Daily Halloween: Night 6

I finally got around to watching a Mario Bava movie, Black Sunday, a.k.a., The Mask of Satan (1960). I am a big fan of Italian horror, and Bava is the godfather. I’ve put him off because I’m always a little resistant to watch old films, particularly from before the late 1960’s. I am not proud of that and when I do see one I’m often pleased, but it’s a hang-up nonetheless. But Bava is the predecessor to Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Michael Soave, Lamberto Bava (Mario’s son) and others I’m forgetting or don’t know, so I had to try.

Black Sunday is shot in black and white. The lighting in some of the scenes is beautiful and there are some startlingly good visual effects. It’s an interesting watch, romantic and gothic in story and milieu and with an uncanny creepiness I rarely find in older films. Barbara Steele is good in dual roles, playing the 15^th century Moldavian witch Asa and her 19^th century descendant Katia. In the end, though, I am a philistine: I admire this film but am unmoved by it. I recommend it for fans of the genre who want to see some of its roots.

But Amazon has a slew of Bava films streaming, so I next opted for the 1966 Kill, Baby, Kill!, a much more modern film than Black Sunday but not so lurid as the title suggests (how could it be, unless it were a rape revenge prison flick?). The story brings the modern and the scientific against the supernatural when a coroner visits a late 19^th century cursed village in the Carpathian Mountains. Bava’s direction is much more dynamic and interesting than in his earlier film, panning and zooming to explore the artfully arranged spaces. It has cobwebs, a foggy cemetery, timely gusts of wind, and a spooky child ghost, all lit in alternating vibrant color and shadow. This film was a happy discovery.

Daily Halloween: Night 5

David Cronenberg is an art house director best known as the prime practitioner of body horror, though he has expanded well beyond that in his 40 years of filmmaking. Shivers (1975) is one of his early films. It takes place in a planned condominium reminiscent of the high-end enclaves in J.G.Ballard’s novels High Rise and Super-Cannes. In the film a sexually transmitted parasite runs rampant, causing uncontrollable libido in its hosts and resultant deviance, chaos, and death. Clearly, the juxtaposition of the setting and the increasingly twisted sexuality is rife with social commentary; you can watch and decide for yourself if it’s effective. The character Nurse Forsythe encapsulates the mood: “Even dying is sexual.” Not unexpectedly, Shivers met with much controversy when it came out, but Roger Ebert was an early (somewhat hesitant) proponent and it has come to be mostly well-regarded.

I appreciate Shivers. The Fly may be my favorite of Cronenberg’s horror films and his most polished. The Brood might be his creepiest. His psychological horror drama Dead Ringers, wherein Jeremy Irons plays twin gynecologists Beverly and Elliot, is a truly unique film and probably the one I most recommend from his early catalog. And then there are his recent forays: his crime dramas like the great A History of Violence and Eastern Promises and the surreal, literary Cosmopolis. His is an oeuvre worth exploring.

You could spend a lot of time diagramming Cronenberg’s influence, and one branch would lead you from Shivers to the 1986 cult horror comedy Night ofthe Creeps, which also showcases mind-controlling slugs. Both are directly referenced by James Gunn’s 2006 Slither, a fun film with a great cast – one of my favorite post-2000 horror films. I’m glad Gunn is seeing wider success now with Guardians of the Galaxy.

(Here’s a Paris Review interview with J.G. Ballard from 1984.)

Daily Halloween: Night 4

I jumped back to 1971 for last night’s movie. By then the world had seen Romero’s gory Night of the Living Dead and the almost naturalistic evil in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (both 1968). Mario Bava expanded on Psycho’s (1960) edginess by introducing the violent, trashy but stylish giallo in the mid-1960’s, but the genre doesn’t seem to have fully bled over (hah) into America’s popular consciousness until later in the 70’s.  And 1971 was still a few years before the American-bred horror renaissance of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper.

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971) has a look from the New Hollywood and the feel of a gothic tale. When the film begins, Jessica (Zohra Lampert) is recently out of a mental hospital and she, her husband, and a friend are escaping the city and driving to their new home in rural Connecticut, a journey that includes a portentous river-crossing by ferry. From the first scenes Jessica maintains a troubled internal dialogue, has visions of ominous figures, and hears near-constant creepy breathy whispering. The film’s first third feels as much a psychological thriller as a supernatural horror film, and it suggests that all of the weird happenings may be borne from her madness, and it even seems possible that she is being intentionallydriven insane. It toys with this pretense until the end but it shows its hand pretty early.

Director John D. Hancock and cinematographer Robert M. Baldwin make great use of the old house and, especially, the pastoral setting, which seems summery and vibrant one moment and stark and foreboding the next. The film’s other strengths lie in its two female leads. Lampert is jaggedly vulnerable but always comes across as a real person facing her demons (which of, course, are probably not just her demons). Mariclare Costello plays Emily, a mysterious drifter they find squatting in the house who quickly falls into their lives. Costello is an interesting presence, ethereal and magnetic in her way but with a natural roundedness that belies her true role in the story. The film relies heavily on their performances and much of the tension comes from the interplay of their expressions and subtle spoken hints.

Costello as Emily

I admired this film and was glad to see it after reading about it for a while. Subtle by today's standards, but spooky and interesting.

Daily Halloween: Night 3

I am a fan of British filmmaker Ben Wheatley's movies. Down Terrace is a very black black comedy with a kitchen sink aesthetic and Sightseers is, somewhat, in the same vein; Kill List starts with the kitchen sink and keeps the realistic style even as it ramps up the occult trappings on the way to its surreal ending; A Field In England is a psychedelic nonlinear historical (17^th century) drama awash in English folklore and references to alchemy. I watched the latter only a few weeks ago and, as imperfect as it might be (and I’m not sure it is – I need at least one more viewing), I love his fearlessness and creativity of both form and content. He really is one of the most interesting directors working today.

Michael Smiley is in three of Wheatley’s four films and is terrific in all of them. I came across the film Outpost while looking though a list of Smiley's films. It sounded like it might have undead Nazis, so I added it to the queue and watched it last night. Smiley has a secondary part behind Ray Stevenson, who I also like. (And by the way, the more British TV and film I watch the more I notice that they have maybe 20 actors over there, and it’s fortunate that they’re good actors because you see one or two of them in every production.) It is the only film directed so far by Steve Barker and it was only released on DVD in the States. The DVD only thing isn’t always such a bad sign, I find, with lower budget films like this – maybe because distribution and marketing costs are so high? I’m speculating, but I’ve seen much worse films in the theaters.

In Outpost, a businessman named Hunt hires a team of mercenaries, led by Stevenson, to guide him to an old Nazi bunker in an Eastern Europe forest. These Nazis, it turns out, were exploring the dark arts and melding it with twisted steampunk technology. There’s an endless roster of films and comic books where Nazis are associated with the mystical or the occult, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, of course, as well as The Keep and Hellboy. I particularly like the charming Norwegian comic horror Nazi zombie film Dead Snow. Outpost has the Nazis experimenting with unified field theory (it references the apocryphal Philadelphia Experiment) and the bad guys, when they show up, are pretty bad. Director Barker uses some interesting animation and the setting is effectively creepy. He makes good use of his budget and the seams don’t show much. The acting’s good except for Richard Brake’s mysterious outback Appalachian cockney accent. Overall, forgettable but a fun and atmospheric 90 minutes.

A maybe better Nazi horror film

So far, I’m 0/2 on new horror films this month. Neither has been terrible but neither is a great discovery, either. I hope things look up.

Daily Halloween: Night 2

I was excited to see Ti West’s The Sacrament show up on Netflix streaming a few weeks ago. His early Trigger Man (2007) was an efficient, stripped down, effective film. I loved House of the Devil and The Innkeepers. He’s a good writer, has an excellent eye, and is known for slowly building tension and then blowing it up with intense action late in the film. (The term “slow burn” has been so often applied to his work that he’s apparently annoyed with it; seriously, google it and his name and you’ll see). Ti West wrote and directed The Sacrament, Amy Semeitz and Joe Swanberg get top billing but AJ Bowen has at least as much screen time. Semeitz and Swanberg are two of the most prolific young filmmakers/actors in indie film and West is no slouch either.

As excited as I was, I saved this film for October. And now I’ve seen it and I am sadly underwhelmed. It follows a reporter, a cameraman, and a photographer (all ostensibly from Vice magazine, in a weird media synergy) who travel to a remote compound to check on, and maybe rescue, the photographer’s sister (Seimetz) from a possible cult. The Sacrament looks good and is competently constructed, building tension and dread (as we expect from West). But the film ends up being far too conventional. Except for the presence of the crew and some grisly shocks at the end, it might as well be a Jim Jones docudrama. No twists, no surprises, nothing to make it stand out.

Very disappointing. So disappointing, in fact, that I stopped the credits and promptly played House ofthe Devil, which I hadn’t seen since it came out on video. It’s so indebted to 80’s occult horror – music, hair, costumes, the grainy look of the film, the walkman dancing – that it straddles the fence between homage and caricature. But it’s made with love and gets every bit right. This one burns so slowly that it has its detractors, but I find it kind of beautiful.

1980's Greta Gerwig

Everyday Halloween...Day One

October has arrived. The leaves fall from the trees, the nights grow long, and Halloween approaches. Every year around this time I watch a slew of horror films; I watch them all year, to be truthful, but I really ramp up around Halloween – ghost stories and monster movies and an occasional slasher flick. This year I’m starting early and I plan to stretch it out a bit. It's cool in my house and I'm under a blanket with the dog at my side, so it’s a good time to begin.

Tonight I watched Neil Marshall’s 2002 Dog Soldiers. I’d seen it before, a few years back, but I wanted to revisit it because I've come to really appreciate Marshall's films since then. This is his first, three years before he made the The Descent, one of my favorites and a film I watch every few months. Centurion is good as well, a fun comic bookish film. 

Dog Soldiers is, of course, a werewolf film. Lycanthropes don’t get much appreciation, being less romantic than vampires and less of an easy vehicle for social commentary (like mindless consumerism) and modern anxieties (like pandemics) than zombies. Still, there are some gems in the genre. I love John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, and you should, too. It’s funny and scary and has likable characters, both dead and alive. And it has Jenny Agutter, who is charming and really should have been in way more movies. I really like Joe Dante’s The Howling as well. Both are 1981 movies. Ginger Snaps, a nice twist on the dangerous trappings of burgeoning teenage sexuality (most horror is metaphor, right?), is another good one.

Dog Soldiers is a strong debut. The roots of Marshall's atmospheric style show in the shadowy woods and craggy hollows. It certainly has enough gore, and the monster effects work well enough, though I like them better during the dimly lit early scenes. He makes good use of his budget – instead of a full werewolf transformation we get instead a few Lon Chaneyesque drop-out-of-frame-and-emerge-as-a-monster scenes, which I kind of like, and lots of hairy, taloned arms punching through windows. A solid cast, especially Kevin McKidd (Rome) and Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) deliver good performances. There's a lot of wit and the dialogue is natural. So it’s fun and it has some genuine tension, especially early on. A good start to the season.

Thanksgiving. Then off to Antarctica.

My last month has been a harried struggle to get things together before I leave for Antarctica to look for meteorites (you can follow our blog to see how it goes). Lots of preparation, but also an excuse to buy a new camera, which I've been using a lot this week.

So I took my dog on a last walk before delivering her to my friends' house, where she will get more attention, canine company, and table scraps than I usually offer her. She'll be happy to see me when I return, but I don't think she'll have time to miss me.

I fly out tomorrow, but I drove to Atlanta to stay with friends for Thanksgiving. It was a great meal and a great time. We had radishes from the garden.

Charlie cooked the turkey in parts on the grill. Great idea, and it turned out well. We had glazed carrots with cumin, homemade rolls, and I made Brussels sprouts with figs and bacon.

And beautiful desserts, including two kinds of blueberry tarts, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and a chocolate tart. We drank champagne and Burgundy with the meal and had Noval Black port with dessert.

Afterwards, there were group pictures, taken with Charlie's exotic cameras, and a walk with the dogs.

Then Charlie beat the hell out of me in both cribbage and backgammon.

Today, we had leftovers. Maybe the best Thanksgiving sandwich ever, inspired by a banh mi. Smoked turkey, Duke's mayonnaise, sriachi, cabbage, and pickled daikon and carrots.

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I'll be gone for a while, so I wish everyone Happy Holidays. Cheers.