Brain Blasters

Today’s musing involves two recent films experiences. The movies could hardly be more different, but they have made me think again about the wonderful flexibility of my beloved horror genre, a flexibility that extends to swallowing up films that don’t, in theory, even belong to it. Allow me now to elucidate that rather cryptic remark.
Read More

Ten years ago, a micro-budgeted, mockumentary horror film found a special alchemy of filmmaking and marketing, and became a box office sensation. That movie, of course, was The Blair Witch Project. In the long run, it divided audiences sharply, between those frightened speechless and those bored stiff. The case can certainly be made that the film was hyped outside of its natural cult environment, and hence some inevitable mainstream backlash. But one of my treasured memories is attending opening night with a packed crowd, and witnessing more than a few primal traumas. That’s a rarity, these days.
Read More

When The Exorcist was first released, Pauline Kael opined, in her New Yorker review, that the film was the best recruiting poster for the Jesuit order since Going My Way. There is more than a grain of truth to her statement, given how cool all the priests are in the film, but there is more. As many critics have pointed out, the film has a rather reactionary streak: after all, it isn’t hard to see the film as a nightmare depiction of female sexuality, presenting it as something monstrous that must be contained at all costs. And after all, what parent hasn’t, at some point, envisioned the teenage years as a form of demonic possession, with their sweet little angel transformed by evil forces. So here’s a film that confirms to them that, yep, the offspring’s misbehaviour isn’t normal, but evil. It is this side of The Exorcist that is, perhaps, being parodied by Beyond the Door. It is certainly being exploited by today’s entry in the demonic possession sweepstakes, The Antichrist (1974).
Read More

So I guess this column should join in with the Halloween fun. I’ll be popping in and out with various short film musings and recommendations, some of which might run the risk of being rehashes. If so, I apologize, but my reasoning is that the film deserves to be fresh in your mind for the season. First up: Beyond the Door (1974).
Read More

All right, so I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but I wanted to toss in my two-bits anyway.

Quentin Tarantino’s films have always been about their dialogue. They are not action-heavy – Kill Bill is the aberration here. When he is at his best, as in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino’s dialogue and active camera work together to generate suspense and give the impression of a plot surging forward even when nothing much is actually happening on the screen. At his worst, as in Death Proof, the film descends into turgid, self-indulgent wankery and the we are painfully aware of the man behind the curtain.
Read More

Another book review today, as there’s a delightful new tome on the shelves: Scott Stine’s Trashfiend: Disposable Horror Fare of the 1960s & 1970s. With a title like that, I don’t think I need to explain why it falls within this column’s purview. Sharing its focus with Stine’s short-lived zine of the same name, this is a loving but open-eyed survey of a wide array of horror offerings that are bad for us in the best way possible.
Read More

So John Hughes died the other day. What does that have to do with this column’s mandate, as flexibly defined as it might be, you might well ask. As it turns out, not much, at least not directly. But Hughes’ passing did wind up overshadowing two other deaths in the film industry. Screenwriter Budd Schulberg also died, and he wrote such fare as A Face in the Crowd (1957) and a little thing called On the Waterfront (1954), which, I dunno, might wind up standing the test of time better than Pretty in Pink, but what do I know? More to the point, as far as this space is concerned, Harry Alan Towers also passed on.
Read More

Ishiro Honda is, of course, best known and (deservedly) beloved for his classic kaiju eiga: he not only directed the first appearances of Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra, he also delivered many of their subsequent adventures, wrapping things up with 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla, which would be the last such entry until the mid-80s revival. The high profile of the giant monster movies has a tendency to overshadow some of this other contributions to fantastic cinema. One such effort which shouldn’t be overlooked is the inventive and grim Matango (1963).
Read More

As I believe I may have mentioned before, I’m of an age that meant I was too young to actually attend any grindhouses in their 70s heyday, though I’m old enough to remember them. When I did come of age in the 80s, the VHS and Beta war was in full swing, video rental stores were sprouting like mushrooms, and the hunger for product on the shelves, any product, was insatiable. Those were the days when people actually rented VCRs, and Mom-and-Pop stores proudly offered the likes of Microwave Massacre, Screamers and The Beast Within for rental. This was the era of distributors like Key Video, Magnum, and many, many more, all with processed cheese computer graphic logos.
Read More

Suspiria.

Oldboy.

Videodrome.

Three powerful and rather nasty films. More importantly, they are also very much the individual, personal works of film auteurs with a distinct vision. Suspiria even has a family history aspect, since it was inspired by experiences of co-writer Dario Nicolodi’s mother. The other element these three films have in common is that they all have remakes coming down the pike.
Read More

Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz burst onto the horror scene in 2004 with Calvaire, an unforgivingly black tale of a young man running afoul of a town whose exclusively male population would make Leatherface blanch and get the hell out of Dodge. A distinctly European concoction, it nevertheless paid tribute to Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was an attack on the audience as assured as it was original. Now, Du Welz has followed up with Vinyan, which is no less original, no less assured, and stakes out its own identity distinct from its predecessor, while still sharing many of Calvaire‘s thematic preoccupations. People, I think we have an auteur in our midst.
Read More

I first became aware of J. T. Petty when his Mimic: Sentinel came through for review. I popped it on, expectations very low (it always seems to be a sign of a franchise’s last gasp when the digits are dropped from the titles of sequels), and was pleasantly surprised by a clever reworking of Rear Window. Soft for Digging, his feature debut, was just as interesting, and was a quietly effective little ghost story. He hasn’t been very prolific as a director (though he did find gainful employ scripting the first three excellent Splinter Cell games), and I missed his S&Man, but now he’s back in horror territory with a bleak western with monsters: The Burrowers.
Read More

The current wave of extreme French horror marches triumphantly on. The latest wave-making entry is the Franco-Canadian production Martyrs, and it is as nasty as it is a vital piece of filmmaking. Writer/director Pascal Laugier, whose previous film was the honorable but not entirely successful House of Voices, here reveals himself as a force to be reckoned with. Horror fans, the genre is healthy and out to get your.
Read More

So, there have been approximately a godzillion zombie movies made over the years, and a goodly number of those just in the last few years. And there have been quite a number of very creative ones (Shaun of the Dead, Fido, 28 Days Later, but no, NOT the remake of Dawn of the Dead). Likely about to disappear from a theatre near you is one of the most interesting variation of late: Pontypool.
Read More

Well, I might as well follow up last week’s piece with my own thoughts about Watchmen, now that I’ve seen it. Let me begin with the most important point: these musings must be understood as provisional. My feelings are mixed, and I think I will have to see the film a few more times before I can come to a definite conclusion about it.
Read More

I’m not even going to try to justify considering Watchmen a cult film. Not on that kind of budget and mainstream-saturation advertising. But the comic book (let’s avoid the artificial marketing term “graphic novel,” shall we) is another story, a work whose brilliance is equaled only by the fanatical reverence in which it is held by its fans. Now that’s cult. I won’t be seeing the film for another couple of days, so whether it does a good job or not I will leave as an open question (what is beyond question, however, is that, whatever flaws it may have, it has to be better than the what the original stab at adaptation, back around 1987 would have been – I read a summary of the screenplay, and “desecration” is too weak a word). What I want to consider today is the rather strange set of conflicting emotions anticipated adaptations such as this provoke.
Read More

Last week, I offered my paean to King of the Hill. Today, another recent European horror film, which also has a mountain setting: the Norwegian Cold Prey. If King of the Hill was related to the slasher in terms of the idea of the characters being stalked through the countryside by a killer who could strike at any moment, Cold Prey fits far more comfortably within the slasher subgenre. It is, after all, ultimately the story of a group of young people running afoul of a giant masked maniac. Hardly original, I know. But it is how Cold Prey handles its familiar material that produces a delightful gust of fresh air.
Read More

The European horror revival continues apace. Today’s entry in the please-don’t-remake-it category is the 2007 Spanish entry King of the Hill, directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego. It’s another case of a simple premise worked out rigorously, and with great skill. Leonardo Sbaraglia plays Quim, a man on his way though the Spanish countryside. Stopping at a filling station, he has a quickie encounter with shoplifter Bea (María Valverde) in the washroom, after which he discovers that she has lifted his wallet. Catching sight of her vehicle heading up a mountain road, he takes the detour in pursuit. Then, once he is well off the beaten track, nicely far away from civilization as he knows it, he sees a glint on a mountain peak, and then a bullet hits his car.
Read More

A few days ago (and with my advancing age and failing memory, I cannot now recall precisely where), I read a commentator who essentially bemoaned the fact that every single piece of celluloid dreck ever to hit the grindhouse, drive-in, or VHS remainder bin is now being repackaged as a “Cult Classic” on DVD.  There is something to this criticism, but I would argue that, in the final analysis, this is no bad thing.
Read More

This past weekend, the Goya Awards were handed out. These are Spain’s equivalent to the Oscars. And during those awards, there was a moment that, for followers of mainstream film, must surely portend the End of Days, but which for fans of psychotronic or paracinema is tantamount to the Raputre itself: the lifetime achievement award was presented to Jess Franco.
Read More

Not one to let being late to the party get in the way of verbiage, allow me now to add my voice to the chorus of praise for Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In. Though it has, in some quarters, been referred to as the anti-Twilight, but such a designation does no justice at all to a film as complex, witty, moving and gloriously horrific as this one.
Read More

So we’ve had plenty of horror remakes, and we’ll continue to have plenty more. Most, as we know, are at best middling, at worst utter desecrations of the originals. We have had some cases where a remake might actually make sense, cases where the first film could certainly do with some improvement. Amityville Horror, I’m looking at you. And yet somehow, that remake managed to be worse. The job is made easier for the upcoming Friday the 13th retread, since the original, despite its iconic status, is nothing more than hackwork, and I say that with love. But the current offering, and today’s topic, is the 3D return to My Bloody Valentine.
Read More

Pupi Avati’s The House with Laughing Windows (1976) isn’t the most high-profile Italian horror film, and only landed a legit North American release with Image’s 2002 DVD release. But it has been a succès d’estime for quite some time, particularly in its homeland, and it is well worth tracking down. Viewers looking for something fast-paced, or a Lucio Fulci-style gorefest will be disappointed, but those willing to work with it will find a deeply atmospheric, disturbing and intelligent contemporary gothic with elements of the giallo.
Read More

I have, for work-related reasons, been watching quite a number of European horror films in close succession, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. Yesterday, in the middle of this, I was moved to reflect on what seems to be a fairly significant difference between the British and Continental films. I won’t go so far as to claim that what I’m going to describe is universal, but it is prevalent enough to be, at the very, very least, a marked trend. And it is this: that the Continental variant has a distinctly sleazier feel than do its cousins.
Read More

Some movies have “cult” written all over them. But that can actually be counterproductive. If the psychotronic audience sense the film is trying too hard to be a cult epic, then it risks rejection. In this context, I’m not quite sure what to think of Minoru Kawasaki’s The World Sinks Except Japan (2006).
Read More