The Montana Mancave Massacre

Mumblecore Horror - A Horrible Way to Die

2012-02-26T23:58:00.002-07:00

If there's one thing I'm a sucker for (aside from a good horror movie), it's a superdepressing indie drama about addiction and damaged lives. At long last, there's a film that gives me the best of both worlds. Adam Wingard's A Horrible Way to Die combines the no-budget shaky-camera aesthetic and character-driven, emotional focus of an arthouse (mumblecore, if you want to get derogatory) flick with the grimness and brutality of horror. Yeah, nothing makes me grin like a film devoid of humor or hope.

I should note that this isn't a movie for everyone. If your horror leanings are more Return of the Living Dead than Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, you may not find much to enjoy. Likewise, if shaky camera gives you a headache or otherwise peeves you, you're gonna want to turn this off 10 minutes in. Personally, I'm rather fond of the handheld aesthetic, which may explain my superhuman tolerance for found footage horror. Bottom line, if you can tolerate (or heck, even enjoy) the cinematography, A Horrible Way to Die holds many rewards.

At its heart, A Horrible Way to Die is a tragic love story involving Sarah, a recovering alcoholic who was so drunk for so long that she never picked up on the clues that her live-in boyfriend Garrick was a serial killer. When the film opens, Garrick has escaped from prison and is heading back to Sarah's town. Meanwhile, Sarah is doing her best to heal, attending AA meetings and starting to date Kevin, who she met there.

Amy Seimitz gives a flawless (IMHO) performance as Sarah, and I can't wait to see more of this actress. She comes off as mousy and withdrawn, but she's been through too much to take shit from anyone. Her wounds are raw, but just beginning to heal. When she decides to take a chance and trust Kevin enough to meet him for a dinner date, it's an act of incredible bravery.

The first time you see Kevin looking at Sarah in AA, he comes off as incredibly creepy, but when he eventually asks her out, he's so awkwardly charming and sincere that he wins you (and Sarah) over. I'm going to make myself vulnerable for a minute and admit I'm a huge sap. If my wife was one to go for chick flicks, you'd hear no complaints from me, as I'd secretly enjoy them while pretending not to. And I'll readily admit that for me, half the pleasure of watching A Horrible Way to Die was watching this damaged girl learn to trust again and form a relationship with this awkward-but-nice guy.

Speaking of nice guys, as far as serial killers go, Garrick has to be one of the nicest out there. In his first scene, Garrick helpfully tells the girl he's got tied up to watch her head as he lifts her out of the trunk. Then he repeatedly assures her that everything is going to be okay shortly before strangling her. It's as if he never quite believes he's going to kill anyone until his compulsion gets the better of him, and afterwards, he's always remorseful. The film draws a nice parallel between Garrick and Sarah, because they are both ruled by these compulsions that make them despise themselves. Killing is Garrick's addiction, and you get the sense that the nice-guy side of him isn't a false front, but a genuine side of his personality, and the one he wishes was in control of his actions. Now, I can't say how psychologically realistic this is, but it made for an interesting character.

If you haven't seen the film and it sounds like something you might like, now's the time to stop reading, because I can't take this discussion any farther without giving away some MAJOR SPOILERS.

I don't know about you, but I didn't see the ending coming at all. And the first time around, I wasn't too happy with it. It seemed like a cheap twist for the sake of having a twist ending. On top of that, I really liked Kevin, and I wanted his feelings toward Sarah to be real so that when one or both of them wound up tortured to death, the horror would cut deep. That's what I've been waiting for: a horror film where you care so deeply about the characters that when they're murdered, you're left devastated. Instead, Kevin turns out to be a serial killer groupie who, along with his 2 friends, have captured Sarah and arranged for Garrick to meet them in a secluded cabin to get his revenge for her turning him in to the cops. It seemed far-fetched, and worse yet, totally out of character for Kevin.

Here's the thing though, watch it again and you can see there was no cheating. There were subtle, damned-nigh imperceptible clues to what was coming. At their first date, Kevin, a supposed recovering alcoholic, chooses a restaurant with booze covering every wall. He claims he didn't realize it until he walked in the restaurant, yet when Sarah says she has no idea what she wants, he says, “It’s all pretty good." If he knows the menu so well, he obviously frequents the restaurant, but if he was really an alcoholic, he would definitely have noticed the wine bottles everywhere.

On the second viewing, I found Kevin so creepy that I could hardly believe it hadn't been obvious all along that he was a predator. Mostly it's just the way he looks at Sarah when she's hinting at secrets he already knows. What I had chalked up to his being awkward (or even being a less than convincing actor) I now interpret as dead-on acting choices. He's awkward because he's a psycho trying to appear to be a nice guy.

Once I got over not getting the ending I was expecting and hoping for, I realized that the actual ending was better, because it contains the whole point of the film. Through the whole movie, you just sort of assume Garrick is heading home to get revenge. Instead, he ends up rescuing Sarah from her captors and letting her go. He still loves her deeply and feels guilty about failing to be the man he should have been for her. As he's cutting her down from the ceiling, Sarah tells him she missed him, and means it. Once she's been freed, they exchange a loaded glance, we get a quick flash of a love scene from earlier in their lives, and she leaves while he collapses from the stab wound he's sustained.

Earlier I pointed out the parallel between their addictions, which is why, on some level, Sarah understands Garrick. Maybe she doesn't understand the compulsion to kill, but she understands uncontrollable compulsions to do self-destructive things and to hate yourself for it. She also never personally saw his brutal side. He was always gentle and loving with her, which is why she can't hate him despite all he's done. In their shared glance at the end you can see that they still love each other despite everything, and that they both know they have to let each other go. Classic star-crossed lovers with a deep, black twist.

The one thing missing from A Horrible Way to Die was any sort of scare factor. There was some decent tension in parts, but it was way less of a scary movie than a dark, bleak drama. But the good news is that Adam Wingard's next film, "You're Next," looks to be a balls-out home invasion type horror movie with the 3 principle cast members from AHWTD appearing. Plus, Ti West is playing a character named Tariq, so I'm obviously there.

For a dissenting opinion on A Horrible Way to Die, check out the If We Made It Podcast with my friends Jeff and Tucker, in which they also give an insightful review of Lucky McKee's The Woman before ranking A Horrible Way to Die lower than Santa Claus: The Movie in their Flickchart.

I'm fishing for comments with this one, so please let me know what you thought of A Horrible Way to Die. Was it as good as I made it out to be? Worse than Santa Claus? Somewhere in between? Let me know. And when you're done commenting, head on over to the MMM Facebook page to see what I thought of Dolan's Cadillac. Then call your mother. She has heard from you in so long. Also, you might think about a haircut.

Final Girl Film Club: Hell Night

2012-02-13T22:01:00.003-07:00

Before I get to the glory that is Hell Night, I'd like to take a moment to thank our hostess, the talented Ms. Stacie Ponder, not only for giving us lesser bloggers a bit of free publicity, but also for this kick-ass stick figure rendering of Chromeskull stabbing Lena Headey in the head:

I see you are jealous, as well you should be. This is the custom artwork drawn directly on the back cover of my deluxe edition of Stacie's Slashers 101 mini-comic. The good news is, you don't have to spend the remainder of your days wallowing in envy--you can totally order your own over at Final Girl. I suggest you take a moment and do that right now. I can wait...

Done? Which slasher did you order? Dr. Decker from Nightbreed? Gahh! Why didn't I think of that? Now I'm freakin' jealous.

Anyhow, on with the review!

Hell Night (1981, dir. Tom DiSimone)

The Verdict: Hell Night is a fun, but uneven, foray into cheesy 80s horror that works best when it (however lamely) attempts humor rather than horror.

Hell Night pours on the awesome so thick that within the first five minutes you will be convinced that it is the end-all be-all of 80s horror. Unfortunately, the film cannot keep this pace up for long. In fact, the film is at its best before any of the horror elements come into play. The movie begins with one of those mythical, end-of-the-world-blowout, 20-keg frat parties that you could only believe were real back in the 80s. Girls flash their cleavage while bringing drinks and smokes to drunken jocks who puke on trophy cases and throw kegs through the picture windows. Motion pictures exist precisely because parties like this do not.

Awesomely overblown period setting, check. But what about the characters? We've got Surfer Dude who comes dressed as Robin Hood and wise-cracks his way through the party while ogling Party Girl, who is dressed as a flapper and dancing provocatively, and who is perpetually carrying a small pharmacy somewhere on her person, despite the smallness of her outfit. There's also Frat President, who is a pig, but a charming, affable pig who gets points simply for the time, effort, and obvious passion he puts into scaring pledges shitless on the big night. Next there's Sensitive Guy, who is the more serious-minded type. You know, the guy who is in a frat but isn't really a "frat guy." Sensitive Guy is clearly set up to be the love interest for our Final Girl, Linda Blair.

Ah Linda Blair, I finally understand my friend Shannon's obsession with you. When we meet Linda's character, she is observing the party in a knowing, above-it-all manner that shows she's the smartest, most confident, flat-out coolest girl in the room. Her baby-fat cherubic face is the perfect counterpoint to her sultry baritone voice and wise-beyond-her-years demeanor... can you tell I was crushing on her something fierce? The funny thing about Linda Blair is this movie is that in the beginning, she doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the cast. She's just a little bit too good as an actress, and she's clearly slumming. In the early scenes, Hell Night shows you tantalizing glimpses of the actress Linda Blair might have become had her career not been derailed by drug convictions (how quaint it seems that in the 80s a drug problem could turn public sentiment against an actor). Alas, as the film goes on, her performance deteriorates, mostly because the filmmakers don't give her anything compelling to do or even remain true to the character they've set up, More on that later.

Hell Night's greatest strength is its humor, although I was never quite sure if it was legitimitely funny, or so bad that it was funny. If you're being generous, you might consider the script a clever send-up of the frat-boy mentality. Or you could argue that the filmmakers possess a frat-boy mentality and any laughter is at their expense. Ultimately though, it doesn't matter. With it or at it, I laughed a lot.

Take for example, this bit of dialogue:

Lackey Nerd: "What a twat. We should have left her behind."

Frat Prez: "What for? Her behind's her best part. We should have keep her behind and left the rest of her."

Tell me, if you can, whether or not this is genuinely funny, or so lame it's hilarious? I'd say it's a bit of both. Imagine this joke as delivered by me and Jack Nicholson:

It could totally work, but the ham-fisted set-up and delivery take it over the edge into lamedom. The cumulative effect, however, is a joke that works on multiple levels, and is perfctly suited to the aesthetic of Hell Night.

Where Hell Night falters is whenever it attempts to build tension. When the pledges finally get locked in the murder/suicide house, the audience gets all these agonizingly slow scenes where people are creeping carefully along corridors, and you can tell by the way the shots are framed that nothing is going to happen. Rather than perched on the edge of your seat, you're sitting back waiting for the scene to end so you can get to the kills.

Speaking of which, the kills are pretty damned cool in that low-budget, infinitely inventive kind of way. At one point, a mongoloid twists Lackey Nerd's head around backwards. Within seconds, you realize the inherent cheapnesss of the effect. All they did was begin the head twist, cut, put the Lackey Nerd's jacket on backwards, then continue the twist. Such a simple effect, but in the seconds it takes to realize how it was done, you've already gasped and cringed at the brutality you thought you saw.

Alright, here's my biggest gripe of the movie. When we're introduced to Linda Blair's character, she comes off as this super-cool above-it-all outsider girl who isn't quite sold on the sorority life, yet is gaming the system for its potential benefits. During her conversation with Sensitive Guy, she shows herself to be highly intelligent, independent, and possessed of those masculine traits (being an auto-mechanic) that make her every guy's dream girl. I was sold. My firm expectation was that she would be one of the most kick-ass final girls of all time.

And then...

She spends the rest of the goddamned movie being a goddamned damsel in goddamn distress. I mean, goddamn! Okay, perhaps that's an exaggeration. She has her moments, particularly near the end of the film, but for the most part she gets frightened, yells for help, seeks comfort from Sensitive Guy, rinse, repeat. The only time she shows a spark of her potential inner bad-ass is when Surfer Dude's shotgun clatters to the floor with the Dude himself nowhere in sight. Sensitive Guy cowers near the staircase while Linda insists she's going to get that gun. Coincidentally, this is the only scene in the film that even hints at tension, and gave me a pretty good jump scare (belated spolier alert).

I can't end this review without a huge shout-out to the best thing about Hell Night, Linda Blair included: Surfer Dude. This man deserves a standing ovation for perfectly capturing the gleeful cheese that Hell Night represents (go ahead, stand up and applaud, I'll wait). Every moment you watch him on the screen is a moment that God subtracts from the span of your days. Every lame joke that spews forth from his pseudo-mustachioed lips utterly kills. And it's not that he's partiularly good, it's just that his enthusiasm is infectious. When he excitedly describes what it's like to surf to Meg, well, a less-luminous being would have ground the movie to a halt, but between he and Meg (her naughty interludes are half the fun), the screen lights up. Am I over-selling this? Anyway, he's really fun to watch, especially when they give him lines like, "The world's gone crazy!" in earnest.

So, for all it's faults, I've got to give Hell Night 2 enthusiastic thumbs up, with one caveat: This is a film best enjoyed with a roomful of rowdy, drunken friends to carry you through the slow parts.

Anniversary Post - One Year of Mancave Madnesss (That's Right, 3 S's y'all)

2012-01-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

In 5 short hours, The Montana Mancave Massacre will have officially been the reason for going online for a full year. Looking over my posts from the past year, I'm disappointed that I haven't been able to blog nearly as much as I'd like to, but I'm also proud at what I've done and extremely grateful for the friends I've made in the horror blogging community. You're the reason I do this, and for the past year, you've been my main source of inspiration not to toss myself off a bridge. So thanks for that...

This past week I've been in a rut and in no mood to celebrate my 1-year anniversary with an epic film-fest followed by a self-congratulatory write-up. Instead, I was more in the mood to have my ego (feverishly) stroked by someone else. So, as a Blogday gift to myself, I've asked my good friend Tucker from the always hilarious If We Made It podcast to write a gushing essay about how awesome I am (seriously, that was the assignment). Not only did Tucker make me feel a little better about myself, he also reminded me of how I totally owned that posse of little ten-year-old shits with dart guns in Boise. So I proudly present to you the offical Montana Mancave Massacre First Blogday Asskiss starring Tucker Battrell:

This Sunday marks the one year anniversary of the Montana Mancave Massacre blog, which is brought to us by one Marvin the Macabre. Marvin and I go way back. Aside from being a connoisseur of the horrific, he is also an excellent writer and a great human being. Sure, he may make light of even the most obscene acts of depravity, but that's what makes him macabre. This is a man of action and principle. For example, he was one of the main players in an impromptu toy gun battle with several neighborhood children. I believe he came away from that with several kills. Five little ears strung on a piece of twine around Marvin's neck serve as a reminder of his heroism and cruelty. On principle he once took a several miles long walk to avoid sitting through even one lousy Chuck Norris film. But beyond being a man of taste in cinema and distinction in battle, Marvin is a dear friend, even if he did defend Gladiator.

I, along with our mutual friend Jeff, have a podcast called If We Made It, which Marvin has been a loyal listener and frequent contributor. Marvin's blog has been a continuing source of inspiration in the past year. His witty insights into the horror genre and his obscure recommendations have given us much to ponder when approaching certain films on our podcast. While we don't exclusively deal in horror, it is one of our passions and The Montana Mancave Massacre is a go-to spot for funny and interesting insight into classics we adore (The Lost Boys), lesser known fare one would be better off avoiding (Live Feed), and provides the kick in the ass I need to check out new classics (Martyrs). I value Marvin's blog and hope for many more successful years of his signature stellar content, but more than that I value Marvin as a friend. Happy anniversary to the man and the Mancave.

Tucker Battrell

Okay, for the record, I thought I walked out on the Charles Bronson movie, but then again I'm getting old and can't remember shit. Thanks Tucker for the slobber and please everyone, go check out Tucker and Jeff at http://ifwemadeit.blogspot.com. And pretty please, add to the asskissathon by commenting on this post and telling me how awesome I am. Believe me, I need the boost. And as always, a thousand thanks for reading.

WTF Blogosphere? A Dissenting Opinion on The Devil Inside

2012-01-10T18:45:00.001-07:00

When there's a movie I really want to see, I avoid reading reviews like the Bubonic. I refuse to taint my experience with any expectations other than the ones I've formed myself based on the trailer, the cast, and the filmmakers. On Saturday night, I shelled out my $8.50 to see The Devil Inside not expecting much. When I walked out of the theatre a few hours later, my stomach was in knots, I felt the beginnings of a panic attack, and a maniacal grin was splitting my head practically in two. In other words, I was peaking on a good horror movie buzz.

Imagine my surprise, shortly after composing my gushing love letter of a review for The Devil Inside, to discover that pretty much every other human being was matched in a lockstep of hatred and disdain for the film. And it wasn't just the uppity, holier-than-thou film critics. It was damn near every other horror blogger I read. WTF blogosphere?

Thing is, reading through a stack of bile-spewing reviews, I found myself agreeing with much of what they said was wrong with the movie. The difference was, I figured "well, this and this could have been better, but the good parts more than made up for it" while everyone else was like "this and this totally ruined the movie." So, for the record, yes, the ending was extremely abrupt, anticlimactic, and disappointing. But it wasn't at all out of line in terms of the story. And okay, ending with a URL was tasteless and gimmicky. I can't argue with that. But after my initial disappointment faded and I rewound the film in my head, I was really kind of blown away.
Here's what I liked about The Devil Inside:

The Possessed - The actresses who played Maria Rossi and Rosa, the two main possessed women in the film, were incredible. The erattic sedated-to-manic behavior of Maria is unnerving, and when her daughter enters the room with her, it creates this trip-wire tension and a real sense of danger. I was watching with clenched fists, just waiting to see what kind of violently crazy shit she'd pull.

The Exorcism Scenes - People complained that everything in the exorcism scenes was stolen from other movies, The Exorcist in particular. But couldn't you say the same about every other exorcism movie ever made? That's the problem with film genres that were spawned by a single movie. You can't watch a zombie film without defining it in terms of Night of the Living Dead. The Exorcist created the conventions for the exorcism film, and every film within the genre will be measured by how it conforms to or departs from those conventions. That said, The Devil Inside is a very conventional exorcism film, using the well-established elements of bodily contortions, levitation, distorted voices, and obscenity-packed blaspheming. So yeah, you're not seeing anything new, but you're seeing it in a new way, and for the most part, better than it's been done before.

The Effects - Let's be honest, as much as Linda Blair's 180 degree head-rotation scared us all pissless back in the day, it looks pretty hokey in 2012. But the effects in The Devil Inside are seamless and utterly convincing. While some had to be computer enhanced (though damned if I could tell which ones they were), one of the film's main assets was human-special effect Bonnie Morgan. And sure, she got hired because she can twist her body into unbelievable knots, but the girl can really act too. While critics dog-piled on the film's faux-documentary style as what was wrong with the movie, I thought it was essential to its success. There's something incredibly scary about putting convincing special effects into a lo-fi digital video.

I think the main problem is that people are just burned out on found footage, shaky camera fare. I'm convinced that if this movie had come out 5 years ago, it would have been hailed as a genre classic. As it is, a lot of people reported the movie wasn't the least bit scary. And if you go into a movie with an attitude like, "Okay motherfucker, scare me. I dare you," almost nothing will. You see, there's a correct way to watch a horror film, and it involves meeting the movie halfway. For me, I do my damnedest to place myself in the vulnerable position of the protagonists, leaving myself open to being scared. I crave the fear, the tension. And I want to like every movie I watch, and when I don't, it's not for lack of trying on my part.

In this respect, The Devil Inside had me at Hello. When I was a kid, The Exorcist really did a number on me, and movies about demonic possession have a pre-burrowed route to getting under my skin. But that's the point - no matter how much critics pretend that movies can be evaluated objectively, each individual's movie experience is deeply personal and depends on all kinds of factors from your personal history to who you saw it with to what your mood was like the day you saw it. So, maybe The Devil Inside wasn't as great as I thought. Maybe I was simply excited to have two child-free hours to engage in my favorite pasttime. Who knows? But I had a great time with it. Likewise, maybe it wasn't as bad as the critics and bloggers would have you believe. Don't trust them. Don't trust me. Just try to watch the movie without expectations.

The Five Best Clive Barker Adaptations

2012-01-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

For a best-selling author, Clive Barker doesn’t get nearly the attention he deserves. Back when Hellraiser came out and Stephen King was calling him the future of horror, he seemed poised to dethrone even King. But that was back when he was the hot new author on the block, and while his writing retains the same gorgeous prose style and philosophical bent that made him a standout among horror writers, his star has diminished in the intervening years. Hell, I even stopped reading him for the better part of the last decade.

Not long ago, however, I dug up my old copies of the Books of Blood and was blown away anew. Say what you will about some of his more epic volumes, but Barker is the master of the short horror story. His tales craft grotesquely beautiful worlds populated with creatures so bizarre your mind struggles just to visualize them. But then he’ll veer into pure, visceral horror, dropping descriptions of violence graphic enough to make you throw up in your mouth a little.

While his books are nothing short of amazing, the film adaptations can be somewhat less so. For that reason, I’ve created this handy little list of the 5 must-see Barker adaptations:

#5 – Hellraiser

(1987 – dir. Clive Barker)

Barker’s most famous creation in last place? How can this be? While there’s no denying that Pinhead and his aberrant band of cenobytes have captured the imagination of horror fans around the world and become icons in their own right, have you rewatched the film lately? There are enough terrible performances and laugh-out-loud crappy special effects to make you reconsider your objection to horror remakes. However, Hellraiser also has some genuinely good performances and make-up effects (particularly the skinless, regenerating body of Frank), and the violence is fairly gruesome, even in the age of Hostel. The thing that justifies Hellraiser’s place on this list, however, is the strength of the story, and the vision displayed by Barker, who is as gifted a visual artist as he is a writer. If only we could see the film as it looked inside his mind.

#4 – The Midnight Meat Train

(2008 – dir. Ryuhei Kitamura)

Starring a pre-Hangover Bradley Cooper, Brit bad-ass Vinnie Jones, and the always stunning Leslie Bibb, and featuring a pitch-perfect bit-part by Brooke Shields, The Midnight Meat Train’s main strength is in its performances. The film expands, but stays true to Barker’s original story about the mysterious serial-killer Mahogany, whose meticulous preparation of victims suggests a greater purpose behind his subterranean slayings. The biggest difference between the story and the film is that the story features some of the most stomach-turning gore I’ve ever read, while the violence as depicted in the film verges on cartoonish, particularly during Ted Raimi’s death scene in which Jones hits him so hard that fakey-looking digital eyeballs pop out of his head. Blame CGI for marring an otherwise very satisfying horror film.

#3 – Dread

(2009, dir. Anthony DiBlasi)

I’ll say upfront that this film has a major flaw that may be a deal-breaker for some. Namely, the film makes the human mind out to be much more fragile than it really is. Characters seem to be driven mad far too easily in the film, but if you can get past that, Dread has much to offer. The plot involves film school students doing a documentary study on people’s deepest fears. Of course, one of them has a hidden agenda and uses the volunteers’ filmed confessions to exploit these fears. The stark, oppressive atmosphere is unrelenting, the performances are solid, and the story is captivating. The movie expands on Barker’s original story, and departs from it for the finale, which was a wise choice. The most insanely horrible act of cruelty is not shown in the film, but merely suggested in a gut-punch of a final line.

#2 – Nightbreed

(1990 – dir. Clive Barker)

I may get some shit for this pick, especially for putting it ahead of Hellraiser. And yes, I’ll admit it is pretty damned campy at times, but there’s something I’ve always loved about Barker’s unapologetic monsterfest. It’s a veritable Mos Eisley Cantina, nay, Jabba’s Palace of strange creatures both beautiful and menacing. Being a fan of bizarre beasts, I find it irresistible that the monsters are the heroes of the story, battling a sheriff’s posse of rednecks for the right to exist. Plus, David Cronenberg’s portrayal of the serial-killing psychiatrist Dr. Decker is a definite highlight in his inarguably distinguished career. Does anyone know if they've found the lost footage yet? Rumor has it there was a musical number that was cut. Now that I'd pay to see.

#1 Candyman

(1992 – dir. Bernard Rose)

If you haven’t watched Candyman in the last decade or so, you’ve probably forgotten how smart, scary, and downright disturbing it is. Candyman is the smartest slasher since Psycho, and arguably one of the best horror films of the 1990s (not the greatest decade for horror, but still…) The character of Candyman has entered the pantheon of horror heroes, but his reputation may be tarnished by the company. After all, how many dreadful sequels did Jason, Freddy, and Michael slog through during the decade? With a classic score by Phillip Glass and a top-notch cast, Candyman transcends the slasher sub-genre and touches on the big, philosophical themes that Barker so deftly weaves into his prose.

#0 Abarat

(2015 – dir. Henry Selick)

That’s right, topping my list at numero zero is a Clive Barker adaptation that doesn’t actually exist, but should. There were rumors of an animated version going around, but I don’t think anything ever came of it, and Henry Selick was certainly not attached. I’m just throwing this out there as wishful thinking. Abarat given the stop-motion treatment by the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline? If you could, how many of you would pre-order their opening night tickets right now? Are you listening, Hollywood? Make this shit happen.

A Christmas GIF(t) for You

2011-12-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

I know you haven't been feeling the warm glow of my affection for most of the month. Forgive me. I've been busy spreading the spirit of the season in person, and figured my boob post would tide you over. As a token of my love, I'm bestowing upon you this Christmas GIF as a reminder that you're always in my heart at this most joyeaux time of year.

Two Turtledoves if you can identify this movie...

P2 - How Rachel Nichols's Boobs Almost Ruined a Feature Film

2011-12-02T23:26:00.000-07:00

I said "almost," okay?

But before I reveal myself as a complete sexist pig, let's discuss the non-Rachel-Nichols's-Boobs aspects of the film.

P2 is a 2008 horror film written and produced by one of my favorite new(ish) filmmakers, Alexandre Aja and his partner in crime, Gregory Levassuer. Aja handed over directing duties to Franck Khalfoun on this one, but it still bears Aja's trademark suspense (or should I say haute tension?). The film takes place after hours on Christmas Eve in an all-but-abandoned parking garage. Angela (Nichols) has been working long hours and is already way late for a Christmas get-together at her sister's house when her car (surprise) won't start. The friendly and helpful security guard, Thomas (Wes Bentley), comes to her aid shortly before drugging her and chaining her to a table for a nice Christmas Eve dinner.

With a set-up like this, you can expect a relatively low body count, a lot of psychological tension, and a heaping helping of Wes Bentley-brand Crazy Eyes!

Wes Bentley's Crazy EyesTM

"Thanks for ruining Christmas, ASSHOLE!"

I don't know what it is about Wes Bentley, but I get really excited whenever he shows up in a movie. I've liked him ever since I first saw him in American Beauty, but if I'm being honest, he hasn't shown me much else to recommend him. In fact, in Ghost Rider he was spectacularly awful. In P2, he swings wildly back and forth from a charming, personable guy to a complete raving nutbag, but he does it well. When he's putting on the charm, he's genuinely likable, and when he loses it, he comes completely unhinged.

Rooooaar!!!

Like him or hate him as an actor, in P2 he's never boring, and he owns the screen every second he's on it. Except, of course, when he has to share it with Rachel Nichols's boobs.

I came here to SPOIL THIS MOVIE for you, and to chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

Alright, here's why I lay the blame for nearly ruining this movie on Ms. Nichols's otherwise perfect breasts: Early on in the film, Thomas drugs Angela and puts her in a lovely white dress for Christmas dinner. Here's what she looks like in the dress:

Spectacular, yes? Just about makes your eyes pop out of your head, right? Exactly. That's the problem. All the effort Khalfoun puts into building tension is undercut by the cut of her dress. Oh, there's a big freakin' Rottweiler she's got to sneak past? Terrifyi... huh, huh, boobies.

Damn! She's trapped in the trunk of a car! She's going to miss her only chance to alert the cops who are just about to leave unless she can... My God would you look at those things!

Oh Hell, she's trapped in an elevator that is rapidly filling with water! Do I even care? All I can think about is that she's wearing a white dress that is about to get very, very wet.

I don't mean to sound so fixated, but Ms. Nichols, your breasts are downright distracting. A neckline a mere 3 inches higher would have heightened the tension of the movie by a power of ten. There are, however, some effective scenes in which her chest is not in frame. For instance, there's the incredibly gory, incredibly disturbing vehicular homicide scene.

The intestines aren't actually the worst part of this scene. The way the body slides down the wall just kills me.

Then there's Rachel Nichols stabbing a dog in the neck with a tire iron. Hey, you know, when you're actually looking at her face, she's a pretty good actress.

And of course, there's Wes Bentley getting his Elvis-karaoke on to Blue Christmas, giving Rachel ample time to locate an axe.

...but I'll have a bloo, bloo, bloo, bloo Christmas...

I suppose that leaves the question of whether the movie was any good. Some good performances and a stunning kill sequence aside, P2 is nothing special. I enjoyed it, and I'll probably watch it again, but I can't heartily recommend it to anyone but fans of Wes Bentley... or boobs.

Wes Bentley, or Boobs?

Black Friday: The Movie

2011-11-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

I just saw that a woman in LA pepper sprayed 20 people at a Walmart to keep them away from the electronics deals she was after. As sinister as "Black Friday" sounds, and as it is becoming, I believe it's high time someone wrote a horror film capitalizing on the "holiday."

So why not us?

I hereby propose that Marvin the Macabre and the readers of The Montana Mancave Massacre collaborate on a crowd-sourced film script for "Black Friday." Here's how it will work (assuming anyone is interested):

Let's start with a simple concept, say, there's a must-have toy for the 2012 Christmas season that creates such intense desire that it turns consumers into blood-thirsty, primal berzerkers who are willing to maim and kill for the opportunity to possess it. Now, everyone who wants to participate can send me ideas for plot points, scenes, characters, locations, situations, basically whatever ideas you want to contribute. Probably the easiest way to do this would be to submit ideas via the Montana Mancave Massacre Facebook page, but for those who avoid Facebooking at all costs, you can contribute via the comments section, or by emailing me at marvinthemacabre@gmail.com.

We'll all get an opportunity to comment on and discuss the submitted ideas, then I'll act as editor, making the final decision on what goes into the script. Once we've got a viable concept, we'll figure out how to divide up writing duties.

Sound interesting to anyone?

Mad Black People Bout to Cut Someone

2011-11-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

I believe I mentioned previously the awesome person who found my site using the search term "bat junk." Well this week, someone got to the Mancave using the term "mad black people bout to cut someone." While "Bat Junk!" was the actual title of my post, I have no idea why this other person got directed to me.

However, I think "Mad black people bout to cut someone" would be a kick-ass theme for a post. Trouble is, I'm having trouble coming up with horror-related scenes that fit this theme. Okay, Candyman, obviously, but what else?

Thus I task you, my faithful readers with helping me compile a list of "Mad Black People 'Bout to Cut Someone" in horror. Lay it on me.

Fear of a Red State

2011-11-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Kevin Smith announced his retirement from directing right around the same time that Red State premiered. Which is to say, just when he was starting to look promising again. It’s been a rough several years for Kevin Smith fans, watching him rehash old characters, direct other people’s scripts, and generally failing to deliver anything fresh. Then, just as the world had written him off as a one-trick pony, he goes and makes a film that is such a departure from his oeuvre, that doesn’t center entirely around witty banter, that feels genuinely cinematic, and that is such a departure from the rest of his oeuvre that you’d think he’d experienced a personal career renaissance. It feels like the work of a man with a renewed passion for his craft, not someone so fed up with filmmaking that he’s talking retirement in his thirties.

From the get-go, Red State does not feel like a Kevin Smith film. The grainy, grimy, low-budget feel of the film seems like an artistic choice rather than a byproduct of its admittedly low budget. Okay, that’s faint praise, I know, but Smith himself has said in interviews that he doesn’t much care what his films look like.

The dialogue, for the most part, doesn’t sound like your typical Kevin Smith rapid-fire back and forth between a couple of wittier-than-thou fanboys. The teenagers who are lured to the Five Point Church may shoot off a couple of good one-liners now and again, but it doesn’t sound blatantly scripted. A lot of their dialogue suggests lame attempts to sound cool to each other rather than Smith’s attempt to sound cool to his audience. Tucker, of the If We Made It Podcast, points out that this is the first time Smith has actually written characters rather than mouthpieces for himself. That about sums it up perfectly. Once the government siege starts, there’s a bit of conspicuous, too-clever-for-its-own-good Kevin Smith dialogue, but by that point you’ve already been treated to Michael Parks’s riveting 15 minute sermon, and if you’re not won over by that, just turn the movie off.

SPOILER ALERT

Michael Parks has never been better than he is here, with a menacingly understated performance full of creepy charm. You watch him preach and can instantly understand why followers would flock to him, hanging on his every repulsive, honey-coated word. As long as the sermon scene went on, I didn’t want it to end. But it ends with a blast, literally. The murder at the end of the sermon was truly an original one, and a brilliant little piece of indie-ingenuity. The church has got a homosexual wrapped from neck to toe in plastic wrap, before the murder, they wrap up the rest of his head, then shoot straight down into the top of his skull. The plastic wrap fills with blood, but it is contained for easy clean-up. Given the budget he was working with, I’m sure the plastic wrap bit was something of a necessity. Not having to show his face meant not needing an expensive prosthetic or digital effects. But the end result is an truly original death scene that turns your stomach without being overly gory.

Another aspect of the film that impressed me was the direction of the action sequences. Action is hard to shoot effectively, and for someone not too experienced with this type of film, Smith pulls it off admirably. My favorite sequence (aside from Parks’s monologue) is the scene where one of the teenagers has freed himself, found an assault rifle, and needs to find a way out. He runs through these tight hallways that amplify his footfalls and really give you a sense of the physical space. It feels chaotic and claustrophobic even before they zealots spot him and give chase. Once the chase is on, this same feeling is ratcheted up about ten notches until the teenager finally gets out into the open and is suddenly shot by the government agents that the audience didn’t even know was there. Smith works in several jaw-dropping shocks like this, leaving me to wonder why he’s been so focused on comedy all these years.

It’s also worth mentioning that the sound design is pretty much perfect in this film. Those booming footfalls in the corridors are really what drive that scene, and during the firefight between the church members and the feds, the gunshots are so powerful and feel so close that it really puts you on edge. It feels incredibly dangerous, more so than in your typical action movie. At the end of the film, these incredibly powerful horn blasts come out of nowhere, signaling to the church members that the rapture is at hand. Ever through my crappy speakers, the sound of those blasts rattled the floor and added a truly jarring element at just the right time in the film. I was very much in awe at this point.

…Which brings me to the film’s basic structural flaw that robs the audience of its climax and pretty much neuters the film. After the trumpet blasts ring out, the true believers put down their weapons and emerge from the compound in triumph, not to surrender, but to declare victory. They confront the feds, and John Goodman’s character, who is leading the raid, believes on some level that the trumpets are a sign not to slaughter the church membership as per his orders. The film goes right to the tipping point, and you’re not sure if the feds are going to open fire, or if brimstone will shower down from the sky, and then…

…then you’re in a government conference room during John Goodman’s debriefing. He explains what exactly happened (the trumpet sounds were a conveniently-timed practical joke by some hippy neighbors). Then he relays a not entirely applicable anecdote about dogs fighting over a turkey leg, makes a ham-fisted point about the dangerous of dogmatic beliefs, and leaves.

Sigghhhh…

This isn’t the first time that Kevin Smith has given me false hope that the end of the world is nigh. One of his first shots at writing comics was a Daredevil story where all kinds of weird happenings were pointing to the endtimes. Of course, in the end it was all just a hoax perpetrated an obscure villain orchestrated solely to show off Smith’s knowledge of obscure comic book villains. I wanted Red State to end with the MUTHERFUCKING WRATH OF GOD! I wanted the sky to open up and give the mass murderers on both sides of the spectrum a hot brimstone shower with a nice exfoliating plague of locusts on top. I mean, at this point, the audience is abundantly clear about the film’s message. The last thing we need is a dead horse-beating exposition scene.

The very last scene is pretty good though. We see Michael Parks’s good reverend in prison singing hymns to himself and demonstrating that his faith is unshaken. It goes on for some time before the distant shout of a fellow prisoner tells him to “Shut the fuck up!” Roll credits. Writing it down like this makes it sound stupid, but the humor (and poignancy) come from the juxtaposition of this scene with the sermon scene in which his followers hang on his every word and encourage him with exclamations of “Preach it!” and the like. The final scene highlights how far he’s fallen, and gives us a bit of satisfaction that the inmates aren’t likely to fall for his self-righteous sermonizing.

Way to over-explain it, Marvin.

As his “auctioning” of the film’s distribution rights suggests, Red State is a movie by a filmmaker who has given up trying to please people. Remember the last time Smith tried something new? He took a more serious dramatic turn with Jersey Girl, and when his core fanbase criticized it, he piled on too, apologizing and admitting it sucked (hey, no more than Dogma). Then he immediately went back to his tried and true characters with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. His entire career since then has been about pleasing the fans, until now. Ironically, trying to cater to his fans has led to losing many of them. If he’d just continue in the direction he started with Red State and try to grow as a filmmaker, he’d probably win them all back and then some.

The Montana Mancave Massacre: The Facebook Page

2011-11-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

If you'll kindly look to the right-hand sidebar, you may see one of those new-fangled Facebook badge gadgets. Please consider "Liking" the page, as it's certain to get updated more often than this blog. In fact, I hereby challenge myself to drop in at least once a day, since I know your universe hinges upon hearing my opinions regularly.

What's So Scary About Chromeskull? Socioeconomic Horror

2011-11-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

Regular readers may know that I'm a huge fan of the original Laid to Rest, which I gave a huge, slobbery anus-kiss of a review that you can read here. I was so excited about this franchise that I decided to buy the sequel brand new, sight-unseen, for full price. Coming from someone who almost never pays more than $3 for a DVD, this is no small thing. Thing is, I buy virtually all of my movies used, so when I come across a really good indie horror film, I get somewhat guilty that the creators never saw a dime of my money. To show my support for Robert Hall, I paid ten times what I did for the original Laid to Rest. As you can see, going into Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2, I was doubly invested: emotionally and financially. This is a recipe for sky-high expectations of the sort that can lead to the most seething hatred. So here's my review: I didn't hate it.

As you've probably guessed, I didn't love it either. In fact, I've spent the last several weeks trying to sort out exactly how I feel about the film. It seems to be a series of contradictions. For instance, the story is much more complex than the original, but the movie still seems little more than a showcase for brutal kills. There's more characterization than in the original, yet by and large, the characters were less interesting. It is a much bigger movie than the first Laid to Rest, with a huge body count and spectacular kill sequences, yet the movie seems cramped compared to the original, most of it taking place in Chromeskull’s customized “playspace.” And those spectacular kills seem both more and less brutal than those of the original, going too far over the top and making them cringe-worthy for all the wrong reasons.

The beauty of the original Laid to Rest was its simplicity. It was a pretty straightforward chase movie with a masked slasher pursuing a beautiful girl. There were hints that much more was going on behind the scenes, but it never got in the way of the pure adrenaline rush of the pursuit. It's scariness came from the unknown quality of the killer. In that way, it is more like John Carpenter's Halloween, while Chromeskull L2R2 is like Rob Zombie's.

Chromeskull is scary for an entirely different reason, and one that is much less immediate than it's predecessor. While the original taps into our most primal fears of pain and death at the hands of a predator, the sequel taps into our growing collective fear of the power of the elite few. It can be read as the reflection of our anxieties in the Occupy Wall Street era.

No, I'm serious.

In this installment, we find that Chromeskull is far from a solitary madman with a couple of shiny hunting knives. He is, in fact, backed by an army of assistants who clean up after him, make sure he never gets caught, and even bring him back from the brink of death with a team of top-notch physicians. Talk about health insurance. He also has craftsmen who design him custom weapons and "playspaces" in which to hunt. In the original, there was a glimmer of hope. If you can just survive long enough to make him melt his own face off, you can beat Mr. Shiny-Noggin. In the sequel, there's no escape. You elude Chromeskull, his people will find you eventually. That's the kind of power only money can buy.

All this behind-the-scenes stuff undermines the immediate terror by giving you too much information about Chromeskull and essentially killing the unknown aspect of the character. But isn't this always the case with horror sequels? Thankfully, Robert Hall knows not to give everything away and doesn't offer up much in the way of a backstory. In the most effective scene of the movie, Chromeskull's assistant (Brian Austin Green) taunts his boss's latest victim by saying, "You know what kind of sick shit he's going to do to you?" Then he leans in close and whispers the answer in her ear, leaving it to our imagination. Robert Hall knows what a fine line he's walking with this one, and thankfully, he understands the importance of the unknown.

Did I mention that Brian Austin Green is awesome in this movie?
Don't let the goofy animated gif fool you.

Macabre Family Haunted Tomb 2010

2011-10-23T10:40:00.000-06:00

Hey ya'll,

Sorry for the silence, but October is truly the maddest month at Casa Macabre. I've spent the bulk of my free time fashioning giant papier mache spiders for our haunted dungeon (while watching horror movies, of course), and haven't had much time for blogging.

Our dungeon isn't quite photogenic yet, so I thought I'd drop in with some pics from last year's Halloween party/haunted house. My son wanted an Egyptian-themed party, so we did what we could with our limited resources and came up with a haunted tomb that kept he and his friends occupied for days. Enjoy the highlight pics.

Descent into the tomb.

The tunnel between the basement stairs and the concrete wall featured glowing heiroglyphics, a flapping bat, and this bad boy.

Here's the view when you turned the corner. Nothing but fog and glowing red eyes. Do you dare get closer?

Owner of aforementioned eyes.

"I'm having my doubts about being a God."

The Pharoah himself. We told the kids their goal was to steal a treasure from the mummy's tomb. As soon as they did, the statue of Anubis (which was actually me in costume) stood up and chased them up the stairs. One kid tried to fight me.

I can't believe I let them smash my awesome spider pinata.

Worm-infested brains

Haunted Living Room

The Return of Haunted Living Room

Marvin the Macabre's First Annual Halloween Mixtape Recipe Exchange

2011-10-03T19:59:00.000-06:00

The temptation for horror bloggers to declare October "Quit-my-job-and-watch-horror-movies-all-month" Month is damned-nigh overwhelming. But as packed as my schedule is going to be, it looks like I'm going to have to settle for a more modest way to mark the best holiday ever invented. Enter the First Annual MMM Recipe Exchange.

But hold on to your Eyeball Soup and Seamonster Sandwich recipes, that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm after is recipes for your ultimate Halloween mixtape. I don't know about you, but every year I seek out my favorite spooky songs, compile them on a CD (yup, old school), and put that shit on repeat in my car. Problem is, it's getting hard to find new Halloween-themed songs year after year. That's where the recipe exchange comes in. I'm calling on all readers to submit a list of ten to twenty songs that would go on their ultimate Halloween mixtape. This way I get to share some of my favorites while getting hip to what I've been missing. Sound fun? Well then, let's start this off:

1. Spiderbaby - Fantomas
2. Halloween Theme - John Carpenter
3. Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon - The Cramps
4. Pet Sematary - The Ramones
5. Gingerbread Coffin - Rasputina
6. Black Wings - Tom Waits
7. Candyman Theme - Phillip Glass
8. Night of the Vampire - Roky Erickson
9. Dracula's Wedding - Outkast
10. Witch Queen of New Orleans - Redbone
11. Theme from Scream - Marco Beltrami
12. Red Right Hand - Nick Cave
13. Astro Zombies - The Misfits
14. This is Halloween - Danny Elfman
15. Werewolf Baby - Louis King
16. Cry Little Sister (Theme from The Lost Boys) - Gerard Mcmann
17. Beware of the Blob - The Five Blobs
18. I'm Your Boogie Man - Rob Zombie
19. A Nightmare on Elm Street Theme - Charles Bernstein
20. Zombie A Go Go - Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures

Holy Crap, I can't believe how fast I rattled that off and how many I had to leave out. Now it's your turn to get your list on. I can't wait to see what you come up with.

European Horror Month Part 6: Valerie and her Week of Wonders

2011-10-01T17:53:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this is a late entry, but let's just pretend September has 31 days and get over it. The final film in my less-than-prolific European Horror Fest is a 1970 Czech film directed by Jaromil Jiles and entitled: Valerie and her Week of Wonders. Although I'm not sure if this one is normally classified as a horror film, it has enough creepy, supernatural elements for me to classify it as one. It is also a fairy tale, a trippy piece of avant-garde psychedelia, and a vampire film. Above all, it is deeply, wonderfully weird and often unintentionally hilarious.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders is a coming of age story about a 13-year old girl living with her grandmother and trying to come to terms with her sexuality in the face of a lecherous clergyman and a white-faced missionary/former bishop/vampire named The Weasel who needs her blood to restore his youth. The Weasel is also a former lover of her grandmother, who desires to live with him eternally as a vampire, and is willing to sacrifice Valerie to make it happen.

I won't even try to pretend to understand what's going on in this film. The first time I watched it, I was three or more sheets to the wind, and figured that was why I wasn't following the film's logic. But no, I truly makes no sense, which I suppose is intentional and makes the film more like a dream or fairy tale. The less I try to understand it, the more I like it.

The film has a confident, clever young heroine, a creepy villains, and an atmosphere that seamlessly veers from a gorgeous pastoral painting to a gloomy gothic underworld. The color palette is a stark, symbolic black and white, on which Valerie's red hair makes her the focus of every scene.

As I see it, Valerie and her Week of Wonders is all about the difficult journey into adulthood, and the conflicting emotions we have as our sexual nature is awakened. That said, it is difficult to descipher what the film is trying to say about it. Early on, Valerie watches as a group of four women frolic in a stream, kissing each other and slipping fishes down the front of their gowns. Seriously.

Slippery little suckers, aint' they?

A little later, she watches as one of these women gets it on with a strapping local man and a line of missionaries and nuns pass by, clearly offended by (and trying not to stare at) the sight. In the films most shocking, and yet profoundly hilarious sequences, Valerie narrowly escape being raped by a priest.

The Weasel is one of these missionaries, who gathers all the town's virgins for a sermon, the whole of which goes like this:

Sermon for Virgins: "I, a servant of God, a missionary, have come to give you, dear maidens, my support and a lesson for life. Do you know what you are, oh virgin? You are the touch of an alabaster hand. An unhalved garnet apple. A boat full of leaves, an unfurling rose. The coarse hand that touches your breast will leave an ineffaceable mark upon it. But I am here with you. In place of your guardian angel. I bless your lips, your breast, your lap. Amen."

And just think about the main villain's name. The Weasel. If there's a more phallic mammal, I don't know what it is. And add to that this choice bit of dialogue: "The weasel has violated your lips." Creepy.

It seems pretty clear that the film is an indictment of the sexual hypocrisy of religious instituions, and it is, yet the message gets convoluted by scenes like the one is which Valerie shares a bed with a recently deflowered woman who has just married a man much older than her and regards it as the end of all her hopes and dreams. Upon waking, she and Valerie start kissing, and you get the sense that the missionaries aren't the only lecherous old men who have an eye for young flesh. The director seems to be getting off on shooting erotic, and yes, nude scenes featuring a 13-year-old girl.

Jaromil Jires, you lecherous old perv!

Usually, you can discern a film's message by its ending. But not here. What you get instead is a bizarre montage of the characters frolicking in nature and striking weird poses. It's as if the director had no idea how to tie up the story and said, "Fuck it, let's just make it confusing so it will seem deep and no one will admit that they didn't get it." Even as I type this, I have to wonder whether I'm being dismissive and maybe a few dozen repeat viewings will open up a dimension of the film I never realized was there. That's what art films are all about, right?

For all that, Valerie and her Week of Wonders is a beautiful, if creepy, piece of work. It is steeped in symbolism, some of it heavy-handed like the constant use of black and white to represent virginity and purity vs. corruption. It is thought-provoking, not always in ways the director intended, I'm sure, but certainly worth a watch, if only to see the paedophile priest expose his hairy chest and tooth necklace.

European Horror Month Part 5: Lucio Fulci's Zombie

2011-09-27T23:44:00.000-06:00

Episode 5: In which Marvin the Macabre finally fills a gaping hole in his horror viewership.

That's right folks, embarrassed as I am to admit it, I've never seen Fulci's legendary Zombie. What's worse, as far as I know, I've never seen a Lucio Fulci film. I aim to correct this tonight as I do a lo-fi version of live-blogging, one in which I blog as I watch (unfortunately I'm not tech savvy enough to let y'all read along in real time). I decided to do it this way because I realized I've only got three days left in September, and my total European Horror Month posts equal a pitiful foursome.

Let the games begin:

First thing's first: the title menu is rad! Worms slithering from a badly decomposed zombie's eye-socket.

Next thing's next: had to turn on a light because I'm too lame to type in the dark.

I knew there were a lot of Italians in New York but damn, You'd think the police would at least speak English on duty. (Oops, I had the Italian dubbing on, my bad).

Some pretty inventive gore here. Can you imagine if the twisted mind of Fulci had gotten to works with some next-level FX wizards like Berger and Nicotero?

Wow, the sync is so bad they might as well be speaking Italian.

James the coroner's assistant should kick the coroner's patronizing ass.

(13:31) - Wow, they had techno in 1979? It must have sounded space-age back then. Too bad they continued to rehash that same damned song for three more decades.

(17:00) - Pace is beginning to slow. Right now, the biggest threat is the reporter and daughter of the boat-owner being caught snooping around the crime scene after dark. Hopefully this will end in dismemberment.

(18:00) - A cunning ruse. Lots of couples break into boats being actively guarded as a crime scene by the police. There's no more convenient place to make out.

(26:00) - Note to Dr. Maynard's wife: If you're trying to get off an island while being dominated by your mad scientist husband, maybe you shouldn't threaten to tell the world his secrets. You can still blab once you get back to civilization, but while you're powerless, maybe use more guile. Just a thought.

(27:00) - First mention of "zombies." I'm glad this film incorporates voodoo, making the creatures proper zombies. Romero's version were "the living dead." There are similarities, but despite popular usage of the term "zombie," they're not the same thing. Not that I'm really peeved about the broadened definition of "zombie"--it's just nice to see the original zombie myth now and again.

(34:00) - Not to sound like a pig or anything, but... SHARK and BOOBIES in the same shot!!!

(36:00) - OMG! Underwater Zombie vs. Underwater Boobies!

(37:00) - That zombie-playing dude is actually (mock-)biting that shark. This is truly impressive. I've heard about the famous shark vs. zombie sequence, and I'm digging it. It's not the most exciting piece of cinema ever, and these days they'd undoubtedly go with a CGI shark to enhance the action, but back in the day they didn't have a choice. While it kind of takes your mind out of the film and into the "making of" featurette, this is quite an accomplishment.

(40:00) - The treatment of the villagers (and any non-white, really) by whiteys in this movie is pretty atrocious. Look at the shame in this man's face as Dr. Maynard accuses him of being (rightfully) afraid. Then again, who turns out to be right? Can't say that Fulci's a racist just because his idiotic white characters are.

(46:00) - The infamous eyeball gouging scene. I was not disappointed. Although it doesn't look totally realistic, it doesn't diminish the horror of the scene (much). Who doesn't dread eyeball trauma? Not to mention that it was the best-looking girl in the film and the one I really wanted to see survive her captivity.

(1:02:00) - Zombanquet - The way this scene is edited, it gives the impression that they see Mrs. Maynard's body first, and don't notice the four zombies gnawing on it until a few seconds later. I know it's just to surprise the audience, but it makes the scene play kind of weird. Also, they're using real entrails, you can tell. My friend Shannon once chewed real deer entrails for a film. Don't think I could stomach it. Very revolting scene.

(1:02:33) - While shambling zombies can be just as scary as running zombies, they need to at least be shambling with purpose. Just look at these two shamefully lazy zombies. They're not even looking at the four juicy morsels before them. I don't know, maybe they're full.

(1:09:00) - The middle of a zombie attack is the perfect time to lay down in an old graveyard and start a little romancin'. If either of these dipshits survive, I'm going to feel ripped off.

(1:10:38) - Now that's some whip-ass zombie make-up. Of course, the film suggests that this is supposed to be the 400-year-old remains of a conquistador, which I believe would be reduced to a skeleton by now. His clothes are still in pretty good shape too, considering he was buried directly in the ground rather than encased in a coffin. So, it took the worms 400 years to discover his eye socket? But who am I to argue with whip-ass zombie make-up?

(1:20:56) - I've got to wonder just how hard it would be to bite a big chunk out of someone. In zombie movies, the meat always just tears away like a piece of pork roast that's been slow-cooking in the crock pot overnight. This zombie just ripped out a piece of arm flesh like an inch deep, and I'm thinking it wouldn't be as easy as he made it look. Kind of like how in most vampire films, the vampire apparently don't have rib cages, just loose flesh covering the heart that can be easily pierced with any convenient wooden implement, sharpened or not.

(1:23:00) - The world's shittiest Molotov cocktails. They make a big fireball, but then go out immediately.

(1:30:43) - Clever ending. Hopeless and wonderful.

Well that was a cool little zombie flick. The gore was well-done, the zombies looked great, I loved the island location, and it really had a Dawn of the Dead vibe to it. The acting was subpar pretty much all around, the characters had no depth whatsoever, and it wasn't the least bit scary, but as a showcase for bodily destruction and mayhem, it served its purpose admirably.

At this point, I'm kind of zombied-out. The market is saturated with zombie films of every budget, and it's hard to find a zombie film that has anything new to add. But I did enjoy this one quite a bit, even if I have seen it all before. There's just something about the tone and atmosphere of Zombie that makes it feel like one of the definitive zombie films, and I suppose it is.

P.S. - I'm going to try to get in one more post before European Horror Month is over. I really wanted to get more films watched, but my damned life got in the way. Stupid life. Doesn't it know that movies are better?

European Horror Month Part 4: Frontiere(s)

2011-09-24T00:57:00.000-06:00

Nazi Dinner Party

I'm getting jaded, I'll admit. When I first become a father, I laid off of horror movies for a long while-the better part of a decade, in fact. After years of worshipping Stephen King and Clive Barker, and witnessing all manner of deviant violence and terror, there was something about having a tiny life to protect that made screen violence too disturbing. Now that I often want to kill my children myself, with my bare hands, I've returned to horror in a big way. I've been thrilled with the direction horror has taken, and through a bunch of awesome horror bloggers, I have been introduced to the finest films the genre has to offer. Upon my initial return to horror, I watched so many great, genuinely scary movies that I kind of forgot that there are, and have always been, so many bad or just plain forgettable horror flicks out there. While I end up liking most of the horror movies I watch, it's becoming rare to find one that makes me so much as cringe.

Of course, all of this is to say that Xavier Gens's Frontiere(s) is something pretty special. This was my second viewing of the film, and I found that it didn't lose any of its potency the second time around. In fact, I liked it better and found myself cringing, shouting, groaning, and laughing in the face of extreme violence every couple of minutes. Despite the film's serious tone, it is a bloody good time.

I should offer the disclaimer that Frontiere(s) isn't a particularly original film. Instead it wears its influences on its proverbial sleeve. You've got dashes of Hostel and The Descent sprinkled atop a huge platter of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. What makes this movie work is the way all the influences are synthesized into a cohesive and compelling whole.

The plot centers around 5 twenty-somethings from the Paris slums who take advantage of a riot sparked by the election of an extreme right government, pulling off some offscreen heist and fleeing town. As can be expected with any trip into the boonies, they encounter a family of weirdos who put them up for the night, then begin to kill them one by one. Pretty standard stuff, but standard stuff done extremely well.

Being hoodlums, most of the characters aren't immediately likable. There's Yasmine, who is the narrator and main character. She is 3 months pregnant with a baby she doesn't plan to keep. When we meet her, she is fleeing the crime scene with her brother, Sami, who has been shot and will die within the first ten minutes of the film. We sympathize with Yasmine because she's a pretty girl, she's pregnant, and she's just lost a brother. Other than that, we never learn much about her.

Another forced haircut. Must be a French thing.

The other sympathetic character is Farid, a soft-spoken Muslim who plans to give up his life of crime and be a responsible adult for his mother's sake. He also refuses sex with local whores out of love for his girlfriend. He seems a little too nice to be caught up with this crew, but then, I can understand his wanting to rebel against society. He's lives in the slums and is Muslim, who are basically treated like shit in France (not claiming the U.S. is any better, BTW).

Farid realizes he left his wallet in El Segundo.

The other two hoodlums are Alex and Tom. When we first meet Alex, he is stopped by a cop at gunpoint, but doesn't back down. He takes the cop's gun and beats him with it. He's a total badass, but you have to question his sanity, because you can tell he really wanted to kill that cop. He's also Yasmine's ex and the one who knocked her up. And while he's half-crazy and comes off as pretty heartless, he's a confident, take-charge kind of guy, and he's good-looking and charismatic guy, so you have to like him a little bit. By the end of the movie, he's actually pretty sympathetic.

Alex in Chains

Tom is a douche. No getting around it. But again, he's good-looking and charismatic so you end up liking him just a little bit, and may even feel a bit of sympathy when he's paralyzed with claustrophobia or being tortured by deranged remnant Nazis.

Tom Auditioning for The Descent 3

The thing about Frontiere(s) that makes me giggle with delight is its stomach-turning violence. While it might not be enough to impress the hardcore gore-hounds, it is certainly too much for the squeamish, and just about right for me. While you've got your Hostel-style Achilles tendon-cutting, you've also got stuff I haven't seen before, like a major character getting steamed to death. Anyone who's suffered a steam burn will squirm through this scene.

The steam room, but not the relaxing kind.

The other impressive accomplishment of the film is that in addition to being a showcase for gore, there is an emotional core to the film. Imagine if The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a character who wasn't completely bat-shit insane on account of having been adopted. They have been raised in an insane environment and taken part in casual slaughter, but become aware that their actions are wrong when they identify with one of the potential victims. That is basically the character of Eva in Frontier(s).

God, my family is so embarrassing!

Beyond that, there is a complex relationship between Yasmine and Alex, and when the shit starts raining down from heaven, they discover their true feelings for one another. Yeah, it sounds cheesy, but it works in this film.

Frontiere(s) is certainly the best film put out under the After Dark Horrorfest brand, and if I were writing my Top Ten Horror Movies of the Past Ten Years today, I'd probably bump something to make room.

Hey, I think I see what your foot is caught on.

European Horror Month Part 3 - Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht (1979)

2011-09-19T11:58:00.001-06:00

...with these goddamned rat-teeth?

I've been wanting to rewatch this one for years. I first saw it back in High School when they had a special midnight showing during Halloween weekend at the old Babcock Theater. Anyone from Billings, Montana can tell you all about the Babcock's reputation for being haunted, which had everyone in a creepy mood long before frame one flickered. What I remember most vividly was the opening scene with the dessicated bodies of plague victims, particularly the children.

European horror and dead children go together like bullets and guns.

At the time, I had no real knowledge of film history, and very limited experience with foreign films. I remember being disappointed that the movie wasn't scarier. This time around, however, watching Klaus Kinski's Dracula eyeballing Harker like a thick, juicy porterhouse unnerved me in all the right ways. Kinski is the real reason to see this movie. It is well known that the man was genuinely unhinged, and you feel like he might do any manner of insane shit at any given moment. He does his best to live up to Max Shreck's immortal performance, but can we blame him if he falls slightly short? After all, Max Shreck could scare the crap out of you with his looks alone, while Kinski, being a good-looking man, had to rely only on the insanity pouring forth from his eyes.

Mein Gott, you look juicy!

The film moves at a languid pace, and features a never-ending walking sequence that puts The Two Towers to shame. When the villagers refused to take Harker to Dracula's castle in a carriage, I had to wonder whether that was an artistic choice, or the German Film Commission was leaning on Herzog to include as much landscape as possible in a bid to increase tourism. Joking aside, the endless walk to Dracula's castle does serve a purpose: to give the audience a sense for the remoteness of the castle and show just how far from civilization Harker must journey. This is Dracula's realm, and Harker will be wholly his prisoner. My main problem with the sequence wasn't it's length, but the music. Wagner is used extensively throughout the film, and it never seems appropriate. Rather than forboding, it comes off as triumphant and kills the mood. I'd gladly take a creepy synth score over this.

We get it Herzog; Germany's a beautiful country. Can we get back to the story now?

Similar to the misstep with the music, the film suffers from an inconsistent atmosphere. At times, the film is dark and creepy, with dank, decaying underground crypts and white nightgowns billowing in the moonlight. But at other times, the movie is just too bright. For example, take the interior of Dracula's castle:

Call me a slave to the Universal Monsters aesthetic, but doesn't this place seem a little too bright and cheerful to house the King of the Undead?

These stylistic missteps aside, I really like the twists Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht puts on the classic Dracula story. In this version, Dracula doesn't just come to town and decimate the population one throat at a time, he brings the plague with him. Some of the most haunting scenes from the film are the ones in which the villagers left alive throw a festival, choosing to party the rest of their lives away since hope has fled. And the shots of literally thousands of rats make my skin crawl, and I normally love the little buggers.

Fine dining amongst the plague rats.

The film ends in a stereotypically depressing German fashion, the details of which I'll leave to you to discover. When the credits rolled, I wasn't precisely sure whether I'd enjoyed the film or not. It's a far cry from Hollywood's Dracula film from the same year (which I unreservedly love, warts and all). I'm sure there's much more meaning in Herzog's version, and I wish the copy I watched was my own, because I'm sure the film would improve upon repeat viewings. Regardless, the movie is an interesting viewing experience with lots of flaws, lots of unforgettable imagery, and a enough intense Klaus Kinski brooding to choke a coffin full of plague rats. Why not give it a try?

He was born to play this role. Why else would his mother have named him Klaws? Wa wah wah waaah...

European Horror Month Part 2: Calvaire (The Ordeal)

2011-09-11T17:01:00.000-06:00

Let's go ahead and file Calvaire under "Not at all what I expected." This head-scratcher of a Belgian horror flick is one of those films you think about for a week and still don't know if you liked it.

The film gets off to a strange start. You get a really long take of the protagonist, Marc, sitting in front of a mirror, putting on stage make-up. The shot lasts unnecessarily long, but it serves the purpose of preparing the audience for a film chock-full of unnecessarily long takes. In fact, Calvaire is basically of horror flick with art film pacing, which sometimes works, but usually doesn't.

From there, things take a turn for the hilarious as we see the performance Marc has been preparing for. He sings love songs at nursing homes while wearing a shiny cape.

The performance is laugh-out-loud funny, especially the cheesy, electronic backing music. But the old folks love him. Literally. After the show, one of his octagenerian fams clumsily tries to seduce him backstage. Then when he's leaving for his next gig, the older lady who booked him at the nursing home comes onto him. At this point, I knew I was not in for the film I had been expecting--the one I had been putting off watching for the better part of a year because it looked so bleak and disturbing. It was starting to look like a low-budget rip-off of The Wedding Singer. Little did I know the silliest was yet to come.

The next part of the film follows a boilerplate horror formula: Marc's van breaks down in the middle of nowhere, he encounters a strangely-behaving man who leads him to a nearby inn that has seen better days, and everyone gets their psycho on. The formula can be tired as hell, but here, the strength of the performances sell it and elevate it.

I suppose I'd better throw up a SPOILER ALERT for the rest of the discussion, although I'm not sure anyone would be surprised to learn that the Innkeeper, Bartel, is the film's resident psychotic. The great thing about Bartel as a villian is that he is such a vulnerable character. He has a fully-formed backstory, and as he relates stories from his past to Marc, and frequently breaks down in tears. His performance is pretty much the reason to watch the film. He's not only emotionally damaged, but he's witty and charming. You like him, but you don't trust him, and you can't wait to see what he does next. Of course, what he does next is pretty damn twisted.

It seems old Bartel's wife done runn oft some years ago, and he's looking for a replacement. She used to be a singer, so our friend Marc is clearly a dead-ringer for her. Bartel torches his van, knocks him out with its battery, and proceeds to remake him in the image of his lost love.

Someday I'll compile a list of the top five haircuts in horror, but so far, I've only come up with Calvaire and Martyrs. It sounds dumb, in light of all the other atrocities in these films, but the haircut scenes always get to me. I guess it's the humiliation, the insult on top of injury, but they arouse more sympathy in me than any number of ankle-cutting scenes combined.

So Bartel puts a dress on Marc, gives him the worst haircut this side of Justin Bieber, and (we can assume) makes sweet, sweet anal-rape to him. While the film only hints at it, that's quite enough to turn your stomach.

So, now you expect that Calvaire will turn into a pretty straightforward survival-horror flick. What you don't expect is that all of Bartel's pig-raping neighbors were also in love with Bartel's wife, and pretty much take it for granted that Marc is, in fact, that wife. Hilarity ensues. It seems everyone is this movie wants to fuck the protagonist.

By far, the most bizarre scene in the movie, and one that serves no apparent purpose except to explicitly illustrate the freakishness of the townsfolk, is the bar dance scene. A couple of townies spot Bartel with his new wife, so Bartel takes his shotgun for a walk down to the tavern to lay down the law. He tells all the men in town that they just want to be left alone, and anyone who messes with his recently returned wife will feel the wrath of the buckshot. So naturally, when he leaves, they take the opportunity to indulge in some avant-garde piano and to do the retarded zombie dance. If I knew how to extract and embed video, I'd show you, because it really must be seen to be believed.

So, yeah...

Calvaire alternated between silly and harrowing, despair and ridiculousness. In the special features, director Fabrice du Welz enumerates his many influences and the films he paid homage to in Calvaire. I think therein lies the source of the film's problems. He seems to have added touches that really had no place in this movie, rendering it disjointed and giving it a wildly uneven tone. There is much to admire in Calvaire, particularly the performances, but overall I'd have to chalk it up as a noble, though failed, experiment.

European Horror Month Part 1: SL8 N8 (or Slaughter Night)

2011-09-05T23:18:00.001-06:00

I'm pretty sure that when Thomas Edison invented cinema, he had SL8 N8 in mind. And although he tried his damnedest, going so far as to electrocute an elephant on film, it would take more than a century of cinematic progress before SL8 N8 would be possible. This film has it all: child murder, "voodoo" rituals, ouija boards, tarot reading, an adandoned mine, demonic possession, and loads and loads of sweet, sweet murder.

Kristol - Impossibly Adorable

Hailing from the Netherlands/Belgium, SL8 N8 tells the story of an impossibly adorable Dutch girl (Kristol) and her college-age friends who journey to exotic Belgium to fetch her deceased father's final book manuscript, only to take an ill-fated tour through a mine that became the final resting place for notorius serial child-murderer, Andries Martiens. When the group inevitably gets trapped underground, they sensibly pop ecstacy tablets and use the ouija board that was among Kristel's father's possessions. The spirit of Martien (or the demonic forces loosed into the world by him, I was never quite sure) possesses the attractive twenty-somethings one-by-one, turning them into Evil Dead-style hellspawns who do cool stuff like decapitation and ripping apart people's limbs with their teeth.

The movie opens with a flashback in which we see, in graphic detail, the severed heads of six children impaled on pikes, with two living children tied to chairs, awaiting their inevitable slaughter. The first child has her head cut off and impaled while another does her best not to watch. And that's just the first three minutes.

From there we meet the main characters, a bunch of college kids at a rave. While some might accuse the characters of douchiness, I found them all relatable and fairly appealing. While there are definite hints of douchedom, they all seem like people you wouldn't mind hanging out with. However, when things start to go bad, all of that changes. The douches spray their douchedom hither and yon, while the more level-headed charcters remain level-headed. Just once I'd like to see the "slut" character turn out to be the one who takes charge and gets everyone one alive. But no such luck here.

Arfter fooling around with an ouija board and such, the kids start getting possessed and devouring each other, which is, of course, all great fun, and after awhile, the movie ends. Do you really need to know any more?

How many Dutch does it take to operate a ouija board?

In all seriousness, SL8 N8 is a pretty silly movie, but an infinitely enjoyable one. So if you're the type to go looking for plot holes and such, you're going to find SL8 N8 ripe for the picking. But if you're just out for a fun, scary time, you could do much worse. And last I checked, Slaughter Night was available via Netflix Streaming.

While the sheer fact of it being European lends it a sense of credibility, I see SL8 N8 as being on par with the Friday the 13th sequels (which is not a knock). It is fun, it serves its purpose without demanding too much original thought, and it killed 90 or so minutes of my life (okay, 270 mintues, as I've watched it 3 times now). But enough about me. Has anyone else seen this? And did you have as much of a blast as I did?

Do You Feel It in thr Air? It's... It's...

2011-08-31T21:36:00.000-06:00

HALLOWEEN SEASON!!!!!!!

That's right. Halloween is no longer just a holiday, but an entire holiday season. And I say if stores are already putting out their All Hallow's Eve paraphernalia, then I can start celebrating right now.

And what better way to celebrate than with a month-long blogfest? But I'm thinking that if I hit the Halloweeny movies too early, I might suffer a touch of burnout. That being the case, I'm going to take the lesson that the Top Ten of the Past Ten liststravaganza taught me to heart: European horror is where it's at.

So, I hereby declare that September 2011 is European Horror Month at Marvin's Mancave. I'm making it my goal to watch and blog about at least two European Horror Films per week. Not an insane goal, so I might even be able to stick with it. I'll be watching some new films and reviewing some old favorites. I'm also taking requests, so if you've got any suggestions, fling 'em my way.

I'm also taking that other lesson of the liststravaganza to heart: collaboration with other horror bloggers is where it's at. So here's the deal: if you've got any posts that you're particularly proud of that deal with European horror films, shoot me a link. I'll post it, tell you how cool you are (and mean it), and hopefully send some traffic your way. "But wait," you say, "I don't want to recycle an old post. I want to feel the warm glow of full participation in European Horror Month." Alternately, you might be saying, "Dude, I don't even have a blog." That's fine. Write something, send it my way, and I'll post it. Even if it sucks (but it won't, because my readers have highly refined taste and a razor-sharp wit). "But wait," you say, "I don't want to participate. In fact, I don't even read your blog." That's okay, most don't.

Anyhow, that's my latest gimmick. Let's see how it all plays out.

P.S. - 50 Eurohorror Points if you can name the movie the picture comes from

Top Ten of the Past Ten: The Super-Nerdy Number-Crunching Wrap-up

2011-08-28T22:59:00.000-06:00

Not only was the Top Ten Horror Films of the Past Ten Years Liststravanganza great fun, it was also a statistically unbiased, completely accurate survey that scientifically proves how awesome horror has been in the last decade. I've compiled the results into a fascinating fact sheet for your perusal:

Number of contributors: 18

Number of films chosen: 78

Number of films chosen that I haven't seen: 20

Most popular films:
[REC] - picked 10 times
The Descent - picked 10 times
Shaun of the Dead - picked 9 times
Let the Right One In - picked 8 times
The Mist - picked 6 times
28 Days Later - picked 6 times
Drag Me to Hell - picked 6 times
The Orphanage - picked 5 times
Martyrs - picked 5 times
Paranormal Activity - picked 4 times
Trick r' Treat - picked 4 times

So there they are, the official top, uh eleven, horror films of the last ten years. This is no longer a matter of opinion, but a scientific fact from which we can deduce the single best year in horror of the last decade. Any guesses? No, 2000 doesn't count. Because that was the previous decade. Yes it was. No, actually it wasn't the new millenium; that didn't officially start until 2001. Yeah-huh. Look, you're the only one who thinks 2000 should count, so be quiet and listen up. Sorry guys, there's always that one reader who just has to win every argument, you know.

Anyway, by one measure, you could say that 2007 and 2008 tied, but you'd be wrong. You see, while they tied for most films chosen from each year (12 each), this doesn't account for popularity. Instead it is necessary to weight the films by the number of times they were chosen. See the uber-geeky graph below to see the clear winner:

That's right, 2007. The year that brought us [REC], The Mist, The Orphanage, Inside, Hostel 2, Grindhouse, Funny Games, Trick r' Treat, and Paranormal Activity was King Shit here at the Triple M. 2007 movies were picked a grand total of 42 times, leaving the next highest year, 2008, in the dust with a mere 25 points.

You may also notice that of the top eleven films, seven of them were European. That's right. The 80's belonged to America, the 90's were dominated by Asia, and the last decade has been all about Europe. Who knows what the next decade will bring, but I'm thinking Canada needs to step up. I'd provide more stats on country of origin, but it seems nearly everything these days is an international co-production. I will say that Asia's star has certainly fallen, with only 6 Asian films chosen.

As for directors, the one with the most films chosen was Alexandre Aja, with 3 films (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, and Pirhana). However, each of his films were only chosen by one person, meaning only 3 people chose an Aja film. Therefore, the most popular director goes to Neil Marshall, whose The Descent was chosen 10 times, and Dog Soldiers was picked by 3, for a grand total of lucky 13. Hot on his heels was Jaume Balaguero who picked up 10 points for [REC] (since he co-directed, do we have to cut this score in half), and one for Darkness. I should also note that only one female director was chosen, and she didn't even count because the film was from 2000 (Mary Herron, American Psycho). Shame on us, sexist pigs that we are.

So, of our contributors, whose tastes align the most closely with the official top eleven list? And whose picks were the most original? The contributor who chose the most films that no one else picked was none other than Mrs. Macabre herself, my wife Chelle, whose original choices were:

Darkness
Nightwatch
Vanishing on 7th Street
Van Helsing
Wind Chill

Every other contributor had at least one film choice that was unique to them. But I went a step further and calculated originality scores by assigning a value to each film coinciding with the number of times it was chosen. The more original the choices, the lower the score; the closer to the official top eleven, the higher the score. (Please note that those who submitted incomplete lists, namely my sisters, were not included in this tabulation) Here are the scores:

56 - James Van Fleet
53 - Vetch
51 - Marvin the Macabre
45 - Liam Underwood
44 - BROWN!
44 - Kweeny Todd
43 - Chuck
42 - Ashley
42 - Banned in Queensland
38 - Noel
37 - Andreas
37 - Chelle
36 - The Mike
35 - Tucker
32 - She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
29 - John Bem

I prefer to think that those of us near the top of the list aren't necessarily unoriginal, we simply have impeccable taste, right? Anyhow, those were all the pointless stats I could think to report. I don't know if they were interesting to anybody but me, but nerd that I am, I couldn't not plug the numbers into a spreadsheet and geek out over them.

Even though we're wrapping this list love-in, I encourage those who haven't contributed yet to do so. I'll post them all, and if there are enough, I may even re-crunchify the numbers and update the results.

But the fun's not over yet. I, Marvin the Macabre, vow to watch every movie that ya'll listed and that I haven't seen yet, and to blog about them all. Here are the 20 films I've missed out on:

Antichrist
Buried
Cache
Deadgirl
Funny Games
Oldboy
Primer
Pulse
Rammbock: Berlin Undead
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Seed of Chucky
Skeleton Key
Snakes on a Plane
Splice
Teeth
The Host
Vanishing on 7th Street
We Are What We Are
Wolf Creek
Zombie Strippers

I own copies of 8 of these films, so I'll probably start there. I have no firm time frame for this latest project, but my goal is to blog about them all by the end of the year.

One last order of business. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have made my singing/guitaring debut over at the If We Made It podcast. The song is a Marvin the Macabre original entitled "Days of the Dinosaurs." The song is at the tail-end of the podcast for The Other Sister, but you'll probably want to check out the whole podcast, in which Tucker and BROWN! rip The Other Sister a new one. They compare actors playing retarded people to white people acting in blackface (which would make The Other Sister a double-dose of Tardface). Here's the link: http://ifwemadeit.blogspot.com/2011/08/episode-10-other-sister.html

Thanks again to everyone who helped make the Liststravaganza a success. We'll have to do this again soon... stay tuned.

P.S. Here's a photo of Marvin the Spider Monkey to make your life worthwhile:

At Long Last, Marvin the Macabre's Top 10 of the Past 10

2011-08-26T20:11:00.000-06:00

As we wrap up the Top Ten of the Past Ten Liststravanganza, I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who took the time to contribute a list. This sense of community is what got me into the whole horror blogging game, and you’ve all made it a blast. Before a present my own list, however, there have been a few more guest entries to present.

First up, we’ve got Ashley at Pussy Goes Grrr. Here's the link:

http://mendthiscrack.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/the-past-decade-in-horror-part-2/

Fantastic list Ashley. It's good to see The Others represented. I was really impressed with that one and have often wondered why I don't hear more about it from horror bloggers. I also see you have an affinity for French horror. Virtual high five! Hell yeah. I enjoyed both Ils and Inside, although Frontier(s) ranks higher on my personal list (yet still didn't crack the top ten). The final shot of Grace just kills me. While I really enjoyed the film, I'm thinking you need to be female to have it really hit you at that gut level (strange that it was directed by a man). Anyway, great list, great taste, and great website. I'm so glad you participated, just so I could check out the cool shit going on at your site.

Nextly, we’ve got three tenths of a list from my big sis, who actually submitted a top ten, but didn’t quite grasp that it was restricted to the last decade. However, three of her picks do meet the criteria. They are:

The Strangers

The Descent

[REC]

If there’s one thing I learned from this project, it’s that horror fans are awesome. Oh wait, I already knew that. It was that this past decade has been full of some of the best horror films ever. Wait, I already knew that too. Okay, try this: I learned that if you’re going to ask for guests to submit lists, you should really present yours first if you don’t want to look like an unoriginal D-bag (D is for doggy, btw. Get your head out the gutter.) In fact, only one film on my top ten wasn’t listed by one of you first. Since we all know the only reason to start a blog is to give people the illusion that your opinion somehow matters, originality counts for a lot. Having undermined this illusion, I’d better dispense with further ado and present the list we’ve all (by “we’ve all” I mean “I’ve”) been waiting for:

Marvin the Macabre’s Top Ten of the Past Ten:

#10 – Hostel Part 2

I put off seeing this one for a couple of years, because although I liked Hostel, I didn’t want to see more of the same. Oooh, it’s girls this time instead of guys; that’s supposed to make it original? Then I watched the documentary on American horror called Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue, which showed a clip of the bloodbath scene, but didn’t identify the movie. The imagery was so striking that I knew I had to see it, and searched for months for the twisted film the scene came from. To my mind, it is one of the most powerful kill scenes in horror, because while it’s horrific, it’s also disturbingly sexy. Watching it, I felt simultaneously turned on and disgusted that I was turned on. These conflicting emotions make for a very uncomfortable viewing experience, and one that haunted me long afterward. This scene alone qualifies Hostel 2 for my top ten, but there’s so much else going on.

I loved the focus on the clients and all the political implications of the cell phone bidding wars, as well as the role reversal of the two American killers. I also love the manner in which the final girl survives. There were all manner of shocking scenes in the film, yet it seemed less focused on the torture than its predecessor. It seems that Eli Roth chose to improve the characterization and the emotional connection with the audience rather than merely boosting the body count.

#9 – The Ring

The premise of The Ring seems kind of dumb. Deathtape: the VHS that Kills. But every time that phone rings after someone watches the tape, my heart pounds like crazy and the movie beats my disbelief into submission. The whole film exudes an atmosphere so thick with despair that it sells the iffy premise and makes every little detail chilling.

I thought the fake-out ending was great, because after a great build-up, it had me believing that it was going to turn out to be another “solve the mystery and find the body so the spirit can rest” type of ghost story. I was extremely disappointed. But everything after the “You weren ‘t supposed to help her,” line was balls-to-the-wall freaky. The Ring deserves a place on my list simply for how long it made me afraid to walk from one end of my house to the other in the dark.

#8 – Let Me In

Let me just get this out of the way: Yes, I have seen the original, and yes, I prefer the remake, and no, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When I first watched Let the Right One In, I had been told repeatedly that it was the greatest vampire movie ever, so I was expecting a completely different movie. I thought it was going to be, I don’t know… scary? It was really good, and I recognized that, but the disconnect between expectation and reality was just a bit jolting, like when you’re expecting water and take a sip of Pepsi.

When I watched the American remake, I knew exactly what to expect, and it didn’t disappoint a bit. I thought Matt Reeves created some great scenes, especially ones involving Elle’s companion, that beat anything in the original. I also thought Chloe Moretz and Kody Smit-McPhee were excellent, living up to the performances of their predecessors admirably.

I’ve written about this one before at LINK, so I won’t say too much more, except that I need to give the original another look, so don’t pile on me too hard y’all.

#7 – High Tension

What I love about High Tension is how after a bare bones, minimal set-up, the full-bore terror begins and doesn’t let up ‘til the credits roll. The violence is spectacular, and even when it’s over-the-top it seems all too real. But forget the violence, Alexandre Aja is a master of suspense. The scene where Marie is trying to find a place to hide while she can hear the family being murdered elsewhere in the house is nerve-wracking. I felt like I’d run a marathon after 91 minutes of High Tension.

And okay critics, the ending nearly ruins the film. All the momentum comes to a screeching halt as you say, “Wait, that don’t make no sense.” But just go with it. Believe me, you’ll be thinking about this movie for days… and looking for that fucking car (shiver).

#6 – Trick r’ Treat

I’m going to go out on a limb here and boldly state that Trick ‘r Treat kicks Creepshow’s sorry ass. And I’ve loved Creepshow since I was a kid. Admittedly, the thing in the crate could rip Sam into itty bitty bits, but overall Trick ‘r Treat wins the coveted Marvin Award for best horror anthology film ever.

My favorite sequence is the one with the kids staging a cruel prank that goes wonderfully right (well, not for them). It’s got that fun, fog-machine-spooky atmosphere that I’m a total sucker for, and it captures the spirit of Halloween perfectly. This is one movie I know I’ll be watching at least once a year for the rest of my life.

#5 – Shaun of the Dead

Do I even have to explain this one? Let me hit the high points. Genuinely funny. Genuinely scary. Great love story. Real drama. Check out Bill Nighy’s death scene; it’s absolutely touching. I’ve seen several zombie horror-comedies since this one, but none is as balanced, charming, or emotionally engaging.

#4 – The Descent

Again, this was such a popular pick that I scarcely feel the need to explain myself. This is one of those films where the location is central to the horror. The only spelunking I’m likely to do is here in the mancave, and I’d have a hard time choosing between exploring caves and driving fishhooks into my gonads as the worse hobby. Which is to say that this movie completely scared the piss out of me well before the cave crawlers shoved their pasty-white snouts into the screen. I actually didn’t know about the cave crawlers in advance, so their appearance was a huge shock to me, and made the film a truly powerful experience. This is one of those movies I buy extra copies of at the pawn shop to give to people who haven’t seen it.

#3 – Session 9

You know what I love most about Session 9? No partying teens at the lake. No frat boys or sorority babes on vacation in a foreign land. It’s a horror movie starring middle aged asbestos removal workers, which I’m sure is why I never heard of it until I starting reading horror blogs. These are honest-to-god characters rather than walking stereotypes.

The best character in the film, however, might just be the location. The abandoned mental hospital they are removing the asbestos from tops my list of all-time creepiest locations in a horror film. It uncannily resembles the location of a recurring nightmare I have where I’m in this huge building, and the deeper I go into it, the more dilapidated it becomes until it is barely even a building, but more of a ruin. The mental hospital in Session 9 goes straight to my subconscious mind and throttles the shot out of it. Every time I watch the movie, without exception, I get convulsive chills before anything creepy even happens, when they’re just getting the tour of the building.

Aside from the building, the scariest part of the film is Jurian Hughes’s performance as the recorded voice of former patient Mary, who suffers from multiple personality disorder. The really freaky thing is, you get the feeling that only two of Mary’s personalities come from her mind. The third, Simon, seems to an entity unto himself, who speaks and acts through Mary.

Session 9 probably tops my list of current movie obsessions. I can’t think of a single flaw in the film. And it’s still only number 3. The last 10 years of horror rule!

#2 – [REC]

I’ve tried not to mention [REC] too much lately, because when I started blogging, I couldn’t shut up about it. I try to get everyone I know to watch it, and no one yet has been disappointed (unless they’re lying to me). That’s because:

A – It is the most masterful example of POV horror in existence.

B – It is a sincerely frightening zombie/outbreak film, in which the afflicted humans are so vicious that they make Romero zombies look like mildly irritated special ed students.

C – That goddamned thing at the end! Jesus effing Christos!

D – Satan inhabits the actual cellulose of the film, seriously.

I still haven’t the heart to watch the American remake, Quarantine. I like Jennifer Carpenter and all, but when is anyone in the mood to view a mediocre rehash of a classic? That’s right. I declare [REC] to be a classic of the genre. Anyone care to argue the point?

#1 – Martyrs

Watching Martyrs isn’t really much like watching a movie at all. You generally watch a movie to have a good time, maybe talk about it with friends for an hour or so, and move on with your day. Watching Martyrs is more akin to fasting for a week, or pushing your body to the point of exhaustion, or… I don’t know. It’s an experience more than a movie, one that affects a profound change in the viewer’s state of mind. Okay, I may be overselling the thing, but I seriously left this film in a daze, unable to talk about it except to say, “Wow.”

The thing I love most about Martyrs is how it starts out as a solid horror movie, becomes an excruciating horror movie, and ends up becoming a philosophical meditation (without ever becoming boring). I’ve seen lots of angry reviewers online calling Martyrs pseudo-intellectual. Bullshit. They just don’t like to think very deeply. And they are probably covering for the fact that the film disturbed them to the core. It is disturbing, no doubt about that, but if you look with the right frame of mind, you can see the film is actually quite beautiful.

I realize I’ve said virtually nothing specific about Martyrs and what it might be about. Good. This is truly one film where you should approach it knowing as little about it as possible. Just know this: it is not a pleasant viewing experience, it is extremely brutal, and if you think you can handle it, it is one of the best films of the past decade.

So there you have it. Liststravaganza completed. Or is it?

Not quite. Look for a wrap-up post where we do some super-nerdy number crunching and find out which films were the highest rated, which contributors were the most original, and where to find your host, Marvin the Macabre, making his singing debut. Exciting shit, that.

Gratitude

2011-08-19T00:07:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note to thank the people who found my site with the search terms, "bat junk" and "bigfoot penis." I'm honored to have been able to provide you with an honest-to-goodness photograph of bat junk. From Disney's Animal Kingdom, no less. But alas, bigfoot penis is more elusive. If I happen upon some bigfoot penis pics, please believe I'll post them posthaste.

Sincerely,
Marvin the Macabre

Top Ten of the Past Ten: The Liststravanganza Rages On!

2011-08-14T23:16:00.002-06:00

In the next few days, I'm going to be tallying up the lists to determine which horror films of the past ten years have earned the right to urinate all over the Saw sequels (full disclosure: I haven't actually seen the Saw sequels, but since no one has included them on their list, I figure they're a safe pee-pee target). I'll also be revealing my own personal list, which will prove to be a wholly anticlimactic affair.

And now, on with the countdown.

Today's first list comes from another high school friend of mine, who we'll be calling "Vetch."

Vetch's Top Ten of the Past Ten:

These are in no particular order (otherwise Frailty would be closer to the top).

1) Drag Me to Hell- Starts with a little kid getting dragged to the warm place. Sold.

2) Shaun of the Dead- The guys don’t realize they’re in a horror movie for the first half hour or so. And a hipster is convincingly torn to pieces.

3) Let the Right One In- The vampire is a monster by necessity, those bastard children do it by choice. We’ll add that public pools and bullies were easily the two worst things from my childhood.

4) 28 days later- It’s refreshing to see a horror protagonist go savagely batshit crazy in order to make it out of a bad situation and save the girl.

5) The Ring- I watched this movie in a pitch black apartment that I shared with no one, then fell asleep to the dvd menu screen. Terrible.

6) [REC]- Frantic running and hiding like in a bad dream. I’d have broken the camera over somebody’s head about 5 seconds after the shit started going down.

7) Teeth- This barely qualifies as horror, but the female lead successfully sells this improbable premise.

8) Frailty- Bill Paxton wears a look of total belief when he says an angel wants him to kill people, and to bring his kids along for the ride.

9) Silent Hill- Despite a ton of flaws, this looked incredible.

10) The Mist- The effects weren’t great, but the people made it easier to believe. The ending was a nice kick in the nuts.

It's about time a vagina dentata movie showed up on this thing. I haven't actually seen Teeth, but I'm stunned that there is no thriving vagina dentata subgenre of horror. Soon we'd have sub-subgenres with giant mutated vaginas that swallow up men whole. But then, someone like Stephanie Myers would come along and ruin it by having characters with sparkly vaginal teeth that would only bite carrot sticks and corn dogs. But I digress...

Killer picks Vetch. It's also good to see Silent Hill get some love. Agreed about the flaws, but well worth watching just for the guy getting his skin torn of with one tug from Pyramid-Head.

And Frailty is one movie I try to get everyone to watch. It seems like almost no one has heard of it, which is a crime considering how good it is.

Next up we've got a couple of linked lists. The first is a two-for-one special from the immortal Chuck and Noel whose blog, Midnight Cheese, was new to me, but well worth checking out. Here's the link:

http://midnightcheese.blogspot.com/

Chuck's Top Ten of the Past Ten

Something tells me you've got a thing for zombie movies. The past decade has really brought back the genre in a big way, and you've recognized the cream of the crop. The only one I haven't seen is Rammbock, which I'll have to check out now.

Freddy vs. Jason is a guilty pleasure of mine that I throw in whenever I'm in the mood for some good 1980s-style slasher goofiness.

I also didn't know that Trick 'R Treat was supposed to be a yearly release. That would have kicked ass beyond words. Anyone for starting an online petition to at least get a sequel?

Noel's Top Ten of the Past Ten:

Now this is what this project is all about. It's about speading the word about the best of what's new and earn some converts. Plenty of people have come up with films I haven't seen (or even heard of in some cases). I had never heard of Primer, but the premise sounds intriguing and I'll definitely look for it soon.

You're also the first to recognize Hostel. I was pretty amazed when I first started reading horror blogs at how many horror fans despise Eli Roth and dismiss the Hostel movies as "torture-porn." The gore was pretty excruciating, but it was nothing compared to the tension Roth builds. Bottom-line, if you can't do tension, you can't do horror.

All your other picks sucked, though. Joking, only joking. No, I love them all except for The Host, which I haven't seen... yet.

Moving right along, we have another linked post, this time from James Van Fleet of Horror Films 101. Again, I wasn't familiar with his blog, but have since checked it out and was thoroughly impressed.

James Van Fleet's Top Ten of the Past Ten

http://horrorfilms101.blogspot.com/2011/08/feature-ten-best-horror-films-of-2000s.html

Dear James,

Fuck you. Not only did you steal a good number of my picks, you also made your commentary so spot-on and insightful that mine will just be redundant. So thanks for that.

Okay then, Pulse. Haven't seen it. I always try to watch the original foreign versions of films before (or just instead of) their American remakes, but in this case I didn't realize the American version was a remake. Aside from a few crappy CG effects, I thoroughly enjoyed the remake, so I can't wait to see the original (okay, I say that, but my DVD copy has been sitting on my shelf for like 5 months waiting for me to get around to it).

Also good to see Session 9 on your list. A lot of directors talk about the settings of their films as being a character, but in this case, it's really true. It's one of the most effective uses of setting I've ever come across. I also like your intro. Your enthusiasm for modern horror is apparent, and that's really what I'm trying to do with this Listfest: to get people thinking about how many great horror films have come out in the last decade. And yeah, I could have done a top fifty pretty easily as well.

Alrighty then, one last list to finish off the day. This time it's from a very special guest, Chelle of the infrequently updated blog, Films My Spouse Made Me Watch (full disclosure: she's my spouse, and I made her watch most of these films).

Chelle’s Top Ten of the Past Ten

(In no particular order)

1. Van Helsing

That’s right. This movie is fun. Cling to pretention all you like, but life is too dumb to be serious.

2. Let Me In

You can’t escape love; regardless of what some people think, love is the 5^th element.

3. Trick ‘r Treat

Sam is adorable, so you better celebrate Halloween proper-like, motherfuckers.

4. The Orphanage

It’s scary, tragic, and sweet all in one twisty story. It might be the best horror movie in the last decade.

5. [Rec]

This is the only movie that ever forced me to sleep with the lights on for two weeks. What the fuck is that thing!

6. Vanishing on 7^th Street

Hayden isn’t a bad actor, Lucas is just not very good at that directing thingy. And never knowing what the hell is going on actually makes it scarier.

7. Sean of the Dead

Remember mate, it’s all about fun.

8. Wind Chill

Ghost stories are my favorite sub genre within horror, and this one is a great love story too.

9. Nightwatch

Watching moives in Russian is fun; watching awesome moives in Russian is even better.

10. Darkness

Your most evil relations will always be your kids, but your parents come in a close second.

Movies of Note (because of who is in them mostly)

Day Breakers

Willem Defoe delivers as usual, and I’ve finally come around to Ethan Hawk.

White Noise II

Nathan Fillion and Katee Sackhoff… sigh.

Resident Evil – Extinction

Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, and Oded Fehr… sigh times three.

You go Chelle! A full half of her list is films that haven't appeared on any of the other lists (mine will have one, if I'm lucky). Lots of horror fans hate on Van Helsing, and I'll admit to being underwhelmed on my first viewing. But Chelle's enthusiasm for it soon won me over and now it's one of those films that I could watch any time. This and Stephen Sommer's Mummy movies are what finally led me to embrace my love for big, dumb summer-blockbuster movies.

I also loved Wind Chill, though I think the horror aspect of the movie is its weakest point. I'm far more interested in the arc of the relationship between the two leads (though I wish the characters had been given names). Emily Blunt starts the movie off as a totally aloof and dismissive beeotch, and still my unyielding love for her was turned up to 11.

Here's the cool thing about my wife: she hates chick flicks and she joins in when I'm going off about how hot this or that actress is. And she'll watch practically anything I force on her. Even if she has no interest in something, I'll just throw it on and wait for her to pass through the room. 4 out of 5 times, she'll watch the whole flick. Sometimes she'll stand through an entire movie. I'll say, "Have a seat," and she'll be like, "No, I'm not really watching this," and then watch until the credits roll. I still have trouble getting her to watch slashers, but I'm working on it.

So there you have it. If you're planning on submitting a list, try to do it within the next few days, as I'm trying to wrap this up and make a list of the totals. That said, if you come to this post late and want to write your own list, I'll totally post it or link to it, you just won't be included in the final tally.

Stay tuned for more madness...

Top 10 of the Past 10: The Continuing

2011-08-10T00:26:00.001-06:00

Well color me pleased as shit at the response I'm getting to the Top 10 of the Past 10 Liststravaganza. Y'all are stepping up and showing the love in a big way.

If you've been following this topic, you'll have noticed many bloggers have contributed with posts on their own sites, then added a link to the comments section. I've been adding them to my posts just to make sure they don't get overlooked in the comments section, and so I can comment on their lists. I'll present these bloggers first:

First up is John Bem of I Will Devour Your Content:

John Bems's Top Ten of the Past Ten

http://iwdyc.blogspot.com/2011/08/spelunking-in-montana-mancave-john-bems.html

Lots of surprise picks here. I'm mildly amused every time I see the Zombie Strippers trailer, but have never considered actually watching it. That has all changed now. John, you and your blog have made a difference. I'm also delighted to see House of 1,000 Corpses getting some love. It didn't quite make my cut, but I love it to death. I'm kind of surprised that no one else has mentioned Zombieland yet. And Snakes On a Plane? You may have won the prize for oddball pick of the week, my friend. I haven't seen it, but it comes highly recommended by my brother-in-law as a so-bad-its-good classic.

Please give a warm Mancave Massacre welcome to our next Liststravaganza contributor: Queenie Tirone of the endlessly inventive blog, Kweeny Todd:

Queenie Tirone's Top Ten of the Past Ten

http://kweenytodd.blogspot.com/2011/08/response-to-tmmm-ten-best-horror-films.html

More surprises here. In particular I was intrigued by Repo! The Genetic Opera. I've heard mixed things about this one, but a recommend from you means I should probably see it. I tend to like oddball movies anyway. I'm also intrigued by Dead Girl, which I've heard horrible things about, but always wanted to see for myself. I can't help it, I've been fascinated by necrophilia ever since my best friend in college wrote a binder full of Necro poems including the classic: Pulse-Free Handjob. Then there's Midnight Meat Train, which is based on one of my favorite stomach-turning Clive Barker stories. I thought the adaptation was pretty good, though the over-the-top CG gore effects in the very beginning turned me off. Still, the acting was really good, I liked the story, and the gore got much better and realistic later on. Still, first impressions are hard to shake.

Next up: the mind-blowingly prolific El Miguel of everyone's favorite horror blog - From Midnight with Love:

The Mike's Top Ten of the Past Ten

http://frommidnight.blogspot.com/2011/08/mikes-top-10-favorite-horror-films-of.html

Nice picks, L'Mike. Great to see Coscarelli getting his due. I too completely dug Incident On and Off a Mountain Road. Remember when Mr. Asshole Survivalist was but a wee lad mugging alongside Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation? I think his association with that role made him even more effective in this one since it was such a departure. And yes, it was awesome to see a new final girl in the vein of Nancy thompson who's going to take the fight to the psycho, all the while setting MacGuyveresque booby-traps.

I am conflicted about Bubba Ho-Tep though. I thought all the ancient Egyptian spirits stuff was unnecessary. Bruce Campbell is fricking brilliant as a decrepit Elvis-in-hiding, and Ossie Davis is every inch his equal. I honestly would have preferred a quirky buddy-comedy tinged with moments of raw drama about two deluded old-timers doing their damnedest to break out of the nursing home. Maybe that's just me though...

Moving right along we come to an excellent blogger who I hadn't checked out until she responded to my call for top 10 lists. Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr has posted a wonderful and insightful list, and promises another from her co-blogger in the coming days. Do check it out:

Andreas's Top 10 of the Past 10

http://mendthiscrack.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/the-past-decade-in-horror-part-1/#comment-2429

Hell yeah Coraline! I didn't even consider that one. Not exactly wet-yourself scary, but creepy as all get-out. Lots of surprises here, including two I've never heard of (The Host and Cache). Good to see my beloved [REC] getting all kinds of love, as well as the innovative Pontypool and the unbelievably good May. I haven't seen Seed of Chucky yet, though it is waiting on my shelf. Bride was pretty funny. Anyway, some great, original picks here.

Now, you may have already seen this list in the comments, but I wanted to make it more prominent, so here is the top ten from the indefatigable Banned In Queensland:

Banned in Queensland's Top 10 of the Past 10

10. Eden Lake (2008) – Young punks can be seriously scary dudes and this movie rams home why very effectively.

9. Paranormal Activity (2007) – Proof that things that go bump in the night can still be damn scary.

8. Saw (2004) – It’s easily to forget how awesome the original was given all the crappy sequels, but the original was indeed quite awesome.

7. Skeleton Key, The (2005) – Suspenseful and atmospheric with an absolute cracker of an ending. Definitely needs more love.

6. Descent, The (2005) – Pipped only by Buried as the most claustrophobic movie I’ve endured in recent times.

5. Funny Games (2007) – Gets right under your skin despite its seemingly innocuous elements.

4. Buried (2010) – Easily the best “true life” horror movie made in the past decade.

3. Rec (2007) – Scariest horror movie finale ever.

2. Orphanage, The (2007) – Gorgeous looking film with a suspenseful story and a brilliant ending.

1. Ring, The (2002) – I’m still trying to get the stains out of my undies that resulted after watching this.

Alright, I'm baffled. First, why did I think The Ring was from 2000? But more troubling than that, why is this the first mention of The Ring? BIQ, I must revise my list because of you. This was one of those rare movies that stuck with me for a month, freaking me out every time I'd turn off the lights at the far end of the house. Great pick.

I haven't checked out Buried yet, and I've heard nothing good (until now) about The Skeleton Key, so now I'll obviously have to give it go. This also marks the first appearence of Eden Lake among these lists, which is a little surprising. A very effective little film, and one that had me fuming with rage throughout. If there's one thing I can't stand, it is disrespectful punk teenagers (check out BIQ's blog for the chronicles of a real-life Eden Lake stand-off). A fine list, and nary a one I can argue against.

And last, but certainly not least, is BROWN! from the If We Made It podcast and the blog This Coleslaw Makes Me Sick. Give him some love, or at the very least, check out his Friday the 13th podcast, in which his band, The Wham Bam Thank You Band, performs a musical tribute to the series. I'm not sure about the title, but the chorus goes: "Bush in the lake, bush in the lake, bush in the lake, and there's a head in the tree." Good shit, that.

BROWN!'s Top 10 of the Past 10

10. 28 Days Later (2002) Danny Boyle directs this great zombie thriller. Stylish, but not overdone, Boyle reinvents the zombie movie.

9. Grindhouse (2007) Tarantino and Rodriguez created one of the greatest theater experiences of recent memory. Trashy and fun homage.

8. Drag Me to Hell (2009) Nobody makes horror movies as fun as Sam Raimi. I was so glad he came back to the genre he owns.

7. Bug (2006) Exorcist director William Friedkin directs this creepy psychological thriller. Not a conventional horror movie, but disturbing none the less.

6. The Orphanage (2007) Juan Antionio Bayona directs this Spanish ghost story. Great story, and fantastic directing. One of the best ghost stories in years.

5. Triangle (2009) I love it when a film sneaks up on you. This movie is nothing like what I expected in a great way. Directed by Christopher Smith. Mysterious and twisted.

4. The Descent (2005) This story of some female cave explorers getting terrorized by cave mutants was the scariest movie of the decade. Directed by Neil Marshall.

3. Piranha 3D (2010) I can't remember having more fun than seeing this in the theaters. Delivers in every way. More gore and nudity than I could ever wish for. A dream come true.

2. House of the Devil (2009) Director Ti West creates this throwback film that looks and feels remarkably like a late 70's early 80's horror movie. West plays it completely straight and succeeds. Truly remarkable.

1. Let the Right One In (2008) Tomas Alfredson directs not only the best horror movie but in my opinion best movie period of the past decade. This Swedish film at it's heart is a tender love story between a 12 year old boy and a forever young female vampire. Unique, horrific and magical.

I can't believe I had to leave out so many films such as Devil's Rejects, Hatchet, The Mist, Freddy vs. Jason, Jason X, Cabin Fever, Slither and on and on. Every decade is a great decade for horror. Can't wait for the next.

Nice picks, man! I was so glad to see Triangle on someone's list. That movie pulls off an impressive mindfuck, and does so seamlessly. Also great to see Piranha 3D represented. Some horror movies are scary, revolting, and disturbing, while others are just great fun. Top-notch carnage in this one, and what an ending! Bug also makes its first appearance among the lists. Just watched this one the other day and was impressed by the caliber of the performances. There was something about it that didn't sit quite right with me until I checked out the special features and realized it was initially written and performed as a play. Then I was like, okay, that scene makes sense is that context.

And let me just second the motion, in all caps to indicate that I'm screaming maniacally, EVERY DECADE IS A GREAT DECADE FOR HORROR!!! Except maybe for 1870-1880. That one kind of sucked.

Enigmatic Deezyne Presents: Cartoony Kiefer

2011-08-09T22:38:00.001-06:00

Hey y'all,

The Top 10 of the Past 10 Liststravaganza still rages on, and will continue shortly. In the meantime I wanted to note the new page I've added to the blog. Check out the tabs at the top of the page and you'll find one marked Enigmatic Deezyne. This is where I'll be dumping any horror-related illustrations and design projects I've been working on.

I was particularly proud of my cartoony take on Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, so I turned him into a wine bottle label. Nay, two wine bottle labels. Enjoy.

Ten Best Horror Movies of the Past Ten Years - The First 3 and 7-10ths Lists

2011-08-05T21:59:00.000-06:00

I came up with the idea for this Liststravaganza when I first started this blog and personally asked three of my friends to guest blog. I didn't get any responses right away, so I shelved the idea for a little while. Then, earlier this week I was finally getting around to clearing out my inbox and found that I'd actually gotten the first list back in February, but it had been buried in a deluge of junk emails. Then I felt like an ass, so I vowed to post it ASAP, which for me means several days later.

So without further ado, I present the first list by Tucker of This Coleslaw Makes Me Sick and the If We Made It Podcast.

Tucker's Top Ten of the Last Ten:

This list would be different if I compiled the damn thing tomorrow or yesterday or next week. I feel sick leaving off Grindhouse, The House of the Devil, The Last Exorcism, 28 Days Later, Slither and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. On other days not only would those films make the list, some of them may find themselves perched on top. I also feel that the order is almost arbitrary. I really love all these movies in different ways. Unfortunately, the parameters of the list allow only ten to represent ten years. I hope I have chosen well. Here goes…

10. Wrong Turn (2003)

Not exactly a film classic, but endlessly watchable and re-watchable. Lifts many elements directly from the brilliant unproduced screenplay Grossface. Kids get stranded in the backwoods of West Virginia and proceed to be hunted by cannibalistic inbred retards. Y’know, West Virginians. Take that, West Virginia.

9. The Strangers (2008)

It’s a rarity for a movie to unsettle a jaded horror fan like myself, but this tale of senseless brutality and home invasion did the trick. It is also a rarity in today’s horror films to build to the terror, but this film takes its time establishing an emotional connection with the characters before they are terrorized and murdered by a Manson-inspired team of killers.

8. The Orphanage aka El Orfanato (2007)

This film sets a great mood and builds incredible tension without a whole lot of bells and whistles. I’m a sucker for creepy kids so this tale of a haunted orphanage for handicapped children really hit the spot.

7. Let the Right One In (2008)

This is a beautiful horror/love story about a bullied kid and his relationship with a young (in appearance at least) vampire girl. A great film that emphasizes character and emotion over cheap thrills.

6. May (2002)

May is a character study about a damaged woman struggling with her inability to find a human connection and the lengths to which she will go to create a companion. In a landscape populated with remakes and sequels director Lucky McKee brings a strikingly original vision to the genre.

5. Hostel II (2007)

Eli Roth’s Hostel films do what great horror always does: projects society’s fears back to us. I chose this film over the original because it truly continues where the first left off and delves even deeper into the ideas set up by the first film. The original relied on our xenophobia to produce terror, but in the sequel Roth deepens the discussion by placing more emphasis on another horror: privileged Americans on the hunt for new thrills.

4. Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)

Jason won. This is a no-brainer for me. Hilarious and gory, and booby, and it almost got me and Levi killed by an African-American weightlifter which is always the mark of a good film. And I don’t care that Freddy still had some twitching nerves after Jason ripped his fucking head off. Jason won. Don’t tell my wife.

3. The Descent (2005)

This movie had me claustrophobic and terrified before it even introduced the cave-dwelling nasties. Had I seen the American version with the stupid-fuck ending originally I may have a slightly different view on this one, but I didn’t.

2. The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

Rob Zombie nailed the sleazy mood of 70s horror with this quasi-sequel to his less successful House of 1000 Corpses. It’s funny and more original than the original, oddly enough. Seeing this on opening night in L.A. with a house full of raving lunatics really added to the experience. I suddenly realized I may be in one of those news stories you hear about where someone gets stabbed at a movie theatre. Great ambiance.

1. Drag Me To Hell (2008)

I’ve revisited this film several times in the last couple years. It never disappoints. Fun, silly, gross without being gory, and most importantly it remembers that a fucking goat demon with hooves and horns can still be frightening. And it has that talking sheep. This is the only talking animal movie I will allow my child to see. Other films on my list are arguably more impressive, but none were quite this much fun.

Thank you Uncle Tucker. All solid picks (though they would have been more solid had Freddy won - I can't argue that he didn't lose, just that he should have won). BTW, Tucker and BROWN!'s most recent podcast discusses the original Fright Night, so check it on out. And BROWN!, I'll expect your list forthwith.

Next up is the inimitable Liam Underwood of All Films Considered, who was the first online responder and whose list I won't post here because it's on his blog, and y'all need to give it some hits.

Liam Underwood's Top 10 of the Past 10:

Here's the link: http://all-films-considered.blogspot.com/2011/08/in-response-to-montana-mancave-massacre.html

I'm seeing lots of my picks on these lists so far, plus some surprises. The only movie I haven't seen on Liam's list is Wolf Creek, which has been sitting on my shelf for about a year now, silently hating me for passing it over night after night. Soon, Wolf Creek, soon. I promise. And thanks to Liam for the excellent list.
Batting third is an old high school friend of mine who I hadn't heard from in years. Alas, the call of horror is too strong to ignore. Plus she had some time to kill on a train. Since she's shy about using her real name online, we'll call this formidable contributor "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's Top 10 of the Past 10:
In order by year:

1. Land of the Dead (Romero, 2005)

It’s no (original) Dawn of the Dead, but how can you have eyes and a soul and any familiarity at all with Pittsburgh and not love George Romero? In true form, there is wonderfully overt political allegory with Dennis Hopper as a decadent gazillionaire looking down on the other, entrapped, 99..9%. And the zombies have a nascent consciousness and a revolutionary one at that. Viva the Dead! Isn’t it incredible how Romero keeps inventing the genre?

2. Pan’s Labyrinth (Del Toro, 2006)

Fascists are indeed much scarier than monsters with eyes on their hands that eat people. But those monsters are scary as hell too. And, while it may be more fantasy or something, the horrific elements of this movie are what make it compelling and meaningful.

3. The Orphanage (Bayona, 2007)

In the end, I will admit that this movie is much more sad than scary, but up to that point it’s pretty damn scary and it uses things that are admittedly obvious—crawl spaces and whatnot—with jitter-inducing effect.

4. Funny Games (Haneke, 2007)

OK, so this is actually a mean-spirited slasher movie that Michael Haneke made to assault his bourgeois audience who, as my fiancé recently astutely pointed out, probably all have lake houses like the victims in the film.. It is almost totally unlikeable and irredeemable, and, unfortunately, brilliant. In order to play the same joke again, Haneke remade it from German into English pretty much exactly the same way. Just because it’s “art house” doesn’t mean it isn’t a slasher film, and probably one of the most intelligently, and purposefully, immoral ones at that.

5. The Strangers (Bertino, 2008)

This slasher film is wonderfully austere and carefully paced. It also deftly switches genres—from drama to horror—about 20 minutes in without being stupid or assuming its audience is stupid. It’s smart, and has been woefully ignored.

6. Let the Right One In (Alfredsen, 2008)

A smart reinterpretation of the tired vampire trope featuring the hellishness of adolescence, the hellishness of love, the drab beauty of a cold climate in a state with an adequate social safety net, and the hellishness of both aging and staying young forever.

7. Drag Me to Hell (Raimi, 2009)

One of the best, if not the best, American movies of all genres in 2009. The ending particularly defied expectation.

8. Antichrist (Von Trier, 2009)

Admittedly totally ridiculous, but nevertheless scary: An animatronic fox, eating its own entrails, turning to the screen and saying in a death metal guttural, “Chaos reigns!” And as for body horror, I had to keep my eyes closed through about half an hour of it. Lars von Trier is an asshole, but I grudgingly admire this film as a somewhat sociopathic horror-comedy.

9. Splice (Natali, 2009)

Arguably more science fiction that horror (but the same argument would discount The Fly and Alien from the genre) and actually not very scary, but this movie nevertheless blew my mind.

10. We Are What We Are (Grau, 2010)

Probably the best cannibal film, especially one with incestuous overtones, ever made. Discounting Texas Chainsaw Massacre, of course.

Oh She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, why don't you have your own horror blog? Excellent list and insightful commentary. Embarrassingly, I've only seen about half the films on her list. What are you trying to do, make me look bad on my own blog?

This just in: my little sis just contributed a list in the comments section of the original post. In case you missed it, I'll repost it here:

Anntastic's Top 7 of the Last 11:

OK, I didn't come up with ten but here is my list:

Although it was made in 2000 I had to add it, American Psycho: This movie didn't actually scare me but I thought it was fracking hilarious! Mainly when Christian Bale is screwing the two women and he's really making love to himself in the mirror ~ Anntastic!

The Descent: After I found out about creepers on Ghost Adventures this movie has scared me! Creepers are the spirits that crawl on all fours and move up walls and on ceilings.

The Hills Have Eyes: I don't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of inbred Jed's EVER!

Planet Terror: I would actually say this is my husbands pick, he loved the blood.

Shaun of the Dead: OK, this is supposed to be a funny movie but the zombies actually freak me out, I think this is probably my favorite on the list.

Trick R Treat: The whole school bus thing freaked me the f*ck out! Other than that it was good fun.

Paranormal Activity: Nobody else mentions this movie but I had problems sleeping after I watched this movie so it made it on the list.

I have a lot of funny movies on my list because there aren't very many scary movies that really get to me anymore. I will admit I do not watch as many scary movies as my brother, Marvin the Macabre, or my sister so maybe I shouldn't even be making a list, but there it is.

Funny thing about Paranormal Activity - I only thought it was miderately scary while I was watching it, but I couldn't get to sleep for hours that night. It was almost like the movie had conditioned me to be afraid of sleeping - a sort of post-traumatic stress. With Anntastic's list, I've seen nearly every movie on my own list represented. People's got some taste!

That's it for the first installment of Top 10 of the Past 10. Keep those lists coming and I'll keep patting myself on the back for coming up with an audience participation gimmick that actually worked. Oh and my list will follow shortly.

Ten Best Horror Films of the Past Ten Years - Guest Posts Wanted

2011-08-03T17:24:00.001-06:00

Hey Spelunkers,

People complain a lot about modern horror's suckiness, but I tend to disagree. There have been stinkers throughout the ages, we just tend to forget the bad stuff and celebrate the classics. I think the here and now is a great time for horror, so I've decided to start a Liststravaganza to celebrate all that is new in our beloved genre.

The best part is that you're all invited to submit your own personal lists. All I need is your top ten and a few sentences (or more if you're long-winded like me) about each film.

When all the lists are in, I'll tally up the totals and tell you all why I'm right and you're wrong.

Sound fun? Then let the lovefest begin!

Weighing in on the Evil Dead Remake

2011-07-21T06:16:00.000-06:00

You can hardly blame the horror community for going into a collective tizzy over the announcement of an Evil Dead remake. After all, how many times have we been burned by Platinum Dunes trouncing all over our most sacred genre films? But I, for one, am stoked about this particular remake. It is second only to Hellraiser in my list of low-budget horror flms that deserve a new treatment with modern special effects.

Consider this: how many people would argue that the Star Wars prequels wouldn't have been better off if Lucas had limited himself to a producer role, while turning the reigns over to a new generation of artists with a passion for the material? It seems that Lucas made the prequels solely to appease his fans, rather than out of any burning need to continue the story that made him legendary 20+ years prior. And do I need to mention the fourth Indiana Jones film?

It seems that Sam Raimi has taken a lesson from Lucas and Spielberg and has allowed his original vision to be reinterpreted by those eager to do it. I've seen many calls for him to make another sequel, rather than a remake, but if Raimi had another Evil Dead story to tell, he'd be doing it, right? The fact is, Raimi has new interests, and the prospect of revisiting the work from his youth simply doesn't appeal to him. I'm satisfied that he made the right call, and is allowing for a reinterpretation of his horror classic rather than trying to recapture the magic. And really, what is more disappointing, a remake that doesn't livve up to the original, or a half-hearted sequel that reveals the original creator's disinterest in the material?

I orignally saw the Evil Dead trilogy in reverse order. After a hilarious-looking preview, I made a point to catch Army of Darkness in the its original theatrical run. I didn't even know it was a sequel to anything. I adored it, and when I found out about the Evil Dead movies, I immediately sought them out. My local video store didn't have the original at the time, so I watched Evil Dead 2 next, and fell in love with its mix of goofy slapstick and horror. After a few years, I tracked down the original and was vastly disappointed. It seemed to take itself too seriously in light of the other films, and I chalked it up to a mediocre first attempt.

Years later, I've grown to appreciate the original, especially given its historical context. Few had seen that level of gore before, and while the acting was slightly cheesy, and the special effects were severely dated even a decade ago, I now appreciate the creepiness of the concept, and enjoy the film more every time I watch it. But the prospect of a remake excites me. I see in my mind's eye what the movie could be, if given the proper respect.

A lot of people are up in arms about Diablo Cody's involvement with the project. While I'm not too big on Jennifer's Body, I thought Juno was a fine film. Yes, the dialougue is a bit over-the-top, but coming out of Ellen page's mouth, it makes sense. It's a film about some very intelligent, quirky people, and I think it succeeds admirably. With Jennifer's Body, I thought the dialogue sounded overblown and unnatural, but I've never been certain whether that was a defect in the script, or if it was just beyond Megan Fox's ability to pull it off.

And no, the dialogue is not realistic, but that's kind of the point. The first movie I saw that had completely realistic dialogue was Matty Rich's Straight Outta Brooklyn, which I hated because rather than meaningful dialogue that pushes the plot forward or is entertaining in its own right, it seemed to use dialogue mainly to fill space. People in general are pretty inarticulate, so realistic dialogue must necessarily consist of way too many "ums" and fragmented sentences. One of my best Shakespeare professors used to relate the story of his decision to become a Shakespeare scholar. His father's main objection was that, "people don't talk like that anymore." His response was that people never actually talked like they do in Shakespearean plays. The dialogue is stylized and idealized, and that's the point.

And while Cody's writing style may not seem ideal for a serious remake of The Evil Dead, take comfort that she was brought in merely to "punch up" the dialogue. She didn't write the whole script, and I'm pretty confident that if she goes overboard with too-clever dialogue, it will be corrected by the producers and the director.

Bottom line: Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, who made their careers on these films, will be involved, so we're in good hands. Nobody wants to see this movie fail. And for every The Haunting and Prom Night remake out there, there's also a Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Ring. While I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, if I could pre-order tickets right now, my eight bucks would be spent.

Procrastination

2011-07-17T11:09:00.000-06:00

In the immortal words of the mighty Mike Doughty:

"You snooze, you lose. Well I have snossed and lost."

Thursday night I set aside my evening to watch Cold Prey to review for Stacie Ponder's Final Girl Film Club. To my shock and dismay, it had been removed from Netflix Instant Watch. I tried my local video store, but foreign horror is always a long shot, and I came home empty-handed (aside from the 3 clearance DVDs I bought).

So, with regrets I have to announce I am unable to participate in the film club this month. And yes, it's my own fault for procrastinating, but I'd also like to lay some blame on Netflix. Aren't they checking Final Girl to make sure they're not interfering with the film club? I mean, they're just Netflix - this is Stacie flippin' Ponder we're talking about!

Adrian Pasdar in a Bunny Suit: A Review of Home Movie (2008)

2011-07-16T00:04:00.000-06:00

Doesn't the title of my post say it all, really? Do you need any more information than "This movie features Adrian Pasdar wearing a bunny suit," before deciding to watch it? But on the off chance that some of my readers have higher standards than I do, I suppose I'll continue with the full review.

Home Movie fits neatly into both the creepy children and the found footage subgenres. The film is supposed to be a family's home movies, which, like most family home videos, are taped mostly during holidays. Adrian Pasdar plays the Lutheran minister patriarch, while his child psychologist wife is played by Cady McCain, who is apparently a soap opera actress whom I've never seen before. This dichotomy comes in handy when their children start behaving strangely - she looks for clinical solutions while he begins to believe demonic forces are involved.

The kids are played by real-life brother and sister Austin and Amber Joy Williams, and let me tell you, they are some creepy bastards. Through the bulk of the film, the children never say a word, despite their parents' best efforts to involve them in family activities. Writer/director Christopher Denham goes out of his way to show you that this family should be perfect. The father is an affectionate goofball constantly mugging for the camera and cracking jokes for the benefit of his distant, scowling children. The mother is even-tempered to a fault, applying punishment when necessary, but never freaking out about the kids' bad behavior. Okay, not never. Not until things start to get really sick. And it does get pretty bad, although it isn't particularly gory, and most of the violence is suggested rather than shown.

Overall, I found the movie pretty dang good. Although it isn't big on scares, it is fascinating. I couldn't look away, even during the boring parts, because I was desperate to know what the kids had in store next. As you can expect, the children's behavior starts out slightly odd, and gets increasingly disturbing until the "Oh holy shit!" ending. Denham handles the build-up very effectively for the most part. The kids are creepy from the get-go, never speaking to their parents, but only to each other in a gibberish language only the two of them understand. Eventually the children do speak, which I consider a mistake, as it robs them of all the mystery that has been built up around them. They just seem like two little kids you could bitchslap into submission. Although having them speak does lead to one super-creepy line: "Let's have a staring contest. I bet you can't stare until our movie is finished." It's at this point you realize that nearly every sick thing they've done, they've saved until their dad had the camera turned on. Even though they haven't been filiming it themselves (at first) they've been making their movie all along.

The found footage format is essential to the story, and overall I found it to be used effectively, as it resembled a lot of the video my family used to shoot back in the day. There were moments when it felt totally unnatural for the characters to be filming themselves, which is the most common mistake in found footage movies, and one of the hardest to avoid. It is a limitation inherent to the subgenre - at some point, when things start to get really dangerous, any sane person would put down the camera and take care of business (or run screaming).

On a personal note, I found this movie very effective in portraying a family struggling to connect. Try as they might, the parents never seem to get through to the kids, and you can see it take its toll as the father begins to drink heavily and the mother struggles to believe that her own kids could be one of her most acute cases of anti-social personality disorder she has ever treated. I've got two kids on the autism spectrum, and while our family life is nothing like the one portrayed in the film, there are moments when you just can't get through to them, and it's like running into a plexiglas wall. So when I think of that feeling amplified by 100, I sort of understand how these parents would feel, and it hit me where it hurts.

Special thanks to my older sister, who I have to thank for my lifeling obsession with horror, for introducing me to this movie. She picked up a copy on a whim and watched it with my other sister, and both are desperate to talk about it with me. I eagerly await that conversation. And yes, I liked it quite a bit.

Also, Adrian Pasdar in a bunny suit.

Warning: Spoilery Discussion Below

For everyone who's already seen the film, I have some things to add. One thing I loved about this movie is how they leave it ambiguous as to whether there are supernatural forces at work, or if these kids are just extremely disturbed. There are a couple of clues to support each reading. First off, while arguing with his wife, Adrian Pasdar reveals that the kids were having problems before they moved into the new house, and that they moved specifically to a remote area because they thought it might help. While he still thinks there are demonic forces in the house, this would refute that idea. However, it is possible that the demonic forces could have followed the children to the new house and then amped up its influences.

Then, when the father performs the exorcism on the house, he opens the closet, flings holy water into it, then closes and latches it. A second later, it is open again. What explanation is there besides supernatural forces? I suppose the fact that the kids suddenly appear in the room right afterward means they could have opened it without him seeing, but it doesn't seem likely to me. Also, the Thanksgiving scene where they simultaneously start throwing silverware and plates on the floor to keep their father from finishing his prayer hints that they are offended by religion much as any hellspawn would be. But nothing is conclusive, and the open-endedness is what makes it so intriguing.

When the kids start behaving well, interacting with their parents and displaying affection, it is unclear whether it was their father's exorcism or their mother's medication that did the trick, but it turns out to be a fake-out (but you knew it would, right?) I mentioned earlier that I would have preferred that the children never spoke in the film, and I stand by that, but in terms of story, it makes sense that they would. They had to act normally to carry out their plan to murder their classmate, Christian (maybe it was the name that did it). Otherwise, they never would have been able to have a friend over. But still, they are considerably less creepy when they open their mouths.

The two scenes that really stood out were the cat crucifixion at Christmas, and of course, the final shot at the dinner table. When they pulled out the knives and forks, it was a great payoff to all the build-up. Their ultimate plan did seem a little complex for ten-year-olds to pull off, but with the help of Satan's minions, I suppose anything is possible. Hey, maybe I'll use that as my email footer:

Dear so-and-so,

Thanks so much for the free screener of your independent film. I'll certainly give it a look and write an unbiased review on my blog. If I don't like it, I'll say so, but if I do, I'll do what I can to help you promote it. And hey, any press is better than no press, right?

Sincerely,
Marvin the Macabre

"With the help of Satan's minions, anything is possible."

The Lycanthrope List - Film's Greatest Werewolves

2011-07-08T21:55:00.002-06:00

Of all the classic monsters, I've always been particularly fond of Werewolves. While Young Marvin was still scared shitless of anything resembling supernatural, I always had an affinity for these beasts. Perhaps it was because of my love of animals, particularly dogs, but they just didn't seem as evil as vampires and ghosts.

Right now I'm 10 episodes deep into True Blood Season 3 (I don't get cable, so I've got to wait until the DVDs come out). It's a decent season, but something just doesn't sit right with me about their portrayal of my number one monsters. I think the problem is that they are just white trash dudes who turn into ordinary-looking wolves. The werewolf, as I prefer it, should be halfway between a man and a wolf. While Alan Ball and company give some reason or other for using real wolves for their werewolves, I can't help but suspect the real factor was money. It simply would have cost too much to use CGI, or better yet, some gnarly practical werewolf effects. But the fact is, they're just not very scary.

The sad truth is, True Blood's werewolves would get their asses handed to them by the Goddamned Twilight werewolves. Sure they're fluffy, but at least they're huge.

Wouldja look at that fluffy bastard?

So as a remedy for this, I've compiled this list of my top ten werewolves from all of filmdom. Keep in mind, this isn't a list of the absolute best werewolf movies, but rather the top ten werewolf designs from film.

#10 - Ginger Snaps

Just look at that bad bastard. I figure if I had a good weapon, or at least a big stick, I could fend off an ordinary wolf. But this monster? Say bye-bye to your jugular. This werewolf is not your typical lycanthrope. It is relatively hairless, and you can see its boobies hanging down. Somehow this makes it all the more terrifying.

#9 - The Wolfman

I know, blasphemy, right? Number 9? After all, Jack Pierce's werewolf design defined the beast for generations to come and is still instantly recognizable as one of Universal's most revered monsters. The reason for such a placement is that after decades of werewolves on steroids (going back to An American Werewolf in London), this fella just ain't that scary anymore. Plus, it looks like he's wearing a coonskin cap. Don't get me wrong, the original The Wolfman is one of my all-time favorite films. There's simply so much to love. If that weren't the case, this wolfman may not have made my list at all. But when you consider his predecessor:

...it's clear that Lon Chaney's Wolfman was a huge step forward as far as werewolf design. I'm not trying to bag of Werewolf of London or anything - it's an excellent movie as well, and probably one of the first to portray a werewolf as being a wolf/human hybrid - it's just that werewolves have come so far since then.

#8 - Cursed

I've reviewed this one before, so you'll know that I'm not in love with this movie, but it does have some great werewolf action. In this scene, soul singer Mya is trapped in an elevator with this bad boy intent on making her a tasty treat (and a tasty treat she is). This is probably the only genuinely scary scene in the movie, and probably the one that saved it for me. Well, there's also this scene:

...which cracked my shit up. Okay, so the werewolf looks ridiculous here, but that's really the point, isn't it?

#7 - Underworld Trilogy

Awww, Goddammit! Look at that thing. I don't know about you, but that thing scares the crap out of me. It's too bad that these movies aren't scary in the least. I didn't even like Underworld that much (for some reason, I liked the sequels better). But just look at it. Ewww...

I put the Underworld movies in a class with the Resident Evil movies - basically they're action movies with horror elements. But there's something about werewolves battling vampires that is irresistible to me. However, like True Blood, they tend to favor the vampires as the more intelligent, sophisticated species while the werewolves are no more than brutes. So, Underworld werewolves don't make the top five, not because of inferior design, but because of blatant species-ism.

#6 - The Monster Squad

Monster Squad took a page out of Jack Pierce's book with their elegant werewolf design. He looks like a streamlined version of Larry Talbot, with sharper features that make him wicked scary. The thing about The Monster Squad is that it mixes the ridiculous with the heart-wrenching. Just look at the relationship between Sean's parents - that fight they have just kills me. At the same time there's the classic line, "Creature stole my Twinkie." So too is it for the wolfman. Sure he is temporarily defeated with a swift kick to the nards, and his body parts fly back together after being blown apart with dynamite, but the scene where he's begging to be locked up, and when he thanks Rudy for ending his life, make you feel real compassion for this character.

Plus, nards.

#5 - Dog Soldiers

The werewolves of Dog Soldiers are tall, mean, lean, and move with the grace of dancers. I don't know quite what it is about the creature design that gets me. Maybe it's how they're so skinny at the waist, but so powerful up top. These bad boys are freaky though. And you can empty an entire HK91 clip into them without them so much as noticing.

#4 - Van Helsing

Van Helsing has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. It's over-acted, terribly convoluted, and little more than an excuse for an epic bout of werewolf vs vampire fisticuffs. But I'm addicted to it. It helps that it is one of the few horror movies I can share with my young sons, and their enthusiasm is contagious. But regardless of the relative merits of the film, I've always dug their pumped-up, gigantic, werewolves on steroids. You'd have the be Van Helsing himself to take down one of these things.

And still they'd manage to bite you. Yep, that's the legendary Van Helsing himself transformed into a lycanthrope and fixin' to kick some Drac-ass-ula. Scream Drac-ass-ula, Scream!

Wheeeeeeeee!!

#3 - An American Werewolf in London

Okay, this isn't an actual screenshot. Give me a break, I don't have it on DVD yet because who is their right mind would sell this film to a pawn shop. As far as I can tell, this is either an actual prop from the film or a replica on display as it should be - as a work of art.

Is any explanation needed for why An American Werewolf in London is in the top 3? John Landis has never topped this perfect mix of horror and comedy. Rick Baker got famous for this formidable werewolf design, which remains one of the absolutely most terrifying werewolves in film history. I've always liked that his werewolf walked on all fours while remaining fully a supernatural creature rather than an ordinary wolf. I also love how the climactic scene in Piccadilly Circus is iconic enough to keep showing up in other films, particularly in the 2010 version of the Wolfman. Landis also references it in his "Deer Woman" episode of Masters of Horror.

#2 - The Howling

For my money, the Howling is the most terrifying werewolf movie ever, with some of the all-time best werewolves. They have always reminded me of the Big Bad Wolf, with their tall, pointed ears. These bastards tower above their victims, and Joe Dante films them with a master's sense of space, making you aware of their power and menace like no other. And yes, Dave Allen's stop-motion homage to Ray Harryhausen leaves something to be desired, but by and large, the visual effects are top-notch (for its time). All I know is that when I have nightmares of werewolves, this is what they look like. Well, except for the Dee Wallace Pomeranian werewolf at the end. But Hell, she was supposed to be sympathetic rather than menacing.

#1 - The Wolfman (2010)

What do you mean WTF? Yeah the Anthony Hopkins werewolf is number one. Just look at him. He's both a scary-ass werewolf and Hannibal Lecter rolled into one. What I love is how this design pays homage to Jack Pierce's Wolfman, improves upon it, and is still recognizable as Anthony Hopkins. People accuse Sir Hopkins of phoning in his performance, but they're obviously brain-damaged. I've never seen him have so much damned fun with a role.

Whatever the film's shortcomings (and admittedly, there are many), it gave me everything I wanted to see. Spooky atmosphere, menacing monsters, and an epic showdown between Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. Add to that the stunning Emily Blunt and the always riveting Hugo Weaving, and what's not to love. I will say that if you caught this in the theater, you need to see the director's cut, if only for the scene where Anthony Hopkins eats an apple. Seriously. He eats an apple and stares at Emily Blunt without ever responding to her questions, and its the best scene of the film. You'll also see Max von Sydow pass the torch, er, wolf's head cane, to the new generation. The one drawback of the director's cut is that you have to suffer through del Toro's portrayal of Hamlet. I love Benicio, but somehow he can't pull off playing an actor. Embarrassing.

But he makes an excellent werewolf, and he earned my respect by making this movie happen through the sheer force of his love for the original. How can you hate on a Universal Monsters fan?

Also, did I mention the gore? I wasn't expecting this movie to be in the least bit gory, but when the werewolf starts tearing shit up at the gypsy camp, the blood flows freely. Your great-grandfather's wolfman this is not.

Honorable Mentions: The Company of Wolves

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that the werewolf design in this movie isn't fantastic. But this image, the wolf snout emerging from a human mouth, has haunted me since I saw the VHS cover when I was a kid. The cover stared at my from the shelf of my local grocery store's video shelf, and I couldn't pass it without staring for a good two minutes. It was years before I'd work up the courage to actually watch this film, and I'd say its probably my favorite werewolf film ever. Then, there's also this guy:

Notice how the eyebrows meet in the middle? A dead giveaway of lycanthropy. This dude is far creepier in his human form, and I love how the teenage girl never lets him get the upper hand, but rather becomes his consort. All-in-all, a beautiful film despite some very dated special effects.

Wolf

Oh shit, did I just dis Jack? While I've always dug his werewolf movie, it's just a tad understated for my taste. It's good - I like it, and it would definitely make my top twelve, but I'm just not blown away by its werewolf design. Hate me if you will.

Teen Wolf

This movie gets a pass purely for nostalgia's sake. And Michael J. Fox has always been one of my favorites. I was raised on this shit, and I'm not turning my back on it now. But seriously, did a werewolf ever look more like a little hairy old man? Even as a kid I thought this werewolf looked dumb. But nilla could play some basketball. Now, don't even get me started on Teen Wolf Too. Jason Bateman's cool, but it was exactly the same movie with boxing rather than basketball. As much as I loved the original as a kid, I think I only sat through the sequel once. And I won't be revisiting that one.

So there you have it. My overblown self-important declaration of the greatest movie werewolves. What did I miss? Any Paul Naschy fans care to lambaste me? Oliver Reid? I still haven't seen Curse of the Werewolf. Anyway, I leave it to you, readers, to tell me how I did. Who's your favorite lycanthrope?

Loco Locals?

2011-06-30T17:41:00.000-06:00

Like any self-absorbed blogger, I've been obsessing over my stats from day 1. I'm getting plenty of love from the U.S., U.K., Russia, Germany, Australia, Canada, Ukraine, and France. But what I'm wondering is whether I have any readers in my home state of Montana.

The reason I ask is that I'd love to create a network of Montana horror fans, specifically ones in the Helena and Bozeman area. My fantasy is that I could meet some like-minded individuals who could meet up whenever a horror movie gets a theatrical release, and make an event of opening night. As I've mentioned before, I've never been in a position to attend any conventions or horror-related events, so I thought I'd create my own events.

So, Montana readers, if you're out there, leave a comment and let me know. With all the horror flicks I find in local pawn shops, I know we've got some horror lovers here. We need to join forces and show this town we have some real culture (and yes, I define culture as watching trashy movies). Let me hear from you.

Declaration of a New Scream Queen: Radha Mitchell

2011-06-27T23:12:00.000-06:00

Try as I might, I haven't been able to find which horror blogger recently asked the question: Who are the new scream queens? (If anyone knows, clue me in so I can link to them) I'd like to submit one of my favorite actresses for your consideration: Radha Mitchell.

Take a look at this woman's filmography. She's been in movies with the likes of Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, and Johnny Depp, and yet she still comes back to star in horror movies, even ones based on video games. She imbues every role with a gravity that elevates the material, and she looks damned fine doing it. Here's her horror filmography so far:

Pitch Black (2000)
Okay, it's sci-fi, but it's creepy sci-fi. This is the movie that made Vin Diesel a star. Why didn't it do the same for Radha? Oh yeah, because although she's beautiful, she doesn't tend to go for glamorous roles, and she comes off as more of an ass-kicker than a sex symbol. Some guys just can't handle a tough chick.

When Strangers Appear (2001)
I haven't personally seen this one, but I know it's classified as a thriller (read: horror lite).

Silent Hill (2006)
This movie falters only when it relies too much on CGI. Otherwise, it's an intensely creepy little trip down the rabbit hole with some unforgettable imagery and some brutal surprises. Radha pretty much carries the whole film, and once again, she's one tough woman. She doesn't go all Milla Jovavich or anything, but her determination to find her daughter carries her through some pretty gnarly stuff.

Rogue (2007)
Again, I haven't personally seen this one, but it's about a giant crocodile. Radha vs. a giant crocodile, what's not to like? My money's on Radha all the way.

The Crazies (2010)
I thought this was one of the more effective remakes out there. It doesn't touch the social criticism of George Romero's original, but rather plays out as a straightforward humans-gone-savage-because-of-a-virus-type horror. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it serves its purpose well. And there's a reason the pitchfork has become the de facto image for the film: the pitchfork scene is one of the most unbearably tense scenes in recent horror. And who was there making it happen for us? You tell 'em Schnitzel:

Does anyone actually get this? Horror fans dig Cartoon Network, right?

Silent Hill Revelation (2012)
I saw this one when I was like twelve, and pissed my bed every night for the next decade. Oh wait, this one's not out yet. Um... well, I'm excited about it anyway. And I concur with Schnitzel. Radha Radha Radha indeed.

So, her horror credentials may not be rock solid yet, but she's working on it. Let me hear from you, though. Who would you elect as a next generation scream queen?

Complete Crap Alert: A Review of Live Feed

2011-06-18T21:45:00.002-06:00

As a blogger, I try to avoid being negative and instead focus on films that I love. But I would be remiss in my duties as a reviewer if I didn't let you know when a movie bites nuts.

The cover of Live Feed (2005) looked pretty promising, and the synopsis, while sounding like yet another xenophobic tourists-in-trouble movie, didn't sound half bad. And it wasn't. It was only 99.9% bad.

The premise of the film is simple: 5 asshole Americans on vacation in China (at least I think it's supposed to be China. They never actually mention just where they are) watch a street vendor butcher a small dog, spill beer of a Chinese Mafia leader, are helped by a good-looking Japanese dude, then go to a porno theater to unwind. But of course, the theater is owned by said Mafia leader, who films them having sex in the couples room and the dirty-ass bathroom before sending in Andre the Giant to slaughter them so he can watch via his live feed (That's the name of the Show!)

Having summarized the movie, it still sounds pretty good. Puppy butchering...check. Sex...check. Beheading...check. Cannibalism...double check. What could have gone wrong?

First off, the movie lost me in the first five minutes when I realized all five of the "protagonists" were despicable, immature pricks and I couldn't wait for them to die. Sure there's a certain pleasure in seeing characters you don't like being offed one by one. But I prefer movies that make you actually like the characters before they get slaughtered. Call me a masochist, but honestly, how much tension could Carpenter have built if we were all waiting for Jamie Lee Curtis to die because she was an annoying little bitch. No, Laurie Strode is pretty much everyone's favorite final girl, so when Michael is just outside of that closet, we feel real fear. I always get very hushed during that scene, as if my silence will somehow keep Laurie safe. If it were any of the characters in Live Feed, I would have been giving Michael directions. "She's in the closet, dude! Stab her! Stab her! Slit her throat!"

Fear...negative. Tension...none. Characters you can give a shit about...Hells no.

Beyond that, the movie is xenophobic beyond belief. I give Eli Roth a pass for Hostel. I don't think he's saying we should all stay home because foreign countries are full of savages. I think most tourists-in-trouble films exploit people's fear of being in a country where you don't speak the language, you don't know the culture, and you can get yourself into trouble without even knowing it. Travel can be scary, which makes it the perfect situation for horror. Horror is about exploiting fears, no?

The difference with Live Feed is that every single Chinese person is made out to be a ruthless psychotic. The one person that helps the dumbshit Americans is Japanese and has a personal vendetta against the gangsters for killing his brother. Given the lingering animosity between the Chinese and Japanese, having the hero be Japanese strikes me as sort of racist. The hilarious thing is that all of the gangsters speak English, even when they're not in the presence of English-speakers. They just speak English amongst themselves. Some of them even have American accents.

The 0.1% of the film that is good is a scene that is so blatantly racist and stupid that it transcends both qualities and enters the realm of classic. Apparently, in addition to being a power-tripping, sadistic asshole, the Mafia leader (who leaves no part of the set without teeth marks) is also a cannibal. The puppy-butchering street vendor also happens to be in his employ to do the day-to-day task of human butchering. I'm not sure why he retains his street vendor gig-you'd think the mafia would pay pretty good. Nevertheless, he cooks up a couple of our tourists and serves them to the Mafia leader and his two girlfriends in their private theater where the slaughter videos are piped in. One of the girlfriends looks at the plate and gets this disappointed look on her face, then says, "No dickie rolls? I like balls and dickie." Then the other girlfriend chimes in, "Chinese girl eat white dickie roll."

I'm not kidding.

"Chinese girl eat white dickie roll," for fuck's sake!

Now I'm afraid I've convinced you to see this piece of crap, if only for that one line. Don't do it. It's not worth it, man.

In the end, the Japanese dude goes to the porno theater to rescue them, which is ridiculous because before they went in, he half-heartedly tried to warn them that the place was bad news. Think about it, he knew they had just pissed off the mafia, her knew the mafia owned the place, and he also knew if they went in, they were going to die. You'd think he would have tried a little harder to dissuade them from going in the first place, rather than have to come back 30 minutes later with guns.

From here the movie turns into a low-grade action flick. I'm sure the ending sucked balls and dickie too, but I didn't make it that far. I was spared by a blessed, drunken sleep.

Lost Boys Love - Guest Post on From Midnight With Love

2011-06-15T19:22:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

My column on The Lost Boys is up on horror guru The Mike's From Mignight with Love. Won't you check it out? Seriously. Go check it out.

It's one of my better posts and a movie I absolutely love. Here's the link: http://frommidnight.blogspot.com/2011/06/lost-boys-love-guest-post-by-marvin.html

P.S. - Blow up the comments board on this one. Show your love. We bloggers live for comments.

5000,
Marvin

Beauty in Brutality: A Defense of Laugier's Martyrs

2011-06-14T23:15:00.001-06:00

Major Spoiler Alert
This post is meant to be an in-depth discussion of Pascal Laugier's Martyrs. If you have not seen this film, I urge you, nay, BEG you: do not read this post. You risk ruining one of the great horror films of our time for yourself. If you're unfamiliar with Martyrs, it is a brutal, harrowing film, not for the weak of stomach. Only watch this film if you feel you're ready. In any case, please experience the film for yourself before you read this discussion.

I call this post a defense of Martyrs, and you may well wonder why it needs defending when it is adored by so many horror bloggers. The first time I watched it, by the time the credits rolled, I was in complete, slack-jawed awe. Watching Martyrs isn't so much like watching a regular movie as it is having a profound, deeply-unsettling experience. I thought about it all night and into the next day, then I turned to the internet to see what other people were saying. To my (naive) surprise, this film is not universally loved, and those who dislike it seem to hate it with a vengeance.

One commenter suggested that Laugier should shoot himself in the head for having brought this film into the world. Another stated that not only Laugier, but anyone who actually liked Martyrs should be sterilized. It was called a worthless piece of torture-porn masquerading as an art film, a psuedo-intellectual piece of expolitation. And, on some level, I understand this reaction. Martyrs is a film designed to repulse, to provoke, and to digust. But this negative reaction was so counter to my own that I couldn't help but feel these commenters were missing something important.

If you were to characterize Martyrs in one word, what would it be? Devastating is an apt choice. Repellent? Yes, it is that. Cringe-inducing? Thought-provoking? All true, but the one term that came back to me again and again as I considered it, was Beautiful. A strange term for such an undeniably ugly film, but that is the purpose of this essay: to illustrate how at its core, Martyrs really is a work of beauty, one that uses a canvas of brutality to expose the beauty beneath.

Martyrs plays like two different films spliced together, yet doesn't seem disjointed. If nothing else, Laugier is a master of misdirection. The film begins as a straightforward horror film that along the way, morphs into an entirely different beast. When the film opens, we know that a young girl has escaped from horrible abuse, and has been taken in at an orphanage where she pushes everyone away. Everyone except for Anna, another abandoned girl whose gentle nature makes her the only one worthy of trust. We shortly find out that the abused girl, Lucie, is haunted by some sort of vicious demon-woman who inflicts bodily injury upon her when she's alone. This demon-woman reminded me of something out of a Japanese horror film, setting up expectations that Laugier exploits masterfully.

After the initial appearance of Lucie's supernatural tormentor, we flash forward 15 years into the home of a typical family with an 18-year-old on his way to college, and a high school daughter who is a star athlete. The scene is cozy and the family seems amiable, with the kids and their father verbally jousting over breakfast. A ring at the doorbell rouses the father from the table, and no sooner has he opened the door than Lucie has blown a foot-wide hole into him with a shotgun. She storms the house, gunning down the entire family. And the thing is, she barely looks at the parents to see whether they are indeed her tormentors from fifteen years ago. You get the feeling that Lucie is out of her mind, projecting her past abusers onto a perfectly innocent family. At this stage in the film, that is where the real horror comes from. Not only does Laugier explicitly show all the murders, he makes you doubt they are justified at all.

After the killing spree, Lucie rubs her hand in the mother's blood, then holds it up, saying, "I did it. Look. I did it," to appease her supernatural stalker. But she is not placated. She stages a ferocious, terrifying attack on Lucie, jumping on her back and slashing long, deep gashes into it with a straight-razor. Every scene in which this woman appears, naked, bestial, and utterly relentless, is flat-out terrifying, rivalling any scary movie I've seen.

Your first clue that Lucie might be delusional comes when Anna arrives to help her clean up the mess she's made. After fleeing into the woods, Lucie says, "She's in the house," referring to the demon-woman. Anna says, "I know," and heads straight into the house to see what's happened. She doesn't seem to even entertain the notion that the woman is real, but instead needs to witness what Lucie has done.

Even in the aftermath of this horrible scene, Anna is fully committed to protecting Lucie, dragging the bodies out to a pit in the backyard. It is revealed that Anna is actually in love with Lucie, when Lucie expresses her gratitude by repeatedly kissing Anna's face. Anna then kisses Lucie on the mouth, only to be pushed away. Lucie loves Anna, but not in that way.

It is in Anna's nature to help people. She's committed to helping Lucie get out of the horrible mess she has made, but when she discolvers the mother is still alive, she can't help but to try and help her escape. When Lucie discovers this, she goes batshit, smashing the place up and accusing Anna of never believing her. Once again Laugier's talent for misdirection shows itself. You start to think that the rest of the movie will be Anna trying to escape from this enraged, psychotic that she has befriended since childhood. But it doesn't turn out that way. Instead, the demon-woman makes another appearance, and this time Lucie seems to give in rather than fighting. The woman carves deep gashes along Lucie's arms and bashes her head into the wall. It is here that Laugier confirms what you may have suspected: that the woman is nothing more than Lucie's delusion. The film intercuts shots of what Lucie thinks is happening with what Anna actually witnesses: Lucie cutting herself, and slamming her own head into the wall. There are also flashbacks revealing who the woman is. She is the woman Lucie saw when she was escaping her torturers, but could not save. The hallucinations were borne of Lucie's own guilt. The first half of the film ends with Lucie slashing her own throat.

If Laugier had lengthened the first half of the movie to feature-length, it still would have worked. You'd get the twist that Lucie is delusional and harming herself. It would have been scary, brutal, and sure to be talked about and revered in horror circles. It also would have been pretty pointless. That's not necessarily a bad thing. If a horror movie scares the crap out of you, it's done its job, right? This is why the second half of Martyrs makes it transcend the genre and turns it into something utterly unique. It is also why so many people hate the film, and why I love it.

At this point, the audience is wondering where the film could possibly go. I had the idea that perhaps there would be a second twist and it would turn out the woman really was a vengeful spirit and she would begin attacking Anna, and Anna would have to solve the mystery of who the torturers were and stop them before the spirit would leave her alone. Misdirection. Instead, Anna finds a secret stairway to a dungeon in which the woman from Lucie's past is still alive and being tortured.

Again, Anna is compelled to help the suffering woman. She brings her upstairs, bathes her, and painfully removes the staples that have pinned a metal blinder to her skull. But the woman is not a vengeful monster. She is a victim, utterly ruined by years of torture. And unsurprisingly, she doesn't want to live. She begins cutting her arms and freaking out. All the while, Anna is trying to calm and comfort her. Suddenly, a hole explodes in the woman's head as a team of professionals with guns invades the house. Clearly, they're not the police, and have something to do with Lucie's torture. They take Anna to the basement.

This is where, for me, the movie really got interesting. An old woman in a head-wrap and shades shows up and explains to Lucie what exactly is happening. They are an organization that has been systematically torturing young women for years in hopes of discovering a martyr. The Mademoiselle explains, "Anyone can be a victim. Martyrs are exceptional beings. They survive pain, they survive total deprivation. They bear all the sins of the earth, they give themselves up, they transcend themselves." Then she makes it clear that Anna is going to be the next subject in their grand experiment.

In countless horror films, innocent victims are tortured and mutilated for the perverse enjoyment of a psychopath. But Laugier presents a group doing no less dreadful things all for the betterment of mankind. Think about it. Their goal is to create martyrs to gain insight into what lays beyond death. With that knowledge, we would no longer just be floundering about, wondering how to best be spending our time and energy. We would know what we had to do to prepare ourselves for the next world. In this way, Martyrs ceases to be a straight-up horror flick and becomes something akin to a grail quest - the quest for transcendant knowledge. The ultimate goal is truly the meaning of life. As such, we can understand their motives much better than that of your garden-variety psycho. We may despise their methods, but we want the answers just as much as they do.

What follows is 20+ minutes of isolation, cruelty, and torture, all performed as Mademoiselle says, "methodically, systematically, and coldly." Daily beatings are delivered not by maniacs, but people who don't enjoy what they're doing, yet believe in the cause. This phase of the movie is what really gets to people. Even commentors who reported liking the film admitted having to fast forward through some of this sequence. Some say that Laugier went overboard with this seemingly unending series of beatings, but I disagree. The repetition works in the film's favor, forcing the audience to vicariously experience the horror with Anna. It is also important in that you witness Anna's stages of dealing with her suffering. She begins by fighting it. Screaming. Tugging at her chains. But by the time it's over, she has resigned herself to her fate and ceases to fear anything they can dish out.

In The Power of Myth, Jospeh Campbell explains that the only way for God to become lovable was to take on human form, because as a human, he is capable of suffering. And it's true. It is precisely those times of suffering and loss that we really feel our compassion for others. Many Christians report seeing Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ as one of the most moving religious experiences of their lives. Basically, that movie is a biblical torture-porn, showing every stroke of the lash and every harrowing moment of the crucifixion in graphic detail. It is easily as brutal as Martyrs, and was a huge hit among ultra-conservatives. I'm not a Christian, but I've always dug Jesus and was very much moved by Gibson's (admittedly anti-Semitic) film. Why? Because here was the gentlest man who ever lived, who preached a doctrine of "love thy neighbor as you love thyself," and he was made to suffer the most horrible death imaginable. It was the first time I ever felt I understood the notion of "He died for our sins." His sacrifice should have made all true believers shun the very idea of violence and stirred the most compassionate part of themselves, leading to an unwavering commitment to peace (of course, we all know how that worked out).

The point I'm trying to make here is that when I say Martyrs is a beautiful film, what I mean is that by creating this saintly figure, then putting her through the most atrocious torture imaginable, Laugier has made it possible for us to really feel her suffering. When Lucie commits her murders, we feel it is justified by what they did to her. We feel sympathy for their children, but it only goes so far. By contrast, when the hero of the movie becomes the victim, we feel compassion for her character, a compassion we can only feel fully when witnessing her destruction. This is what makes the film a beautiful, if painful, experience.

Some people have accused Laugier of tacking on a cop-out ending to Martyrs. After Anna is skinned alive, thus bringing about her martyrdom, she passes her transcendant knowledge on to the Mademoiselle. On the eve of paaing the message on to her followers, the Mademoiselle tells her assistant, Etienne to "keep doubting" the existence of the afterlife, and shoots herself. After my first viewing, I defended the scene as the only possible way it could have ended, since Laugier clearly doesn't know the meaning of life. But since then, I've come to realize that what the Mademoiselle was really doing was sending a message to her followers, in the most certain of terms, that we are not meant to know the answers.

She makes it clear that she has received the message, it is clear, it is precise, and "it admitted of no interpretation," and then refuses to pass it on. She is telling her followers to abandon this quest for answers. There are many ways to interpret her final remarks. It could be that Anna told her there is no afterlife, and that knowledge was so disappointing that her life lost all meaning. Or perhaps Anna told her God is real and that her blindly ambitious and ruthless pursuit of power would lead to her eternal damnation. Considering her love for Lucie, and her kindness toward everyone, it is possible the meaning of life is love and kindness, qualities that the Mademoiselle clearly does not possess. But Laugier doesn't supply the answers, instead leaving the ending ambiguous and letting the questions linger in the audience's minds. I know that I couldn't stop thinking about this movie for weeks, a sure sign that Laugier did something right.

Ultimately, Martyrs asks the question: How far would you go to have all the answers? How far is too far? Clearly, the Mademoiselle's methods are too far. The knowledge kills her, which is a roundabout victory for Anna. If Mademoiselle's followers heed her message and abandon their pursuit of martyrs, then Anna's sacrifice is the salvation of countless young women who might have shared her fate.At the closing credits, we see images of Lucie and Anna as children and are reminded of their love for each other. For Anna, love is the meaning of life, and no one needed die for her to know it.

Perhaps Laugier's message is that the meaning of life is not knowing. The uncertainty we feel is what leads us to construct our own answers and meaning. Or perhaps I'm projecting my own views onto the film. So be it. The message is only half of communication-meaning only comes about from the receiver's interpretation of the message. The only certain thing about Martyrs is that it will make you think. It's easy to dismiss Martyrs as pseudo-intellectual torture porn, but what other horror film makes you think about the meaning of life itself?

Revisiting Old Friends: Re-viewing A Nightmare on Elm Street Parts 3 & 4

2011-06-12T23:30:00.002-06:00

Hey spelunkers,

Sorry I've been away from the cave for so long. I have no excuse. I'm just an asshole.

I have been writing, however. For those who don't know, this is Eighties month over the the venerable The Mike's blog, From Midnight With Love, and I volunteered to write a column for him to post while he's on vacation next week. In it, I shamelessly drool all over The Lost Boys. That should be up on Wednesday, and I'll post a link for you then. In the meantime, I thought I'd continue my personal Eighties revival with a re-viewing on two entries from my favorite horror series from that golden(ish) age: A Nightmare on Elm Street parts 3 & 4.

A little history: After overcoming my intense fear of horror movies by totally falling in love with The Lost Boys, I decided to challenge myself by watching what I imagined to be the most terrifying horror film imaginable (aside from the Exorcist, which at the time was out of the question). My friends and I had been talking about A Nightmare on Elm Street for awhile. None of us had actually seen it, but we had heard things from people who had. We knew the story and had seen Freddy all over the place. Oddly, I can't recall my first viewing of Wes Craven's greatest film, but I do remember its effect on me. While The Lost Boys turned out to be not-so-scary, NOES freaked my shit out. And I liked it! It was the first time that I had experienced the sensation of pleasure at having been scared, and I was hooked.

The next time I went to my local video store's used movie sale, I talked my mom into buying me the first three Elm Street videos, took them into the basement, and reveled in the glory. I thought part 2 was still pretty scary, but not nearly as good as the original, but I thought part 3 was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. Iwatched those three videos on a near daily basis for the next few months. Part 4 hadn't come out yet, but my mom taped a behind-the-scenes special for me that I watched over and over again. I knew practically every scene of the film before I even got to see it. To this day, every time I watch it, I can't help but see the face of effects wizard Screaming Mad George grinning and explaining how he did everything.

Screaming Mad George

Bored yet? Alright, alright. I'll get to the movies (but I can't promise to be any less self-absorbed).

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

I loved this movie so much as a teenager that I was almost afraid to watch it. Thinking back on it, it always seemed a tad ridiculous, and I'm not going to argue that it isn't, but I'm happy to say that the magic is still there.

First off, the characters are awesome. Patricia Arquette reminded me why I fell in love with her for her fantastic portrayal of the character Kristen, giving all of her scenes an autheticity that is lacking in too many horror movies (especially second sequels). And my two longtime favorites, Taryn and Kincaid, were as appealing as I remembered them.

"In my dreams I'm beautiful, and bad."

The main draw, back in the day, was of course the return of Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon. While Langenkamp's performance isn't flawless by any means, my lifelong crush remains intact. As for John Saxon, why isn't he being cast in every movie that comes out. He's been working, but I haven't seen him since Dario Argento's Master of Horror episode, Pelts, and From Duck Till Dawn before that. Seriously, every second this man is on the screen is a second God doesn't subtract from the span of our lives. However, on this viewing, I was taken with the perfection the is Laurence Fishburne's tough but kind and supercool Max. God actually adds minutes to the span of your life for every second he's on the screen. Elm Street 3 boasts a truly impressive cast. The man played Othello for God's sake.

"Shee-it, That's what keeps people alive."

Throughout the viewing, I was happy to find myself remembering damned near every line and reciting them along with the cast, using their same intonation and all. What I didn't expect was some actual chills during the film. I'll admit that I was only half paying attention, listening more than watching while I reorganized the personal hellhole that is my sons' room, but the movie would catch me off guard and bring back that old feeling of dread. In particular, any scene with Sister Mary Helena (aka Amanda Krueger) was just haunting. She give me the same kind of vibe I get from watching Maria Ouspenskaya in The Wolf Man (coming from me, this is high praise indeed, as Ouspenskaya's is one of my favorite performances in all of horror). The one that really got me is the unofficial group therapy session in which Nancy explains to the kids who Freddy is, and why he is doing what he is doing. I don't know quite what it was, but the combination of the original Elm Street score with the dialogue just did it for me. It reminds me of the scene from the original where Nancy's mother finally admits to her what is going on. "Fred Krueger is dead, because Mommy killed him." Freakin' awesome.

Mother of a son of a hundred maniacs.

I was impressed by the atmosphere of the movie too. The dreamscapes are all drear and decay, and the presence of children reminds you just how sick the character of Freddy really is. This is, of course, the film where the Elm Street series really took the step into fantasy horror and Freddy dispatched his victims in all kinds of creative and ridiculous ways. But somehow it works in this movie. Where things start to fall apart is in Part 4.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

I'm not going to lie: I still love this movie out of pure nostalgia, and it's a damned sight better than the pure crap of Parts 5 and 6, but if today was the first time I'd ever seen this movie, I'd think it was garbage.

The thing is, Part 4 is a natural extension of Part 3, repeating everything that made the previous film work, and rendering it ridiculous. In Part 3, Freddy takes the teens' individual fears and turns them against them. For example, in Part 3, Taryn is a former junkie who turned to dope to escape her nightmares. After she gets clean, her biggest fear is relapsing and succombing to addiction again. When Freddy shows up, his fingers turn from claws to syringes and he offs her with a heroin overdose. I always loved that. But fast forward to Part 4, and they set up each character to have some preposterous fear or weakness, specifically so Freddy couls exploit it. Case and point: Debbie is repulsed by bugs. So Freddy turns her into a cockroach and squashes her in a roach motel. Dumb.

"Let's get high."

Part 3 was also where the kills got creative. Instead of just using his talons to slash his way through teenagers, Freddy turns into a giant worm and tries to swallow them, he grows out of a television set and smashes the aspiring tv star's head into the set, and slashes the puppet-maker's arms and legs, and pulls the tendons out to manipulate him like a puppet. In that last case, the effect is gruesome and honestly pretty scary. Fast forward to Part 4, and you've got Freddy kung fu fighting, turning people into bugs, literally sucking the life out of an athsmatic girl after grabbing her face with some weird robo-claw, and eating meatballs off a pizza that are actually human heads. Honestly, writing that down just now, it doesn't seem like there's much of a difference. I guess it's the tone of each film that makes them different in my mind. Renny Harlin's entry into the series just seems so slick and Hollywood, while part three retains a sense of grimy, low-budget, ugliness.

"Rick, you little meatball."

The atmosphere in part 3 is fantastic. Creepy, dimly-lit old houses and labyrinthian boiler rooms seem firmly in Freddy's territory. Whereas Part 4 has killings occurring in brightly-lit classrooms, serene asian-stlye dojos, and one in full sunlight on the beach. Freddy has to wear sunglasses. Fucking sunglasses!

Fucking Sunglasses!

Then there's the question of what each film adds to the Freddy mythos. Part 3's Amanda Krueger/son of a hundred maniacs angle adds real depth to Freddy's backstory, and is revisited again in subsequent films. But Part 4's nonsense about the Dream Master and guardians of the gates of dreams was just plain ill-conceived. That said, I had a blast watching it. I liked most of the characters, and I knew all the dumb shit in advance. Guilty pleasure? Absolutely.

Only time will tell if I can bring myself to rewatch Parts 5 and 6, which I hated even as a teenager (yet I own anyway. It's the completeist in me). Perhaps I'll just skip to New Nightmare and Freddy vs. Jason. That or watch something from this century.

Sleepaway Camp: Where have you been all my life?

2011-05-29T10:50:00.000-06:00

It's damned nigh impossible for me to fathom that I could have been a full-fledged horror fanatic in the 1980s, yet somehow managed to miss Sleepaway Camp. But I suppose it's for the best. Sleepaway Camp is a film best experienced in maturity. Had I watched it in my youth, my reaction would have been:

(Dismissively) "That was fucking stupid."

Whereas, when I watched it recently, my reaction was:

(With boundless enthusiasm) "That was fucking stupid!"

Sleepaway Camp is a film best enjoyed with a roomful of noisy, drunken friends, but is so over-the-top ridiculous that you can watch it solo and have a blast, provided you act as your own noisy, drunken friend.
In fact, you won't be able to help it. Even without access to alcohol, Sleepaway Camp is so intoxicatingly dumb that you'll feel like you've downed a sixer of PBR (the downside is that even if you're drinking good beer, you'll still feel like you've downed a sixer of PBR).

Sleepaway Camp is a bad horror film that is bad in all the right ways, so it becomes great. All the performances are amateurish and grotesquely over-acted, but you can tell everyone is completely giving it their all, which renders it charming.

Young actress totally going for it.

The film begins with our heroes, cousins Angela and Ricky, enjoying a day on the lake with their loving father/uncle. But they haven't accounted for the deadly presence of teenagers driving speedboats. The minute the strapping young captain turns the wheel over to a girl, the vessel transforms into a deadly projectile headed straight for the happy family. The father/uncle is killed while the young water-skier pictured above gives the performance of her life.

Fast forward a few years and Angela and Ricky are teenagers headed to summer camp. Ricky's mother has become completely unhinged by her husband's death, as evidenced by her strange habit of commenting on her own statements and, more tellingly, her outfit.

Once at camp, we learn that Angela doesn't speak, due to acute quietness, which makes her an instant target for the mean girls clique, consisting of Ricky's busty last-summer-girlfriend and Meg (M-E-G) the bitchy camp counsellor. When Angela won't eat, a kindly counsellor takes her back to the kitchen to see if there is some food she likes better, and introduces her to the pedophile head chef, who promptly takes her into the pantry to molest her. Luckily, Ricky intervenes just in time. Mysteriously, some time later as pedochef is throwing corn into the world's biggest stockpot, someone pulls the chair out from under him, sending the pedophile and the stockpot tumbling to the floor and resulting in some nasty burns. Since, Ricky and Angela were the only two characters to have witnessed pedochef's transgressions, 20 minutes into the movie, the killer's identity is narrowed down to two suspects.

"I got something you'll like real good."

You play with chicken, you get fried.

The surprising thing about Sleepaway Camp is that it crept up on me, and dumb as it is, before I knew it, I was emotionally invested in the characters. I pitied poor, silent Angela for the abuses piled on her, and found myself ridiculously happy when Ricky's friend, Paul gets her to finally speak.

Awww, ain't they cute?

The rest of the film follows a predictable pattern. Campers taunt and abuse Angela, Ricky freaks out and threatens to rip their heads off, then the killer catches them alone and takes them out. There are no scares whatsoever, and the kills are pretty tame, but somewhat imaginative. What's hilarious is the motivation behind each kill. While revenge for attempted rape makes a certain amount of sense, revenge for a water-ballooning is just plain awesome.

The aftermath of a vicious water-ballooning.

Cuidado - Spoilers anon.

Just when you think Sleepaway Camp is going to be utterly predictable, it flips the script and blows your mind. Don't get me wrong, it's fairly obvious that Angela is the killer, but it turns out to be for an entirely different reason than you'd been led to believe. In an atrociously asinine and offensive turn of events, it is revealed that is wasn't her uncle's death that warped young Angela's mind, but rather than her aunt was transgendered man who forced her young nephew to live as a girl. The final shot of the film, in which Angela's true sex (i.e. her wee-wee) is revealed is truly astonishing. Not only does she go from a seemingly normal, if painfully shy, teen girl to a raging psychotic cradling Paul's severed head, she also apparently turns into Sasquatch, if her unearthly growling sounds are any indication. The icing on the cake is the final line of the film when one of the counsellors says in disbelief, "How can it be? She's a boy!" Yeah, never mind Paul's severed head dropping into the sand and the fact that she's channelling Bigfoot while wielding a knife. For God's sake, she's got a penis!

Had the final scene not caused me to laugh convulsively for a solid half-hour, I might have been highly offended at the completely ignorant and hateful depiction of transgendered people. Were I a member of the LGBT community, the homophobic twist ending would have likely ruined the entire film for me. As it was, the offensiveness only added to Sleepaway Camp's schlocky charm. I definitely recommend this film to everyone with a highly-refined taste for terrible movies.

Random Horror Shoutout: Jurian Hughes

2011-05-24T23:01:00.000-06:00

Since I wanted to check back in at the Mancave, but haven't had time to write a full post, I thought I'd just throw out whatever has been on my mind. So here's a new feature for y'all: Random Horror Shoutouts.

I'm becoming a bit obsessed with Brad Anderson's Session 9. As someone who has semi-frequent auditory hallucinations, the scenes where Simon speaks to Gordon terrify the crap out me. All I have to do to make myself shiver is think, "Hello, Gordon. You can hear me." It's that goddamn voice.

And so, this week's random horror shoutout goes to out to Jurian Hughes, the voice actress who played Mary/Princess/Billy/Simon. While the set design is stunningly creepy and the hospital becomes a character unto itself, I think the success of the film hinges entirely on Hughes's performance. There hasn't been a voice this freaky since Mercedes McCambridge made the world wet its collective pants in The Exorcist. While I'm at it, I should give credit to the sound designers who put the lo-fi warble into Hughes's voice-overs, making them sound like fifty-year old reel-to-reel tape warped by the heat of Hell's own Bar-B-Q.

I should really give this film a proper post, since it is definitely own of my favorites of the last decade. But for now, I'll just give kudos once more to Jurian Hughes, the black little heart and soul of Session 9.

Laid to Rest: A New Slasher Classic?

2011-05-08T21:42:00.000-06:00

When you think about the big horror franchises of the 80's (which, I think we can all agree was the golden age of slashers), what did they all have in common? An iconic killer, of course. The big four: Freddy, Jason, Michael, and Leatherface all had either a trademark mask, weapon, or both. Who today can look at a goalie mask without immediately thinking of the illustrious Mr. Voorhees? When you think of a chainsaw, does your brain say, "power tool" or "murder weapon?" Mine too. I may be jumping the gun on this one, but it seems to me that Laid to Rest has what it takes to stand up alongside the greats, and Cthulu-willing, Chromeskull will take his rightful place in the horror hall of fame.

When it comes to masks, the simpler, the more iconic. This is why Michaels Myers's featureless white mask is so effective. And Jason's is simpler still. Chromeskull's mask is flashier and more elaborate, but the design is straightforward: a skull-the universal symbol of death, polished to a high shine so his victims can see their own reflections as they die.

Chromeskull's weapons are two huge, vicious-looking knives with fingerguards and wicked serrated teeth. They too are polished and shiny, glinting in the dark against the backdrop of Mr. Skull's classy black suit. Chromeskull gets more than a few creative kills out of those versatile knives, and the violence is way more intense and graphic than practically any 80's slasher. The special effects are top-notch and the gore is copious. Nearly every kill had me shouting, "That was so cool," at the screen.

Glorious kills aside, where Laid to Rest really shines is in its simultaneous adherence to and departure from slasher film conventions. Robert Hall takes a page out of John Carpenter's book and reveals no motive for the murders, keeping his killer silent and mysterious. There's a sort of "slasher purity" to the film that makes it work so well. There's no real plot to speak of, and it starts off scary and rarely lets up.

Where it departs from convention is in the characters. Rather than an obnoxious group of partying teenagers, Laid to Rest begins with a single woman trapped in a coffin who has amnesia and possibly brain damage. After her initial escape from Chromeskull, she hitches a ride with a big, tough-looking, bald dude who turns out to be the nicest, most endearing character in the film. He takes on the role of her protector and brings her home to his wife, played by the always fantastic Lena Heady, who comes off as gruff and abrasive, but quickly shows her kinder side. The couple are hicks, but Hall doesn't turn them into stereotypes who exist only to be mocked. Because they care about this mysterious young woman, you care about them, which always makes the violence so much more crushing.

While not a perfect film, I was still blown away by it and beyond happy to learn a Robert Hall-helmed sequel is in the works. This is one franchise I'd like to see get huge.

But I do wonder how much of my excitement was due to having "discovered" the film on my own. I had never heard of it-just picked it up on a whim at the pawn shop because Lena Heady was listed in the credits. I'd like to know what you think-am I overblowing this thing, or is it really as good as I thought. Seriously y'all, blow up the comments section on this one.

Keepin' It Spooky at The World

2011-05-07T18:01:00.000-06:00

Marvin the Macabre outside of the Haunted Mansion

It can be a chore to keep the horror in your heart at the happiest place on Earth, but I think I managed it. I introduced both my sons to the joys of the Haunted Mansion (they're now fanatical about it), dropped from the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror twice in a row (this time without an intense hangover), and faced giant spiders and animatronic dementors in a jaunt over to Universal (sadly, I was in the wrong part of the park for Monsters memorabilia).

I'll soon be returning to my regularly scheduled descents into depravity, but I thought I'd share with you all the warm glow of a vacation well-spent.

I picked up this souvenir book outside the mansion.

It details the history of the ride and includes

some great early production sketches.

The Original Haunted Mansion Poster

Artwork from Paris Disneyland's Phantom Manor

My Bellatrix Lestrange pin from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I can't help it. My love for Helena Bonham Carter,

particularly in this batshit crazy role, knows no bounds.

Sadly, Bellatrix's wand was not available in the park.

Voldemort's does look pretty bad-ass though.

What type of bone do you suppose it's made from?

For my shotglass collection.

I know whose head I'll be swilling liquor from this Halloween.

Okay, I didn't actually get this figure. The picture is from a book

I picked up in Epcot's Mexico pavilion. It has instructions

for making calaveras and other Dia de los Muertos crafts.

Here's the only piece of Mickey memorabilia I bought. It's another pin, and Mickey looks like he's about to rip out your trachea.What's cooler than that?

Bat Junk!

2011-04-28T22:12:00.000-06:00

Never Say You'll Be Right Back

2011-04-18T21:17:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I have been slacking yet again on the 30 Days of Horror Challenge. And you're right, I suck. And yes, I'm well aware that it's not that freakin' hard to write about one movie a day. But cut me some slack man. I've been gearing up for a vacation.

This, of course, means that I won't be checking in at the Mancave for another week or two. But I promise to send your regards to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. And yes, of course I'll give the Haunted Mansion a big hug from you. And I'll definitely scour The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for any black magic artifacts I think you'd be into.

I have the feeling that when I return, I'll be more than ready to jump back into the darkness with you. So relax. Don't worry. I'll be right back...

Mr. Daywalt, Your Shorts Scare Me

2011-04-14T23:35:00.000-06:00

I came across an interview with Drew Daywalt over on Salon.com. I had never heard of him, so many thanks to Drew Grant for turning me on to his micro-horror films. Most of his videos are two to five minutes long, but they pack a mean punch. I highly recommend you check them out.

The only problem I had with the piece was its opening-a lament about how the current generation has "grown up in a period when the lack of good horror films is downright scary." And yes, this is the conventional "wisdom." But I've been hearing versions of that same statement since the eighties, and it's even less true now. Anyone saying there's no good, original horror coming out simply doesn't know where to look (Hint: It's probably not playing at your local 20-screen, stadium-seating cineplex. They need at least three of those screens for whatever Michael Bay just shit out).

So to Ms. Grant, thanks for the heads up about Daywalt Fear Factory. I'd like to return the favor. Here's my post on all that's right with modern horror. But don't stop there, click on any of the fine blogs listed in my sidebar and you'll soon find out where all the good horror has gone.

My Wonderful Nightmare

2011-04-12T21:45:00.000-06:00

Do you ever have a dream so awesome you don’t want to wake up from it, but after you do, the warm glow of that dream makes you happy for the rest of the day? Has that dream ever been a nightmare?

I don't tend to have a lot of full-on nightmares. Usually my bad dreams are just sort of unpleasant, but last night's was horror movie-scary, and I flippin' loved it.

As with any dream, the beginning was hazy and irretrievable, but the first thing I remember is being in a dirty, dilapidated apartment building with extraordinarily long, steep, and narrow staircases. A sloppy, overweight, old man met me there and took me up to his apartment to give me something (I'm not sure what). Several trashy-looking people occupied the apartment, and while I was waiting for the old man to return, one of them became this weird zombie/demon hybrid with huge, sharp teeth and distorted features. He started attacking people, and as in any good zombie movie, those he bit became infected and went on the attack, while the rest of us escaped, banded together, and tried to get to safety.

I’m notorious for yelling at horror movies. You know, giving the characters some helpful suggestions for the proper course of action. My initial advice is always the same: once the immediate danger has passed, for God's sake find a weapon. I’m proud to say that in my dream, I heeded my own advice and grabbed the first length of metal I could find, a piece from some kind of industrial shelving. When the zombie-demons came back, however, every swing of my bludgeon was slow and powerless, and I kept missing by a mile. At this point, I must have been making some gnarly noises in my sleep, because my wife gently shook me and asked if I was alright. I remember answering “Yes,” and eagerly getting back to my nightmare.

I have no idea how long my dream was, but it seemed feature length to me. The other survivors and I fended off multiple zombie attacks while navigating our way through a labyrinthian industrial landscape. The freakiest scenes took place in those narrow stairwells, where my companions were picked off one by one until I was left as the Final Dude. Eventually, I found my way out of the maze of buildings and staggered out into the street, expecting at any moment to be overtaken by legions of zombies. To my surprise, the hoardes awaiting me were shoppers and business people on their way to work. Then my zombified companions reappeared, smiling and removing their fake teeth. In that moment, I had two realizations: A) the attack was actually a Zombie Holocaust Preparedness Drill, and B) I was not actually experiencing this firsthand, but was watching a really good zombie movie with a twist ending I never expected.

From there, the dream shifted perspective, and I was watching this movie when my wife walked in and I started raving about how good the movie was. Then I restarted the movie and made her watch it with me from the beginning. This time the movie was slightly different and started with my wife and I watching the very movie we were simultaneously living. We were in that creepy apartment building, and for some reason I needed I change of clothes. The movie had scared me so much that I didn’t want to be anywhere near the staircases, so instead of heading home for my own clothes, I started searching around in the old man’s dresser for some clothes I could borrow. While I was riffling through the drawers, the zombie attack began anew, and played out pretty much the same way as the first time.

For some reason, I was under the impression that I was watching the 2009 French film, Mutants. I haven’t actually seen Mutants yet, so I was stoked that it was so good that I watched it twice in a row (just yesterday I wrote that Dead Alive is the only movie I’ve done that with). But as soon as I thought about this fact, I realized I wasn’t watching a movie at all, but dreaming one. I was really disappointed because I knew that the real Mutants could never be as good as the one in my dream. Shortly after this realization, my alarm went off. I hit snooze automatically and went right back into the dream.

This time the story had started over, back at the sleazy apartment. My wife said, “Let’s try something different this time,” and before the zombie attack started, she led me to a well-hidden corner of the industrial complex, where we would try to wait out the drill in relative peace. It seemed like an okay hiding place, until a bum showed up and wanted to know why we were in his favorite drinking spot. We left promptly and found an identical hiding place around another corner. This time, however, the spot was crowded with other people who had the same idea. We squished in anyway, with me right next to the only entrance. And sure enough, a zombie popped her head in, practically in my lap. But instead of attacking, she said, “Is it cool if I hang out in here? I don’t have the energy to do this again.” Punchline delivered, I woke up with a big smile on my face.

Groggy as I was, I briefly thought, hell, maybe I’ll adapt my dream into a screenplay. Of course, as I went through the details of the dream in the shower, I realized its ridiculous dream logic would never work as a film. But in a way, it was better than a movie. It was a vicarious experience that delivered all the fear and violence in a way a movie never could. Who cares if it made no damn sense? Besides, I got to watch zombie movies all night long, and still got a full night's sleep.

Best.

Nightmare.

Ever.

Dollar Bin Horror's 30 Days of Horror Challenge: Catch-Up Session #3

2011-04-11T17:49:00.000-06:00

Day 13: Favorite Horror Comedy

Peter Jackson’s epic gorefest, Dead Alive (aka Braindead) has the special distinction of being the only movie I’ve ever watched twice in a row. Back when I was first exposed to Dead Alive, I made it my personal mission to show it to everyone I possibly could. On one occasion, I had brought my unrated copy (it is essential not to watch the R-rated version by mistake) to a friend’s house, one who happened to be a hardcore Christian. Needless to say, it blew his effing mind. When the movie had around 5 minutes to go, another of our mutual friends showed up and wanted to know what in Hell we were watching. I convinced my Christian friend to sit through the whole bloody mess all over again. Good times.

I also screened scenes from Dead Alive in a college literature course entitled “Comic and Tragic Visions.” I paired the “I kick ass for the Lord” scene with the murder scene from Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures to illustrate how a shift in tone makes all the difference between comedy and tragedy. The splatterfest of Dead Alive is more violent by a power of ten, but it doesn’t seem that way because it is played for laughs. Meanwhile, the single murder in Heavenly Creatures manages to be deeply disturbing, even though little of the violence is actually shown.

Also, raise your hand if you spotted the Sumatran Rat Monkey crate in the cargo hold of the ship in King Kong.

Day 14: Favorite Zombie Movie

I could easily have swapped my #13 and #14 picks, but Shaun of the Dead seemed more of a traditional zombie movie, so it gets this spot. While there are plenty of excellent walking dead films out there, and I had to think long and hard about placing Shaun above Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead, there’s simply no other zombie movie that I could watch any time, no matter what mood I’m in.

Another reason Shaun gets the zombie, rather than horror comedy, distinction is that it pulls off that rarest of feats: it manages to be funny and scary in equal measure. Even more amazing than that, it gives you a good dose of the tragic and romantic as well. The scene where Bill Nighy bites it is heart-wrenching, even though he has been depicted as an overbearing jerk until that moment. And you can’t help but root for Shaun to save his relationship through heroism in the face of zombie holocaust. In short, Shaun of the Dead has everything you could possibly want from a film.

Day 15: Favorite horror film involving serial killers

Now, if you restrict this category to movies about actual serial killers, I’d have to go with none of the above. I don’t watch those films, fascinated as I might be by the subject matter. The problem I have with serial killer biopics is that they cash in on genuine tragedy and exploit real human deaths at the expense of the loved ones of the victims. Imagine being the parent of someone murdered by the BTK killer, then going to the video store and having to stomach the presence of a cheap flick profiting from the worst thing that has ever happened to your family.

Luckily, there are plenty of fictional serial killers to choose from, and my favorite among them is the debonair yet unhinged yuppie scumbag Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. In adapting Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, director Mary Herron wastes no opportunity to viciously skewer the empty-suit Wall Street parasites that populate this 1980’s period piece. Bateman is all surface with no depth, constantly reiterating that he is empty inside and while he looks the part of a human being, he has no human emotions. The film goes to great lengths to illustrate that he could be speaking for any one of his equally soulless colleagues and be right on the money. The difference: he’s a serial killing sociopath just clinging to the last vestiges of normalcy. (Spoiler alert) Or is he? Herron ends the film with a perfect sense of ambiguousness over whether Bateman’s killing sprees have actually occurred, or if he’s just lost his ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.

If you like your horror with a dose of social commentary, American Psycho is the way to go. And while you can argue that the yuppie-bashing gets a little heavy-handed at times, to me it never gets old.

Day 16: Favorite Childhood-Themed Horror Movie

Poltergeist. No contest.

When you watch Poltergeist as a kid, it goes straight for all the classic childhood fears: evil clowns, things under the bed, scary trees, ghosts, being abducted, and the presence of demonic forces. It’s like Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg set out to traumatize an entire generation. The beauty of this film is that when you revisit it as a parent, it is ten times worse. There’s an instinctual thing that kicks in when you have kids, and your greatest fears suddenly shift off of yourself and onto your offspring. You no longer fear being abducted; you fear your kids will be. And when Zelda Rubenstein tells you the abductor is “The Beast,” the chills are convulsive. JoBeth Williams gives the outstanding performance of the film, and I can no longer watch her most emotional scenes without tearing up myself.

On the downside, some of the special effects are incredibly dated. I’m sure members of the younger generation encountering Poltergeist for the first time will find much of it laughable (the tree eating the kid, the researcher tearing swathes of bloody latex off his fakey-looking skull, etc.). Fortunately, the most chilling sequences don’t rely heavily on special effects (the stacked chairs, Zelda Rubenstein’s speech, skeletons in the unfinished pool). It seems like a film about due for a remake, but I hope they think twice. We don’t want any more dead children on our hands.

Day 17: Favorite Horror Film Remake

It seems like everybody’s main complaint about modern American horror is the dominance of remakes. And I’ll admit, it is getting annoying. But in general, I’m pretty open to remakes and don’t mind if they stray significantly from the source material. For instance, I found a lot to like about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. It strayed so far from the original, I think it could have held up as its own film with no ties to the original franchise. All they would have had to do was put Leatherface in a Luchador mask or something, and voila, you’ve got a new horror franchise. That said, the movie is pretty uneven, and for every scene that works, there’s another that falls completely flat.

The TCM remake I’d classify as a reboot, because the filmmakers set out to create a new vision of familiar material. There’s another form of remake that generally pisses me off to no end. That is the American remake of a foreign film. But I kind of understand the phenomenon—Americans as a rule simply don’t watch foreign language films (and thus deserve what they get when the remake falls laughably short of the original). Oddly enough, my favorite remake falls into this bastard category. Matt Reeves’s Let Me In preserves everything that was good about the original Let the Right One In, and somehow manages to improve it.

I do admit I like the way the swimming pool scene was done better in the original, but the addition of the car crash scene more than makes up for it. Since I’ve already written about this film on my other blog Films My Spouse Made Me Watch, I’ll direct you there for additional thoughts on the film.

Day 18: Favorite Foreign Horror Film

This is a tough one, because most of my favorites from the last decade have been foreign (specifically European). But one film does seem to stand above the rest as an example of next-level, game changing horror. For me, Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs lived up to and surpassed all the praise that horror bloggers have piled on it. I tried not to read too much about it in advance, because well, that’s the advice I was given. So forgive me if I write mainly in generalities—I simply love Martyrs too much to ruin it for anyone.

The little I read about Martyrs had me expecting a film that was terribly disturbing, but not scary. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The movie starts out pants-wetting terrifying, but becomes something altogether different in its second half. It is a film that brings a strange kind of beauty to its brutality. Martyrs ends up being one of the most thought-provoking films I’ve seen in any genre, and perhaps someday I’ll try to do it justice with a proper discussion. But for now, I’m content to just caress the DVD case and stare at it in awe.

Are we there yet? Not quite. But my hands are cramping up. I’ll be back for a triple entry tomorrow, then see if I can’t keep up for the rest of the challenge.