Favorite Sci-Fi Films #1 and A Note

     Before I get started, I'd like to thank everyone who's viewed my blog for the 2,000 views I've gotten in the past 1/2 year.  So thanks for that!  

    Now, I'd like to explain how I'm going to do this next installment here.  I was originally planning to do a list of my top 20 sci-fi films... and I realized I couldn't push it down to 20.  Then I decided to separate it into sub-genres.  The problem there was that so many of these films have overlapping genres.  Therefore, I'm going to do a continuing series of posts on my favorite science fiction films without them being in any order of greatness or limited to a specific number.  So this will be a continuing series that I do from time to time.  This also means I won't get burned out on a specific genre as I did with horror films back in October.  I still plan to do a set of posts on my favorite Christmas films/specials come December, however.  

So without further ado, here's the first of my discussions on specific science fiction films...

When Worlds Collide - (1951)

     

     There was a time when science fiction sold.  And it sold well.  This trend lasted from the late 1920s on until we went to the moon in 1969.  After that, science fiction pretty much died until 1977 and George Lucas brought it back.  Sure, there was science fiction in the early 70s, but it was very dark and cynical with films like Logan's Run, Silent Running, the Planet of the Apes films, and Soylent Green.  Dystopias abounded.  But in the 1950s was when science fiction was at it's strongest.  From giant animals or beasts caused by nuclear radiation to traveling to other worlds...  Our hope and gung-ho attitude about science and space had not yet produced the sad results we got when we sent our probes to mars and noticed it was nothing more than a dead rock or went to the moon and didn't know what to do when we got there.  No, we knew little about our solar system at the time.  Mars could have an atmosphere or hold a long-dead civilization.  Maybe the moon had some importance we didn't know about yet.  We couldn't possibly be alone out here.  Alas, science and discovery hit us where it hurts.  We would be alone for the forseeable future.  There was no long lost civilization.  We couldn't go to Mars.  There's nothing out there in the immediate vicinity.  With those sad discoveries, we lost our interest in space.  We've shrunk NASA's budget to miniscule proportions.  We don't want to know any more depressing facts.  

    Travel back to 1933.  Science fiction was Buck Rogers, John Carter, and other pulp creations.  Then Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer wrote a very successful book about our world being collided with by a rogue planet and sideswiped by another before that.  It was called When Worlds Collide.  It would influence the creation of two new comic book characters, Superman and Flash Gordon.   The book being a huge success, it would only be a matter of time until it was made into a film.  Enter George Pal.

   George Pal was a film producer who had made the very popular science fiction film Destination Moon in 1950.  That was the first film that showed the dangers and trials of space travel in a time when space fever was beginning to engulf the world.  It also won an award for Best Special Effects at the Academy Awards that year, and was one of the first sci-fi films shot in color.  To follow that success up, he chose When Worlds Collide.  Not only was it a cracking good science fiction story, but it was also a doomsday film.  It's about a scientist who discovers that two rogue planets are on a collision course with Earth.  The first one, Zyra, will merely pass dangerously close to earth.  Enough to cause tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. due to it's gravitational pull. (Flimsy science, I'm sure, but it's all in good fun.)  The second planet, Bellus, is on a true collision path and will destroy our planet.  Well, the rest of the scientific community scoffs at this idea and the world once again puts it's head up it's butt refusing to fund attempts at a "space ark" which will launch and piggyback onto Zyra before Bellus hits the earth with some people on board to restart the human race on their new home.  Okay, the story may be silly and unbelievable, but you have to understand...  This was the early 1950s.  We knew little about rocket capabilities, the movement of planets, space, or anything like that.  Also, there's a bit more to the story than what I told, but I don't want to give away some of the more moral and ethical dilemmas present.

    

George Pal was a very visual man. He would go on to produce War of the Worlds right after this film, which has become known as one of the most quintessential science fiction films ever made. He knew he would need to have the film shot in color, have an epic scale with lots of danger, and that he'd need astounding visual effects. And he got all three. The film would go on to win Best Visual Effects for 1951. In fact, George Pal films won the award 3 times in just 5 years! George Pal was Roland Emmerich before Roland Emmerich or Dean Devlin were even around! He was destroying the world before even Irwin Allen was doing his stuff in the 1960s and 70s! It's such a shame the man isn't remembered as he should be.

      When Worlds Collide isn't as well known anymore, sadly. Perhaps this is due to it's less well known director in comparison to War of the Worlds' Byron Haskin who had already done Disney's Treasure Island. In comparison, Rudolph Mate, director of When Worlds Collide was mainly known for cheap film noirs like D.O.A and The Dark Past. In fact, he's better known for his cinematography work than his directoral work. He did cinematography for such films as Foreign Correspondent, Passion of Joan of Arc, To Be or Not To Be, and Vampyr. (All those are in the Criterion Collection, by the way.)

      I'm sorry if I've made the film sound like a cheesy 1950s science fiction film. I mean it is all those things, but it's also not something to really make fun of. The film isn't all that stilted as the lower budget science fiction of the time routinely was. This was a big budget film done by a major studio that gave it a wide fanfared release. It was a huge moneymaker. In fact, I find it possibly less cheesy than some of the 1970s disaster films that I love so much. And the ending surprised me greatly. You think that in a 1950s film they wouldn't dare actually have the planet hit the Earth and kill everyone... But they do. (Sorry for the spoiler, but the movie IS over 60 years old.) Still, the film ends on a message of hope and perseverance anyway. I highly recommend those that loved Roland Emmerich's 2012 to watch the film, as it's got a lot of the same ideas in it. In fact, this one makes more sense, though that isn't saying much.

The film can be streamed for free in HD if you have Amazon Prime, and is also available on DVD for cheap. See this sadly forgotten film if you can. I like it better than War of the Worlds. I mean how can you not like a film that depicts a rocket being launched like a roller coaster?!

Ingenious!

Many Days of Friday the 13th - Parts VI & VII

Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986)

    

     It's been a while since I wrote one of these so let me remind you...  The series was supposed to end on Friday the 13th: The Final Friday, which was part 4.  The very next year Paramount brought the series back to life with Part V: A New Beginning, which featured a regular homicidal guy wearing a hockey mask sort of copycatting Jason.  Well, that didn't go so well with fans that were expecting Jason back.  You always give the fans what they want, so come the next year, it was decided that Jason had to come back. 

    The studio hired Tom McLoughlin, who had made a PG rated horror film three years before to write and direct.  He decided to inject humor into the by now clearly dying series, and to cut down on the gore.  What he created was the last good Friday film until the 2000s.  The film is so markedly different from the films that came before and come after it that it of course stands alone.  The story sort of picks up from Part V.   Tommy Jarvis escapes from his mental institution and feels the urge to go to Jason's grave to make sure he's dead.  So he and his reluctant friend dig up Jason's maggot infested corpse and he sees he's truly dead.  However, as he's not mentally well, Tommy takes an iron stake from the fence lining the graveyard and decides to stab Jason repeatedly with in when, what do you know, lightning strikes it and gives Jason life again.  So now Jason is a superhuman zombie that's even more powerful than he was before.  For instance, the first death he commits is punching the friend through the chest and grabbing his heart as his hand punches through the guy's back.  And that's probably the goriest part of the film.

     McLoughlin decided he wanted to go for a classic Universal Monster/Hammer horror film with this one, so what we get is less blood and gore, but more atmosphere.  They filmed the installment in Covington, Georgia instead of up north as the prior films had been, so the camp has this humid feel to it.  There's lots of fog, the camp is noticeably different from the past films... even the woods look different.  And I love the fact that the film is the first to not take the series seriously.  Take for instance the very scene I referred to earlier with the heart punch.  And the way that scene ends... With a Bond tribute?!

    It's pretty certain from there that you aren't getting the same type of Friday film that you've come to accept.  This one is just out to have fun.  Oddly enough, though this is supposedly more tame than the prior films, this is the only Friday film to have kids actually at the camp when the murders take place.  And it actually adds to the humor.  In fact, the filmmakers here used the humor, a lot of it self-referential, to disarm the MPAA.  They already cut out a lot of gore, there's no nudity here, only one (clothed) sex scene and little language.  In their place you have car chases, gunfighting, and more inventive kills.  There's little machete action here, as part of the way they played the MPAA was having Jason do kills that regular people couldn't imitate.  For example, there's folding someone backwards til their spine breaks, the aforementioned heart punch, chopping 3 heads off in one swing of the machete, twisting someone's head off, etc.  This way there would be less pushback about possible copycats. 

     The humor is great here, and the film never lets up on it.  There's a moment when the graveyard caretaker sees that Jason is gone and his grave dug up.  He knows he'll get into trouble if it's found out, so he just re-covers the grave mumbling to himself.  Then he turns directly towards camera and says "Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment."  Or there's when a couple (one of them the wife of the director, the other the sleazy bad guy from Ghost) is driving through the woods and sees Jason in front of them holding the iron fence stake from earlier blocking their path.  The guy doesn't see him at first and asks his wife why she stopped.  "I've seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly."   So with this film, postmodernism came to slashers a good ten years before Scream.

     This is probably my second favorite Friday the 13th film after Part II.  It's just a lot of fun.  It's got a great original screenplay, and is competently directed.  I don't really miss the huge amounts of gore from the prior films, as the humor and atmosphere make up for it.  I'd feel comfortable showing this one to a 13 year old, it's that tame.  Also, this one's got two or three songs Alice Cooper wrote especially for the film, and that's too cool.  I do highly recommend this one.  Can't say that about the next one, however....

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

      And here's where everything goes to shit.  After such a good movie like Jason Lives, they go kind of back to formula for this one, but bring in a telekinetic teenager.  (Yes, lame.)  If you thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel before, well...  The teenagers in this film are for the most part horrible people that you want to see killed unlike the last film.  The story here is that Tina accidentally killed her father with telekinesis  after he hit her mother when she was younger.  Now her fame-seeking manipulative doctor has decided that she needs to go back to the scene to "deal with her grief", but really he wants to bring out more of her abilities by making her an emotional mess.  Well, she gets there and accidentally brings up Jason out of the bottom of the lake, and of course he kills the teenagers who are partying next door one by one.  And thank god for that, because they are the worst ones in the series.  Honestly, only two have redeeming qualities.  Even the nerdy guy who writes science fiction stories is a jerk.  In a way, this film is a semi-remake of Part IV.  You have the family and the partying teens next door, and you want most of those teens to die.  Sadly, Part IV was much better.  Even the acting, as the acting in this one is some of the worst in the series.  

     Whereas the last film tried to tone down the gore, sex, language and nudity, all four are back in full force here.  (Or at least the filmmakers tried to bring the gore back.  More on that later.)  There's ample sex, the language is.. okay, there isn't much language, but there is a bit of nudity.  However, no one in this film is good enough looking for a nude scene in my opinion.  The kills are also not as inventive here.  There's another punch through the chest (without the heart this time), and a cool death that's remembered by everyone.  That's right, the one with the woman in the sleeping bag being thwacked against a tree!  However, most of the deaths here are severely trimmed, due to the MPAA.  You see a quick shot of something happening, and you see the after effect.  Now, on the DVD you can see what was trimmed, but that's in very bad quality.  Sadly, this fact makes a bad movie all the more worse.  And Jason's "demise" at the end of the film is probably the worst in the series.  It's too unbelievable even for a Jason film.  And like a few of the other films, this one takes place near Crystal Lake, but not at the place.  

     The one thing some people like about this film is that it introduced the most famous Jason.  Or rather the guy who played him.  Kane Hodder plays Jason in this film and the next three, being the only actor to ever portray Jason more than once.  He's actually a stunt guy, which means he's more bulky and better suited to be put through all sorts of painful stuff.  I'm actually not a huge fan of his tenure, as he starred in some of the worst entries in the series, and seriously, he's just a big lumbering lug to me.  Not much to do there.  Although he did do the longest uninterrupted on-screen body burn in history, which is shown towards the end of the film. Now, there is one actor very good at what he does.  That's the character of Tina's doctor, Dr. Cruz.  He's so hateable, and he can actually act unlike the rest of the cast.  I don't think I've hated a character this much in a Friday film, so kudos to him.  He even uses Tina's mom as a human shield when confronted with his eminent death by Jason.   The director of the film John Carl Buechler hasn't had a great career since the film, mainly doing direct-to-video films.  Before this film he directed Troll, which is actually a lot of stupid fun and is mainly known for it's sequel which has nothing to do with Troll.

     Absolutely not recommended.  For some reason this film did better than the last one did, which led to Part VIII, which we will get to in the coming weeks.   

Ender's Game and Thor: The Dark World reviews

Thor: The Dark World

     Just a word of warning before you start to read this review.  I'm one of the few that enjoys Thor more than any of the other Marvel Universe storylines.  I know it's considered by many to not be as good as the Iron Man and Captain America films, but better than the Incredible Hulk film.  Well, I've enjoyed all the Marvel Universe films, with Iron Man actually being the least interesting to me.  I mean sure, Robert Downey Jr. is great in the role and all, but the films themselves just don't grab me like the others do.  Steve Rogers annoys me to no end with his everprevelant nationalism and old fashioned morals (yes, I know that's part of who he is, and I like the fact that they make fun of it), and I wish they could finally settle on a person to play Bruce Banner.  (Mark Ruffalo is perfect, by the way.)  However, Thor has everything going right for it.  The storyline is different, it's got less to do with SHIELD, it's more fantasy than action, and it's the funniest of the franchise.

   I thought that the first Thor film was just about perfect.  I know I'm alone in that assumption.  I liked it's small scale, I liked the fact that it didn't take itself too seriously (Are you listening DC Comics?), and the casting was superb.  I feel like the Asgard setting takes the franchise to another level over the other films.  It makes the franchise approach the genre of sci-fi or fantasy to a larger degree than the other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which are mostly just action films with some sci-fi elements.  And with this, the second Thor film, the franchise is taken even farther into the fantasy realm.

     So the story here is that an ancient race that Odin's father defeated long ago, the Dark Elves, aren't as defeated as the Asgardians had hoped.  The villainous Malekith awakens and searches for the old weapon that will make him invincible, the Aether, which Odin's father hid in a stone column.  Well, back on Earth, Jane (Natalie Portman) is pining away over her Thor who has been gone for two years when he said he'd be right back.  She discovers these portals in an abandoned building and accidentally falls through one which, wouldn't ya know it, leads to the Aether, which overtakes her body.  Now when people touch her, they sort of... explode.  Thor finds out about this, returns to Earth to take her to Asgard.  (Daddy is none to pleased with that, as he dislikes the fact that Thor loves a mortal.)  Then Malekith and his enhanced Kursed Dark Elves attack Asgard and do some friggin' serious damage.  Then there's some stuff with Loki, who's in the Asgard prison after what he did in The Avengers, there's more stuff with portals, Stellen Skarsgard goes around in the nude ranting and raving and hugs people without any pants, cars suddenly become weightless...  Lots of stuff, people, that would take me hours to explain.

     As goofy as the plot is, the movie is very fun and easy to keep interest in.  There's more time spent on Asgard in this one, which is a blessing.  The CGI workers on this film have made a fantastic city that I just wanted to spend more time seeing, and they give you lots of time to do so here.  The stuff on earth is kept to about 1/3 of the screen time, which is enough so that people expecting just another run of the mill action superhero film will stay happy.  However, Thor's realm is Asgard, and that's where the franchise should base itself.  Sure, you have to have the Earth in peril to get people interested, but you can get that in any other superhero film.  

      The humor is well balanced throughout the film.  It never becomes too serious, which I think is what makes these Marvel films so popular.  You want serious, go see a modern DC Comics film.  I'm not sure that having Stellen Skarsgard's character become quite eccentric was the right way to go, as it becomes a bit cliche after a while.  He basically turns into the Walter Bishop character from Fringe.  Everyone else is played pretty much as they were in the first film.  Loki is in this film quite a bit, obviously.  It wouldn't be a Thor film without him.  He's Thor's sort of brother and is the x factor for the whole franchise.  He's played more sympathetically than he was in The Avengers or the last Thor film, which was refreshing.  I like my villains to have feelings sometimes.  They don't all have to be Michael Myers or The Joker or Green Goblin.  Sometimes you need a Doc Oc or a Two-Face, villains that still have something of a sense of empathy or remorse however buried.  In fact, I thought Loki was in a way a better character in this film than Thor himself was, mainly due to some character development between films, which Thor has had little of.  Odin has become an even bigger jerk, however.  

     Overall, I thought the movie was fantastic.  I can't wait to own it on blu-ray in a few months.  It's up there with Pacific Rim as my favorite popcorn film of the year.  I was about to give this film  6 1/2 stars out of 7, but for the scene before the end credits.  Due to that scene and it's implications, I must remove a full star from my total.  It was that disappointing, that bad, so much of a stupid moment it's unforgivable.  

Final score:  5 1/2 out of 7

Ender's Game

      The 1985 book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite books.  I first read it my first year of college, which means I read it almost exactly 10 years ago now.  I quickly went from that book to reading it's companion novel which came out years later, Ender's Shadow, which is the same story told from the perspective of the character Bean.  In other words, it's Bean's story during the same time-frame.  The book series split off into two.  There's the continuing story of Ender, which is a very meditative and spiritual series after the first book (no more action folks, sorry), and then there's the story of Bean, Petra and the other former Battle School kids back on Earth under the rule of Peter Wiggin while Ender is on his spiritual journey away from the others.   I recommend both series for different reasons.

     I've been waiting for this movie to come out for years now.  I had figured it would never get made, at least not in live action due to Ender being such a young character in the novel (he's like 8 or 9 in the novel) and the cost of the special effects.  Also it wasn't your usual science fiction story.  Still, I was proven wrong after the film had been in development hell for many years.   I was not looking forward to it when I heard that the guy that directed the horrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine was writing the screenplay and directing.  Nor did I like the fact that they were upping the age of the main character by about 8 years.  However, my concerns were surprisingly unwarranted.  This is a fine film with just a few small problems.

     The movie has a lot going for it.  It's got a great cast with Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, and Abigail Breslin among others.  It didn't raise the ages of all the kids in Battle School, which was a relief.  The special effects are really very good and the Battle Room came out exactly like I had imagined it.  (The Battle Room is a zero gravity room with obstacles that the cadets train in.)  

    There's only a few things wrong with the film, and they are quite minor, even unnoticable, if you haven't read the book.  First of all, the film is sadly very streamlined.  The characters other than Ender have become archetypes or cliched.  Graff has no redeeming qualities in the filmed version, Petra warms up to Ender straight away, and it almost feels as if the whole film takes place in a matter of days instead of years, Stilson isn't killed, there's no mention of Demosthenes or Locke (which are very much important in the sequel books of both series), and a lot of the morality themes are gone.  Now this may seem like a lot, but as the film probably won't be getting a sequel due to it's mixed reception and not that great box office, it doesn't matter.  This is an adventure film a moral base.  Think of it as the inverse of Starship Troopers.  Heck, it even has big bugs!  I stand by my assessment that those that did not read the book will not notice all of the subplots that are missing, nor would they want them.  For those that did read the book and wanted a great adaptation, I think you've pretty much got it.  The film is interesting, great to look at, well acted, and sticks pretty darn close to the book.  There aren't many, if any, plot changes here.  There's simply omissions for the sake of time and pacing.  

     I loved this film, which is remarkable as it's an adaptation that I believed could not be done.  It was amusing, fun, thought-provoking, and well adapted.  I highly recommend it, even if the book's author is a homophobic evil person.  (Seriously, look up the stuff he's said or done in the past twenty years.  It ain't pretty.  However, he's a good story-teller, and that's all that matters here.  If you want to read the books, I would suggest your local library instead of giving him money through book sales, but that's just me.)

Final score: 6 out of 7

15 Favorite Horror Films - #1

House on Haunted Hill (1959)/ The Innocents (1961)/ The Haunting (1963)

     These three films are my favorite ghost stories put to film.  House on Haunted Hill is very different from the other two, but I couldn't leave it off the list.  Let's approach each one, one by one.

     This film was done by schlockmeister William Castle.  This is the first of his long string of independently done shock pictures.  A millionaire played by Vincent Price invites five people to stay in this haunted house overnight along with him and his 4th wife, Annabelle.  As the night goes on, they are trapped inside with no means of escape and then the terrors really start.  One cool note is that this film's success inspired Alfred Hitchcock to do Psycho the next year.  Also, the movie started William Castle's theater gimmicks.  This one had Emergo, which would send a skeleton through the air above the seats of theaters at a specific time during the movie...  He's so amusing.

     The movie isn't truly frightening, though it did creep me out as a kid.  It's still greatly entertaining though.  It sort of takes the route of The Old Dark House or The Cat and the Canary, which were horror films where things aren't always what they seem in the beginning.  The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, the Don Knotts film also goes this way.  The film does have a great amount of atmosphere to it.  The beginning of the film sets the mood quite well with a giant scream the first thing you hear.  It's quite startling as there's no picture yet.   But don't let it fool you.  The movie is quite campy.  Even the trailer!

     Why is it partially my favorite horror film?  Well, there's one scare in particular that got me the first time I watched the movie.  It isn't as effective to me anymore, but it's still kind of creepy.  Remember when I mentioned "Knock on the wall" in my review of The Orphanage?  Well, it's sort of similar to the scare here.  And come on, I had to put Vincent Price at #1!  Who wouldn't?!  This is one of his best roles.  He's funny, diabolical, and not quite as over the top as usual.  

    The best aspect of the film is that you can see it for free.  It's in the public domain, and there are many copies to view on Youtube.  It's also on Amazon Prime if you prefer to go that route.

    The Innocents was a film I didn't discover until I was about 17.  To this day it's not as well known as the other two #1s on this list.  This is a sad situation.  It's about the closest you can come to The Haunting without copying it.  It's losely based on Henry James' Turn of the Screw.  It's about a governess that goes to watch over some children who's uncle wants nothing to do with them.  He's always away and leads the life of a lady's man.  Deborah Kerr plays the governess.  Once she gets there, she begins to notice strange things, and the children aren't what she expected.  The screenplay was written by Truman Capote, who put in a large amount of Freudian stuff that wasn't in the Henry James story, making the movie southern gothic.  The acting is superb all around, especially by child actor Martin Stephens, who the year before had played the lead child in Village of the Damned.  Here he gives one of the best performances of a troubled child I've ever seen.  And of course Deborah Kerr is her usual great self as the governess.

     This is yet another ghostly film where we are made to wonder if the main character is going crazy or if the place really is haunted.  Like The Haunting, the film just drips atmosphere.  Things are a bit more bright and happy looking in some parts here, but you still have the weird voices coming from everywhere and nowhere at night, unexplained behavior, and a dark history to the house.  And of course, there's Willow Waily, the creepiest children's song ever written.  

    The film does give you chances to breathe throughout, not giving shocks all throughout the film.  Rather, they come at moments you don't really expect.  Nothing jumping out at you here, but they are unexpected.  All the night scenes are lit only by moonlight and candlelight, leaving large dark shadows everywhere.  And unlike the next film on the list, the ghosts (if that's what they are) are seen.  And they can be quite terrifying.  I fully recommend that you all see the film.  It's a great example of 1960s black and white film-making, it's quite effective, and it is considered one of the best horror films ever made, not just by me, but by people like Martin Scorsese, Guillermo Del Toro and Francois Truffaut.  The film was originally given an X rating by the British Film Board, due to some suggestions of sexualization of the children in the film.  It is quite uncomfortable to watch in that respect, but there's nothing obscene here.  It is available to watch in HD on Amazon Prime.

     And then of course there's The Haunting.  This film also came up in my last list.  It still kind of scares me to this day.  It's shot in such a way that you don't forget it, and even if you don't believe in ghosts, there's still the fear of going crazy that drives the film.

     Hill House has a history of death to it.  Built by Hugh Crane for his wife (who died in a carriage accident seconds before she would have set sight on the house), it ended up being a house of sadness and misery.  Hugh Crane lived there with his daughter.  Then he died.  Then she died.  Along the way two housekeepers died.  Even the current housekeepers don't stay after dark.   I wouldn't stay even in the daytime.  The house is creepy as hell even on the outside!  

    The film is one of the most talked about horror films of the black and white era.  It's still stunningly effective in it's creepiness and chills.  The scene with the incoherent talking and the face in the design of the wall is still the creepiest scene ever filmed in my opinion.  

     I spoke at length about this film earlier, so I'll just leave you with that.  See the movie.  See it in the quiet.  In the night...  In the dark.

15 Favorite Horror Films - #2

The Evil Dead (1981)

     Yes, another film off of the 30 films that made me who I am.  This one was #1 on that list, and is pretty darn close here.  Why isn't it #1 if it's so important to me?  Well, just because it influenced me the most doesn't mean it's my favorite horror film.  Big difference there.  And also, I'm not counting the whole trilogy here.  Just the original 1981 film this time.  The other two are not straight horror films.  

     Again, if you want to see most of my comments on the film, read my much better written installment in the prior list.  

     1981 was a great year for horror films.  Especially for gory ones.  Sadly, the gore of that year would start the MPAA's crusade against it in the coming years.  That year saw Friday the 13th Part 2, Halloween II, American Werewolf In London, The Burning, Deadly Blessing, The Entity, The Funhouse, Ghost Story, The Hand, The Howling, My Bloody Valentine, The Nesting, Omen III, Roadgames, Scanners, and Wolfen, just to name the most popular ones.  None would surpass the test of time and the gore quota of The Evil Dead.  Shot by some novice film-makers from Michigan in the mountains of Tennessee during the winter, it was hell to shoot, but what it produced was one of the most loved horror films of all time.  The acting isn't great....

...but that's the only thing wrong with this movie.  It's got jump scares galore (which many people consider cheap these days for some reason), it has some pretty convincing gore effects, and my god the camerawork!  It's like some hobo on the banks of a river being commissioned to do a Renoir duplicate and succeeding!  Using low budget solutions, Sam Raimi created camera rigs that could give him just about any shot he wanted.  He carried a camera while driving a motorcycle, he fastened the camera to a 2x4 board and had ropes fastened to the ends of the board to create a sort of poor man's steadycam.  The blood was a special concoction of Karo syrup, a mixture of red and blue food coloring, and coffee creamer.  For moving chopped up body parts, they simply went below the floor and cut holes to put arms and legs through.  And the makeup is effectively ghoulish.

     One of the most remarkable things about the movie is the script.  It's a simple story of teens going to a cabin in the woods, letting out an unspeakable evil which they get killed by.  And they can't escape.  The bridge is out, and the trees attack people.  (Or rape people in Sheryl's case.)  But I'm impressed by the script.  The dialogue is pretty bad, yes, but the deadites all have their own personalities.  Linda turns into this demented cupie doll that's actually both creepy and funny at the same time, Sheryl is hideously gross and taunts like a madwoman...  And the idea that a tree could rape someone is actually pretty frightening.  Especially since that's what causes Sheryl's possession.  The script builds things up pretty slowly and it boils hotter and hotter, never letting up when it starts.  And at the end, the pressure cooker explodes.  (The stop motion melt-down scene.  The worst effects in the film.)   Also, Ash isn't a badass in this one.  He's a pretty cowardly guy.  He's the nice jock.  There's no quote of "Groovy!" here.  There's no chainsaw on the arm.  This film only has an axe and a shotgun for them to work with.  And a dagger.  

    The film is pure grindhouse.  I'd have loved to see this on a drive-in movie screen.  It's also a great film for groups to watch.  (If you want to make fun of it or yell at the screen.)  It's what made me want to work in film.  You watch the movie and think, hey, I could do this!  Yes, maybe you can!  If you have the work ethic and skill of Sam Raimi, about a million bucks, and at least a dozen people to help you.  Sure you can!

15 Favorite Horror Films - #3

The Shining (1980)

     You know, if I saw this poster without knowing anything about the movie, I'd think it was about aliens or something.  That face is kind of creepy, but it's not in the film.

     Anyway, yes, I know I already talked about this one in my last list.  In fact, I plan to do a longer essay on the film sometime.  Not today though.  It's late, I'm doing this off the top of my head, and I'm burnt out on horror films for the immediate future.  That being said, there's a reason it's on both lists.  It's a fantastic film, one that is very fun to study and to analyze.  It still effects me after all those viewings I've had of it.  I wouldn't say it scares me exactly; it doesn't make me lose any sleep.  But the images stay in your head.  Kubrick is very good at making his films memorable in that way.  The furry dressed as a warthog giving oral pleasure to his... butler or whatever, Jack Torrance leering at his playful wife and son as they play in the snow, the two girls at the end of the hallway dressed identically taunting Danny, Jack sticking his head into the broken door he's destroyed with his axe (ad libbed by the way), the elevator opening to spill blood all over the lobby, the door with the word "Redrum" written in lipstick across it...  So many memorable images.  

     I said a lot in my last essay on the film and will say a lot more when I do my long essay in a few months, so this one will be short.  This one is to push the film as a great horror film.  And that's controversial.  Many people hate this movie.  I was surprised to find this out, but a lot of people find the film downright boring.  I must say, I've never found the film boring, even after having viewed it over 20 times in the past 10 years.  The movie is set up and filmed very off-kilter.  At times it's almost just a series of strung together chapters.  The film is separated into days and times, with white-on-black title cards telling us how much time has passed between scenes.  There are plot points that were in the novel that are here, but are not explained or obviously shown.  In the book, Jack Torrance finds a scrapbook of the odd things that have taken place in the hotel over the years down in the boiler room of the hotel.  It's a major plot point in the book and in the 1997 tv miniseries.  People have complained about it not being in the Kubrick film.  Well,  they aren't completely right.  The scrapbook is there for all to see.  However, we don't know where Jack got it from, it's not focused on in the frame, and it's not mentioned.  But it is there.  See?

The film is one big mood piece.  It's cold (which is why Stephen King dislikes the film), it's odd, it doesn't make sense right up front.  You have to put things together in your head after the film is over.  People are STILL discovering things about the film, which is extraordinary!  And with each discovery, the movie becomes creepier and creepier.  That's the word I would use for this movie.  Creepy.  It works on that level.  Not everything is spelled out for you.  In fact, next to nothing is, and that makes the film creepy as hell.  The rules of film-making are sometimes disregarded as well.  Over-the-shoulder shots are not done in the correct way, the 30 degree rule is broken, there are scenes which most would have left on the cutting room floor because they don't tell us anything or move the story...  It gives us a sense of unease.  People say sometimes that the devil was in the celluloid for The Exorcist.  I'd say there's more a chance that something got into the negative of this film.  

    I'm not sure if Jack Nicholson's out there portrayal of Jack Torrance is a good thing or a bad thing.  It's over the top so much that it's very entertaining and sometimes funny, but at the same time, it does distract from the straight horror of the picture.  That's something I'll have to delve into when I do my essay on the film.  EVERYTHING is over the top in the movie.  Perhaps the hotel makes people over the top?  I mean, the hotel itself is, isn't it?

*More to come on this film in a few months.  Sorry this one was so short, but since I already talked about it a month ago, I don't have much more to say right now.

15 Favorite Horror Films - #4

Halloween (1978)

      So how can you celebrate Halloween without it's namesake movie?  (Okay, maybe it's the other way around, but still...)  It's one of the few horror films that has kept up it's appeal over the years.  Most tend to burn out due to the vast amount of sequels they incur and due to changing attitudes over the years.  While it may not be as fresh and original as it was when it came out, it's still considered one of the best by a large amount of people.  It gave birth to a genre that misinterpreted the film, started two legendary careers, and gave birth to one of the most identifiable horror icons.

     Halloween is a very simple film.  A guy who killed his sister when he was a child escapes from a mental asylum 15 years later to kill some more people.  Dressed up like a clown as a child, he now dresses in a jumpsuit and a blank mask as he kills babysitters.  It's not a complicated plot in the least bit.  To some, this means that a film is plotless, but really it means those people don't know what their talking about.  They just want to hate on a film for taking it's time building up suspense.  After all, the only onscreen murder after the first few minutes are in the last twenty five minutes.  The bulk of the film is Dr. Loomis chasing around Michael Myers trying to find him and warn the sheriff... and us getting to know Laurie, her friends, and the kids she is babysitting.   Sure, there's a few jump scenes of Michael coming into frame all of a sudden from the sides and some suspense as he waits and watches the teens from just feet away.

     I'm not going to talk long about this movie, as I said most of what I wanted to say in my top 30 Films That Made Me Who I Am list, and you can go look at what I said there to find out more.  Let's focus on why it's such a good horror film here.  Besides it's simplicity and realism (except for Michael knowing how to drive quite well), it is, in the old Hitchcock fashion, a suspense builder.  You know some people are going to get killed.  The killer is within feet of them throughout most of the movie, but he waits until he's ready.  I think one of the scariest things is that Michael Myers is so patient!  Even when he loses his victim, he doesn't run after them.  He walks casually.  He knows he'll catch up eventually.  The scene where Laurie leaves the house she found her dead friends in and limps along calling for help at the houses on the street is pretty suspenseful.  We know Myers is right behind her.  He's pretty far away at first, but she's limping, no one is listening to her, and when she gets back to the house she's babysitting at, she finds her keys missing.

     The film is not about the death scenes.  Those aren't particularly graphic.  There's no blood to the death scenes except the first death, and that's not much.  Even when Michael cuts the neck of one of Laurie's friends, there's no blood to be seen.  There doesn't have to be.  The movie is strong enough on it's own that it doesn't need it.  That's something that slasher films that came later didn't really get.  Of course, most of those weren't as well made either.  

    And let's not forget the music.  Without the music, the movie doesn't work.  John Carpenter screened the rough cut without music to someone at 20th Century Fox, and they didn't like the film.  Thought it had no suspense and wasn't scary.  He showed it to them after he had composed and recorded the music, and got the exact opposite reaction.  Let this be known for those that disregard soundtracks.  They do help convey emotion or feelings throughout films.  The music here is iconic.  The simple minor key melodies (there are like 3 of them used in different tempos, combinations and keys)  do their work fantastically.  It's not just piano as most think.  To the main theme, there's also a metronome and a synthesizer.  In fact, there's more synth here than piano.  And it doesn't work without the metronome.  I'm also in love with the chase music.  It's basically just a thudding piano note, but then the synth comes in that sounds like a railroad crossing sign to me.  It's pretty effective for suspense.  

      It's become quite a tradition for people to watch this one on Halloween.  It's obvious why.  The movie takes place on the day, it's named for the day, it's still an effective film...  It's not scary to those of us who watch it at least once a year (it's a great film to study for those of us that like to do such things), but it's so entertaining, so iconic that it's still worth it.