flavors of horror, and 1980's horror is best remembered for Freddy, Jason, etc...  But out there, Stuart Gordon was making stuff like Re-Animator and busily creating wild, weird stuff that was based more on concepts like HP Lovecraft for a modern audience than stalking teenagers.  I wasn't much of a horror kid so much as I was interested in, like, The Wolfman.  And I know I watched this movie for a bit sometime in the 1980's - right up to the hospital sequence, I think - because I don't remember that or the ending.  So I'm calling this my first full viewing.

This is based on Lovecraft's work of the same name, so it's generally about being unsettling, deeply weird and... madness.  Gotta have some madness.

From Beyond (1986) is about a young scientist (Jeffrey Coombs) who is working with a strange but brilliant scientist, Dr. Edward Pretorious (Ted Sorel) - and they manage to basically match the vibrations of our plane with that of one we really shouldn't have ever seen, full of archaic creatures and strange monsters.  Something goes wrong, and the young scientist is accused of murdering Pretorius, but his story of alien creatures killing Pretorius better matches the evidence (a bloodless, decapitated body) than "he got him with an axe".  Psychiatrist Dr. McMichaels (Crampton) is brought in, and wants to see what the guy was up to, so she works with him under police guard (Ken Foree!) to re-do the experiment.

What Gordon thought the effects of the "field" generated by the device were is up to speculation.  For some reason it seems to make the young scientist kind of crazy and his pineal gland grows into a weird, prehensile thing I'm sure is supposed to be phallic.  Crampton's character becomes...  sexy.  And poor Ken Foree just gets bit by a jellyfish.

I shall spoil no further.

The movie is weirdly fun for what it is.  I assume it kind of freaked me out as a kid with its mix of body horror, madness, dash of sex, some S&M for no reason, and no clear heroes in the thing.  But knowing Lovecraft a bit now, this is a reasonable adaptation of his vibe.  The special FX, make-up, etc... are all very good, minus a shot or two.  So if you dig old school practical and optical FX, this is a good one.  And the ideas of the film are appropriately chilling, with an ending that feels right.

Anyway - it was kind of great to see this as an adult and with more of film, literary and life experience under my belt.   

Vincent Price HalloWatch: Tales of Terror (1962)

Watched:  10/04/2024

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First!

Director:  Roger Corman

This movie was SO GOOD.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I'd just never gotten around to Tales of Terror (1962) - an anthology of three Edgar Allen Poe short story adaptations - and I regret I'd never watched it until now.  But when looking at Vincent Price movies, I often look to see who else is in them, because Price clearly loved goofing with specific pals, and this one has Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and the dlightful  Joyce Jameson, who I know from A Comedy of Terrors.

As an anthology, it lets Price play three different characters - showcasing the man's versatility (he could play it all!) while also letting him overplay a bit to suit the needs of each role.  The first segment is "Morella" in which he plays a widower whose daughter returns to him - sent away as a baby after her mother died due to complications from child birth.  In "The Black Cat", we get The Cask of Amontillado with Lorre walling up Price.  In the third - a grisly tale of mesmerism with Basil Rathbone trying to manipulate the will of a dying man and use his horrible power to force Debra Paget into marriage.

Rather than get into three separate stories, what I'd say is - to me, this is when horror is at its best.  The very ideas in the story are chilling.  This is not a surprise as it's Poe, right?  He's sort of the guy for this.  But by keeping it brief, as Poe did, they can stay focused, not worry about filling a movie with movie things.  Love interests, arcs for everyone, etc...  So the actors can really lock in and push toward the themes and ideas, and we know this works - or did - from shows like The Twilight Zone.   

So the ideas - the absolute horror of a mother who *is* furious her baby killed her, the terror of being walled up alive, of being trapped against your will between life and death...  it's good stuff.  

Look, you'll see me bitching about jump scares a lot.  And... they're fine.  They work.  So does walking up behind an old lady at church and blowing an air horn (do not do this).  Of course that stuff works, and sometimes it's fun and I enjoy it.  But it's also not what sticks with me.  Maybe the *vibe* of the movie sticks with me, but give me someone realizing they're all living in a horrendously fucked up situation already, and it's about to come to a head in a weird and horrible way, and I'm in!  And if you can do that without, you know, also making something go "bang!" all of a sudden to I go "tee hee hee", all the better.  

This movie, like some other stuff from Corman's AIP branch, looks pretty good!  The sets are better than necessary, the costumes pretty slick, the color that weird "we won't pay for technicolor" garish, and we have Debra Paget (who is still with us!), so we know to put our money where it counts.

Anyway - people will think you need darkness and limbs twisting and wet hair on females to get terror, but to me - you just need the right concept and the right actors willing to go nuts on screen.  And Corman got that.   I literally applauded after each sequence.  Just perfect chunks of horror to take you into the Halloween season.

Halloween Dark Universe Watch: The Mummy (2017) - the one with Tom Cruise

Watched:  10/02/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Alex Kurtzman

She had style!

She had flair!

She was there!

That's how she became... the Mummy!

This is an amazingly wrong-headed and bad movie.  I really don't want to write it up, because it's going to take forever.  It's problems are legion, and it's astounding to think Universal went so hard at the "Dark Universe" concept and then this was their maiden flight.  A maiden flight which took off, did a loop-de-loop before crashing back into the airport, and which immediately killed the entire concept.  Thank God.

If you need a refresher:  in the wake of the success of Marvel's Avengers movies making a billion dollars each, Universal looked to see what IP they had laying around to exploit.  And, since the silent era, Universal has had classic horror in their stable.  Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of, Wolfman, The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Invisible Man... all Universal. What Universal decided to do was create a world in which these creatures co-exist and... fight crime?  I don't know.  And this movie didn't say, despite the fact all they do is stand around and explain things to the detriment of plot, character, and enjoyment of the very thing you're watching. 

There was plenty of precedent.  By the 1940's, the sequels had been bubbling up, and we did see Wolfman meet Frankenstein, and all of the monsters show up in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (which was, obvs, a horror-comedy, but featured the characters as audiences knew them in the straight movies).

Around 2015-16,Universal signed with major stars and were going to do this.  Tom Cruise!  Johnny Depp! Angelina Jolie! Russell Crowe!  Utterly missing the fact the stars of the originals were barely the actors - it was the concept.  They did so, so much press about this, and everyone kind of said "...why would you do this press?  Just make the movies."  But, nope, so high on their own supply, they ran into the streets to tell people about it, and then it blew up in their faces immediately, like Wile E. Coyote with dynamite.

The Mummy (2017) is the Tom Cruise-starring action-monster-not-horror vehicle that took the name and a few concepts from the original The Mummy movie and the subsequent Universal sequels, and turns it into a very expensive actioner devoid of plot, characters, charisma or joy.  Or fear.  It's a painful slog through scenes shot without enough light to ever see anything (Dark Universe!  HA!), wherein you can feel Cruise's people touching up a script that's already overstuffed, but with dollar-store baloney.

Hallowatch: The 'Burbs (1989)

Watched:  09/29/2024

Format:  YouTube (it's streaming free.  Go figure)

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Joe Dante

Selection:  Jamie

I saw this one in the theater back in the day, and then on VHS and cable after.  But it's been some time since I watched this movie.  And while I liked the movie, boy - does it land now in a different way after living on the same suburban street since 2006.  

My memory was correct that this movie was poorly received upon its release, and it's funny - I think it would do fairly well now with reviewers no longer cloistered in urban centers and insisting on certain lifestyles which would, frankly, make them miss the joke of the movie except as a faint echo of their streets as kids.  Criticism and reviews play an important role, but I think this is just one where the vibe of how the curators of public opinion missed the mark, and it's not a mistake the movie is well-remembered 35 years later.

The film isn't quite a horror film, it is a comedy - and the whole thing feels very Joe Dante.  There's a hyper-realism to the the suburban setting that keeps the movie with one foot firmly planted in realism (the world Carrie Fisher is trying to anchor) while nuttiness abounds.  And Tom Hanks is our POV into what it is to move back and forth between those worlds.

Kris Kristofferson Has Merged With The Infinite

The great Kris Kristofferson - actor, musician, bad-ass - has passed at 88.