Author: fenrisfil

Clash By Night (1952)

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When looking to choose a Film Noir to review there is always a good chance that I’ll be drawn to a Fritz Lang movie (Since he directed one of my favourite Noirs “The Big Heat”). When you throw in the Queen of Noir herself, Barbra Stanwyck as the lead it’s pretty much a sure thing and so “Clash by Night” largely picked itself. The supporting cast is pretty strong too featuring Noir regulars Robert Ryan (The Set Up, Odds Against Tomorrow) and Marilyn Monroe (Asphalt Jungle, Niagra). The main cast is capped off with Paul Douglas and Keith Andes. The movie is written by Alfred Hayes based on a 1941 stage play by Clifford Odets.

More Fish In The Sea.

The story is set around the fishing town of Monterey, California and the follows Mae Doyle (Stanwyck) who has just returned to town after the man she was involved with died. The man was already married and his wife and family made sure she didn’t get the money that he had willed to her. Someone bitter and cynical now she returns to her family home to meet her brother Joe (Andes). Joe works on a fishing boat owned by Jerry (Douglas) and is in love with a cannery worker called Peggy (Monroe). Joe is worried about mae’s bad attitude rubbing off on Peggy and so tries to set her up with good natured Jerry.

Mae enjoys her time with Jerry but is at first resistant to going further, feeling like she is not destined for love. She also meets his friend Earl (Ryan). Earl is in an unhappy marriage and is just as bitter and cynical as Mae. For Mae she immediately dislikes him perhaps seeing stuff she dislikes in herself in him, but Earl just sees a kindred spirit and makes at pass at her. Somewhat disturbed by this Mae decides she needs to change and make a go at a safe loving relationship and agrees to marry Jerry. years later she has a child with Jerry, but she finds herself unhappy and restless and drawn to Earl (Who is now divorced).

Dramatic Tension.

As you can see from the synopsis this is very much a drama based Noir. Not unheard of in the genre or outside my experience as I’ve seen the likes of “The Lost Weekend” and “Mildred Pierce”, but it is unusual. It is a character study more than anything else and unlike most noirs has no body count. This isn’t what I expected from Fritz Lang who is generally known for making more edgy noirs. Many of the characters though are very much Lang characters. Moody, aggressive and feeling like they may snap at any moment. This puts an edge onto what is basically a romantic drama. Though really it’s more of an anti-romantic drama. A story about relationships with a gritty realism to it that tells the viewer, sometimes you have to just be grateful for what you have.

The movie if formatted into two main parts with a time jump in between. Though the story of both is somewhat similar. Effectively starting with Mae worn down, having a moment of doubt and then deciding to opt for stability, the difference between the two is the second half plays out in a far more heated fashion since that doubt manifests into an affair and then the fallout of it being discovered. On the surface it’s not a great plot, but between Stanwyck’s performance and Lang’s directing it still works.

Queen Of Noir.

Stanwyck’s portrayal of the flawed Mae Doyle gives the character a vital likeability. Her cynicism and tendency towards self destruction ultimately comes from a place of self loathing. It’s a complex emotional situation that could be lost with a less capable actress but with Stanwyck you can see her fighting with herself internally and that struggles has you sympathise with her even though she’s stringing along a good man, sleeping with his friend and threatening to take his child. Deep inside Mae wanted to be loved, she just didn’t feel she deserved it. Along with her inner conflict Stanwyck brings fierce independence and a sharp wit to the role that gives her character charm even at her most cynical. By the end of the story though she realises Jerry was what she was looking for all along.

Masculine Aggression.

This isn’t just down to Stanwyck though a lot of this is Fritz Lang’s speciality too. Many of his characters are deeply flawed but have redeemable traits. Obviously Mae fits that description, but so too does her brother Joe. Who is really portrayed as both the best and worst of the hyper-masculine male. On one hand he is sometimes rough with Peggy, even teasing hitting her and makes light of her story about another worker at the cannery that was hit by her boyfriend. On the other hand though he is fiercely loyal and dependable, tells Peggy to leave him unless she can commit for the long term. He also does his best to support Mae even though he clearly doesn’t approve of her actions.

Joe would likely not go down well with modern audiences. But there are also elements of Mae’s personality that may not go down to well. It is a little ambiguous at the end whether it is Jerry’s forgiveness that leads to her wanting to give it another go or the fact that he tried to strangle Earl. Up until that point Jerry had been the “safe” man, perhaps seeming weak. But while he was disgusted with the fact he committed an act of violence, perhaps him finding a touch of inner darkness allowed Mae to find her inner light. There’s certainly a lot of criticism that could be put to these flawed characters, but it does make them seem more genuine.

The Saint and Sinner.

Jerry and Earl on the other hand are perhaps a little bit too simplified, though this is likely deliberate as they effectively represent the two conflicting parts of Mae’s personality. Jerry represents safety and security and is generally optimistic if lacking confidence, while Earl represents aggression, selfishness and pessimism. Really it doesn’t make any sense the two are friends, except that Jerry pretty much refuses to see bad in people.

These archetypes are pushed to the extreme with Jerry being disgusted with himself for even laying his hands on Earl out of anger and making a point to kick out his drunk lodger from his house for use of pornographic photos in his bedroom. Earl meanwhile largely forces himself on Mae, makes racist impressions, regularly gets pass out drunk and rarely has anything nice to say about anyone. He is truly the opposite of Jerry.

Light and Shadows.

Given the movie is based on a drama play you’d probably not be expecting too much in the way of interesting visuals in this one, however Fritz Lang is not one to disappoint and as a result pretty much every scene is framed in visually interesting ways, with good use of shadows and in several scenes water. In addition the opening scene introducing us to a day in the life of this fishing village and the workings of it’s factory remind me a little bit of the opening to “Sweet Smell of Success” and the more modern movie “Lord of War”, though it’s true fish is a lot less interesting than newspapers or bullets, but it’s still a great visual opener.

Conclusion

Overall, while the plot is simple, repetitive and not especially exciting in itself, Stanwyk’s portrayal of Mae raised the story up enough to keep my interest and the aggressive style of Lang’s directing provides far more tension to the events than is probably warranted. It has an air of authenticity to it that made it easy to ignore the weaker elements. The movie has not aged especially well though and I can see modern audiences not liking it at all. Not a huge problem for me though, so I’m giving it a 6.5/10.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

The Red House (1947)

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So, we’re a week into November. I’ve had my post-October break, but my fingers are itchy to get to a new review done, so it’s time to start the Noirvember season! I’ve decided that moving forward I’m going to only give a brief synopsis instead of full plot. This way it’s easier to avoid spoilers, should keep my reviews under 1000 words and you can find the full plot on Wikipedia anyway, so you can always check their if interested.

For my first movie found the perfect transition from Horror to Noir by finding a film that shares aspects of both. This is “The Red House” from 1947. The horror aspects aren’t strong enough to justify it as a horror, but it’s pretty close to that line and by being there it moves to the fringes of what counts as Noir too. Interestingly Wikipedia has declared it a horror, but IMDB lists it as Drama/Film-Noir/Mystery with no mention of horror. Having seen it now I’m going to say IMDB was closer there but it shows how it’s not clear cut.

There’s A Red House Over Yonder.

The movie is written and directed by Delmer Daves, who also directed the Bogart/Bacall classic “Dark Passage” that same year (1947) along with the classic western “3:10 to Yuma” (Which is marginally better than the surprisingly good remake). He also wrote the screenplay for “The Petrified Forest” way back in 1936, which is one of my favourite movies of that decade. The movie is based on the novel by George Agnew Chamberlain and stars Lon McCallister in a very typical role for him (Good natured country boy) along with Allene Roberts and the legend and Film Noir regular Edward G. Robinson.

The story revolves around Nath (McCallister) who is helping out at a local farm thanks to his friend Meg (Roberts). The farm is owned by Meg’s adopted father Pete Morgan (Robinson). Pete warns Nath not to go near a certain area of the forest on his land, but he and Meg become curious about it and so keep looking for this mysterious “Red House” that is meant to be there. As they get closer, Pete becomes more unstable and the petty criminal he hired to keep people off his land becomes more aggressive to those trespassers. Ultimately the secret of the red house will be revealed and the lives of all involved will not be the same.

The Tell-Tale Heart.

Performance wise Robinson unsurprisingly steals the show. While he is more famous for his roles in Gangster movies, the Noir era gave him a chance to explore more complex characters with a bit more vulnerability. His role here is pivotal and it is his character and his internal that makes the movie a Film Noir. Like many of the genre the story is really about how dark secrets of your past eventually catch up to and sometimes destroy you. It’s one of those elements that instead of fighting against the Hays code, embraces it. Crime does not pay, but Noir is often based around a characters attempts to delay their inevitable fate.

Pete Morgan has carried his secret with him since Meg was a child, but not just in his tainted soul but in a very physical form. He could have destroyed The Red House and with it all evidence of his crimes, but instead he left it there as a constant reminder and he must have known one day his secret would come to the surface. The truth is there is a definite Streisand effect here. Should someone stumble upon the house it wouldn’t mean anything to them, but his determination to keep people away from it naturally made them curious. Pete’s mental stability weakening every step along the way, with him slipping and calling Meg “Genie” (Her mothers name) several times. When Meg finally stumbles upon the place she found it strangely familiar. Ultimately Pete ends up confessing his crime.

Bad Prints and Good Natures.

The problem is that Pete is not the movies lead. Really it is a joint lead of Nath and Meg, but they are fairly straight forward good natured country girl/boy archetypes. Not characters that really lend themselves to film noir. Though Nath initially being in a relationship with Tibby does give his story a mild Noir twist since she is very much the type of woman that would lead a man onto the wrong path, though ultimately that doesn’t happen and instead she gets herself get in to more trouble than she bargained for with her infatuation with outlaw Teller. Nath and Meg are basically the outsiders in this dark world, which is really where the film starts to bend towards Horror, but only a little as there is no intentional malice with all this.

Another thing to note with this movie is the poor quality of the physical film print. Although most of the 1940’s Film Noirs I’ve seen have been well preserved and and pretty high quality every now and then you come across a movie that has obvious seen significant degradation. Sometimes it doesn’t impact the movie experience, but this movie has a lot of scenes that you can barely see anything in between the lighting and the film degradation. The trouble is I have to judge it on the film as it is now, because it’s not like you can hop in a time machine and go and watch this back in the day.

Conclusion

This would have been a much better movie had it focused more on Robinson’s Pete Morgan and less on Nath and Meg. This is basically a tell tale heart story and for that kind of thing you really want to focus on the person hearing the knocking (or in this case screaming). Not to mention, this is Edward G Robinson we’re talking about and he had top billing anyway, so it seems a missed opportunity. The story is interesting though so between that and Robinson’s performance it just about hits a 6/10.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Halloween And What Comes Next!

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I hope those of you that came by over October for my review challenge enjoyed my reviews and maybe found some films to check out (or avoid). As the month went on I found myself writing more and more and while I really needed a break by the end it’s been a strange few days not writing anything. Fun fact, I did the review challenge last year too, I just didn’t have the blog then so it was straight to Facebook and Minds. But I got such a positive reaction and enjoyed it so much it is the reason I started the blog. A few of those reviews have been retrospectively added to the site, but not all as the Facebook reviews were far shorter and only had the one picture.

My Halloween Viewing.

Much like I did last year, the movie I reviewed on Halloween I actually watched the day before and on Halloween itself I treated myself to a triple bill. Last year it was Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Friday the 13th part 6 and Halloween II. Three of the best Slasher sequels you will come across. This year though I went in a different direction. Not sure there really is a theme outside of just being great horror movies (and short enough to make a good triple bill). While I’m not doing reviews I am going to say a little about each one.

Return Of The Living Dead (1985)

The Return of the Living Dead, is the ground breaking “Zomedy” written and directed by the great Dan O’Bannon (Writer of Alien, Dark Star and the comic book that greatly inspired Blade Runner, see part 2 of my Blade Runner Deep Dive on that one). At some point I may have to do a deep dive just on Dan, simply because he just doesn’t get enough credit for his creative input to a number of classics.

Return was one of only three movies he directed, with the rest of his credits being writing, but he did a good job here. The movie was the first to my knowledge that had zombies that that you couldn’t kill by destroying the brain or removing the head. Every part of their body was animated and they didn’t lose their intelligence either. A few months later Re-Animator also used this kind of Zombie (and was also great). It may also have been the first zombie horror comedy.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

Prince of Darkness is part of the great run of films John Carpenter put together in the 80’s and forms part of what is known as his Apocalypse trilogy (Which spans until the 90’s), which includes “The Thing” and “In The Mouth of Madness”. Amongst Carpenter’s output (and especially amongst the 80’s movies) this isn’t likely many peoples favourite, but it’s still a quality movie and 100% classic John Carpenter.

The cast includes several actors from other Carpenter films such as Victor Wong and Dennis Dun (from the previous years “Big Trouble in Little China”) and Carpenter regulars Donald Pleasence and Peter Jason (Who would go on to appear in five more Carpenter movies). It also has a kick ass soundtrack, a random celebrity known for something other than acting (In this case Alice Cooper) and melancholy, claustrophobic theme involving dark secret truths and has a great ending. You know, this may be 110% classic Carpenter.

Event Horizon (1997)

The final movie of my triple bill was Event Horizon. This was panned by critics on release but turned out to be a cult classic and it is in my opinion is a top five horror movie for the 1990’s (or is at least in the conversation). The movie takes the feel of Aliens and slaps on a heavy shade of Hellraiser.

But the funny thing is it could also be in the same universe as the Doom video game seeing as they somewhat share a premise. In the game experiments in teleportation accidentally connect our realm to hell, in Event Horizon an experimental faster than light drive effectively teleports the ship to hell and back, bringing with it an influence of evil.

It fits quite well with the premise of Prince of Darkness, which suggested the evil we know as the devil is actually alien in origin. The other John Carpenter link here is Sam Neil who also featured in “In The Mouth of Madness” (Another one if the conversation for that top 5 spot) and Neil was really on form in the 90’s. Here he proved how good he can be as the antagonist.

Noirvember

When I first started my blog and right after my run of October reviews in 2021, I did something I called “Noirvember”. Since one of my movie passions is Film Noir and there aren’t a lot of websites out there that review both horrors and Film Noir I decided to take some of my momentum from October and channel it into doing a few thematic reviews through November.

I am absolutely going to do that again. Unlike October this isn’t a review a day job. My aim is to do at least four over November (one per week), but after taking a little break out at the start to recover from the Horror season I may well up that. I think I did about six last year, so expect something similar.

If you aren’t a fan of Noir or don’t really know what it is, perhaps this may encourage you to give these old movies a chance. In many ways they have a lot in common with horror between the lighting techniques and the fatalism of the characters. It’s one of the reasons why I find it a good transition back into general movie watching.

Further Down The Road

After November, I may introduce a few more non-review items on the site. I’m unlikely to do another deep dive of the size of the three part Blade Runner one, but not many films are as complicated a thing to get into as that movie. I do want to do more articles on some of my favourites though. Probably the next one will be on The Terminator, but we’ll see. I may do that Dan O’Bannon article too.

I’m also toying with an idea I’m calling “Movie Pitch” where I look at how I would have done something that didn’t work out so well in real life. For example, how I would revive the Terminator franchise (and yes it can be a franchise), how I would have done Universal’s Dark Universe, how I would reboot the Highlander franchise, what I would do to fix Halloween, that kind of thing. These days there are so many franchise down the toilet that I’ll never run out of things to “fix”. But the idea actually came from a Terminator story idea I had. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad. That’s for you to decide.

On top of that, as the new year comes around I will do a year in review again (Maybe not a three part one this time) and of course I may watch and review some new releases.

Pulse (2001)

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So for my final review of the Halloween season (and Happy Halloween to anyone reading this on it’s publishing date) I decided to watch the Japanese ghost story “Pulse” from 2001. I have already seen the Americanised version from 2006, which despite a screenplay from Wes Craven, wasn’t especially good. It did however present interesting ideas and after seeing the original I realise where the film went wrong, but I’ll get to that. My hope was my final review would be an easy one, but I was never going to be let off so easily by a Japanese ghost story. Anyway this one was written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Who even did his own novelisation). The film features two protagonists with parallel stories, who finally meet in the final act. Michi Kudo (played by Kumiko Asō) and Ryosuke Kawashima (played by Haruhiko Katô).

October Review Challenge – Day 31

Michi works in a plant shop. One of her co-workers has been missing for several days while he works on a computer disk to track the shops sales. Michi goes to the man’s apartment to check on him only for him to be aloof during the conversation and casually walk into another room and hang himself. Michi and her friends inspect the disk he left behind and discover it contains an image of Taguchi staring into his own computer monitor, which has an image of him staring into his monitor in an infinite loop. On the other monitor on his desk however they discover another ghostly image staring out.

Meanwhile Ryosuke, a university economics student has just signed up to an internet service provider and is getting on line for the first time. His computer accesses a website by itself showing him disturbing images of people alone in dark rooms. The next day he goes to the university computer lab looking for answers and meets Harue (played by Koyuki Kato). She suggests saving the bookmark or taking a screenshot so she can examine it. That night he attempts to but the computer won’t cooperate and instead shows a video of a man with his head in a plastic bag and the words “Help Me” written all over his walls.

Vanishing People

Over time (I’m skipping a lot of details here) Ryosuke learns a theory that the dead are invading the physical world as their world is over crowded, and they are coming through as a signal that can be picked up by computer equipment. Harue confides in her feelings of isolation to Ryosuke and begins acting strangely. She has concluded that ghosts wouldn’t want to create more ghosts by killing people and would rather trap the living in their own isolation.

Meanwhile Michi has begun to learn about a trend for people to seal off rooms with red tape and that inside those rooms is a ghost and that seeing the ghosts face causes the victim to eventually disappear. All her friends at the plant shop eventually go this way. More and more people begin to disappear around them with a list of apparently endless names being broadcast on an abandoned television set.

Eventually Michi and Ryosuke meet and may be the only two people remaining (In the city at least). They decide to leave the city. Can they make it out and what will it cost them? You’ll have to watch to find out as I’m not spoiling the ending.

Pacing and Atmosphere

Before I get onto the heavy theme of the film I want to touch on the main negative and that is the pacing and length. As a two hour movie it’s moments of tension are spaced out and a lot of events are effectively repeated to help drive home the themes. I can’t help but feel the choice to follow two characters mixed with the need to drive the theme meant the film would always end up dragging in places. A more minor issue is that there is also a degree of character stupidity in how often they go into forbidden rooms, but that at least could be explained by them already being affected by the ghosts. The only one that was truly grating was the last character to do such a thing.

The film has a very minimal soundtrack, but this is for good reason. The silence between discordant noises and ghostly strings give a feeling of melancholy and emptiness to the events on screen. It is a technique that fits the theme perfectly. The soundtrack itself when it plays doesn’t stand out as especially good but it is how it is used that makes it work. Time to talk about that theme though.

You Feel So Lonely You Could Die

Loneliness is the theme here and in a very strong way and watching this now rather than when it first came out the first thing that came to mind is “Hikikomori”. This is a term first coined in 1998 by Japanese psychiatrist Professor Tamaki Saito. Saito chose the term to describe the many young people he saw who didn’t fit criteria for mental health diagnosis, but were nonetheless in a state of extreme, distressing withdrawal. Over the years since this has been found to apply to older generations too and become a recognised terms for the many Japanese people (Mostly, but not exclusively young males) that now live their lives almost entirely in their own bedroom.

When the film came out, though the phenomenon had been noted in Japan it was largely unknown outside and so reviewers at the time likely wouldn’t have seen the link but to me it is pretty clear. The question is, was this referring to something Kurosawa knew about or was he predicting the future based on what he had noted from the loneliness in his own society. Maybe he never intended it to be a social commentary and was just speaking on his own feelings, but now with the Hikikomori estimated to be 1.2% of the Japanese population (around a million people) it certainly feels like social commentary.

Logging On….

In the early 2000’s a lot of people went online seeking to find a connection with other human being via the internet. In doing so that left many of them chasing a connection with people that don’t even know are real at the expense of those around them that are. As a character in the story is manipulated by the ghosts they withdrawal more from their real life friends, their family and their occupation. Harue Karasawa speaks somewhat directly about this, saying all the people in their isolated rooms on their computers are no different to ghosts. It’s worth noting the ghosts even make modem noises as they approach people.

Most of the characters in the film do not start off physically isolated though most are isolated internally. Aloof from society to some degree and as the ghosts start to mess with them they feel more isolated. One of the minor characters makes a remark to Michi Kudo wondering if friendship is really worth it since you both end up hurting each other eventually, Many interactions between characters have this kind of tone to it. People deciding they are alone even when they are not. Harue takes this negativity a stage further by suggesting that even death may be eternal isolation.

Finding The Will To Go On.

Harue also suggests that if the ghosts are here because their realm is overflowing they wouldn’t kill people, they would seek to trap them in their own loneliness. There is an odd mismatch here though, if the ghosts are lonely, wouldn’t they want more ghosts even if their domain was overflowing? Also half the victims of the ghosts kill themselves and then leave a black smudge while the other half that doesn’t kill themself just fade into a black smudge anyway. Their fate appears the same either way. Perhaps that is a deliberate point, isolation is the same as death.

The two protagonists seem to have the most resistance to the curse of Loneliness. Ryosuke is himself a loner, but it doesn’t seem to bother him that much. He mentions that he wants to live forever at some point, so despite his isolation he has a resolve to keep going. Michi by comparison is very social and seems to care deeply about all her friends. Her desire to keep going seems at it’s lowest at the start of the final act but once she meets Ryosuke her resolve for survival returns. It is interesting then to consider the pairs final fate. Worse for one that the other but sad for both of them.

Conclusion

Before I give my score for this, I want to talk briefly about the American version. The reason that version fell flat was because it switched the focus from loneliness to the internet/signal side of things and with that switch tried to turn it into a fairly generic horror film. The idea of ghosts coming through the internet isn’t a bad one to explore (Indeed for a more fun version of that check out “Nekrotronic” from 2018), but it missed the point of this particular story. That the US wasn’t at the time having the same issues as Japan did with it’s Hikikomori and that the phenomenon wasn’t really known outside Japan at that time likely factored into missing the point. But enough about the remake.

Overall, while the film drags a little the way it digs deep into everyone’s fear of loneliness makes for a great psychological horror and the ghosts themselves present in forms that manage to to be disturbing while not requiring them to really do much. The talking black smudges and the people on the computer screens also manage to be very creepy. Basically the horror aspects are strong here despite a near complete lack of gore or violence (Suicides aside). Of all the films I’ve seen over this October this one actually came closest to disturbing me. This is a strong 7/10 and I think the front runner of the season. That is what you call finishing strong.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

I’m going to have at least a week off reviews now after doing 31 in a row. But November is “Noirvember” so expect at a few Film Noir reviews out later in the month. Till then, Happy Halloween!

The Bad Seed (1956)

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Today’s review is for the 1956 movie about a child psychopath, “The Bad Seed”. This was based on the play and novel by the same name and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Despite the warning at the credits not to spoil the ending for other viewers, I will absolutely be spoiling it, since the ending factors in to my score. So if you feel the need to avoid those for this nearly 70 year old film you may want to skip this one (or come back to it after you’ve watched). Let’s dig in.

October Review Challenge – Day 30

The movie starts with a very traditional 50’s style family scene with parents Kenneth (William Hopper) and Christine (Nancy Kelly) doting on their 8 year old daughter Rhoda (Patty McCormack). Rhoda tells them and their neighbour/landlady Monica (Evelyn Varden), about a writing medal that she should have won, but some boy won instead. Rhoda has a mini tantrum over this but cheers up quickly to say goodbye to her father who will be away on business for an extended period. She then heads off for her schools picnic at the lake.

Tragedy strikes during the picnic as one of the boys dies on the old pier, an area where the children were not meant to be. The boy in question is “Claude”, the one that won the writing medal, which he had with him on the trip. Though it was not recovered. Rhoda returns home but seems in a buoyant mood, not at all impacted by the loss of her classmate. Indeed her main interest is in the fact that they didn’t get to have the picnic and so she wants feeding.

The Little Terror

Christine finds from Rhoda’s teacher that she was apparently the last person seen with Claude and was apparently trying to steal his medal off him. Meanwhile the creepy caretaker Leroy Jessup (Henry Jones) is teasing Rhoda about the boys death saying he knows she did it, assuming she used a stick and saying that water won’t wash off blood and the police will find it. Rhoda then asks her mother if this is true, which confuses Christine.

Later Christine finds the medal in Rhoda’s room and starts to suspect. Something that comes to a head when she catches Rhoda attempting to dispose of her shoes and she admits that she killed the boy. Christine also realises that she killed an old neighbour of theirs too because she wanted to inherit a snow globe the old woman had promised her. Christine is distraught but determined to protect her girl. She tells her to put the shoes in the furnace and says she will dispose of the medal (Which she later tells Rhoda she did at the lake).

Death and Judgement.

Leroy teases Rhoda again, this time Rhoda reveals she used her shoes and not a stick and that she burned them, to which the caretaker claims to have rescued the shoes from the furnace. To which Rhoda gets made and threatens him if he does return them. It finally dawns on Mr. Dalgie that she isn’t just playing along with him but is actually a killer. Scared, he admits he doesn’t have the shoes, but Rhoda doesn’t believe this. This of course spells the end for Dalgie as Rhoda sets his makeshift bedding alight as he slept in the basement and locked him in.

This turns out to be the final stray for Christine that decides the only thing to do is to kill her daughter. She tricks her into taking an overdose of sleeping pills and then heads to her room and shoots herself. Unfortunately her neighbours hear the shot and save both their lives. However while Christine is recovering in hospital. Rhoda goes down to the lake during a stormy night to try and find her medal and is struck by lightning.

Ironically her characters desire for an award she didn’t deserve wasn’t enough to get the actress one she did.

Oscar Worthy?

First and foremost we have to talk about Patty McCormack and Rhoda. The little 11 year old actress puts on an incredibly convincing performance of a psychopathic 8 year old child. Children in horror isn’t totally unheard of at the time (Night of the Hunter was only a year earlier) however, the idea of a child as the villain in a horror was as far as I can tell unheard of. That would make Rhoda a ground breaking character and even more impressive for the performance of McCormack who would have had no frame of reference. By the 1970’s we’d have Village of the Damned, The Omen and The Exorcist, but those were a long way off when The Bad Seed came around.

While Harvey Spencer Stephens was only 6 when he played Damien Thorn in The Omen, I can’t help but feel that role was a lot simpler, most of the time he just had to look moody while the effects dealt with the actual horror part. McCormack however actually isn’t seen doing any of the crimes, so selling her evil is entirely down to her actions and dialogue on screen and her performance was top notch. Linda Blair on the other hand had a few extra years of maturity before she played the possessed Regan (She was 14 I think, which is probably still too young for what that role required). Rhoda isn’t as scary as Regan, but the fact that The Bad Seed feels like something that could happen in real life means the film is on some levels more unsettling.

Minor Issues

However you frame it, it was a very impressive performance and one for which she was nominated for a Oscar as best supporting actress. I’ve not seen “Written on the Wind” so I can’t just say if Dorothy Malone (the winner of best supporting actress that year) deserved it more than Patty McCormack, but this is another performance that certainly was good enough for a win. One of the things I noted in the film was how much more convincing her performance was than her nemesis’ the families handy man “Leeroy”, played by Henry Jones. In their scenes together 11 year old Patty is acting rings around the 44 year old man. Fortunately Nancy Kelly as lead holds up better and the pair had a great chemistry together.

The story itself is mostly good but isn’t without problems. Rhoda has clearly been evil for a while, but the film relies on her mask slipping just over the period of the film, so much so that her mother starts to suspect her. While there is a trigger event and a few of the other character suspect she’s not what she pretends to be, the amount the mask slips during the film makes it hard to believe it hasn’t slipped before (and regularly). On top of that Christine’s side plot with her fears of being adopted fits uneasily into the story by trying to find a genetic cause for Rhoda being a sociopath. Of course this thread leads to the name of the film and possibly Christine’s final solution, but it could probably have been dealt with faster.

Crime Does Not Pay, at least not between 1934 and 1968 Anyway.

The Hays Code And The 1950’s Audience.

Speaking of Christine’s solution, the ending of the film unfortunately has “The Hays Code” written all over it and in an unfortunate way. The code would have called for Rhoda to be punished for her crimes. That, I don’t especially have an issue with but how it was done felt false and tacked on. They actually had a perfect ending already in the bag but instead of allowing the very sad ending of a mother killing her own child and then herself, they played it out, then had both miraculously survive and then had the movie end with Rhoda randomly get killed by lightning while trying to retrieve the medal she was so covetous of. As satisfying as it was to see Rhoda basically get blown up, it felt a painfully contrived.

This then is followed up by a cast parade and a little scene where Rhoda gets a spanking from her mother. Clearly they wanted to remind people this was only fiction. Clearly the film was considered too dark and that is likely too why they had both characters survive Christine’s murder/suicide. I understand that in 1956 this may have been shocking to the audience but for me it just seemed sloppy. I can’t help but feel if they didn’t want Christine to succeed but did want Rhoda to die they should have found a more natural way for one of her schemes to backfire. I mean the Hays code had been in place for a long time by now, so they must have known the ending was an issue going in.

A Post Credit Spanking

Conclusion

Overall, this is a pretty good film, but one severely limited by the time it was made. Had it come out 12 years later it wouldn’t have been restricted by the Hays Code and wouldn’t have had the messy ending. The movie is ahead of it’s time, but there is a point where you can be too ahead of your time (Sega Dreamcast anyone?) and The Bad Seed is at the very least right up against that line. However, despite the ending and some minor pacing issues (and some bad acting from the supporting cast), this is a compelling story with great performance from Patty McCormack, a very gifted eleven year old (Who is now in her late 70’s of course) along with a strong lead performance from Nancy Kelly. Even with the Hays code stuff, this is still a strong 6.5/10

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Cronos (1993)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight we delve deep into past of legendary film maker Guillermo del Toro. I first came across his work with Blade II in 2002 (Which I still maintain is way better than the first film), but it was actually a decade earlier that Guillermo made his feature film debut with the movie Cronos, a mostly Spanish language film (With some English in places). The film was made for a mere $2m, small even for the day and the lowest of all of Del Toro’s films. Interestingly amongst the cast is Ron Perlman, effectively playing the movies main antagonist. Perlman would have been known from the Beauty and the Beast series of the late 80’s, but didn’t really make a name for himself on the big screen until a decade later in Del Toro’s “Hellboy” (2004).

The lead of the movie though is Federico Luppi as “Jesus Gris”, Claudio Brook supports as the rich and powerful De La Guardia though his ambitious nephew and henchman “Angel”, played by Perlman is the real antagonist. Tamara Xanath completes the main cast as Jesus’ granddaughter “Aurora”. Del Toro is sole writer as well as director.

October Review Challenge – Day 29

The movie begins with an explanation of the Cronos device, created by an ancient alchemist to give him immortality. It seems to have prolonged his life a good 400 years, but after after an old building he was in collapsed and his heart was pierced by debris he eventually died. He was described as having marble skin and his mansion was discovered to the scene of multiple murders. The device however was never found.

Our focus then changes to antique shop owner, Jesus Cris. A strange man takes a particular interest in one of his statues (one of an Archangel) and then quickly leave the shop, which leads to Jesus investigating it and discovering it has a hollow base. Inside of which is a strange device that looks a bit like an insect. He puts the statue back together and returns it to the shop, but sets the unusual device aside. Not long after the statue is purchased by a large man called “Angel”.

Age and Addiction

While investigating the device with his granddaughter Aurora, the decide opens up some sharp leg like sections that grip his hand, puncturing the skin. He tears the device off and goes to treat his wound. Later that night though, he finds himself drawn to use the device again, this time allowing the process to complete it’s cycle. He reacts to it like he is taking a hit of heroin, and is observed by Aurora who is disturbed by this. Jesus assures her he is okay. The next day he discovers he is looking younger and he feels younger too.

On his arrival at the antiques store he finds it has been broken into and a note is left telling him to go to a particular address and bring the device. He arrives to find the man that purchased the statue and is taken to his uncle, De la Guardia who questions him about the device and notices the wound on his hand. Jesus admits he accidentally used the device and De La Guardia calls him an idiot. He points out there are very specific rules for using the device. Jesus gives him a box and leaves, but the box turns out to only contain the broken locks from his store. De La Guardia warns him he may have the device but he will never share with him the instructions.

Funerals and Finales

Later at a New Years Eve party Jesus finds himself drawn to the blood of a man who suffered a nose bleed. He is busy licking some of the blood off the floor when he is kicked in the face by Angel. When he wakes up, Angel beats him and eventually sends his car off a cliff apparently killing him. However after being declared dead and having a funeral Jesus returns from the dead, narrowly escaping his own cremation. With his skin appearing to rot and him now being burned by sunlight he seeks his Granddaughter who creates a space for him in their attic so he can hide out for the moment.

Eventually Jesus determines he must confront De La Guardia and find out what is happening and seek a solution. This leads to a final confrontation with both his antagonists and the decision he must make over his future and what is of most importance to him.

Visuals and Symbolism

As his first feature and with the limited budget it’s no surprise the film doesn’t quite achieve the impressive visuals that Del Toro is known for, but that’s not to say it totally lacks any traces of it. The shots early on of the macabre mansion in which the alchemist lives, along with the visuals from inside the device itself give a hint of the visual imagination that would become one of his trademarks. Even in the rest of the film, while the visuals aren’t quite so lavish they still manage to find time for symbolism, such as a man wearing a clock outfit (part of the NYE celebration but having a additional meaning here).

One of the more subtle elements of this movie I like is the quiet but vitally important relationship between Jesus and his granddaughter Aurora. This is pure Del Toro and puts the story into a more personal level. Aurora’s love allows her to see past the monster he has become, to try and stop his addiction and to stand by him when no one else likely would. She does all this while barely saying a word and ultimately it is this love that saves Jesus. It is the heart of the story.

A New Take On An Old Myth

What does stand out here though is Del Toro’s gift for doing something original with a not so original idea. In this instance it is the story of the vampire (Which of course he would hit once again with Blade 2). Perhaps tied with the space aliens from “Lifeforce” (1985), this is the most original depiction of Vampires I have seen and it is done in such a clever way that it really doesn’t feel like a vampire film until the final act. Interestingly there is something Cronenberg like to how a lot of it is depicted, but Guillermo practices restraint and makes sure to keep focus.

This form of vampirism is something man made, not a curse from god as was depicted in 1992’s Francis Ford Coppala’s “Dracula” and I wonder if that is a deliberate move to be counter to that idea. It’s also not romanticised or even sexualised (part of what prevents it seeming overly Cronenberg) as it tends to be with Vampire stories. Vampirism here is presented as an addiction, with Jesus himself making a direct comparison to how he used to be addicted to cigarettes and the way he humiliates himself to lick drops of blood off the floor is a dark place many addicts have gone to find their hit.

Heaven and Hellboy

The religious symbolism is in full force here and is perhaps a little too obvious. While Jesus is a pretty common name amongst Spanish speaking communities, Gris is not a common surname in those communities (At least not as far as the few minutes of research I just did suggests), so when you have a character called “Jesus Cris” and he gets to return from the grave a few days after dying and is associated with a guy called “Angel” who has been collecting statues of arch-angels, it’s sort of hard to miss. Though I do have to take into account cultural differences here. The Latin countries tend to be more religious, so perhaps this isn’t as heavy handed as it seems to me.

Probably the weakest part of the film is, perhaps surprisingly, Ron Perlman. A decade later he’d be performing his career best as Hellboy under Del Toro’s directorship, but here he puts in a somewhat unconvincing performance, but to be fair a part of that is in the character design. As someone not directly involved with or understanding the vampire curse he is somewhat removed from the main story and yet he is the one that has the most direct confrontation with Jesus and the one he fights in the final act.

It’s not helped that Perlman also seems the main source of comedy relief in the movie (The only other real source being the mortuary worker), so the main antagonist is also the main comedy relief and that didn’t really work for me. I feel like it would have been better for Angel to be relegated to lacky status with his uncle finding a way to the final confrontation. Fortunately the films focus is more on Jesus than on his conflict with the La Guardia family.

Conclusion

While the movie is not perfect and in my humble opinion not Del Toro’s best (certainly not his most visually appealing), it is a movie that deserves accolades both for it’s originality in a well trod genre and for the many layers of substance to the story. From the religious aspect, to the metaphor for addiction to the strength of family bonds it makes for an interesting movie that feels like it has meaning. This is a sturdy 7/10 and possibly the new front runner of my October Horrorthon (I’ll figure that out at the end).

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Wait Until Dark (1967)

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For tonight’s movie we’re going for more of a psychological thriller than an outright horror (Though it is X rated). This is the 1967 Audrey Hepburn classic “Wait Until Dark”. This was Hepburn’s final movie of her main run of movie stardom, after which she decided to semi-retire and she wouldn’t return to the screen until nine years later with 1976’s Robin and Marian (Which is a fantastic film btw, with Sean Connery as Robin). Wait Until Dark won her nominations for the Golden Globes and Academy Awards for best actress (Losing out to Katharine Hepburn).

Her main support in the movie comes from Richard Crenna, who most movie fans will know as Rambo’s only friend Trautman, but alongside Crenna is Alan Arkin and Jack Weston. The movie is helmed by long time James Bond director Terence Young and is based on a Frederick Knott play (Likely why this is mostly a one room story).

October Review Challenge – Day 28

The movie begins with an altercation at an airport. A woman named Lisa (Samantha Jones) is smuggling heroin inside an old-fashioned doll, but is spooked by the presence of a man at the airport. She gives the doll to a man Sam Hendrix (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) for safe keeping with some story about it being a gift she wants to keep secret, with the intention of picking it up later. A few days later a pair of conmen, Mike (Crenna) and Carlino (Weston) arrive at the apartment of Sam and his blind wife, Susy (Hepburn) believing it to be Lisa’s residence.

The pair are surprised by the arrival of Harry Roat (The man from the airport) who tries to convince them to help locate the doll. They discover the corpse of Lisa and Roat blackmails them (As their prints are all over the house by now) to assist him in disposing of the body and then finding the Doll. The criminals assume the doll is either hidden somewhere, or possibly locked in the a safe that is in the front room. The group then engages in an elaborate con scheme to trick Sam’s wife Susy into revealing to doll’s location and/or opening the safe where they think it is being stored. As part of their con they have taken over a nearby phone booth so they can use it as a fake contact number.

Taking Advantage.

The scheme relies heavily on taking advantage of the fact that Susy is blind. However as the evening goes on she starts to become suspicious and she is aided by Gloria (Julie Herrod), a young girl that lives in the flat upstairs and occasionally helps susy with chores who is able to see the men use the telephone booth from her window upstairs. Unfortunately she is a little too trusting in Mike who had been posing as an old friend of her husbands and before she realises he is in on the scheme she admits that she now has the doll (Gloria had spotted it earlier and had “borrowed” it). She quickly hides and then sends him on a wild goose chase to her husbands office a few streets away.

Unfortunately some of the crew have remained outside to watch the building, so she is still trapped. Out of desperation she sends Gloria to meet her husband at the bus station (where he will be returning to imminently) and starts to prepare the apartment to make it more difficult for them on their return, mostly involving breaking all the lights. When Mike returns the situation changes drastically as allies turn on each other and it looks like Susie may be at the mercy of the psychopathic Mr. Roat. No more spoilers though, you will have to watch to find out how this all ends.

Oscar Worthy Performance?

The obvious thing to note here is the quality of Hepburn’s performance. She lost out on the Oscar to Katharine Hepburn for “Look Whose Coming to Dinner” and I can’t help but feel Katharine as great an actress as she was, won that award by virtue of the movies perceived importance and the popularity of her pairing with Spencer Tracy. Take that out of the picture and I can’t help but feel Audrey was cheated. I have never seen a more convincing performance from someone that isn’t blind playing a blind person. She didn’t do it with the benefit of sunglasses either, so every moment she is on screen she had to convince the viewer with her eyes that she couldn’t see and she does it so well it didn’t even feel like an act.

It’s interesting that blind characters seem to be the last thing in Hollywood that can be played by someone that doesn’t have that specific issue. Hollywood insists on casting actually deaf actors as deaf characters, but when it comes to blind ones it seems fair game. Not sure how long that will continue but even while it continues I doubt someone could do a better job than Audrey did here. Outside of acting blind she puts forth the characters good nature, her struggles with her disability and the sheer terror of the situation incredibly well. However, while I have nothing but praise for the performance the character herself comes across as almost naive in her good nature and far too trusting.

The Villains.

There is a solid performance here from Richard Crena too as the primary antagonist and most likeable of the bunch. You feel he is warming to Susy while also becoming frustrated with her. Good job the chemistry was there since the majority of the film is just him and Hepburn. Alan Arkin as the dangerous Mr. Roat however is a more interesting case. He plays his character over the top, almost like a comic book villain but the interesting thing here is that were he to appear in a movie or TV show these days no one would bat an eyelid to it. Indeed the character would probably be praised.

The strangely nonchalant psycho is a mainstay of modern fiction, for example the show “Mr. Robot” was packed to the brim with characters just like Roat. Back in the 60’s however, his performance seemed out of place. Jack Weston as Carlino is largely just there, but doesn’t harm the film. There was however one very minor (uncredited) role of a character called “Shatner” early on that stood out for notably poor acting, but the moment passed quickly and character didn’t return.

Sound and Story

Another strong aspect of this movie is the Henry Mancini soundtrack. While a good part of it is standard Mancini with a somewhat romantic tone, there are good portions of it that make use of discordant harmonies and somewhat off tunings. It is perhaps a bit of an evolution from Mancini’s “Experiment in Terror” soundtrack, but I feel perhaps with a bit of an influence from Bernard Herrmann’s psycho thrown in for good measure. One of the best things about watching movies from the 60’s is getting to hear soundtracks like this.

The plot is perhaps a weakness. The story relies heavily on the actors to raise it up since the truth is not a huge amount goes on here. There isn’t a great deal of character development and no plot twists so to speak. It is simply a matter of Susy slowly figuring out what is going on around her but even when she figures it out there is little she can do other than try and survive the night. The game of cat and mouse is entertaining to watch though in places you need a great deal of suspension of disbelief. Ultimately though the performances trump the failings in the story and make the tension feel real enough to ignore a few plot holes. The film does drag a bit in the middle though, but not drastically.

The Fear Factor.

In regard to it’s horor based aspects, Susy goes full “Final Girl” at the end and we have three murders throughout the night, including the classic discovery of a corpse in a wardrobe. One of the murders involving vehicular manslaughter was outright brutal and while not featuring gore does involve the guy running back and forwards over the body. I can see how the movie got an X rating. Compared to modern horrors it’s not that intense but it does satisfy in the same way an 80’s final girl survival does. That’s not to say this is really a horror, since the majority of the film is just two-three people talking in a room (Well it is based on a play).

Conclusion.

This was always going to be a movie made or broken by it’s lead. Fortunately it’s the former. There wasn’t quite enough to the story to hit a truly high score here but it definitely deserves a spot in this October’s 7/10 club and probably deserved the Best Actress Oscar too, but that’s the Oscars for you.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Werewolf By Night (2022)

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Tonight’s movie is technically as a “TV Special” instead of a movie, but as a stand alone story of 52 minutes length and some of the movies it pays homage to are only around one hour too I feel this counts. “Werewolf By Night” is technically part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though the story has no direct links or mention of other aspects of the MCU so it is for all intents and purposes a separate world (At least for now). The story is based around two Marvel characters that date back to the early 1970’s, the title character (Often just referred to as “The Werewolf” in the comics) is joined by “Man-Thing” a character similar to DC’s “Swamp Thing” but who debuted two months earlier. The story is directed by Michael Giacchino and written by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron. It starts Gael García Bernal and Laura Donnelly.

October Review Challenge – Day 27

The story starts (In black and white) with the introduction of an ancient society of monster hunters. The groups leader, Ulysses Bloodstone (Another character taken directly from the 70’s comics) has died recently and so they need to crown a new leader of this society. For this purpose they have designed a special monster hunt where the winner is not only crowned the leader but also gains possession of the powerful artifact the “Bloodstone” (Whose red glow is the only colour on screen for most of the film).

The participants are those hunters with the highest kill ratio, including Jack Russell (Bernal) and Bloodstone’s estranged daughter Elsa (Donnelly). The hunters are only allowed to use the weapons hidden around the estate and may combat each other as well as the creature. Spoilers ahead (Though I don’t feel these are big ones).

Werewolf Amongst Us

Unbeknownst to the rest of the hunters and the events hostess (Bloodstone’s widow Verussa), Russell is not there to hunt the monster and has no interest in the Bloodstone, he is actually a friend of the monster and there to free him. He ends up teaming up with Elsa who is very different to the other hunters herself. The rest of the group are vicious and bloodthirsty, as eager to fight and kill each other as they are to hunt the monster.

But when Elsa and Russell cross paths they clearly have no interest in fighting and as a result end up working together, especially when Russell comes clean to Elsa that he isn’t after the Stone, only the Monster, whom he calls “Ted”. As the Hunt concludes, Verussa turns on Elsa and Russell and this sets up a final confrontation where we finally get to see the Werewolf the story is named for. No spoilers for what happens here, but you can probably guess as a Marvel film who is going to come out on top.

Wait… Marvel did something good again?

One of the reasons I wanted to review this is because Marvel has been incredibly disappointing for me over the last few year. The good story they’ve attempted to tell since “End Game” was “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. As a result I didn’t rush in to watch this, but when I did it was a huge relief. This was very well made. Here we see versions of classic Marvel characters actually done justice too. So while I’m focused on horror this month I really wanted to highlight Marvel doing something actually good!

There is a little bit of modern day subversion thrown in and Jack and Ted have some changes to their comic book personality but the changes work so that’s not really a problem. Elsa being a post 2000 character I’m less familiar with as I have read few Marvel comics post 2000 (and the ones I read I didn’t like that much), but the character on screen is good and seems like a good combination of ass kicking and actually being likeable.

A love letter to Universal

The most impressive part of this story by far though is the visuals. The intent here is to make people think of the classic Universal Monster movies of the 1930’s (and to a lesser extent the 1940’s) and to achieve this the most obvious creative decision is the use of black and white. However, this isn’t a grainy film black and white, it is a very clean modern black and white, with a spot of red thrown in through the bloodstone. A touch that was not needed, but looked damn good visually so I still approve.

The design of many of the visuals, such as the use of the ancient mansion and of the shadow play do a great job of reminding you of the Universal movies without being overly limited by that nostalgia. They have a lot more space to play with but they make sure to drop in a more Claustrophobic feel every now and then. Really outside artificially reducing the the quality of the picture and the effects there is not much else they could do to make it feel authentic. This takes the best aspects of the modern and mixes it with the best aspects of that classic style.

The Wolf Man and The Giant Sized Man-Thing!

One of the best examples here is in the design of The Werewolf. It’s worth noting he’s had several different looks in the comic, so creative changes are par for the course. Here they’ve basically taken a design that is similar to both 1935’s “Werewolf of London” and 1941’s “The Wolfman” but then taken to the pinnacle of what you can achieve with CGI. It creates perhaps the best looking werewolf I’ve seen on screen for a long time. The transformation is done beautifully too with

Contrasting to that Man-Thing (a.k.a. Ted, the hunted monster) is kept largely to his comic book look and while he is black and white, he obviously would never fit with a Universal movie of the 1930’s. They could have tried to make him look like a guy in a suit or something but it would have ruined it so they didn’t, they just made him look like the comic and it worked superbly.

Music To My Ears.

Outside of the look (Which is always going to be the main thing with this special/movie), I have to compliment the use of music. It’s worth noting Michael Giacchino is actually better known as a composer. This is his directorial debut and so naturally he did the music. But this allowed him to work the music precisely against the images on screen. This is another sensible change from how things were actually done for the peak period of the Universal Horrors from 1930-1936.

In those years speech on film was new and while silent movies had accompanying music (and occasionally original scores, such as for Nosferatu), the early talkies tended to have minimal non-diegetic music (that is, music that doesn’t have an on screen source) and the music that was there tended to be stock music, usually classical and in the case of Universal horror often mixed very low. So the use of music here is less about nostalgia and more about enhancing the visuals and it works well. This is a case of creating things how people remember it instead of how it was. No complaints here.

Assessment

Though the story doesn’t really tax any of the actors they all perform their jobs well enough. There is no particular stand out but no let downs either. The story is engaging and fun but also very straight forward. We go in knowing who the Werewolf is (Even if it wasn’t on the poster you’d guess in seconds) and we know inevitably he’ll wolf out, so there is no real complexity there.

Along that many of the side characters lack a bit for the short screen time. Honestly though with only 50 minutes of time they tell the story they needed to, they don’t break anything in doing it, they introduce three interesting characters and the have a good mixture of fun and engagement along the way.

It does what it needs to and nothing more. Clearly Giacchino was given free reign to do what he wanted (where as with the MCU usually the directors have little control) and it paid off big. I don’t know if this will prod the MCU into a more interesting direction through it’s success, but I do hope we get to see more of these characters in the future.

On the other hand it may end up as Marvel’s “Joker” an outlier reminding us of what is possible, but what may not ever be the studios preferred path. Perhaps more of note for the future though is Giacchino, a man that clearly has as much of an eye for visuals as he has an ear for music. If Universal had any sense to them they’d pouch him and get him to work with the actual Universal Monsters.

Conclusion

Overall, with such a short amount of time this achieves a lot. It’s not perfect, but what it lacks is mostly what could have been added instead of mistakes with what is there. I think this is well deserving of the second 7/10 from me this October. Time is running out for anything to overtake so as it stands so far this “Special” is my number 2 horror (or horror adjacent) movie this year around.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Barbarian (2022)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight’s feature is the recently released film “Barbarian”, written and direct by Zach Cregger and staring Georgina Campbell with support from Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long. This has built itself up quite the degree of hype recently and done alright for itself at the box office (That is to say, it’s made back substantially more than it’s $4.5m production budget). Does it deserve that hype? That’s what we are here to find out. As this is a new release I will tread carefully with the spoilers. They will be mild, but I’m not going to directly reveal the nature of the threat in the movie or tell you how it ends. I am going to go further than the trailer however (Which includes no footage from after the 40m mark, though it’s not actually hiding much of note with that). Anyway let’s dig in.

October Review Challenge – Day 26.

The film begins when our heroine Tess (Campbell) is heading to her AirBnB, she finds the place already occupied due to an apparent mix up. At first she doesn’t trust the other renter, Keith (Skarsgård) but eventually she realises he is okay and actually a decent guy. He agrees she can stay and take the bed while he takes the sofa and after a fairly restless night she wakes to find he had to head off. She goes to her job interview (the reason for the stay) and on returning Keith still isn’t back. Left in the house alone she becomes curious and looks around but ends up locked in the basement when the door closes behind her. While trying to find a way out she discovers a secret passage with a hidden room with a bed, a camera, a bucket and a bloody hand print on the wall.

Tess panics but hears Keith trying to get in (Tess has the front door key), she attracts his attention at the small window to the basement and he frees here. She tells him about the room and so he investigates. When he doesn’t come back Tess looks for him and realises there is another secret door behind the first. This is where we reach serious spoiler territory, so I’m going to skip a bit. Things happen in the basement, but around the 40 minute mark, after exhausting all the trailer footage we pretty much reset.

Enter The Douchebag.

We begin again, this time following “AJ” (Justin Long), a sitcom actor and apparently a bit of a douche. He’s facing financial ruin after a co-star made allegations of rape against him and as such having to sell a lot of properties he owns to pay for his legal defence. Once such property is the Airbnb that Tess and Keith were at. He decides to visit the property to assess it’s value. When he arrives he discovers the pairs belongings and suspects them to be squatters as there is no record of the place being rented recently.

While investigating the house naturally he too finds the basement (It’s clear he’s never visited the property), though instead of responding in shock to the first room he just starts measuring it up considering it an asset in the sale. On discovering the second door he too ends up in trouble. At which point we get another total change of scene and flashback to the 80’s for a sort of explanation to what is happening (and what happens next). That’s as far as I’ll cover the story, since this is fresh out and clearly the film makers wanted most of this to be a surprise

The Good, The Bad And The Unnecisary.

So the first thing to say about this is I really liked the first 40 minutes. I was thinking “This is going to be a 7/10 film at the minimum” for a lot of it. We had a 20 minute intro to the characters, then some creepy stuff happens and we are at the crunch moment of any horror film where the world gets turned upside down at that 40 minute mark. But then… then we start from the beginning again but with a less likeable character. We get about 20 minutes of this douche just going about his life before he starts investigating the basement and we’re back to where I thought we were nearly half an hour earlier.

Then once that segment is over we get our origin story which frankly was totally unnecessary. I’m sure they felt it was visually good to do it, but the character that introduces barely factors in to the story, what it tells you about the rest of the story could have been discovered by other means and the whole section is just a time waster. It’s especially a time waster when another character shows up in the main story that is a classic exposition dump character. This character basically informs the audience exactly what it is all about, making the whole flashback totally redundant.

More Padding Than A Padded Cell.

On a personal note, I really hate exposition dump characters, especially when their time in the film is so short that you know they were literally written in for that one purpose and especially when most of the info wasn’t actually necessary for the film. Along with the double start, the double explanation (Flashback and Mr. Exposition) I can’t help but feel that Cregger simply couldn’t decide which path to follow and so just did both. Either that or he realised he only had about an hour of material and desperately needed to pad it out.

The thing is you could edit this film down to around an hour. Take the first 40 minutes and the final 20 and you wouldn’t actually miss anything. At that point you have a pretty good hour long story, though it has to be said the final act is not great either. Not only do we have an exposition dump character we also have cops so incompetent that it breaks suspension of disbelief. The AJ character is also too far over the top at one point throwing his own gun away because he’s that much of an incompetent tool.

Conclusion

What is in the basement is actually well done and creepy. The actors do a good job and sound design and music add to the tension but it’s not enough to make up for the time wasting pace crash in the second act and the generic cheese of the third. If I was to rate each section we’d have 7/10 for act 1, 4/10 for act 2 and 5.5/10 for the conclusion. That averages at 5.5 but a film isn’t just three acts separately (Anthologies aside) and as a whole there remains some additional gaping plot holes that were never addressed. So with that in mind I’m marking this down as a 5/10. Disappointing.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Alone In The Dark (1982)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight’s horror movie is 1982’s “Alone in the Dark”. This is no relation to the 1992 video game or the Uwe Boll. This was the first movie actually produced by New Line Cinema (Previously they were only a distributor). This is the second movie of my October reviews this year to be directed by Jack Sholder (“The Hidden” being my previous one). This however was his feature film debut.

The movie features a lot of recognisable names. The lead however is Dwight Schultz who you may recognise as “Mad Murdoch” from the A-Team. This movie clearly gave him a lot of tips on how to play crazy people. Notable support includes horror legend Donald Pleasance as “Dr. Leo Bain”, the great Jack Palance as “Frank Hawkes” and Martin Landau in one of his strongest performances as Byron ‘Preacher’ Sutcliff.

October Review Challenge – Day 25

The story begins with psychiatrist Dan Potter’s first day on the job at the experimental psychiatric hospital “Haven” in New Jersey. He is replacing a doctor that has moved on to a different hospital in Philadelphia and amongst his new charges are dangerous psychopaths Frank Hawkes (Palance) a former POW twisted by his experiences, pyromaniac Byron “Preacher” Sutcliff (Landau), the child molester Ronald “Fatty” Elster (Erland Van Lidth) and shy serial killer John “The Bleeder” Skaggs (named for getting nosebleeds when he has the urge to kill), who refuses to show his face.

The security system that keeps the psychopaths in check is one that relies entirely on electricity. Which is obviously a terrible choice and leads to them getting out when shortly after there is a power cut. Thanks to Hawkes tendency towards conspiracy theories the group believe that Potter has murdered their previous psychiatrist so he can take their place and that he intends to kill them next and so they intend to hunt him down first. When the town has a total power cut they kill theri lone guard and escape and head to town where they tool up. “The Bleeder” separates from the group after he kills a random person (He will of course show up later) and the rest head to the Doctor’s house.

Isn’t Everyone Crazy?

With the Doctor not at home the killers lay in wait. Elster poses as a baby sitter for the doctors daughter Lyla and then he and Sutcliff brutally murder her actual baby sitter and her boyfriend while she sleeps. While that is going on and Dan is at the hospital, Toni and Nell are arrested while at a protest against nuclear power and meet up and are helped out in jail by a man named “Tom Smith” who lets them take his turn to make a call. The three of them arrive back at the house to find Dan and the police already there. They have apparently found out that Elster was present in the house (presumably the daughter described him to Dan).

Out of caution police Detective Burnett remains with the family for dinner and Toni invites Tom to stay too. After they hear a noise outside and Burnett is killed with a crossbow they realise they are under siege by the group of psychos and the rest of the film turns into a tense stand off between the group and the family. Since I don’t like to spoil the end of movies for my readers, this is where I’ll leave the plot break down. Let’s get to the analysis.

Psycho Happy Fun Time!

On the positive side, the film features quality actors doing a great job of playing interesting characters. This is the movies strength by a long way. First of all we have Donald Pleasance as the hippy psychiatrist Dr. Bain in charge of the asylum. A man who seems to be stoned most of the time and doesn’t like terms like “psychopath”. I can’t help but feel Bain has spent too long around madness and that his own grip on reality has failed. The fun thing here is in how this character contrasts with Pleasances more famous psychiatrist role as Dr. Loomis in the Halloween series. Another character of note is Lyla Potter, the families daughter that manages to add a touch of comedy to the story while still be suitably terrified when needed.

The key to the movie though are the psycho’s themselves, lead by Jack Palance who doesn’t get much screen time at all but is so good when he does that it raises the quality of the entire film. He feels genuine in his craziness, both dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. Most of the screen time for the psychos though goes to Martin Landau and Erland Van Lidth. Landau delivers a fantastic performance as “Preacher”, the least stable of the psychos. He really makes you feel that he could flip and kill someone at any given moment. Van Lidth’s doesn’t have the most difficult role role as the Paedophile killer “Fatty”, but he still performs it admirably and gets the best two kills of the movie along the way.

Chop Chop

The movie features a soundtrack by Italian composer Renato Serio and it’s exactly the kind of soundtrack that nostalgia bait 80’s films try to impersonate. It’s worth noting outside of the work of John Carpenter, these kinds of horror soundtracks tended to be from Italian cinema and composers like Serio. Not that it’s all like that, there are the classic horror stabs and a notable performance by punk band “The Sic F*cks” that seems to fit effortlessly into the theme of the film (with a performance including a huge fake axe and machete). The soundtrack finds a good balance between style and purpose.

The Messy Bits.

The plot here has a lot of holes and there are a lot of pacing and coherence issues. While watching I could tell there were scenes missing that really needed to be in there. For example we go directly from Toni and Nell’s meeting with Sutcliff posing as a mailman at their house to them in jail after being arrested at the protest with little on screen to explain it. We also go straight from Lyla’s baby sitter calling her boyfriend to him showing up to a trail of clothes leading to the bedroom, one hour later, but with little to indicate the passing of time. Meanwhile a lot of other scenes could either have been cut or reduced in length (Especially mid siege).

In regards to plot holes, the main one is how a doctor that appears to be permanently stoned was allowed to run an asylum with dangerous psychopaths with a security system that is entirely dependent on electricity, with no failsafe, that in a power cut basically just allows the psychos to wonder out with nothing to stop them. The entire film relies on this stupidity and it’s hard to believe. On top of that there is a big reliance on both the police and psychiatrists not knowing what one of these psychopaths looks like. Sure the Bleeder likes to hide his face, but he was in an asylum, there would be a record and you’d think people would have seen it.

Conclusion.

Overall, this is a movie with pacing issues, a few aspects that just didn’t really add anything (Such as the older daughters mental illness), and a plot that doesn’t bare much in the way of scrutiny. On the positive side the story is lifted up by some superb performances and interesting characters. It features at twist that while predictable does a good job of hiding itself in plain sight (though it brings in additional questions that it’s best not to dwell on). Donald Pleasance is a definite highlight, despite his limited screen time there are some fun kills. Not quite enough here to drive the score up towards the higher end of good, but this is a solid 6/10.

Rating: 6 out of 10.