The key is mostly the same as always:
(#) Movie I saw in the theater.
[#] Movie I saw for the first time.
E# Movies I watched with Emily.
Halloween Movie Fest.
1. The Wolverine [1]
2. Exiled [2]
3. The Sunset Limited [3]
4. Intolerable Cruelty [4]
5. Bubble [5]
6. Only God Forgives [6]
7. Her [7] (1)
8. Headhunters [8]
9. Control [9]
10. Margin Call [10]
11. Twilight Samurai [11]
12. Don Jon [12] E1
13. The Grifters [13]
14. Kick-Ass 2 [14]
15. The Secret in Their Eyes [15]
Night Eleven: Oculus
“I’ve met my demons, and they are many. I’ve seen the devil, and he is me.”
I liked this one. It plays back and forth between two nights, 11 years apart, as a brother and sister attempt to destroy the cursed mirror that claimed their parents when the siblings were children.
It screws with your head, subjecting the viewer to the same perception skewing madness that the evil mirror causes for the film’s protagonists.
There were parts of the film that I loved and hated for the exact same reasons, and I can’t explain more about that without spoiling stuff. I can say more in conversation with folks who have either seen the film, or don’t care if it is spoiled.
Will I ever watch it again? Yup. At the very least, this one will most definitely make appearances at future Halloween Movie Fests.
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Night Twelve: We Are What We Are
“We have kept our tradition in its purity, and seek our reward in the hereafter. Amen.”
This is a dark, twisted, beautifully crafted film. Just like with Come Out and Play, I realized too late that this was a remake, or I would have watched the original first. Although, in my opinion, this film is vastly superior to Come Out and Play, so I wasn’t as disappointed that I watched the adaptation first.
For most of We Are What We Are, the film is stark and subtle, and it is all the more horrifying and creepy for all that subtlety. From the outset, Jim Mickle’s direction and some wonderful performances by the leads create a sense of quiet dread that gets under your skin and stays there well after the film is over.
Will I ever watch it again? Absolutely. I found myself putting this one off night after night because I knew it was going to be a disturbing one. While it was just as disturbing as I’d imagined, it wound up being one of my favorites from this year’s fest.
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Night Thirteen: Repulsion
“I must get this crack mended.”
This film is almost as sad as it is chilling. A story of the impact of sexual abuse, Repulsion is about a woman whose childhood trauma is causing her sanity to quickly unravel, with murderous results.
Polanski’s film is full of images drawing attention to all the various fabricated manifestations of masculinity and femininity, with most making it clear how unhealthy our perception of gender identity is.
Sexual commentary aside, the film is not without its horror. It moves with the slow rhythm of the dark heart that beats at its core. The first of Polanski’s apartment trilogy, Repulsion is a claustrophobic depiction of a chilling descent into madness.
Will I ever watch it again? Most likely.
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Night Fourteen: Suspiria
“Susie, do you know anything about… witches?”
I’m always careful when sharing negative opinions on this blog. Especially about classics. I hate when I hear people state their negative opinions as facts, which is often done with a tone implying that the holder of the negative opinion is so much smarter than all the rubes dumb enough to think the cultural artifact in question is good.
I didn’t like Suspiria, but I’m aware that it probably has more to do with me than the film itself.
The plot is loosely connected and unexplained nonsense. A fact most people agree on, which is why Edgar Wright described the movie by saying, “It’s like a dream you’ve had when you’ve eaten too much cheese.” That’s not necessarily a fault, it can work really well when horror is intentionally trying to feel like a nightmare. It just fell short for me in this instance.
Much of what was keeping me from enjoying the film was sound related. The dubbing is terrible (a common problem in Italian films of this era), but I could have easily loved the movie in spite of the bad dubbing, like some of my favorite spaghetti westerns. The bigger sound crime was actually the score. Many love it, and I appreciate its bizarre quality and originality, but hated it in the context of this film. It was way over the top, constantly trying to overwhelm the viewer and make them uncomfortable. Lots of moaning and ghostly yells within the score, with no connection at all to the events in the film. It was confusing to me in a film about listening for the sound of snoring and strange breathing and footsteps going the wrong way. I would think that called for a minimalist score, leaving the viewer stuck with those disconcerting and barely audible sounds, as opposed to a score that seems desperate to force you into believing something scary is happening, even when someone is merely leaving an airport lobby.
Will I ever watch it again? Probably not. Yet, I would be willing to watch it again with someone who loves it, in the hopes they can open my eyes to the film’s qualities.
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Night Fifteen: The Conjuring
“Want to play a game of hide and clap?”
This was the movie I was most excited to watch. It was wildly well received upon release, and as I’ve mentioned before, I love ghost stories. Sadly, I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped.
The good: Early on there were an impressive number of enjoyable scares. Old school, haunted house style scares. It’s really well shot, and the creepiness and dread are solid early on. Some genuinely scary shit happens in the first third.
The bad: It’s really woodenly acted, which is strange with such a solid cast. It also goes off the rails in the final half because it does such a faithful job honoring what Ed and Loraine Warren were really like, which means their entire role as demonologists was a big evangelical push for the roman catholic church. The more time you spend trying to convince me this all really happened and it was the devil’s fault, the less time you’re spending trying to scare me.
Basically, all the stuff of the family being terrorized was great. All the stuff about the Warren family was boring and too earnest.
More creepy games of hide and clap! Less proselytizing!
Will I ever watch it again? No. However, I do need to try Wan’s film Insidious to see if that gets all the scares and less of the this allllll reaallllly happpeennneedd, woooooooooooo!
Night Six: Peeping Tom
“Whatever I photograph, I always lose.”
Peeping Tom is another one of those brilliant encounters I’ve had with great cinema thanks to HMF. As I’ve written before, it’s also a great example of why critics often suck, since they didn’t just say it was a bad movie originally, they acted like it was going to tear down society as we know it. Eventually, they changed their minds, thanks in no small part to Martin Scorsese championing the film as a masterpiece decades later (I fucking LOVE that guy).
The story of a murderer who films the final horrified moments of his victims was way ahead of its time in 1960, and the film shares quite a bit in common with another ahead of its time horror film from that year Psycho.
On my second viewing, I was struck even more by the film’s ability to have a main character who is at once creepy, evil, and heartbreaking.
One of my favorite HMF finds.
Will I ever watch it again? Yes. This was the second time, and there will be plenty more where that came from.
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Night Seven: Come Out and Play
“We started to hear voices around 11:30 last night. It was as though all the children on the island awoke at the same time. They all started giggling. And then screaming. They packed into the houses. Among their screams we also began to hear the adults, screaming in horror.”
I didn’t realize this was a remake, and I should have watched that first. The story of a couple visiting an island town in Mexico before the birth of their third child, and find that the children of the town have playfully murdered almost all of the adults.
Come Out and Play is stark and unnerving, visually it is really solid, but in the end it somehow failed to really hit me the way it could have. It creates atmosphere and dread well, but then fumbles at the goal line in a way I can’t entirely put my finger on yet.
Will I ever watch it again? No, I’d try out the original adaptation instead.
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Night Eight: Grabbers
“If we taint our blood with booze, we’re poisonous to eat.”
Grabbers was both enjoyable and a disappointment. It was good, but I feel like it should have been much better. So much more should have been done playing with the premise, which had tremendous potential.
Said premise being that an amphibious alien species crashes to earth off the coast of a small Irish island, requiring blood and water to survive. The monsters start feeding on the local humans until the humans realize that blood with alcohol in it is toxic to the aliens. Thus, the only way to survive is to be drunk.
The actors were lovely, there were plenty of very successful, very Irish jokes, but the film was flatter than it should have been with so much to work with.
Will I ever watch it again? Probably not, even though early on in the film I was really hoping this would enter the canon.
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Night Nine: The Changeling
“What do you want from me?! I did every thing I could!”
After tragically losing his wife and daughter in an accident, a composer moves back to Seattle to take a teaching position at his alma-mater (UW) in the attempt to move on with his life. He leases a mansion owned by the historic society and then, as one would reasonably expect, it’s ghost time.
Ghost stories have always been my favorite. When I was young, I loved and hated stories of hauntings and unexplained sightings of grey ladies, restless spirits, paranormal hotels and the like. It’s a different sort of fear than the visceral response to slasher films and the like. Stories around a campfire, paranormal installments of Unsolved Mysteries, looking forward to Snick every week for Are You Afraid of the Dark… I was attracted to anything that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, that sent shivers down my spine, or created that odd pressure in my eyes that comes from a good ghost story, even though it would always make it impossible for me to walk down a dark hallway alone. It’s rare to find a good ghost story.
This one, for all its weaknesses, at least delivered the creepy goods several times because it didn’t rely on the usual over the top antics most “scary” movies use today. So many of the hauntings were so run of the mill and ordinary that they were creepier, because they felt more grounded in actual day to day experience.
Plus: George C. Scott!
Will I ever watch it again? Probably. Not for several years, but probably.
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Night Ten: You’re Next
“I stuck a blender in his head and killed him.”
Brutal, and darkly funny, You’re Next celebrates but deconstructs the slasher/last girl standing genre. It does this by showing us what it’s like if you dropped a badass who isn’t a complete idiot into the usual group of buffoons being offed one by one by homicidal maniacs.
It’s fun when the heroine turns the tables and the line between hunter and hunted, or slasher and slashee, gets blurred.
This one was a really fun time. Thumbs up!
Will I ever watch it again? Absolutely. This will be an every few years in October sort of film.
A few folks were curious about the earlier editions of Halloween Movie Fest, so here is a convenient little compilation of links for anyone who cares.
2013 Nights 1-5
Frankenweenie
The Descent
Re-Animator
Les diaboliques
Peeping Tom
2013 Nights 6-10
Dead Alive
Citadel
The Awakening
Mama
Pontypool
2012 Nights 1-5
Shaun of the Dead
Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein
The Cabin in the Woods
Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face)
2012 Nights 6-10
Bubba Ho-Tep
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (Bonus Movie)
Halloween
A Nightmare on Elm St.
The Innkeepers
Friday the 13th
2012 Nights 11-15
The Invisible Man
Ringu
The Exorcist
The Fog
Zombieland
Pontypool
Halloween Movie Fest 2010
Night 1 – Let the Right One In
Night 2 – [rec]
Night 3 – Brotherhood of the Wolf
Night 4 – Slither
Night 5 – An American Werewolf in London
Night 6 – Dawn of the Dead
Night 7 – Pontypool
Night 8 – The Devil’s Backbone
Nights 9-15 –
Including:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Monster House
Nosferatu
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The Fly (1986)
Shaun of the Dead
Dead Snow.
The Inaugural Halloween Movie Fest 2009
Full List, including:
1. 28 Weeks Later
2. Let The Right One In
3. The Orphanage
4. Ghostbusters
5. Poltergeist
6. Night of the Living Dead
7. Evil Dead
8. Drag Me to Hell
9. Trick ‘r’ Treat
10. Dead Snow
11. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
12. Shaun of the Dead
Night One: Freaks
“We accept you, one of us! Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!”
Set in a circus, Freaks is a tragedy where greed and cruelty are the true deformities, but also, where people with physical deformities have some kind of weird code and they will fuck your shit up if you mess with one of them. So, you know, a laudable message wrapped in an antiquated way of dealing with different sorts of people.
In the execution of its drama, this film is as dated as one would expect. In the execution of its horror, albeit brief, this film is about as far ahead of its time as a movie can be. Unfortunately, it was so ahead of its time that people lost their shit and when the various censors were done with it a third of the movie had been chopped off. That thirty minutes of cut footage is now lost forever. The remaining film is a bit nonsensical in parts as a result, but is still impressively edgy.
I so wish I could see the original cut, especially the footage from the film’s climax that included more disturbing visuals, including implied castration… in 1932! Sadly, director Tod Browning’s career was derailed by the film’s controversy and resulting failure.
Will I ever watch it again? Probably not, unless someone unearths the lost footage.
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Night Two: Uzumaki
“Come into the spiral.”
Visually, it’s creepy and interesting. Uzumaki is imaginative and fresh. The film is also downright weird, both in ways that I enjoyed and in ways that were completely lost on me, but that could be a cultural thing.
To a certain degree it is like a David Lynch film, but it makes less sense. Yes, you read that right, it makes less sense than a David Lynch film. I think much of what made the film incoherent in most narrative aspects is a translation thing. Something got lost in the translation from the manga [by most accounts brilliant] to the screen, and something got lost in translation from Japanese to English.
So, while everything is tied together visually by the malevolent spirals, we are never sure why they are malevolent… aside from something about the words for mirror and serpent being pronounced the same way, and ancient mirrors being dredged up from the bottom of a lake. All of my confusion could be purely the result of a bad subtitle transcriber.
Will I ever watch it again? No, although I’d change my mind if it turns out there is a superior subtitle track a la Let the Right One In.
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Night Three: Sightseers
“The police announced today that they’re pursuing a ginger-faced man and an angry woman in connection with inquiries.”
A twisted comedy that succeeds because it delivers its insanity so subtly. The violence and comedy mix so well because each are played so straight. Lowe and Oram are brilliant (especially Lowe).
By today’s standards, the gore is fairly tame and the body count fairly low. The film is droll, but not over the top slapstick. So the tone of the violence needed to match the tone of the humor. One way they accomplished this was by making most of the murders take place in slow motion with no native audio, but a song playing over the scene, which somehow helped keep the tone even.
Will I ever watch it again? Not soon, but ask me again in a year or two.
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Night Four: The Blob (1958)
“Doctor, nothing will stop it!”
Oh, The Blob. Everything you expect from a B-Movie is here. Inept cinematography, strange pacing within scenes, confused acting from a silly script. Fantastic. This one also happened to launch a young Steve McQueen. So, on behalf of The Blob, you’re welcome, America.
My very favorite B-Movie trope on display here was the unintentionally hilarious dialogue. I’d share some of the lines with you, but they wouldn’t really land without the delivery by the actors in a given moment.
This one was a late addition to the list for HMF.
Will I ever watch it again? Maybe under some sort of influence and in the right company.
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Night Five: Carnival of Souls
“It’s funny… the world is so different in the daylight. In the dark, your fantasies get so out of hand. But in the daylight everything falls back into place again.”
If Uzumaki is a film I found harmed by its lack of narrative cohesion, Carnival of Souls is a film that is actually enhanced by it. It’s another film that is very Lynchian, although this one being a film that influenced Lynch instead of the other way around. In Carnival of Souls the loose narrative contributed to the nightmare feel of the film, constantly keeping the viewer off balance.
An independent film from 1962, some limitations are clear, especially in terms of the acting, and awkward editing and direction much of the time. I think there is a solid chance we see here the DNA that would later result in David Lynch fetishizing bad acting so often, especially as a way to add to a particular sort of creepy atmosphere.
The creepiness they were able to create with such limited resources is impressive. Along with the fun little winks and metaphors that are never oversold, but are left subtle. Too often storytellers are worried you’ll miss a symbol so they beat you over the head with it, Carnival of Souls just leaves it there for those with eyes to see.
The strengths and weaknesses both make it obvious why this is a cult favorite. It’s tailor-made.
October is upon Seattle in just a few short hours, which means it is almost time for another year’s Halloween Movie Fest. Oh, happy day!
This year I will be watching 15 movies for HMF, a few I know in love, and a bunch I’ve never seen before.
Here are the films, not necessarily in the order they will be watched.
And a few bonus movies include: Pontypool, Let The Right One In, Coraline, Paranorman.
Night Six: Dead Alive
“Your mother ate my dog!”
“Not all of it.”
Oh, what a ridiculous movie. So over the top gory, but in the most cartoonish way imaginable… like a Loony Tunes short from hell. This isn’t just the bloodiest movie I’ve ever seen, based on the amount of movie blood used, it is actually the bloodiest movie of all time. Although, since blood is all CGI now, that stat means less and less.
There is no doubt whatsoever that this film is played for laughs. Jackson & Co. are trying to get you to either bust a gut or empty your guts… or both. This movie is insane. I actually kind of liked a lot of it.
Highly influential on zombie films since. The lawnmower scene is essential viewing for the cinematic history of zombie carnage.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? This falls into the “high, and with a group of people” category.
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Night Seven: Citadel
“If you don’t wanna get dead, hold my hand.”
At times it transcends its small budget, decent tension occasionally, strong performance by the leading man. Otherwise, underwhelming. There are a few legitimately creepy moments I enjoyed, but they never coalesce into anything satisfying. I think this needed a few more treatments before it was ready.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? Probably not.
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Night Eight: The Awakening
“It’s never darker than when we close our eyes, and yet we keep them shut.”
Mediocre, with a cheap twist, but the film was worth my time because there are some winning moments, some genuinely eerie tension at times, and a few wonderfully creepy scenes (like the second dollhouse scene).
Will I Ever Watch It Again? Nope, but I don’t regret watching it once.
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Night Nine: Mama
“Daddy, look! There’s a woman outside the window. And she’s not touching the floor.”
Even after watching a few more HMF13 films in November, this will stand as the biggest disappointment for me from this year’s list. I looked forward to it for so many reasons: I love good ghost stories, Guillermo del Toro produced it, Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are in it. Alas, my hopes were dashed.
For one, the film isn’t scary or creepy like a good ghost film should be. The titular entity was CGI and looked downright silly instead of scary, absurd more than anything else. She was kind of like the silly (awesome) ghosts from The Frighteners, but played straight, that doesn’t work.
Much of the film was insensible, with that common problem horror films run into where people do stupid shit for no reason other than that it creates scarier atmosphere. Why is some guy investigating a house out in the woods in the middle of the night when he could easily have gone in the afternoon? Even if he didn’t believe a ghost haunted it, it’s stupid from a sheer practicality standpoint, but they wanted to create an underwhelming photo flash set piece for a ghost encounter, and alas, inexplicable decisions are made.
The end was also infuriating, but that could just be me.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? Absolutely not.
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Night Ten: Pontypool
“For your safety, please avoid contact with close family members, and refrain from the following: all terms of endearment, such as ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart’; baby talk with young children; and rhetorical discourse. For greater safety, please avoid the English language.
Do not translate this message.”
And on Halloween night, I finally reached #10. The Halloween tradition for the last five years is to watch a movie that we already know and love, instead of trying a new one.
What else can I say about Pontypool that I haven’t already said here, and here? I’ve been telling you to watch this movie, and you probably still haven’t. Your loss… loser.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? I’ve seen it four times now, I will watch it at least four more.
Night One: Frankenweenie
“You are afraid of what you do not understand, like a dog is afraid of lightning or balloons.”
The only reason this movie was first was because the only free time I had day one was with Emily, and she can be pretty tough to get to watch scary movies of any sort. That being said, this actually ended up being a great fit. I knew it was an homage to Frankenstein, but I didn’t know it was also an homage to the entire genre, with Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Godzilla, The Wolfman, and The Mummy all being prominently featured as references.
The film is short and airy, and was about what you’d expect. It was stylish, fluffy, and had its sweet moments as well as some good lessons for the whole family about science and love. Still, nothing remarkable. As a film that is the same in many of its themes and style as ParaNorman, it is a much weaker film, and while I will watch ParaNorman again, I doubt I will ever revisit this one.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? Probably not.
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Night Two: The Descent
“I’m an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider.”
The Descent is a British film from 2005 in which a group of women go on a caving expedition, and as you would expect in a horror movie, it goes really, really well. Everyone ends up happy, healthy, and relaxed after a successful bit of spelunking.
With a premise that would be claustrophobically terrifying even if it weren’t for the flesh eating humanoid monsters the women encounter, The Descent delivered for me in the spine-tingling department. Getting stuck in tiny cave openings? Being lost underground with no guaranteed way out? I would welcome the emergence of monsters just to keep my mind off of the terrifying feeling that I couldn’t breathe!
There were some special effects moments that were distracting enough to pull me out of the scares, and the monsters teeter precariously between silly and scary, but there were also some winning moments throughout and enough atmosphere and tension to make me glad I finally got around to seeing this one.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? I bet someday, but not soon.
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Night Three: Re-Animator
“He’s dead?”
“Not anymore.”
One of the reasons I started doing these HMF’s back in 2009 was because I wanted to expose myself to movies I wouldn’t normally watch, and genres I had no experience with. Re-Animator is exactly that sort of movie. It’s a campy, over-the-top gory, midnight movie that has achieved that special level of cult status only a few films ever will (there is even a musical stage production of the film).
As this type of film goes, this is probably the cream of the crop. The imagination with which these filmmakers invented gory moments and absurd bloody special effects is impressive. Everything is played for laughs instead of scares, at least I sure hope so.
Overall, this type of film just isn’t my jam. This is partly because due to scheduling I watched this alone, and I don’t really think this is best suited for solo viewing. This is meant for party viewing, where everyone is laughing at all the insanity. I will keep that in mind for future midnight movies if I can help it.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? Unlikely, maybe with a big group in which everyone is super high.
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Night Four: Les diaboliques
“Some things are hard to swallow, and I’m not talking about the fish.”
Michel is an abusive asshole, so his wife and mistress team up together in a plot to get rid of him once and for all. Thus the stage is set for Les diaboliques.
This had all the visual beauty and photographic mastery one would expect from a celebrated French film of this era. It is also one of those movies that would have been much more satisfying to see it when it originally came out in 1955. Since it has been aped, paid homage, and influenced so much that has come after it, there were no real surprises. However, upon its release it actually had one of the earliest examples of a “no spoiler” warning before the credits, telling viewers not to ruin the end for their friends who hadn’t seen it. In 1955, I bet there were some thrilling twists, but in 2013, there were only two possible endings you could see coming from a ways off, it was one of those two.
It was still a great film because of how well crafted it was, but it would have been significantly better to have experienced it in the 1950’s.
Will I Ever Watch It Again? I would say chances are fairly good.
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Night Five: Peeping Tom
“Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? It’s fear.”
I now have a perfect new example to illustrate how much critics usually suck: Peeping Tom. The story of a mad man with a videocamera, who records women’s faces as he kills them so they can capture the fear on their faces encountering their own violent ends.
This film was universally, and with great fits of rage, panned by the major critics of the time upon its release in 1960. People accused it of being a tasteless ‘stalk and slash’ film that simply reveled in sex and violence. The initial reaction was so bad that director Michael Powell had to move from England to Australia in order to work. This is the most stunning example I have yet encountered of a unanimous misreading of a text. What movie were these original critics watching?!? Not once does this film revel in its subject matter, there is no blood or gore, and the film is never ambiguous concerning how we should feel about the violence as viewers.
Fortunately, now the film is hailed as a masterpiece, which it is. One critic of the time has even famously said she hopes there is an afterlife and that conversation is permitted there, so she can apologize to Powell for getting it so wrong originally.
I would be stunned if this isn’t the best new movie I watch for HMF13. It is amazing on so many levels. Perfectly crafted, beautiful to look at, and with one of the best characters I have ever seen on film in the titular voyeur Mark Lewis.
One of the hardest things to do in storytelling is creating sympathy for a villainous character without either excusing or justifying his/her actions, or at least downplaying the tragedy. Peeping Tom somehow allows the viewer to feel sympathy for Mark without ever denying that he is a monster. His second victim is so happy, so full of life, so innocent… this is no slasher film where some bullshit implication is made that “loose women” are asking for their own violent murders (*barf*). Mark’s actions are inexcusable, and still the filmmakers and leading man help us feel genuine sympathy for him, albeit without any hope he gets away with it.
This film was also way ahead of its time in terms of popular portrayal of a serial killer. They hit notes in Peeping Tom that still resound in every murder mystery in the cinema and on every procedural cop show inventing a psychopath for a mini-arc leading up to sweeps week.
Best of all, the film is an amazing interaction with what art in film really is. What are the darker, more invasive, more aggressive aspects of the medium of videography? What more sinister impulses are at work within the desire to watch others, to create films, what power dynamic is at play between director and actor, recorder and audience?
I could write about this one for a week, but you’ve already stopped reading by now, so…
Will I Ever Watch It Again? 100%. Absolutely. Yes. Are you free right now?
It’s been like 47 billion years since the last time I posted on Roused. Or two months. Although, if time isn’t linear, that may be the same thing. I digress.
I should be sleeping right now, yet, here I am. Every time I quit Roused, it pulls me back in.
This time I am back because I just don’t want to live through an October without a Halloween Movie Fest. After all these years, it just feels wrong. I could do it without sharing it on the internets, but that just doesn’t feel the same. Thus, here we are. I’m doing this, and I am sharing it, just in case you’re interested.
This year’s fest will be two weeks long. As always, I am bringing back a few favorites (i.e. Pontypool, 28 Days Later) and watching a whole bunch of new ones, some classics, some new, all in the hopes of expanding my understanding of the genre. Yep, I’m a nerd.
14 films in 14 days. Here is the list:
That’s all for now. More to come. You’ve been warned.
Night Eleven: The Invisible Man
“Power, I said! Power to walk into the gold vaults of the nations, into the secrets of kings, into the Holy of Holies; power to make multitudes run squealing in terror at the touch of my little invisible finger. Even the moon’s frightened of me, frightened to death!”
This was a good one. Dated, but more than worth 71 minutes. Claude Rains was awesome, even though you never see his face while he is delivering lines. The special effects were crazy impressive for a movie from 1933. All-in-all it was just a solid way to spend a little over an hour, catching up on some movie history from the early days of “talkies.”
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Night Twelve: Ringu
“It’s not of this world. It’s Sadako’s fury. And she’s put a curse on us.”
Having only seen the American remake, I was looking forward to checking out this cult classic. It’s a hugely celebrated film internationally. Sadly, I only thought it was ok. Part of that was because there were no surprises, and the low budget scares in Ringu just weren’t as jarring as the big budget ones in The Ring (at least in college when I last saw The Ring). That may be blasphemous, but I can’t control what scares me and what doesn’t.
I didn’t dislike the movie, I just didn’t fall in love with it the way so many have. It was a decent story, told fairly well, with strong acting throughout.
And of course, it can’t be all bad. Hiroyuki Sanada is in it, and if I was a woman I would totally be willing to have his babies. Which makes me want to watch the rest of his movies I’ve seen again.
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Night Thirteen: The Exorcist
Father Damien Karras: Where is Regan?
Demon: In here. With us.
I’ve finally seen The Exorcist. I’d put it off for so long, even though it is by far one of the most celebrated horror movies of all time. For so long, I was scared to watch it, or at least part of me was. Alas, I finally saw it, and it wasn’t even that scary, what with the aging process and all.
However, while it isn’t that scary anymore in 2012, it is still a really great movie. I think people miss so much beauty and great filmmaking because they are caught up on whether or not it should be called the scariest movie of all time. Sure, they could have fleshed some stuff out a little better, engaged a few topics with more skill, but it was still really good. The story of Father Karras, a brilliant psychiatrist who has lost his faith, was genuinely compelling to me. I wasn’t engaged by the movie because of the scary demon moments, I was engaged because of the relationships, because of the quiet way William Friedkin told the story in between the shocking demon outbursts.
**Spoiler, in case you plan to watch it eventually
I know it was a bit melodramatic, but I really loved the scene when Father Karras is downstairs because the demon had been pretending to be his dead mother, and he was too shaken to continue. Then Regan’s mother, Chris, walks in and asks if it’s over, he says no. Then she asks if Regan is going to die, and in that moment we see his resolve stiffen, and he remembers the innocent life at stake, and he looks back at Chris and firmly says, “No.” Then he decisively walks back upstairs to face all the forces of hell, eventually sacrificing his own life to save the young girl’s.
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Night Fourteen: The Fog
“Nick, his wounds are covered with algae, his lungs are full, and there’s silt in his fingernails. I tell ya, I saw Dick Baxter three days ago in Salinas. Now he’s lying there on the table looking like he’s been underwater for a month.”
I was supposed to watch The Descent, but a barely discernibly crack on the disc made the Blu-ray start part way through the movie on one player, and made it so the PS3 wouldn’t even acknowledge there was a disc in it. Thus, the night’s film became John Carpenter’s The Fog instead.
Holy shit balls was this movie stupid. Every single moment of it. From the ridiculous and farfetched story at its core, to the complete failure to build tension or deliver a single moment of entertainment. There is always the chance it was just my mood last night, since we always ignore that far too much when engaging any sort of art. Still, I think I would have hated this one no matter what.
The fact that this movie is on two lists on iCheckMovies and Pontypool is on zero is proof life isn’t fair.
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Night Fifteen: Zombieland
“You are like a giant cock-blocking robot, like, developed in a secret fucking government lab.”
Finishing with two of my favorites, in a zombie movie mini-marathon, on Halloween night.
Zombieland is a cocktail of just the right parts funny, sweet, and gross. I’ve seen it four or five times now, and I am sure it will be a part of many Halloween Movie Fests to come.
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Night Sixteen: Pontypool
“The whole world can hear you breathing. It’s fine, you’re breathing. That’s your top news story.”
Hot damn, this movie is so good. I love it. This was my third time seeing it, and it is still just as good. It is a wildly original riff on the zombie sub-genre, based on Tony Burgess’s book Pontypool Changes Everything. It doesn’t get the respect and attention it deserves, perhaps because it is from Canada and all, but that’s just not fair.
The Rotten Tomatoes synopsis states that Pontypool is: “Witty and restrained but still taut and funny, this Pontypool is a different breed of low-budget zombie film.” I think that is actually a pretty great synopsis based on my experience of the film.
Some folks might bitch about the liberties taken with the zombie genre, like folks did after 28 Days Later, but that’s how genres and sub-genres are supposed to work. That’s what happens when a genre is healthy and vibrant. People take the rules and tropes of a genre, and they move things around and imagine new ways of seeing things. A genre is supposed to be a conversation, allowing different themes and ideas to be explored within a certain framework, like jazz… it isn’t supposed to be sheet music that everyone has to play note for note over and over and over.
Also, some folks associated with Pontypool have said, “Oh, this isn’t a zombie movie. We call them ‘conversationalists.'” Still, it clearly is a riff on the zombie genre, whatever they want to say. You don’t have a cameo appearance by one of the most famous zombie actors in history, Boyd Banks, if you aren’t trying to draw comparisons.
The film is tense and troubling more than it is scary, and most of the violence happens off-screen.
You should watch this movie. I’ll watch it with you. I’ll even hold your hand if that makes you feel better.
