Halloween Horror Marathon '15

[AndyDursin]

Though he was also an erratic filmmaker with some terrible movies in his output, Romero is a decent director far more deserving of his rep than Wes Craven.

[Monterey Jack]

Yeah, when it comes to the Carpenter/Romero/Craven "Masters Of Horror" troika, I'd rank the three's overall output in that order. Shame that Romero's churned out nothing but increasingly wan Dead sequels over the last fifteen years (and those only because he's piggybacking on the current zombie craze). Land Of The Dead was enjoyable enough, but Diary and Survival... Then again, I can't think of any filmmaker specializing in horror who got their start in the 70's (late 60's for Romero) who has turned out much worth a damn post-80's...these guys get old, get stuck, can't get anything financed (and when they do, it's usually some micro-budgeted indie or found footage garbage), and just generally lose their mojo. Only David Cronenberg really escaped the fate of his horror contemporaries, and that's because he left behind the ooky "body horror" stuff by the 90's and managed to successfully branch out into mainstream filmmaking (A History Of Violence, Eastern Promises) with only dashes of his old perversions. Imagine if Steven Spielberg made nothing but horror movies in the wake of Jaws...his career would have been done by 1988 at the latest (or at least, done creatively). I'm always pulling for these guys to make one last classic, or at least something decent, but, really, why should they? They're financially set, their early films will continue to generate revenue and fans for years to come, and they don't really have to try anymore. Nothing kills creativity more than being financially secure.

[Monterey Jack]

-You're Next (2013): 7.5/10



Tidy home-invasion thriller is, frankly, full of genre tropes you've seen many, many times before (scary masks! Boarding up the house and setting booby traps! People acting stupid!), but it's also engagingly nasty, with a prankish sense of dark humor and some real jolts along the way (the "clothesline" scene authentically makes me wince just thinking about it). It's a damn sight better than the inexplicably-popular Purge movies, mainly because it has no pretentions other than being a solid, meat & potatoes example of its horror subgenre, instead of some socially-relevant metaphor about How We Live Now.

-In The Mouth Of Madness (1995): 7/10



One of John Carpenter's few decent post-80's films, Madness features Sam Neill (excellent) as an insurance investigator looking into the disappearance of hugely popular horror author Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow), whose fiction has been stirring up disquieting news reports of mass hysteria and acts of violence from normal people. Tracking him down to the little Maine town of Hobb's End, Neill soon discovers that this initially charming little burgh is the epicenter of a potential invasion of "our" world from without by slavering, Lovecraftian monsters conjured by by Cane's imagination as he finishes what he promises to be his last book...one that will bring about the end of the world. The first hour or so of the film has a great build-up, and Neill is terrific, but the film kind of sputters out in the last third, with an apocalyptic finale that's hampered by the whole "This is not reality...!" movie-within-a-movie mindgames courtesy of Michael De Luca's screenplay. It's still a decent film with some effectively eerie moments, and it's far better than anything else Carpenter did after the 80's, but still could have been better.

[Monterey Jack]

-Scanners (1981): 7.5/10



David Cronenberg's first breakout commercial success, Scanners is still within the early "body horror" phase of his career, with sickeningly effective makeup and gore effects (even if you've never seen the movie, I'm sure you've seen the infamous "head" scene via an animated gif on a message board somewhere) and a plot that's very late-70's (sinister government agents tracking down and eliminating psychics who have begun to form together into an underground army led by Michael Ironside). It lacks the elegance of some of his later features, but as always, Cronenberg takes genre staples and funnels them through his icy, clinical and cerebral viewpoint to make a film that's a bit deeper than Fangoria subscribers would have appreciated back in the day.

[AndyDursin]

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS -- 2/3 of a good movie. The ending kills it. Actually prevents me from owning it...I confess my favorite "late" Carpenter movie is VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, which is now on a region free UK Blu-Ray. It's not GREAT, but it has a good Christopher Reeve performance, a strong cast and functions as a nice, tidy remake of the original. That's the end of my Carpenter interest.

[Monterey Jack]

Ugh...watched Carpenter's Village Of The Damned for the first time earlier this year, and HATED it. Aside from a nice performance by Reeves (his last before his riding accident), it was totally bereft of suspense, bizarrely cast (Kirstie Alley as a sinister government agent?!) and just overall lame. I think it's Carpenter's worst film (or at least in a dead heat with Escape From L.A.).

-The Fury (1978): 8/10



A good double-feature with Scanners (with their dueling sinister government conspiracies, psychic protagonists, and grisly makeup gross-outs), director Brian De Palma -- working with his first sizable studio movie budget -- crafts a horror thriller that's positively giddy on the possibilities of generating and releasing tension, piling one elaborate car chase, unexpected murder and elegant tracking shot on top of the other until the viewer is left exhausted. Yes, it's all a bit too much at times...John Farris' screenplay (pruned down from his even more overstuffed novel) is unwieldy, tonally odd (from bloody mayhem to broad comedy) and runs longer than you'd expect. And yet even the film's structural flaws add to the overall effect, De Palma seeming to linger on overlong montages and then hitting you right when you're least expecting it with another shoot-the-works setpiece. And the sensational music by John Williams -- just coming off his Oscar win for Star Wars -- seethes with overpowering dread, whipping up such a frenzy of suspense that it practically deserves credit as Best Supporting Actor. Plus, Amy Irving never looked more beautiful in a film, Richard H. Kline's photography is stunning, and Kirk Douglas is in remarkably fine shape for a man who was pushing sixty at the time (not many actors that age could get away with evading capture by government lackeys clad in nothing but boxer shorts). I can't really rate it any higher on a strictly logical level, but I'm always tempted to, because few of De Palma's films leave me practically giggling with fiendish delight as much as this one does.

[AndyDursin]

Yeah we def don't agree there. You'd rather watch GHOSTS OF MARS? I'd rather watch paint dry. That's his worst film by a wide margin IMO.

I can't recall, but do you have the Arrow FURY? Nice transfer, much superior to the older Fox master TT had access to when they produced their Blu. I like the movie OK, but I've always found the overall story depressing -- especially the ending. In fact I've always kind of found the central story kinda pointless. Very odd tonal shifts in it as well as you point out. Not a big favorite of mine, but I can understand your affection for it as a big DePalma fan, which I am not. Great Williams score which we can all agree on!

[Monterey Jack]

Yeah we def don't agree there. You'd rather watch GHOSTS OF MARS? I'd rather watch paint dry. That's his worst film by a wide margin IMO.

Watching all of the Carpenter flicks I hadn't seen up until that point last year and earlier this year, I was expecting the worst from Ghosts Of Mars, considering its toxic reputation, and found it...bad, but not nearly that bad. Workaday, competent, dull but not horrendous. The funniest thing about it was how it honestly looked like it were made in 1981 instead of 2001...Carpenter had to be the only genre filmmaker at that time still using old-school miniatures and mattes...aside from the cast and the lack of Dean Cundey's lighting, you could place Mars right next to Escape From New York and honestly would find it tough to believe that two decades separate them. I actually kind of dig that about Carpenter, even in his later, lamer films...he's never really gone for "modernized" horror tropes, like shock cuts, loud banging noises on the soundtrack, overuse of CGI, and the like. That's why Escape From L.A. is one of his worst...the CGI in that film is HORRENDOUS and the film looks significantly worse and cheaper than the original, despite costing over $50 million to produce. Even in a throwaway effort like The Ward, it still had that smooth, gliding visual craftsmanship that Carpenter never really changed since Halloween.

I can't recall, but do you have the Arrow FURY? Nice transfer, much superior to the older Fox master TT had access to when they produced their Blu.

Yep...great transfer, copious extras, and it even has the isolated score track. And I got it for less than $15 shipped.

I like the movie OK, but I've always found the overall story depressing -- especially the ending. In fact I've always kind of found the central story kinda pointless. Very odd tonal shifts in it as well as you point out. Not a big favorite of mine, but I can understand your affection for it as a big DePalma fan, which I am not. Great Williams score which we can all agree on!

De Palma is a filmmaker much in the Carpenter/Romero/Craven vein of having such a great filmography to start, then having it begin to fragment and fall apart by the time the 90's rolled around. But, even in his weaker films, I can always find moments to savor, and he's never lost his voluptuous, overheated visual style...even now, I can always count on one or two bravura moments in a De Palma flick. The Fury is kind of a mess, but it's such an energetic, visually-stunning mess, I can't take my eyes off it. Plus, Amy Irving...damn.



Young Steven Spielberg was a lucky, lucky man.

[Monterey Jack]

-Insidious Chapter 3 (2015): 4/10



Rote prequel to the previous Insidious films feels like reheated leftovers, and without James Wan behind the camera (screenwriter Leigh Whannel takes over directing duties), the film's collection of bangs, shrieks and moans lack the elegant, unnerving skill that Wan brought to those films as well as The Conjuring. It's all frightfully mundane...the harried single father (Dermot Mulroney), the nubile teen daughter (Stefanie Scott) -- looking to make a connection with the mother she lost to cancer a year earlier -- assailed by terrifying visions, and the obligatory collection of cheap scares involving hands shooting out of the darkness (what did suspense and horror filmmaker do before the invention of the subwoofer?). There's a few jolts that work well enough, and the movie has one of the better "getting creamed by a car out of nowhere" scenes I can think of, but overall this is weak.

[Monterey Jack]

-Cronos (1993): 8/10



The debut feature of Guillermo Del Toro, Cronos is about the owner of a Mexican antique shop named Jesus Gris (Frederick Luppi) who discovers an odd, egg-shaped mechanical device hidden inside an ancient statue. Resembling a golden scarab beetle, the device affixes itself to his hand, leaving behind a bloody weal, and soon Jesus finds himself with an uncontrollable thirst for blood. Despite coming so early in his career, Cronos is a virtual textbook for Del Toro fans, where he lays out all of the thematic obsessions and visual tics that have typified his work over the past two decades, including imperiled children in key roles, whirlagig gizmos with spinning cogs and gears, subterranean gloom, religious imagery and an overall fantasy/fairy tale vibe (not to mention Del Toro regular Ron Perman as a boorish Americano looking to procure the Cronos device for his slowly dying uncle, who wants to use it to prolong his life). It's a modest film, but a fascinating one, fusing elements of vampire and zombie films into a movie that is quirky, compelling, and ultimately rather sad.

[Monterey Jack]

-Crimson Peak (2015): 9.5/10



Ravishingly gorgeous supernatural period romance is probably the closest Guillermo Del Toro has come to evoking the spirit of his Spanish-language films in America, with aching melancholy sharing the film's evocatively rotting mansion with the director's typically clinical spurts of gore (which will probably not be enough to satiate most hardcore, modern-day horror buffs). This is not a film of shuddery shocks and jittery jump-cuts, but one with a steady, mounting sense of unease that gradually accelerates into outright terror. Sporting lavish production values (the sets, costumes and cinematography are all top-notch, and Fernando Velasquez's lush score is splendid) and fine performances by the cast, this probably only ranks behind Pan's Labyrinth in terms of Del Toro's filmography, and is one of the most sheerly pleasurable movies of the year.

-The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971): 8/10



Wow, I've gotten this far without a Vincent Price movie? Phibes offers great, gimmicky chills as Price's demented (and deformed) title character metes out justice on the doctors who failed to save his beloved wife's life on the operating table with punishments based on the old Biblical plagues of Egypt (rats, locusts, the slaying of the first born, etc.). Hammy, over-the-top, and irresistible, gruesome fun.

[Monterey Jack]

-Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971): 7.5/10



Eerie little number about Jessica (Zohra Lampert) -- recently released from a mental hospital for unspecified reasons -- who accompanies her husband (Barton Heyman) and friend (Kevin O'Connor) to a ramshackle house in the boonies he has recently purchased so they can get away from the bustle and stress of city life. But once there, they discover a squatter (Mariclare Costello) who had moved in while the house was apparently abandoned. After an awkward first introduction, she is quickly offered a chance to stay, but Jessica soon finds herself assailed by frightening visions of mutilated corpses and a waterlogged body rising from the nearby lake...one that might belong to a woman who drowned there nearly a century earlier. Is Jessica sliding back into a state of insanity, or is what she (and, through her, us in the audience) seeing actually real? The movie offers up no concrete evidence either way, which might frustrate some viewers, as indeed it did for me. Another viewing of the film is in order. Still, whether real or imagined, the film's pileup of surreal, nightmarish imagery is undoubtedly creepy and effective.

[AndyDursin]

You are seemingly on an island there with CRIMSON PEAK. I will get to it eventually!

[Monterey Jack]

You are seemingly on an island there with CRIMSON PEAK. I will get to it eventually!

I was quite delighted by it. I can imagine why it's tanking at the box office, though...too genteel and "not scary enough" (i.e. subwoofer jump-cuts every thirty seconds) for the hardcore horror buffs, and too sporadically gruesome for the Merchant/Ivory crowd (I remember reading stories of little kids brought to Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, and parents BOOKING it out of the theater when the evil general bashes a farmer's face in with a wine bottle ). It's a film that will find an appreciative audience at home, ones that weren't promised a totally different film that the trailers did. A shame, though...its visual opulence will lose a lot in home theaters. I'm just glad I was literally the only person in the theater when I saw it...a "bad audience" experience would just KILL the movie's melancholy, reflective tone.

[Monterey Jack]

-Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978): 10/10



One of the best remakes ever done, Philip Kaufman's 1978 version of the 1956 original (inferior re-remakes would follow in 1994 and 2007) manages to trump the original in sheer, mounting dread. Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright and a young, skinny Jeff Goldblum play a quartet of San Francisco natives who find their loved ones and associates...changing overnight. Stiff, curiously emotionless. Soon, it becomes impossible to ignore what is truly happening...alien spores have drifted down upon the Earth through the rain and have taken root, replicating human beings down to the last hair follicle...but bereft of pesky emotions. Kaufman's film is not only the most frightening version of the story, but also offers up some sharp satire of the late 70's "Me Generation" (the late, great Leonard Nimoy shows up as a pop psychiatrist who tries to diagnose the wave of paranoia with Vulcan logic), and climaxes with one of the most terrifying endings in genre movie history. A true classic.