Poltergeist III (1988)

MAY 26, 2008

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Do you like hearing the name "Carol Anne"? I hope so if you plan to watch Poltergeist III, because it is said some 118 times in the 95 minute film. Some scenes, such as the one where she is trapped in a puddle, play out with a character saying absolutely nothing but "Carol Anne!" over and over. It's almost incredible to think that no one said "Hey, maybe Lara Flynn Boyle can shut the fuck up for 5 seconds instead of saying the same name over and over."

It's a shame that the movie is overall not very good, because the first half hour is pretty great. The subtle little mirror tricks are pretty creepy; my favorite is when the mirrored reflection of Carol Anne ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") enters a bathroom and talks to Boyle before it actually occurs. And once they write the rest of the Freeling family out of the movie, our new characters are pretty easy to accept as our new protagonists (Nancy Allen looking hotter than ever doesn't hurt). Some of the cutesy attempts to humanize them are overbearing (the nonsense about Tom Skerritt's fashion sense) but hey, at least they were trying to recapture the "lived in" feel of the first film, instead of focusing squarely on effects.

The other thing the movie does right is introduce a skeptic character in the form of Dr. Seaton, who runs the school Carol Anne ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") attends and often sounds like Stephen Tobolowsky doing a Paul Bartel impression. This guy is a delightful piece of work; in addition to being an insufferable prick (which we know he is, because he scolds his wife for forgetting the cilantro), he's also the most ridiculously skeptical man on the planet. He chalks everything he sees up to mass hypnosis/suggestion, even when it doesn't make any goddamn sense (he blames a colleague for breaking a mirror after watching a ghostly hand do it when Carol Anne ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") wasn't even in the room). He also has one of my favorite lines in the series; after Tangina (the only other person, cast or crew, to have a part in all three films) rambles some of her traditional nonsense, he snorts "There's a lot of crap that doesn't mean anything!". Oh man, I want to go drink with this guy. Sadly that is impossible, because he is killed a few moments later, in the series' first non-natural death.

After that, the movie just falls apart. Heather O'Rourke's death threw a pretty big wrench in the reshooting plans, which must be why the film's climax occurs out of nowhere and has almost zero tension. The fact that you don't even see Carol Anne's ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") face in the final scene is pretty telling, not to mention a sad reminder of her passing (you'd think they'd have the decency to use the ending she had shot, even if it wasn't a masterpiece). There are also some major unanswered questions, such as what happened to the Scott character, why his evil mirror double guy rips Boyle's face off, and why Allen or Skerritt's characters never bothered to call their sister and ask "Hey what do you do when Carol Anne ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") disappears into a shaft of light?"

There are some other plot contrivances that defy any sort of sense. Scott and Boyle sneak into a security office to shut off the cameras so they can fuck around in the pool, and Scott sees a security angle of a supermarket next door to the pool, which gives him the idea to buy beer. Fine, but why would a supermarket be on the 44th floor? That seems inconvenient for both shoppers and deliverymen. Also, Carol Anne ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") is shown being teased at her school; the other kids pretend they are ghosts and such and mock her. First of all, it's a school for special kids, which means they should be on common ground when it comes to their personality quirks. Second, why would a kid make fun of a girl who claimed to see ghosts? I would think that was awesome, and talk to her all the time! They also continue the complete ignorance of the other sister in the Freeling family; when Carol Anne ("Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!") talks about how much she misses her family, she fails to mention poor Dana.

I did see this one as a kid, but recalled almost nothing other than it was about mirrors (that, and for some reason, Scott's hysterical delivery - "In the garage. In the garage! IN THE GARA-AH-AGE!") and wasn't as good as the others. My opinion hasn't changed, though again, it's a shame the DVD is completely feature-less. Like Poltergeist II, the trailer is better quality than the film itself. For that film it was simply better effects than what was seen in the final film, here it's a different aspect ratio. The movie is 1.85:1, but the trailer is scope (2.35:1, the same ratio that the other two films was shot in). It doesn't look cut off or anything, so why they'd go to the trouble is beyond me (especially since most trailers are presented full frame or in the smaller 1.85 format - I've never seen it go the other way). Maybe someday we will get special editions of the sequels, especially since the behind the scenes drama is far more interesting than the films themselves (moreso in this one's case).

In closing... "Carol Anne! Carol Anne!!!"

What say you?

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Haunted House, Supernatural,

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The Changeling (1980)

APRIL 6, 2008

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I hate when a movie introduces a character like an hour before they become relevant to the rest of the film. Such a thing occurs in The Changeling, and it sort of ruins a bit of the creepiness. We know damn well that this character has some sort of involvement, or else they wouldn’t have spent 3 minutes of screentime having someone explain who he is and what he does. But then it’s another 50 minutes before he’s mentioned again, blah.

Luckily the movie is still pretty good. In fact the movie only really falls apart at the very end, with a silly fire and somewhat confusing turn of events. This old senator dude appears to be in two places at once, and it left me baffled. Did I miss something? Someone explain!

But the earlier part of the film is pretty solid. There are a couple of genuinely creepy sequences (the séance, and subsequent tape playback, for example), and Peter Medak frequently employs a frenetic POV of the ghost, long before Sam Raimi did the same in Evil Dead. Plus, the film is 10 minutes shorter than Blockbuster said it was, so wooo!

I also really liked the opening, in which George C. Scott sees his wife and child get completely DESTROYED by a car. It’s that 70s sensibility that is now pretty much gone; today maybe the wife would die but the kid would live in coma for the rest of the movie. And come back at the end with the cure for Crohn’s or something. Oh and she’d have a dance recital. Not in the 70s though! She’s TOAST. However, her death WOULD have been avoided had her mother had the good sense to push the kid out of the way or something, instead of merely knocking her over and laying on top of her, right in the path of the car. Nice move, schmuck.

One thing I dug about the movie as well was how old everyone is. Scott of course was never young, and everyone else in the movie (except for the dead kid(s), obviously) is pushing 50 or so. I like that, it’s nice to see old people get scared every now and then instead of teens. However, to be fair Scott doesn’t really seem scared by anything, just merely sort of annoyed. His reaction to all of the water in the house turning on is no different than mine when I realize I forgot to buy milk.

Which I forgot to buy this morning! Fuck!

What say you?

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Haunted House,

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Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

MARCH 30, 2008

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Ah, I remember it like it was only 22 years ago. Poltergeist II: The Other Side was the first horror movie I saw in theaters (for the record, of which no one is keeping, the first R rated one was Child’s Play 3). I don’t know for sure if I had seen the entire thing again since; while some sequences (such as the chainsaw to the car) seemed very familiar, others I had zero recollection of whatsoever, such as that baffling and ridiculous finale.

For a movie in which the original director(s?) and producers did not return (though the script has the same non-Spielberg guys credited), it’s not really all that bad. The original Poltergeist is the best haunted house movie ever, as far as I’m concerned, so it’s not like I was expecting a film equally as good (even as a kid I probably knew better). A couple of the scare scenes work well (the braces attack and Kane’s LET! ME! IN! sequence), and the ties to the original are thorough without rewriting things. It seems strange that a movie in which the message is “Family must stick together” would completely ignore the Dominique Dunne character (apparently she was written off as being away at school, but this scene was cut), but otherwise, it FEELS like a continuation, despite a mostly-new creative team.

Speaking of Dunne, this movie seems to be the most plagued by the so-called Poltergeist curse. Kane, Diane’s mother, Taylor, and obviously Carol Anne have all since passed on (Kane, aka Julian Beck, actually died during production), as have Goldsmith and director Brian Gibson. It also suffers the absolute worst effects in the entire series, and in pretty much any theatrically released, fairly big-budgeted (20 million) horror movie of the past 25 years. I don’t know who the hell did the compositing on here, but for the love of Christ not a single effect in the entire movie (except the braces) looks even remotely natural. Some of the matte effects even have plainly visible lines where different elements were placed over others. Worse, the chainsaw scene for some reason looks better on the trailer than in the finished film:

As you can see, the trailer version (2nd pic) has a blue tint to it, which suggests they knew their effects sucked and tried to hide it for marketing, but why not just do that for the film itself? It’s dark, it should be blue! I don’t know how Hooper/Spielberg/et al were able to sell an entire room full of toys flying around, 4 years prior and on a lower budget, better than these guys were able to pull off a (should be) simple monster in the same room as our characters, but it’s borderline embarrassing.

There are also a few times in the film where some editing (rumor has it that nearly 40 minutes were cut from the film) is painfully obvious. Craig The Nelson’s hair is long at the start of the film, suddenly it’s short for the rest. Tangina completely disappears from the finale. Carol Anne at one point startles Robby in the bathroom. His mouthwash disappears, and then Carol Anne walks away without ever explaining what the hell she wanted in the first place. Etc. By themselves, it doesn’t mean much, but altogether, it’s very distracting. Plus a lot of things seem very abrupt, such as the battle with the worm-monster, and the “Other Side” sequence. You’d think that the section of the film that dealt with the film’s subtitle would last more than 75 seconds, but you’d be wrong!

One thing they did get right was the dry humor from the first film. I love the two old broads at the restaurant, discussing one of them having an affair. And Carol Anne’s suggestion that they live at Dunkin Donuts ensures that I would be in love with her if she was still alive today. Speaking of which, if you have a Dunkin’s near you, feel free to mail me an apple n’ spice donut or two. Or twelve. And even though it’s been four years in between productions, the film claims it was only a year ago, and other than Jo Beth Williams’ severe drop in hotness (I blame her awful hair), the aging seems right. Then again, Oliver Robins looked the same age from 1980 (Airplane II) to this, so it’s not really a surprise.

Uneven. That’s the best way to describe the film. It's not particularly good, but not particularly bad either. For everything that works, something else doesn’t. It’s just a shame that the best haunted house movie ever was sullied by two sort of lazy sequels. Oh, and that pretty much everyone involved with the damn thing is now dead, which results in a REALLY lousy DVD.

What say you?

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Haunted House, Supernatural,

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Burnt Offerings (1976)

MARCH 19, 2008

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

What was with audiences in the 70s? Were they just too stoned to pay attention to anything? Let’s Scare Jessica To Death hinged on us not noticing that someone in a picture from 100 years ago was clearly the same person who had latched onto our heroine, and now Burnt Offerings expects us to be surprised that a mysterious old woman who no one ever sees doesn’t actually exist. Wow, really? A REAL twist would have the woman turn out to be real, since anyone with half a brain would know right from the start that the lass simply wasn’t there.

At least Jessica had the good sense to be nice and short (82 minutes vs Offerings’ 115), so the fact that not a lot was happening wasn’t too big of a problem. That’s not the case here, as until the batshit (and admittedly awesome) finale, the grand total of “things happening” in the first 100 minutes is 3: Oliver Reed smacks his kid around for no reason, an old woman dies, and some clocks speed ahead 25 minutes. The rest of the time, the movie just sort of hangs out in itself; we watch Reed and Karen Black do chores, look at photos, do other chores, and talk about doing chores. Black even spurns Reed’s advances at one point, despite telling him that he is “incredibly sexy” (drunk is the new hot, I guess), because making love would probably be considered too much action for this movie.

And it’s a bummer, because the first ten minutes had me believing I was in for some Manitou style hilarity (the trailer for the film certainly suggests a much more exciting ride, as it consists entirely of the 2-3 minutes’ worth of horror/action the film has). Burgess Meredith’s cameo (and it IS a cameo, despite his 3rd billing, since he never appears in the film again) is delightful, as he rolls around in his wheelchair, laughing at just about everything and watching the movie’s resident kid get seriously injured without telling his parents. But after he leaves, other than the occasional odd delivery that you come to expect from Reed, the movie becomes almost painfully dull. And the fact that it’s shot like a porno doesn’t help; when I see a soft focus bedroom, I certainly expect a scene that contains more than some minor disagreement over when one should wake up in the morning.

It’s also pretty repetitious. After the scene where Reed throttles the kid around, he talks to Black about how he’s afraid of “it happening again.” They proceed to have this EXACT SAME CONVERSATION in the next two scenes. Three times in a row we hear this, but then they make it even more annoying by never even explaining what the fuck they are referring to (unless they did so in the 30 seconds or so that it took me to go into the kitchen to grab a box of Peeps). But even if that is the case – the whole incident is never brought up again. From that point on, Reed seems to be relatively safe from the evil house’s influence, which I must admit was a relief; far too many haunted house movies have the father go nuts. No one really goes insane in this movie, but Black is certainly more “taken” by the house’s evil ways than anyone else. Women be crazy too!

Like I said a while before (hey, long movie = long review), the finale is what saves this movie. We get the traditional attempt to escape/”the house won’t let us leave” sequence, only with a nice twist (though this movie precedes many of the other haunted house movies I’ve seen, so I guess it’s not really a twist, just a forgotten “thing filmmakers should do”). Reed is driving away, and then the usual roadblock (a tree, in this case) appears. But rather than turn around or whatever, Reed just starts ramming the tree with his car. Finally! A proactive action against easily circumvented barriers! As a lifelong player of video games, where you are often kept from exploring by a box on the ground or a knee high fence, it’s nice to see a scene in any medium where the characters aren’t so easily foiled by these types of things.

The very end is also amazing. After 114 minutes, we deserve something, and Dan Curtis delivers – a near decapitation (and complete death) of one major character, and then another is crushed to death by a falling chimney. Yeah! Hilariously, on the commentary track, Curtis comments “Without that ending, the film wouldn’t have worked.” What a pointless thing to say. No movie works without its ending! And especially THIS movie, since the final 60 seconds contains the film’s only saving grace. Just as hilarious, he reveals that he chopped out the film’s original 15 minute opening because it was “too slow and boring.” Yeah, unlike the rollercoaster ride that is the rest of the movie. Nothing says excitement like Oliver Reed fixing a water pump!

The rest of the track is like the movie itself – just when you’re about to shut it off out of boredom, something interesting occurs, providing just enough good will to get you to the next instance (never courtesy of Karen Black, who comes off as someone pretty full of herself and constantly interrupts Curtis to point out something like her gray hair or visible pregnancy bump). Even shaving a half hour out of the film would barely help – they really needed to rethink the whole “woman in the room” angle and maybe add a gardener or someone who could be dispatched early on so that you wouldn’t forget you were watching a horror movie (instead, they just play creepy music over non-creepy imagery).

What say you?

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Haunted House,

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With You

NOVEMBER 6, 2007

GENRE: GHOST, HAUNTED HOUSE, INDEPENDENT
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Today’s movie, With You, is another I have no recollection of adding to my queue. The Blockbuster page doesn’t even have a synopsis (nor did the little sleeve the disc arrived in). Having no idea what I was in for, I put it on, and discovered it was a no-budget, shot on video, largely amateurish ghost/haunted house movie. Complete with a DVD that has no menu other than "Play Movie" (yep, another disc without a damn scene selection menu – something I have never seen in my life and now I’ve seen it twice in the past 3 days).

Actually, it’s a haunted “other house” movie. Because, for whatever reason, the main character is harassed by ghosts not because he lives in a haunted house, but because his home is the only one that OVERLOOKS a haunted house. What the hell kind of half-assed backstory is that? It’s the first movie in which planting a few trees on a hill could have saved someone’s life.

Anyway, the film is fairly boring and not very original, but there’s a strong sense of earnestness that endeared itself to me, enough to give this one a pass. Obviously they had no money, but they made the best of it, and on a technical level, despite some pretty brutal breaking of the 180 rule, the film is made with some actual effort (i.e. no glaring continuity errors, no boom mikes, etc).

Also, it begins with the main character
making this pitiful little doodle.

There’s some puzzling screenwriting choices throughout the film though. Why is the main guy’s friend so friendly to old people? He acts like a surrogate son to what seems like half the town. Why does the town’s one cop invite a total stranger to check out a crime scene? What’s with all the talk about the lead character drinking? Why does his landlord assume that he’s “not the type of person who bathes”? And what the HELL is up with the totally homoerotic ending, which features a guy buried alive with a zombie who keeps gently biting him on the back? Yikes.

I dunno, it’s not a particularly good movie, but A for effort and all that. For a reported 30k, they made a movie that doesn’t give fellow indie filmmakers a bad name. Like yesterday’s Kaw, it’s a lot better than you’d expect considering the circumstances, so I laud their efforts.

What say you?

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Ghost, Haunted House, Independent,

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Return To House On Haunted Hill

OCTOBER 15, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (SCREAMFEST LA)

I don’t recall too much about the first House On Haunted Hill, only that other than Geoffery Rush channeling James Woods, and Famke Jannsen looking incredibly hot, it wasn’t all that great. I don’t think I need to say again that haunted house movies are never a favorite with me, and they are even WORSE when they rely on CG and other truly non-terrifying things to “scare” me. Also, come on, Chris Kattan?

But the sequel, Return To House On Haunted Hill, kind of intrigued me, due to the ‘revolutionary’ navigational cinema option on the HD and BluRay discs. Instead of just watching the movie, you could make choices that ultimately give you 96 versions of the film.

Now, I am not sure where Warner gets off saying they invented this, because they had a choose your own adventure movie in the mid 90s with Christopher Lloyd (it’s called Mr Payback), and New Line did something similar with the Final Destination 3 DVD just last year. But whatever. At Screamfest, they were going to show off the technology with the film’s cameo, er, co-star Jeffrey Combs making all the decisions. Sounds fun, right?

Well it’s not. Most of the choices are pretty lame (“Should they answer the phone?” comes up TWICE!), and they are also a lot more infrequent than one would expect considering the alleged 96 different ways the film can be seen. There also seems to be many occasions where making a choice would seem natural, and yet no choice is given. And of course, when the movie isn't that great, you will have to endure your own brain and everyone you are watching it with making some variation of a "I choose for the film to end now" joke.

Also, I should point out that when I got the HD DVD, I considered reviewing all 96 versions, one per day, for HMAD. But then I realized that it would annoy you guys so much that your children would be born hating me. Plus, just two versions of the film (in addition to a tour through the “Navigational Cinema” version, I also watched the “real” version) seems like more than enough to sit through.

The problem with the film is that it barely makes any goddamn sense, and the numerous attempts to be funny (mostly from the awful Jeremy Sisto-y Erik Palladino, co-star of another unfunny horror movie, Dead & Breakfast) fall flat (except for when Palladino LITERALLY falls flat after slipping Jimmy the paramedic style in someone’s blood – a gag he also did in D&B now that I think about it). I guess when you have to consider telling your story 96 ways, narrative cohesion kind of gets lost in the shuffle. There’s some good gore gags here and there, and the ghost makeups continue to impress, but it’s just an empty experience, seeming much longer than it is (the “real” version clocks in at around 80 minutes). Victor Garcia may be a skilled shooter (the film certainly LOOKS good for the most part), but when the script is so banal, it’s kind of hard to judge him as a filmmaker.

There’s also a confusing casting decision, as two characters look very similar (and are paired up with other characters who also look a bit like each other), so when one dies, I and some other folks I watched it with got a bit confused as to why he was “back” when the other one was onscreen.

However the main girl, Amanda Righetti, is so ridiculously hot I will probably watch all versions eventually, because she seems to keep finding ways to get herself soaking wet, which is a plus. So if I ever find a way to watch the film that actually makes it good, I will report back. All I know for sure is, if you want to cut your experience short, have her save the map instead of her friend.

What say you?

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Haunted House,

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Paranormal Activity

OCTOBER 14, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE, INDEPENDENT, MOCKUMENTARY
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (SCREAMFEST LA)

A scary haunted house movie! A scary haunted house movie! And it’s not even Poltergeist!

Yes, Paranormal Activity managed to do something that almost no other haunted house movie in the past 25 years has managed to do: actually be scary (1408 got a few jumps out of me, though nowhere near as effective as this). Like Blair Witch, it’s presented entirely through self-shot footage (or from a fixed tripod in their bedroom), and ramps up from simple noises to truly freaky ‘violent’ acts. The increasingly terrifying nature of the scares is what really makes the film work – if you just watched the finale by itself, you’d be pretty perplexed as to why anyone was scared by it (just like Mike standing in a corner isn’t really that interesting unless you’ve been totally sucked into the previous 80 minutes).

Also, as the film is entirely digital video that looks no better/worse than what any average Joe can shoot, the scares are fully believable. There’s a subconscious acceptance that what you are seeing is real when it’s digital video (it’s not all glossed up and “cinematic”), which is what made those Ratchet and Clank commercials work so great. So when added to the perfectly paced ramping of scares, it proves incredibly frightening.

The acting is also good, something that posed a problem with a few characters in Diary of the Dead. There’s really only two people in the film, and unlike Heather in Blair Witch, they never get too shrill or just plain unlikable, even as they begin to bicker with one another. I totally believe them as a couple, and they sell their fear quite well too. And the film does a good job of making their actions with the camera logical for the most part (100% admiration for how the finale is “filmed”).

The hilarious thing about the whole presentation was that it was preceded by 10 minutes of some new A&E show called Paranormal State, which deals with a “real” paranormal research team. The footage was cheesy and laughable, and without any sort of suspense. So yes, the “real show” wasn’t as believable as the movie that we knew damn well was fake. Then the guys who host/produce the show came out after the movie and more or less dismissed the film while tooting their own horn. Wisely, I (and many others) just left them to suck their own cocks while I talked to the filmmaker/cast of Paranormal Activity in the lobby. Which is the great thing about Screamfest, and any independent film festival in general; you can often just chat up with the filmmaker after the film and not be bothered by 40 other people in the process. Not to mention laugh at the actors in stupid basic cable shows for talking about things like “Dead time”.

Not sure if there’s a release date for this one (it doesn’t even have an IMDb page!) but hopefully it will play in theaters (though I suspect it will play just as well at home). Take it from me, dismisser of nearly every film of its kind I have ever seen – this one DOES work as an actual ‘scary’ movie.

What say you?

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Haunted House, Independent, Mockumentary,

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Dead End (aka Dood Eind)

OCTOBER 14, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (SCREAMFEST LA)

Man, Dead End really pissed me off. They totally set it up to be a killer dog movie (in addition to a killer dog attack, one of the characters plays for a band named Cujo!), but then they decided to make a standard haunted house/spirit needs x number of souls to rest movie. Sigh.

It’s not a disaster, but it’s overlong and very repetitive. Like an episode of 24, it features characters learning something, and then repeating that same information to another character moments later. Look, the audience isn’t walking in and out of the movie, we really only need information once. If you feel it’s necessary to see a flashback of a group of neighborhood kids throwing stones at a disfigured outcast no less than THREE times, maybe you should rethink your storytelling abilities. The movie also featured the lamest plot device in any horror movie – a ghost who decides to provide a character with all of the information they need to understand why said ghost is trying to kill them (and again, we see/hear all of this information 2 or 3 times). Can’t a ghost just kill some folks without having to explain itself like a Bond villain? And if the ghost simply MUST provide his own motive, can’t he just write it on the wall, or something more cinematically interesting than inserting his memories into another character’s head?

The movie also had a puzzling nature to its subtitles/language. As it was a Dutch film, the characters spoke Dutch, with English subtitles. However, all of the credits, as well as most text in the film, were in English with Dutch subtitles? What the hell? The ghost would also speak English sometimes, which I guess to a native Dutch crowd would sound kind of creepy.

There was one thing in the movie I kind of loved though. As it was a haunted house movie, this meant a lot of doors shutting themselves, with characters unable to reopen them. The characters, for once, actually do something about this. One of them ties a cord around the handle and nails the other end of the cord to the wall, forcing the door open. And then throughout the film, even when other scary/exciting (in theory) things were going on in the scene, you see the door straining to try to close itself. A few more things like that, and I’d be more willing to give the film a pass on its repetitive audience hand-holding, but even so, it’d still be a movie that fails to offer anything new or remain consistently engaging.

What say you?

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Haunted House,

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The Blancheville Monster

OCTOBER 4, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE (?), PSYCHOLOGICAL (?)
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

The most terrifying part of The Blancheville Monster was a single chord on the soundtrack, struck instantly after hitting play. Before an image even appeared onscreen, theree was a loud DUNNNNNNNNNN! that scared the bejesus out of me. Sadly nothing else in the film was even remotely as exciting.

Similar to The Ghost or The Game, here we have a horror movie in which everything is fake, leading me confused as to what kind of horror movie it even was. I don’t feel like making a new genre for “Girl who walks around a castle and sees the image of her father, who she thought was dead”. Because that’s pretty much all that happens until the final 15 minutes.

That fifteen minutes save the film, as we get someone buried alive, a decent surprise as to the identity of the “killer”, and the truly hilarious sight of a guy trying to evade capture while running through the woods wearing the largest cape I have ever seen. Dude, take the fucking thing off! Then there’s a hilariously abrupt cut to a “6 months later”-y scene that wraps up some subplots we weren’t really interested in to begin with.

The film is strangely shot, as if the cinematographer or director were afraid to have to edit footage together later. Instead, they pan around wildly to get everything we need to see. But when the camera is actually staying on a person or item, it’s not shakicam. They literally pan the camera around while it’s on a tripod or whatever. Very odd. And annoying. “Look! Over there!” someone will say, and a few seconds are wasted while the camera pans over to whatever it is we should already be seeing.

Also, what kind of goddamn name for a monster is Blancheville? That’s the least foreboding name in all of human history. The Smith Monster would be more exciting.

What say you?

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Chilling Classics, Haunted House, Psychological,

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The Woman In Black (1989)

SEPTEMBER 29, 2007

GENRE: BRITISH, GHOST, HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Never heard of The Woman In Black in my life prior to a few weeks ago. But I was at a birthday party, and no less an authority than Uncle Creepy from DreadCentral told me it scared him to the point of turning his lights back on while he watched it. He himself had heard about the film from someone who told him it was terrifying, so he was like “Fuck that, it won’t scare me!” but apparently it did. And now he passed this “challenge” on to me. Sort of like The Ring of British TV movies.

Well it’s pretty good, but I didn’t turn my lights back on. I DID however almost knock over my ginger ale while trying to find it in the dark, which if it spilled on the carpet, would cost me a lot to have it cleaned. Now, THAT’S scary! *cue drum sting*

Anyway, like I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of haunted house movies. I think I really need to identify with the folks that are being haunted (i.e. Poltergeist) in order to get scared. But nothing in my life thus far has prepared me to identify with a family man who works as a lawyer in 1930’s London. Plus, most of the “scares” just come from his seeing a woman in black in the distance and hearing strange noises at night. That’s not really terrifying; instead I just start wondering if the guy is maybe suffering from a mental disorder.

However, there is a scene that legit freaked me out. The guy is sleeping, he wakes up, and the ghost chick is floating over his bed, screaming in his face. They cut back and forth between her and him screaming 3x each, and it’s damned unnerving. Also, the guy gets a cute little dog at one point, and I was afraid for HIM. Still, my lights were off.

As HH movies go, it’s definitely one of the better ones. Especially when compared to modern examples, which rely on giant swirls of black CG and shit like that to try to scare us. This one is all mood and atmosphere (though strangely lacking in humor, usually a highlight of British horror). And the ending is a real downer, which isn’t a real surprise when you consider it was written by Nigel Kneale, who wrote my beloved, ultimately depressing Halloween III (“Turn it off!”). Sucks that guy died, if there’s one thing that is totally lacking in modern horror movies (besides being good at all for the most part) is mean-spiritedness. I think TCM: The Beginning is the only one that’s even come close to achieving the sort of downbeat, “Fuck you, audience!” levels that a lot of my favorites from the 70s and 80s did.

Anyway, I pass the challenge on to you, Horror Movie A Day denizens! You can find it on ebay (where I did – it’s not on Netflix or Blockbuster). See if you are as scared as the others! And if not, well, I didn’t tell you so.

What say you?

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British, Ghost, Haunted House,

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Boo

SEPTEMBER 19, 2007

GENRE: GHOST, HAUNTED HOUSE, POSSESSION
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Last week I had the opportunity to see a new film from Anthony C. Ferrante, a former Fangoria writer who moved on to filmmaking (oddly enough, it was on the same day I watched Halloween Night, also by a Fangoria writer!). As the film wasn’t finished, I didn’t consider it for review, though it was certainly enjoyable enough that it made me want to check out his first film, Boo. Also, it was screened in glorious 48.6 surround sound! “48.6?” You might say? Indeed. 48 discrete channels, 6 discrete subwoofers. It was invented by Alan Howarth, whom some of you may know from his collaborations with John Carpenter. Needless to say, it sounded awesome.

I wish I was there to watch Boo, which had a well done sound mix for a DTV effort. Sure, this means that some nonsensical and badly delivered dialogue would be that much harder to bear, but take the good with the bad. There were a lot of good surround effects and ambient sounds that would have been well suited for this king of surround systems.

As said, some of the dialogue was ridiculous. One line, which only makes sense in half-assed theory, was a particular howler: “You know how some hotels don’t have a 13th floor? This hospital shouldn’t have a third.” What? The lack of a 13th floor is based on superstition. If there was no 3rd, the bad shit would have just happened elsewhere! Like I said, in theory it’s a cool line, but when you think about it, it doesn’t make any goddamn sense. There’s also a line that makes fun of the film’s own abundance of exposition, which to me is sort of like the filmmakers saying “Touché” for themselves, but oh well.

The film is actually pretty fun though. The pacing is quite good, as the ghostly happenings begin about 20 minutes in, which is fine by me. Again, it’s a direct to video movie. I don’t expect anything out of such a film other than mild entertainment and not wanting to punch my TV in the face. On that level, Boo delivers. Plus, unlike the last, what, 20 DTV movies I’ve watched, it was anamorphic. In fact, for whatever problems the film has, there is ample evidence that Ferrante and his crew actually give a shit; using practical effects as often as possible, throwing in some subtle references to other movies (Santa Mira!!!), and thankfully not having the characters do too many stupid things once they realize their lives are in danger. Like I’ve said before, so long as the film is made with genuine enthusiasm and shows basic respect for the audience, I can easily forgive its other faults. I probably won’t ever watch the movie again, but I certainly wouldn’t try to dissuade someone from checking it out on their own.

There’s also a decent amount of extras, including a look at the makeup effects that’s pretty well done. There’s a bunch of deleteds, though they don’t add up to much, plus 2 other featurettes and a commentary. Though I must point out – the video menus are annoyingly long. When I click “Special Features” I want to see the damn menu, not 15 seconds of video in between.

Plus the main girl is incredibly cute AND her boyfriend cheats on her with a girl who isn’t as hot as she is, which is always a hilarious subplot in movies. Dammit, movie characters; if you’re gonna cheat, cheat UP!

What say you?

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Ghost, Haunted House, Possession,

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Non Canon Review: Poltergeist

JUNE 16, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

This is not a canon review for Horror Movie A Day, as I have seen Poltergeist many times in my life, though this was the first time I have seen it in its theatrical aspect ratio (2.35:1, which for both Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg is very rare). But I’d just like to drop a quick note about going to see it in theaters (our local revival house was honoring 1982 and also showed movies like Tron, The Thing, and Wrath of Khan, however they did NOT show Halloween III and thus the festival was largely incomplete).

Poltergeist II: The Other Side was the first horror movie I ever saw in theaters, so I was extremely excited to see the first film theatrically. Like I’ve said many times before, I don’t care for haunted house movies, but this is one of the very rare exceptions. And it’s amazing how well it holds up. While many haunted house movies today are overloaded with CG effects and other nonsense, Poltergeist keeps things grounded and pretty real. 25 years and numerous viewings later, it still packs more suspense and genuine scares than almost any modern film you’re watching for the first time.

But best of all (or worst, depending on your POV or if you are in fact Tobe Hooper), Zelda Rubinstein was in attendance, and since her glory years are probably behind her, she’s obviously not afraid to speak her mind. In addition to randomly pointing out that poor Heather O’Rourke had shitty parents (I'm guessing she won't be authoring any Father's Day cards for Hallmark), she also laid to rest (or further ignited) the rumors about who exactly directed the film. One just needs to look at the credits: Spielberg and his usual cohorts (Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy) were all over this film (producers, writers, etc) and Tobe Hooper is simply listed as director, to get the idea that Spielberg had more than just a hand in production and may have directed some or maybe most of the film himself, with Hooper reduced to a glorified camera operator role. After co-writer and actor James Karen said the usual version (“Steven may have suggested things to Tobe, but it’s Tobe’s film”), Zelda took the mic and said, bluntly “I remember it different.” She went on to say that Tobe would set up a shot and then Spielberg would come in and change it to his liking. “It’s Spielberg’s movie,” she said. Period. Hahahaha whoa!

Anyway, if you haven’t ever seen the film in it’s full aspect ratio, I demand you do so. The kitchen chair scene alone is 10x more effective when the camera isn’t needlessly panning around.

What say you?

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Haunted House, Non Canon,

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1408

JUNE 8, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

The amount of surprises this movie contains is beyond astonishing. A PG-13, Dimension produced, haunted house movie based on a Stephen King short story and directed by the guy who made one of the worst films (Derailed) in recent memory. NAME ONE FUCKING APPEALING THING ABOUT ANY OF THAT!!

Well you'll be damned, 1408 is actually pretty solid. Expanding the short story in both standard (adding a backstory about Enslin's daughter) and pretty clever (a throwaway line in the short story about a broken thermostat becomes a pretty funny sequence) ways, I remained engaged and entertained throughout most of the running time. There are only a handful of actors who can carry a film almost entirely on his own, luckily John Cusack is one of them (another caveat about this film - it reunites John Cusack and a hotel. Thankfully, Pruitt Taylor Vince is nowhere in sight). But considering how hot she looked, I could have used more Mary McCormack. Actually, the only reason I saw the film was because I was supposed to cover a junket for the film today, with Ms. (I hope it's just Ms. anyway, heyo!) McCormack in attendance, but someone else got it. LAME. This means I am also denied a chance to ask Cusack about the status of Con Air 2.

People near me may have thought I WAS bored, in fact, because I kept looking at my watch. But the reason is, there is a countdown built into the plot (no one ever lasts in the room more than an hour), and at one point the clock begins counting down from 60:00. So every now and then, I checked it against my watch to see if they were cheating. Surprisingly, they didn't (well, you THINK they did, more on that below). Doing real time is pretty tricky (not to mention often boring; see Rope, Nick of Time, and the last season of 24) so to pull it off truthfully while maintaining suspense and entertainment is a laudable achievement.

The only real flaw in the film is that they try to pull a reverse twist, making you think perhaps everything in the hotel was a dream, but this occurs at like 70 minutes into the film, and thus you know damn well that it's not that easy because there's gotta be at least another 20 min to go. Then again, at this point, 3 people walked out, assuming it was over, so I dunno. For me, I think this would have worked better had there been another 10 min or so in the room. But you can't really fault a film for not dragging things out just to satisfy people with a working knowledge of running times. But then they reveal that it's part of the psychological episode, and the 60 minute countdown remains more or less intact. Also, another minor one, there's a great thing in the book where Enslin records a long monologue about the door being crooked, but then when he plays the tape back, all he actually said was "The door is crooked." I would have liked to have seen this incorporated somehow, because it creeped the shit out of me in the short story.

And hey, Sam Jackson (an odd choice to play a fat Jew) manages to drop an F bomb!

What say you?

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Based On Novel, Haunted House, Psychological,

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The Amityville Horror (1979)

JUNE 3, 2007

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE

SOURCE: CABLE (FLIX)

One of the rudest people I’ve ever encountered in my life was at a screening of the Amityville Horror remake in 2005. Some asshat (not a teen douche, this guy was about 60 years old) was sitting in between two empty seats. It was pretty full, so I asked him if he could move over one so me and my wife could sit together. He refused. “Are you saving it for someone?” I asked. “No. I’m tired, I don’t want to move.” Actual response. I had a choice: I could go get an usher and ‘tell’ on him, OR I could say “Thanks, asshole,” and look elsewhere. Readers of this blog should know my unending love of profanity, so needless to say, we had to sit in the front row, which is about 50 feet closer to Philip Baker Hall that anyone should ever be. I hope that guy got run over and/or beaten to death on the way home.

Anyway, it was one of the rare times I was seeing a remake without having seen the original, a practice I usually avoid. I remember seeing the Dawn of the Dead remake, and on the way out I said “Wow, I surprisingly liked it almost as much as the original,” and someone near me said “there’s an original?” Oh good Lord, how I wanted to toss him out the window. But since I don't care much for haunted house movies, I never had any strong desire to see either one of them anyway (it was a free screening) so I let my 'rule' slide.

Two years and some change later, I watched the original. And… I still don’t like haunted house movies. There are some exceptions (Poltergeist is one) but for the most part, the idea of a house full of moving objects, doors shutting themselves, etc, just isn’t that scary, and even less interesting. One of the things I love about Halloween was how the Annie character was essentially in a haunted house movie, only we as the audience were watching it from another perspective. We got to see that it was actually the Shape making plants fall down and doors close. But things happening for no reason? Zzzzz. Of course, some have explanations but they are usually stupid (why would a long dead Indian take the time to move your chairs around?). And, unless you’re Jan De Bont or William Malone, your ending is just… people leaving. Not that I have any sort of soft spot for a giant black swirl of CGI, but at least it’s SOMETHING.

But, I will give this one a pass for James Brolin. He is amazing in this. He’s not a sympathetic character at all: he yells at kids, slaps his wife, he even chops wood like an asshole, but then instantly redeems himself by risking his life to save the dog (as opposed to the remake, where the poor pooch got axed by Van Wilder). Yeah! Also, when he’s all sick he looks sort of like Christian Bale in The Prestige. Sadly, he does not explain how to do the Transported Man.

Back to the lack of sympathy for the lead – this is a problem a lot of haunted house movies have, including Kubrick’s version of The Shining (the Garris version corrected this): The ghosts or force or whatever turns the lead into an asshole almost instantly, giving the audience no time to give a shit about him. In the Garris one, Weber didn’t go apeshit for like 2 hrs (6 hr movie). But here, like the 1980 Shining, our only reason for caring about him is because of the actor playing him. But you can’t assume everyone knows who James Brolin is. And someone, somewhere, has no idea who Jack Nicholson is (poor sods! That means they haven’t seen MAN TROUBLE!). Those are things you gotta keep in mind.

You should also just make a different type of movie, because I don't like haunted house movies.

What say you?

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Based On Novel, Haunted House,

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