31 Days of Halloween

Watched The Thing (2011) last night. While I still think John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the best creature features this prequel isn't bad. While using the same creature and who can you trust story, it did well to explain what happened at the Norwegian camp. I actually watched this and followed it up with the original and was impressed that it worked very well with it.

Shouldn't that go without saying?

Someone had to double-check. Part II did get an Academy Award nomination for special effects.

I bet you do.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

I know PG Cooper has been upset because I've been "reviewing" too many old and obscure movies. So with Halloween around the corner, I'm gonna "review" something newer and more mainstream.

Here we go.


EXCISION (2012)



Directed by SnoBorderZero , Excision is a Cronenberg-esque horror-drama about an awkward teenage girl whose obsessed with sex and gore. She can't wait to grow up and be a surgeon and get all those naked bodies to cut up and sew. It's a very weird movie with a nightmarish atmosphere. Most people won't have a stomach for it, but I liked it. It stars AnnaLynne McCord, of 90210 fame, as the lead character. Don't let her resume and her love affair with SnoBorderZero discourage you. She's phenomenal. If I had known about Excision in 2012, I would have championed her over Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress at the Oscars. Seriously.

A


CRAWLSPACE / THE ATTIC / HIDEAWAY (2013)



Technology has reached the point where anybody, and I mean anybody, can make a movie. Case in point: Paranormal Activity. So movies that people literally made in their house are gonna pop up more and more as we get further into the 21st century. Crawlspace, also known as The Attic and Hideaway, is a great example. Admittedly, there are known actors in the cast that boost the production value, but it's a VERY low-budget thriller shot in someone's home. It's about a family that moves into a house and then discover that there's a killer living in their attic. It's a VERY dumb plot that requires a great suspension of disbelief. It's also a rip-off of a 1989 Gary Busey movie titled, Hider in the House. But it's very well-made and very effective in capturing the fear that a total stranger is secretly living in your home. If you can get past some of the flaws, Crawlspace is a very enjoyable thriller that you could probably watch for free somewhere.

B-

My buddy loves this movie. Also I've been reviewing nothing but Universal Horror movies from the last few days. Not exactly like I've been keeping up with my modern horror.

The hours I whiled away watching Abbott and Costello movies as a kid... Good times.

Day Twenty-Nine: The Crow



Though not a horror movie, the Halloween setting and Gothic atmosphere made this feel an appropriate choice of viewing. Plus my girlfriend was intrigued by the premise, so that's that.

A year after his murder, Eric Draven returns from the dead to seek vengeance on the gang members who killed him and his girlfriend. This is a very simple story, but the conviction of the performances really sell it. Brandon Lee fantastic in the lead role, commanding the screen and generating a great deal of sympathy. I also think the writing here is pretty strong. Not so much the story, but the dialogue, which us surprisingly memorable.

But what sticks out most is, of course, the style. Alex Proyas drenches The Crow in atmosphere. The cinematography is dark, the score haunting, the soundtrack aggressive, and the art direction Gothic. There's definitely influence taken from what Tim Burton did with Batman, but Proyas makes it his own. His craft of individual scenes is great. The action scenes are thrilling as our scenes of Eric taunting his victims, but the emotional beats are just as strong too.

I'm not going to pretend this is a perfect movie. It's very 90s, thinly plotted, has a share of clichés, and it does glorify revenge to a certain degree. But the film is so committed to its style and executes it so well that a lot of this becomes less of an issue. More importantly, despite the flaws, I genuinely care about these characters and like exploring a world with them in it.

A

Film Twenty-Eight: Crimson Peak(2015)

There are a lot of directors who rise to the occasion once their labeled as geniuses and then use the greater resources that their higher profiles give them, then there are other who maybe get a little too wrapped up in their own hype and fail to deliver because of it and I’m becoming increasingly worried that Guillermo del Toro is going down that second path. Del Toro is a genre director who, for a while, pretty effectively played the “one for them, one for me” game. He would provide his distinctive flair and love of genre to Hollywood blockbusters like Blade II and then go off to Mexico or Spain in order to make slightly more sophisticated fare like Pan’s Labyrinth. In fact Pan’s Labyrinth is a big part of why Del Toro is so highly thought of, it’s easily the director’s best movie and it was bookended by his Hellboy movies, which were easily the best showcase for how his style could be applied to large scale entertainments. That one, two, three punch made us forget some of the more questionable elements in his earlier films like Mimic. Unfortunately after a long five year wait for his follow-up to Hellboy II: The Golden Army all we got was the movie Pacific Rim. That movie had some of that Del Toro creativity going for it which made it watchable, but it was still a pretty massive disappointment. It was, at its heart, a rather dumb movie with a lot of the same sloppy mistakes hurt some of his lesser efforts. That was something I could get over though because his next movie, Crimson Peak, looked like it would be a return to the kind of movie that Del Toro should have been making all along: smarter, smaller scale, more literary genre films in the vein of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone.

Crimson Peak is a gothic horror film set around the turn of the century and focusing on a bookish young woman named Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) who is the daughter of a wealthy American industrialist named Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver). Edith dreams of becoming a writer rather than a housewife but her plans are put somewhat to the test when a dashing, if somewhat suspicious Englishman named Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) arrives in New York to present a business proposal to her father. Sharpe and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) belong to a lineage that has seen better days. Most of their money has been lost, their old mansion is in disarray, and the clay mines that once made their family a fortune are no longer in use. Carter Cushing comes to dislike the Sharpes but in spite of his objections his daughter soon falls for Tomas and after a tragedy makes her reconsider her options she runs away with him back to England, but soon she will find that Sharpe’s dilapidated home has a number of dark secrets that are waiting for her.

To make Crimson Peak del Toro has restrained a lot of his humor and his habit of recklessly throwing cool comic-con approved genre elements at the wall and hoping it all sticks. Instead he’s adjusted his style to actually work quite well with the film’s period elements. Buffalo New York and the high society thereof is quite well rendered here and Del Toro mines the time period for interesting little details. When the film transitions to Brittan del Toro gives us a real haunted house for the ages, complete with the brilliant touch of having it be built on red clay which makes it look like it’s drenched in blood. The film also has a really good cast that seems like it would be a perfect fit for a less macabre costume drama. The classically trained Tom Hiddleston could probably do a part like this in his sleep, Mia Wasikowska shows that she’s aging into adult roles quite ably, Jessica Chastain continues to prove that she can do pretty much anything, and even Charlie Hunnam (who was boring as hell in Pacific Rim) is mostly able in his role here.

So why isn’t this movie great? Surprisingly, it’s the horror elements. I’m kind of surprised to be saying this, but I’m beginning to think Guillermo del Toro doesn’t really understand horror cinema. Let me qualify that statement. Del Toro definitely loves monsters passionately and has a long history of rendering them onscreen brilliantly and his knowledge of horror literature and tropes, however, I’m not sure he’s really the master of ratcheting on screen suspense that people thinks he is. While he’s made a number of horror-tinged action movies in the last decade I don’t think del Toro has made something that was actually trying to scare anyone since 2001’s The Devil’s Backbone, and as stylish and interesting as that film was it shared a fatal flaw with Crimson Peak: a lack of patience. Rather than slowly teasing his monsters and ghosts here, del Toro has them show up in full view very quickly, which diminishes them of a lot of impact by eliminating their mystery. It also doesn’t help that these ghosts look very fake and CGI-ish, and even on a design level they seem a bit uninspired as far as Guillermo del Toro creations go. They have that same “matter floating in water” effect that was used previously in The Devil’s Backbone but this makes less sense given that they weren’t supposed to be drowning victims, and in general they look more or less like what you’d expect a ghost to look like.

On top all that, the film’s script has a couple of clear issues as well, mainly related to the main character’s motivations. This is a character who, in the first scene of the movie, is visited by the ghost of her dead mother and warned to “beware Crimson Peak” and is then given yet another warning by this dead mother to “beware Crimson Peak” and yet she still finds herself doing a very bad job of being wary of Crimson Peak. Even without that spectral warning it seems like there are a lot of warning signs that this character seems oddly oblivious to, especially given that she’s supposed to be this intelligent young woman. Why does she just accept that this horribly dilapidated house is an acceptable living quarters? That all the plainly creepy stuff that’s going on is something to be shrugged off? That the man she’s decided to marry seems really shady? The answer of course is that if she did act rationally and flee this situation there wouldn’t be a movie. To some degree these are just genre conventions that you just need to go along with, and I’m not going to act like they were complete deal breakers, but there were things that Del Toro could have done to mitigate some of these concerns.

Crimson Peak’s other major problem is just that it isn’t a particularly original work, which is in part owed to the fact that Del Toro has opted to borrow heavily from similar works of gothic fiction like “The Turn of the Screw” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” and to fit his work very much in that lineage. There is, however, a point at which you have to diverge from your sources of inspiration and add your own twist and I don’t think Del Toro did enough to make his film stand out. Frankly, I kind of felt like it was a story I had already seen before. And yet, there was a lot about the execution here I did admire. The film does have the skeleton of a great horror movie, the actors do sell the material, and Del Toro does adjust his style nicely to better suit his material. Once all the cards are on the table the film does end pretty well and some of its gorier images are effectively disturbing and do feel somewhat unique when placed against a more upscale backdrop. There’s the skeleton of a great horror film here, and I can’t help but think that with a little more finesse in the writing and a little more restraint with the ghosts this could have really been something. As it stands it’s a pretty flawed film that is still entertaining in spite of itself.

*** out of Four

The Dr. Phibes films are some of my all time favorites.

Doomsday Dracula PG Cooper

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

THE UNIVERSAL MONSTERS

DRACULA (1931)



Universal Studio's Dracula is the granddaddy of horror movies. Or at least the first classic following the silent era of cinema. It was originally supposed to be an epic film based on the novel by Bram Stoker but The Great Depression reduced it to an adaptation of the acclaimed Broadway play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The low-budget combined with primitive technology and a leisurely pace result in a movie that will be difficult to watch for contemporary audiences. Worst of all, the film is incredibly tame and censored. Every scene of violence occurs off-screen, including Dracula biting his victims. By all accounts, this should be an incredibly boring movie, but it is rescued by Bela Lugosi’s performance as Dracula. The character is a vampire disguised as an upper-class gentlemen. Lugosi captures that by being charming, eccentric and creepy at the same time. It’s astounding! He also delivers every line of dialogue phonetically with a very thick Hungarian accent. It’s amusing and cements the iconic status of his performance. As an added bonus, we get Dwight Frye as Renfield. He’s amazing and loads of fun to watch. And, Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing is good as well. So as flawed as this film may be, it’s still worth watching for these great actors in legendary roles.

C-


FRANKENSTEIN (1931)



Remember in 2008 when Iron Man was released, and everyone enjoyed it, but then two months later everybody forgot about it because The Dark Knight was released and hailed as a masterpiece? Well, a very similar thing occurred in 1931. In February, Dracula was released. It’s incredibly flawed but it has a great leading man and it results in a mildly entertaining film. But then in November, Frankenstein was released and it defined the genre of monster movies. Comparing these two is like night and day.

The film begins with Frankenstein and his assistant Fritz grave-robbing. They’re working on an experiment to bring dead people back to life. Meanwhile, his friends and family are concerned about him. He’s about to get married in a few days and he’s off playing a mad scientist. So, they end up confronting him on the day he brings a corpse back to life. They realize he has a God Complex and try to reason with him. But it is no use till - the thing - he resurrected turns out to be a monster. They try to destroy it but it’s no use. It kills Fritz and Frankenstein’s former professor and then escapes. While roaming around, the monster befriends a little girl and then accidentally kills her. That angers the townspeople and they go after it. But Frankenstein knows he’s the one that has to destroy it. And at the end he does… or so he thinks.

From the very first frame, Frankenstein immerses you onto its world. It has the quintessential tone, style, and feel of a classic monster movie. It also has characters that audiences can get emotionally attached to. Frankenstein is a very ambitious man, so when he fails, it hurts him more than anyone else. It’s heartbreaking. Then you have the so-called monster. It’s just another living thing that needs guidance, love and understanding. Instead it gets abused and belittled. So, of course, it’s going to make mistakes and hurt people when it escapes. To see it go out in flames is very tragic. And special credit has to be given to the actors. 1931 was a primitive time for cinema. It’s their performance that sell the whole story. Colin Clive as Frankenstein set the standards for mad scientists. Boris Karloff may have had make-up artist Jack Pierce do most of the work, but it can’t be ignored that his physicality created the template for future monsters. And Dwight Frye, who did an awesome job playing Renfield in Dracula, hit another home-run here. His hunchback Fritz is just as iconic as the Universal Studio monsters. So if you haven’t watched this film, do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s a must-see for any horror fan.

A+


THE MUMMY (1932)



Frankenstein was Boris Karloff’s claim to fame, but make-up artist Jack Pierce was the true star. Not to discredit Karloff, but Pierce’s design is so effective and iconic that you can cast any physically imposing actor in the role and get away with it. It’s like Jason and Michael Myers. So, it’s really in The Mummy where Karloff got to show off his acting skills and he’s great.

The story begins in 1921 with a mummy named Imhotep being brought to life by an archaeologist. Imhotep escapes and roams Cairo as a man named Ardath Bey. We learn that he had been buried alive for having an affair with a Princess. Now he’s searching for her body so he can resurrect her. However, a decade later, he discovers that the Princess was reincarnated as a woman named Helen. He must then set her spirit free so they can be together once again.

For the most part, The Mummy is a pretty good movie. Karloff delivers a commanding performance and the character of Imhotep is very impressive. He has magical powers and can kill people without even being in the same room. That’s frightening! Unfortunately, the film’s ending is underwhelming. Everything leads to Imhotep trying to kill Helen and the payoff is awful. But at least the journey was fun.

B+


STOP!


HAMMER TIME!


THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)



Dr. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) and his assistant/mentor/tutor Paul (Robert Urquhart) are working on an experiment to bring a corpse back to life. Paul constantly has second-thoughts about the project while Frankenstein is so obsessed with it that he turns quite mad. You see, in this version, Frankenstein is the monster. He kills a person, belittles Paul, and ignores his fiance Elizabeth (Hazel Court). So when he finally brings to life - The Creature (Christopher Lee) - it’s a manifestation of himself. To steal an expression, it’s “like father like son.” This creature has no redeeming value whatsoever and even kills on behalf of Frankenstein. There’s a sub-plot involving Frankenstein having an affair with his maid (Valerie Gaunt) and she gets pregnant. Since Frankenstein is engaged, he doesn’t want a scandal because, you know, that’s a million times worse than turning a corpse into a psychotic creature. So Frankenstein has the creature kill the maid for him. At this point, Paul has had enough of Frankenstein’s nonsense and he goes to the police. Before Frankenstein can stop him, the creature escapes and attacks Elizabeth. So he goes to the rescue and ends up pushing the creature into a tank where he evaporates. Then the police show up and find the dead body of the maid. Frankenstein tries to convince them that it was the creature but there’s no evidence of it and Paul doesn’t back him up. And neither does Elizabeth. So the film ends with Frankenstein being hanged. But don’t worry because he survives and stars in a bunch of sequels. Anyway, you can see why Hammer’s adaptation of Frankenstein is so popular. It’s definitely a darker and more twisted version of the story. But I’m going to disagree with the masses and say it’s underwhelming. Since Frankenstein is an a-hole and the creature is a soulless killing machine, all you have to root for is Paul the assistant. That’s like making a Batman movie where Alfred the butler is the hero of the story. Speaking of Alfred...


HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)



The Curse of Frankenstein was a box office success and it launched the British company, Hammer Films, into the monster movie business. Their follow-up was Horror of Dracula. It stars Christopher Lee in the title role and he’s a more badass interpretation of the character. In this version, the story begins with Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) as a vampire hunter trying to kill Dracula. He’s a complete idiot and fails miserably. The first 20 minutes are laughably bad because of him. Although we get to watch some nice cleavage from Valerie Gaunt who play’s Dracula’s vampire mistress. Anyway, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) shows up and that’s when the film starts to get good. He discovers that Jonathan is now a vampire and quickly kills him. He then heads to London to give his fiance Lucy (Carol Marsh) the bad news but finds out that she too has become a victim of Dracula. In other words, if you piss off Dracula, he’s going to go after your entire family. So Van Helsing teams up with Lucy’s brother and they go after Dracula. He’s played by Michael Gough who everyone remembers as Alfred in the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher Batman movies. Anyway, after a few bumps in the road, they are successful and Dracula gets destroyed by sunlight. Overall, this is a million times better than Hammer’s Frankenstein and a billion times superior to Universal’s Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. Horror of Dracula is incredibly entertaining and features mostly great performances. Check it out.

The Curse of Frankenstein: C+
Horror of Dracula: A-


THE MUMMY (1959)



With Frankenstein and Dracula, Hammer Films tried their best to be an alternative to Universal's monster movies. With The Mummy, they said "fuck it" and honored the legacy of that series. Once again starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, The Mummy is very loyal to the plot and characters of Universal's Mummy franchise and also features the same level of emotions. This was a major departure for Hammer, but they pulled it off nonetheless. My only complaint is the beginning of the story. It's very leisurely paced and doesn't include the star of the picture, Christopher Lee. He's most fondly remembered for playing Dracula, but his best performance is that of The Mummy. We see him before he's mummified and afterwards. Before, he has a very commanding screen presence. After, he's equally terrifying and tragic. Christopher Lee pulls the audience in and never lets them go. So even if you're not a fan of these type of movies, you should still watch it for Christopher Lee's phenomenal performance.

A

As far as I can tell that's all you need to see.