Random stuff, primarily D&D homebrew (3.5), and whatever I feel like at the time. Warning: May include (more than) trace amounts of anime, Star Trek/Wars, and Sword and Sorcery.
Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: The Final Reckoning
So over the course of this month I’ve watched a lot of horror. 15 days ago I ranked those I’d watched then, and now I’ve watched a fair bit more. Now some aren’t making it onto the list, and some have had their ordering changed, but I will discuss that later.
Again I am judging these as Horror Movies. If the movie’s value is not as horror primarily it suffers. I really enjoyed Alien Covenant and either it or Dracula Has Risen was my most enjoyed movie of the month, but Alien Covenant is good because it is sci-fi and horror in a 55/45 mix I’d say, and Dracula Has Risen is more about Christopher Lee vampire than horror, I mean yeah vampires are a type of horror but it’s not the same. When I want a horror movie I want... well actually it’s a large genre and I want different things from it at different times. Sometimes I want a Horror Film, a film to cause a visceral fear reaction. Sometimes I want a slasher, which is a type of horror film but with a specific narrative (I rarely want slashers). Sometimes I want a Horror Story and while horror films in theory have horror stories I mean something different with it, something that’s actually more about creep and tone, more about the gothic fantasy elements, or the eldritch terror, and less about the visceral reaction. Sometimes I want a monster movie, or a vampire flick. So I tried to balance it based upon the things I want in a horror movie. And so... the list is below the cut, but before it is those that weren’t included.
Non-included Entries: Chronos (I intend to talk about it), Young Frankenstein, and Captain Kronos all are not included on the list because of them only Chronos really fits Horror Movie and even then only sort of kind of. They were all good movies, but to judge them for horror movie would be misleading. Chronos was more dark supernatural tragedy with elements of horror (in fact the supernatural elements were horror and not fantasy) but still the enjoyment is as a tragedy more than anything I’d think of with Horror. Young Frankenstein is a fairly famous horror parody, a better film than many on the list, but impossible to properly judge as horror. Captain Kronos is the same way, one of the most fun films I watched this month, but although it has vampires it was a heroic adventure film.
Also absent from the list are Alien, The Horror of Dracula, and Evil Dead because they’re all rewatches and Alien/ED not particularly close ones (I’m watching Evil Dead while typing). It would go Evil Dead, Alien, and then the list if I included those anyway as they’re my 1 and 2 of Horror (Dracula would get tied with Has Risen beating it out slightly).
1) Ju-On the Grudge (02)
2) The Descent (05)
3) The Vampyr (32)
4) Dracula Has Risen from His Grave (68)
5) Mouth of Madness (93)
6) Prince of Darkness (87)
7) The Whisperer in the Darkness (12)
8) Call of Cthulhu (05)
9) Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (65)
10) Alien Covenant (17)
11) The Omen (76)
12) The Vampire Lovers (70)
13) IT (90)
14) The Mummy - Hammer Horror (59)
15) The Mummy - Universal (32)
16) The Oblong Box
17) The Exorcist (73)
18) Poltergeist (82)
19) The Kiss of the Vampire
20) Friday the 13th Part 2 (81)
21) Frankenstein (31)
22) The 7 Golden Vampires (74)
23) The Return of the Living Dead (85)
24) Child’s Play (88)
25) Saw (04)
26) Alien 3 (92)
27) Uzumaki (00)
So like last time some thoughts:
Ju-On: A legitimately good film, even though I have no desire or intent to rewatch it. It is a good horror film, though. While something does bother me about it which kept me from wanting to see more of the universe, it still manages to do what a horror film is supposed to do best of the ones I watched this month.
The Descent: This film moved up! Because I refigured how much emphasis ‘egads this film is actual art’ should be given. Also watching Evil Dead scenes with them driving and then their cabin remind me even more of Evil Dead scenes (the near crash, the stuff coming in through the window, the approach to the cabin). Evil Dead did a better building creep/horror with them, but The Descent was repurposing them and did that well, while taking advantage of the subconscious connections. Well done film.
The Vampyre: While I may have liked this film better than Ju-On or The Descent that’s for the artistry and probably in part because I was dehydrated. Still it’s a good film and it does have its spell. It doesn’t have the terror that really spells horror film for me, but it has the spell of nightmare like a true horror story.
Dracula Has Risen from His Grave: And here we have the best of the vampire films of the year (including Chronos) and possibly the best film of the year for pure enjoyment (though Captain Kronos and Alien Covenant might rival or beat it). But wait didn’t The Vampyre get higher. Yes, because it is better horror, but I don’t want vampire stories primarily for horror and this gave me what I wanted from a vampire story. It’s a good film and quite enjoyable.
Mouth of Madness: This meta-Lovecraftian film was while not my personal favorite of the John Cameron apocalypse films I watched, the better story and probably the better film, the other merely hit my buttons better. The concept alone makes it so much fun, and I do almost want to rewatch it now... except I know it will be better to do so in several years where I still vaguely remember the twists but don’t remember the film.
Prince of Darkness: As you can see I do still include ‘I personally really liked this one’ rather highly. It actually does the early horror set up better than most of the rest, it’s just that the cheese is too high and not stylistic but earnest enough to feel detrimental because the film is good enough that the joy is not in the cheese.
The Whisperer in the Darkness: A fun film, a good film. This film’s cheese is stylistic and adds to it plain out. It does a good job of the Cold War Alien Film take on the story, and in general is just a good film that I enjoyed.
Call of Cthulhu: This film was hard to place. It’s artistic. It feels it. If it didn’t have some ‘this stylistic suck went to far compared to what it was imitating’ it’d probably be higher because it very much has the spell, but in the end it’s not as fun as Whisperer, not got the spell of The Vampyre, and ends up feeling like it belongs here.
Dr Terror’s House of Horrors: Nothing new to say really.
Alien Covenant: I really liked it, but as sci-fi first and horror 2nd. I mean it was fully functional horror despite that, but it was not how I enjoyed it.
The Omen: This is still my B- film of the year. This and above are good films, below it are lukewarm or something else more than horror. It’s also where ‘listening to Evil Dead while not looking at the screen’ gets ‘better horror’ (note Evil Dead’s visuals are creepy and good horror that enriches it).
The Vampire Lovers: This might should switch with IT, in fact they’ve switched already once. It was not like IT ever considered for the B- film role because it’s close enough to erotica to be hard to place, but it definitely was pretty good and better at being a horror story than part 2 of IT and more enjoyable than IT for its length. So it squeezes past.
IT: If I was judging just part 1 this would be the B- film. Judging both parts, Part 2 is definitely lukewarm. Overall it’s a C+. Good enough, but 3 hours and Evil Dead is scarier just by listening to it.
The Mummy (Hammer): Probably better than Part 2 of IT, worse than Part 1 and closer to the latter in quality. It’s a functional monster movie, but nothing to really write home about. Alright if you want a monster movie, but I won’t be rewatching it any time soon.
The Mummy (Universal): And here we get to the Frankenstein issue where I’m scared I’m inflating it for the sake of ‘historical place’. Still Boris Karloff was interesting, the story left less of a hollow feeling in my mouth and it was almost good and all the films below here are at best almost good. I think it deserves this place.
The Oblong Box: Is another hard placement. While Vincent Price and second tier relatively non-villain Christopher Lee were fun the film was not great. It might swing up to beat The Mummy (both versions) but I was too tired of the type of horror at the time to really say. On the same note it might swing down to below Poltergeist. It is however in the Lukewarm area.
The Exorcist: Is not my type of movie. I mean I can see its influence; girls crabwalking down stairs, demons talking about your mother being lewd in Hell. It has some very memorable bits... It’s just not a scary movie, not that enjoyable movie, and with the exception of a few very memorable bits sort of forgettable. It was too long, and too slow in that I sort of started getting bored of it faster than I did the Universal Studio’s Mummy which I could understand my nephew leaving after 20-30 minutes because it was sort of boring. Where The Mummy picked up afterwards, The Exorcist waits another hour to pick up. That said the drama to someone who is watching for a drama has its value and art and I have to respect it. I’m probably rating it higher than I would otherwise due to sacred cow status, but at the same time it has some very good elements it just mixes them with stuff that leaves it lukewarm. The music does it too. Never got to me and... Well Evil Dead just went quiet and it got me spooked. The Exorcist goes quiet and I don’t notice because quiet felt like the default. The sound was bad is what I’m saying. Still it does have those classic moments that are better horror if you just watch them alone than some of the films lower down.
Poltergeist: This film was lukewarm. I probably enjoyed it better than the Exorcist, but I’m guessing the last 40 minutes of the Exorcist is a better movie than Poltergeist.
The Kiss of the Vampire: It’s really hard to place this. I was sick of Hammer Horror by the time (though watched the Mummy the next day). It was definitely worse than the Oblong Box, though, and the Mummy, and I enjoyed Poltergeist more and Poltergeist was more horror. So yeah I’m going here. It’s above the ‘must find alternative enjoyment’ line but it’s probably the worst of those that are.
Friday the 13th Part 2: This marks the line of ‘I don’t actually enjoy this as horror if I enjoy it at all. The film was so bad it was good. I will probably watch 3 or 4 at some point (whichever the internet tells me is good).
Frankenstein: More and more I thought where I put it before was really just Sacred Cow. It fails to hit any of my horror buttons, it fails to be a good Frankenstein story. It’s worth watching for its historical place and because it has one or two good scenes, plus is short increasing the relative impact of those. But still I have to work to find some other means of enjoyment from the film.
7 Golden Vampires: This film is not good. It is enjoyable. But it is not good. Still I enjoy Peter Cushing and the bad horror bad kung fu was nice even if there are better films later that mix bad horror with good kung fu and comedy (Mr. Vampire) or good ghost story with good kung fu (Chinese Ghost Story) which are legit pretty good films (watch those over this one, though).
The Return of the Living Dead: First and foremost I didn’t watch it too closely. It’s horror comedy, but it is horror comedy and not just comedy about horror. The comedy, though, was less funny than Friday part 2 and the horror wasn’t that scary. I’d rather watch Peter Cushing fight kung fu vampires (which have trouble with limping old men). Candidate for so bad it’s good I guess.
Child’s Play: Nothing has changed here. If The Omen is my B- this is my D-. It passes... barely and it’s not getting real credit. Still I can see so bad it’s good vibes... still would watch Fright Night instead.
Saw: Nothing has changed. Still contemplate whether this should be below Alien 3. This is still in the ‘I sort of regret watching this.’
Alien 3: This film is worth watching if you like the franchise and want to see it all. This film does not stand on its own, though. Too long. Too confused. Not good enough. Still in fairness it might be up to Ft13-2 level, but I can’t judge it fairly so I’m going with here because trying to judge it from ‘not in love with the Alien franchise’ (I sort of love the franchise) I don’t think I could see a reason to watch it.
Uzumaki: I want the time I spent watching this film back.
Random Observations:
Best and worse films are Japanese horror and the only Japanese horror on the list (I intended to watch more J-horror but).
4 Out of 6 Cosmic Horror films were in a row (5-8).
Only 4 vampire movies got on the list despite watching 7.
Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: In the Mouth of Madness
So I went into this film knowing that it was part of John Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy and... had some Lovecraftian theme. Oh and that it was generally better received than Prince of Darkness. As well you hear about it and it’s almost always ‘it’s good you should watch it’.
So what can I say about it... It’s good you should watch it. Ok I actually think of the three I enjoyed it the least. It is probably a better film than Prince of Darkness but the faults in PoD are things I can forgive and once you can do that the film is more fun. Of course they are problems, and ultimately In the Mouth of Madness really has what is probably the more interesting story. Also I got interrupted at some bad places to be interrupted which doesn’t help.
If you like Lovecraft and are fine with things that feel a bit meta I’d say this could be a real good one, even if you aren’t it could still be alright. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly below the cut (and spoilery as always).
The Good:
The Music: Ok actually I’d say of the John Carpenter horror films I’ve watched (sans Vampires as I don’t consider it horror or remember it) it has the weakest score. After It and The Exorcist though its use of sound stood out. So maybe this is really just ‘the mediocre’ but I noted it.
The Meta Element: There’s definitely something meta to the plot and it’s awesome for it. I like the concept and the idea behind it. The entire feel is beautifully Lovecraftian though actually with more of a Robert Chambers feel than H. P. himself.
The Flow: Not really sure this should be good and not something else, but in ways the movie’s ending is a good sort of anti-climax. And the shift from the more action filled horror to the sheer madness of the end was thematically nice.
The Uncertainty: I am unsure about this film. I sort of want to watch it again to figure out what I think about it. For a film dealing with the themes it was, this sort of uncertainty is what it wants to induce (minus the uncertainty about its quality) so it was nice.
The Bad:
The Acting: I don’t know no one really sold me on their roles, and that was problematic. It wasn’t really horrible acting, but it definitely weakened the movie. And was probably its greatest fault.
The Cheesiness: While not as cheesy as Prince of Darkness the film certainly felt cheesy. Not horribly and unbearably so, but at the same time it was a type of cheese I don’t enjoy as much so the smaller amount still got to me more.
The Ugly:
The Monsters: The special effects feel much less impressive than The Thing’s, not like they moved backwards, but like they were a good bit lazier with better technology. Still not ultimately bad, and actually really fitting for what they sort of maybe were.
This Film Brought to You By Stephen King: Ok, not really, but at first Sutton Cane seems to be a Stephen King stand in (as opposed to Lovecraft King) and the references to ‘most read author in the world... ...sells even more than Stephen King’ feels like a Stephen King ad. Given the plot in a way this works to its favor, and also just in ways makes the film more fun while being early enough to not disrupt the suspense too badly, so I can see why they did it, but it might have been a bit much.
Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: The Exorcist (1973)
So when looking up horror movies to watch this year the Exorcist got on a lot of lists near the top or even as the top for best and scariest. Having watched it as a preteen and found it ok but not scary, I felt I needed to rewatch it.
On rewatching I am fairly sure that I missed the first third, and that it was edited for TV. Mostly because I don’t remember any of the first third, and it is a pretty crass and vulgar film. Now crassness and vulgarity have their place in films, but do tend to be edited out of daytime showings on TV, or at least did; I haven’t watched anything on TV proper in years.
My overall verdict of the film is unfavorable. I would in fact take Peter Cushing vs the Kung Fu Vampires over it. The film is depressing, but not entertaining, presents nightmarish hospitals but not really scary, is long and slow building, but most of the build up is cast away by the overt supernatural elements. In the end it is mostly noteworthy for the possession panic that it somehow incited at the time, and showing a young girl be vulgar and crass in a way that is not played for senseless humor.
The hospital scenes are almost scary, and if you fear hospitals it’s possibly terrifying. The depiction of mental illness, which ends up being literal possession, is chilling in how bad it would be to be in the system of it but ultimately more sad than scary. I more feel sorry for people than anything with this film. On the good side the makeup and effects with the girl’s head twisting were awesome. On the bad it felt like the longest movie I’ve watched this month by a good bit. It was not. Alien 3 for one was longer. But it just felt so slow until near the very end. It felt longer than both parts of It.
The Good the Bad and the Ugly is below the cut.
The Good:
The possession special effects: The girl’s body when possessed, whether the growing pallor, the split and inhuman looking face, and the way her head turns 180 were well done and as special effects stand up to this day. The sound effects of growls were also well done.
The Bad:
The music: The Exorcist has a truly chilling and memorable theme. That it uses all of twice. Once during a scene where it simply feels out of place, and once at the beginning of the ending credits. Between those two it’s mostly quiet with no background noise or anything. It doesn’t feel dangerously too quiet, it just feels empty on an auditory level at places.
The Psychological/Supernatural Switch Up: Conceptually it’s nice, but after the ‘shit is flying around the room’ scene they keep it up and still play it not as ‘oh no the mother must convince them’ but as ‘maybe this is just psychological’. Once we’ve got dressers moving on their own where 3 non-possessed characters would have to be crazy and in mass hallucination it’s time to stop trying to sell us that. It’s more bothersome because the pace of the movie was slow to set it up and then they give the scene that provides a clear ‘this is possession’ and while things speed up slightly we still go back to ‘eh maybe it’s not’.
The Lack of Fun: So if you’re watching horror movies you’re probably alright with gore, some gross stuff, and probably accept ‘scared = fun’. Now not all are fun because they’re scary. But fear is one type of fun, and most films have some type. This one just wasn’t fun. While there was depressing use of adult fear it lost most of that with the confirmation of the supernatural element without ever really paying off with it. The supernatural part offered fun, but just didn’t have grip.
Just Not Quite Making Sense: The film makes sense if you ignore the supernatural elements as the priest and mom being crazy as well. Except that there was a time the demon telekinetically slammed a dresser in front of a door and the servants were blocked out by it. Now assuming it’s not three people going crazy the demon seems to want to very poorly fuck with the priest in a way that will ensure it loses.
The Ugly:
The Possessed Girl: Had to say nice touch of ugly.
The Random Demon Face: Nice... except sort of unexplained except maybe as ‘it’s possessing them’ so it took the priest or his mom early in the film... but didn’t know his mother’s maiden name?
The Reliance on Vulgarity: The film ultimately relies upon vulgarity for effect. As I am willing to shrug off a small girl saying those things, and rather desensitized to vulgarity (I have access to the internet). But still it relied upon it as shock value like some sort of cultural jump scare. I was unimpressed.
So yeah I know this isn't the sexy new film, and that as a 3 hour miniseries created to be watched in 2 sittings (I intend to watch it in 1 day but with an intermission) it will be odd to judge. Still I'm not watching it for the story. I'm watching it for the Tim Curry.
And Tim Curry does not disappoint. Neither does Jonathan Brandis as the young Bill. As a TV miniseries It was of course a different viewing experience than a movie. Mostly in ways that hurt it as I suspect it was because it was made to be watched with commercials that they defaulted to silence and didn’t try and use music to hold and create tension except sporadically and during the journeys into the underworld. Oh and the film really makes me think of the Hero’s Journey.
So first things first: Was the film good? The answer is kind of.
Part 1 I would say was roughly at the level of the Omen, and slightly below as Horror. Still it had strong performances from Tim Curry and Jonathan Brandis (actually all the children put forth a pretty good showing), good pacing, a good ending, and is mostly held back by an unsatisfying score, and just not quite being able to clench the deal and bring all the elements together. As a story it was better than the Omen, it just couldn’t get everything to quite fit together.
Part 2 is noticeably worse than Part 1. The adult actors give significantly less gripping performances. The pacing is worse. It introduces things that make me go ‘what are Pennywise’s limits?’, and ‘What are deadlights?’ with no resolution. There’s less Tim Curry. It’s a much weaker half. I think I’d have actively sort of hated it if I had really tried to watch it 100% attention for both halves back to back (past 2 hours for horror they tend to grate on me I’ve noticed). That said it did give conclusions to things, but the heroic narrative despite actually giving a more complete resolution to the Hero’s Journey is weaker. It’s the weaker half.
Overall the film was ok, but not great. Functional horror but failed to give the grade A creep, or real scares. If you like Tim Curry it’s worth the watch, he makes a good villain, but if you don’t you’re a monster! No not really, but you probably won’t enjoy it much.
So the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
The Good:
Tim Curry as Pennywise: Tim Curry is good at creepy. While I am glad he wasn’t the animated Joker (Hamill’s job was perfect), Curry is good at the villain, and Pennywise is legitimately creepy and many times I felt I should have been scared... I just sort of wasn’t.
The Kids: The Losers Club as children are pretty good. They’re characters that I care about, and enjoy seeing. Bill gets some real feelings, and they seem rather in the role.
The Journey: I am not the greatest King fan. That said I now want to read the book, because the basic story was good and interesting. This is not a ‘it makes me feel like I need to read the book to get the story’, but that it did in fact have a legitimately interesting story beyond the monster and horror elements.
The Bad:
The Score: I noticed an hour in that things weren’t working right and realized that I couldn’t say anything about the music except that it had had no emotional effect. They then entered the sewer and started using generic horror music. Which was an improvement. But when bad music is an improvement there’s an issue. In the 2nd part while actively looking for and trying to note the music I could still not find any useful emotional effect and a disappointing tendency to default to silence in a way that didn’t make silence creepy. I’m suspicious this is a side effect of made for TV and commercial breaks being liable to ruin it. But really I’m not sure.
The Adult Losers: Partially it was thematic and narrative, them becoming actual losers despite being successful, which made them come off as less likeable, but in general the adult actors just didn’t sell their roles. The kids felt earnest and heartfelt, like they were really playing it. The adults just felt sort of like they were phoning it in a bit. It’s disappointing.
The Ugly:
I Feel like I Need to Read the Book: What are Deadlights? Is there something to the Deadlights, or could they have just mentioned the light and not given it the fancy name and made it actually a little scarier? While normally I’d put this as a bad (I am still sore about Universal’s Mummy on this). For the most part I don’t feel it’s really necessary, and if I hadn’t already looked up a bit about the book (space turtle) I might not feel this way. Still not the best quality.
The Spider: My first thought was it looked like a butt with legs and two human arms dangling from the cheeks. The next glance made it look better but it was still an ugly thing. And true to King adaptation tradition the final effects for it sort of made me want to laugh.
The Play by Play:
The start is... good for TV horror. I'd say it's not super impressive for 80s movie horror, but it's basically functional. Girl sees clown. Girl disappears. There was an X-Files episode like this.
6 children, though. This is part of a string of them. And the black police library knows something. Elements of this are familiar. You get the feel that he's dealt with this before; that this is a return to what has happened before.
We see Stephen King... I mean Bill the horror writer for a time before the Library calls him and now we get a flashback to a group of kids swearing that "if it isn't dead, we'll all come back"
I think we're getting an hour and a half long flashback now.
Georgie (Bill's younger brother) is being sent into the basement to get some sealing wax for a paper boat. And he's scared of the basement but not killed there. He's going outside, though, watching the boat run down through the storm water. Bill obviously cares for the kid even if he considers him a brat.
Still Georgie meets the Clown looking up at him from a storm drain. He introduces himself as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Convinces Georgie to reach in and then... NEEDLE CLOWN TEETH
We have a funeral now. Bill is either hallucinating or being fucked with by an evil reality warping clown.
Oh we're out of flashback. Bill let himself forget everything, he blocked it out, and now he knows he has to go home and do what must be done. Also his childhood stutter is back. He's horrified, and he doesn't want his wife to come, and yet he won't really tell her what's going on (because he's sound like a crazy freak).
We get our next member of the group. A dude who got some award of some sort for... Either heavy drinking or architecture he seems to do both. I'm going to call him Beard face till he has a name (so far we have Mike and Bill). He used to be fat. Why is he telling a woman this while making out with her? She doesn't care or want to know. Ben gets the Call (to Adventure) from Mike. He cannot refuse the call, though like Bill he tries. 18 minutes in and I want to get a flowchart of the hero's journey. Well ok, his refusal lasts like 10 seconds. He then decides he isn't drunk enough. He needs to get double falling down drunk. And maybe kill himself. Killing himself could be good too. Dude off the roof. No not off that way. You shouldn't be on the roof.
Flashback time. Ben, or as the asshole calls him 'fat boy', is a transfer student who immediately makes a new 'friend', a greaser punk who wants to pick on him, and decides that getting detention for it means that he should actively threaten the fat boy.
Asshole's greaser friends almost chicken out when it looks like he's going to actually cut him. Ben kicks him, falls over the fence and down the hill and runs to hide in a storm pipe. They harass Bill and Asthma Kid instead causing him to have an asthma attack with an empty inhaler.
Ben and Asthma Lad bond over dead dads while Bill fetches the new inhaler. We learn Georgie got an arm ripped off, and Asthma Lad is named Eddie.
Ben and his cousin have... an adversarial relationship. Ben has met his dead father. Who wants him to go in the storm pipe again. And is offering balloons. He is now a clown. Now a skeleton reaching for him and covered in algae.
We return to the present and Ben drops his bottle begging please no.
We see the girl who Child Ben liked, Beverly, but she's now a designer and I am thinking about Designing Women. She is meeting with Japanese investors and does not get the call because her partner (and lover) doesn't let the secretary give it to her.
She gets it that night. RL Interrupts. It's made for TV, I consider this the equivalent of a commercial break. Her boyfriend slaps her. 'You've forgotten your manners' 'It's been too long since last time' He's threatening to beat her with a belt so that she'll be stuck in the house for 2 weeks and heavily implying this is not the first time. She knocks him down with a bottle to the forehead. They're over now.
She's also taking the call better than the rest. Best friends she's ever had. We get the mandatory flash back, and Ben is giving her a love letter. Her dad finds it and decides that receiving love poetry from a boy, that deserves a beatin', he needs to beat the slut out of her.
We have two new people show up. And then the 6 kids start building a dam. Beverly likes Bill and believes Bill sent the poem. Ben learns this. Ben is sad child.
Beverly is attacked by a blood filled balloon from her sink. Her dad can't see the blood. She lies about seeing a big fat spider. So he won't beat her. "You'll die if you try to fight us. You'll die if you try. You'll die if you try." Good and creepy.
Half an hour in and we've got decent build up for the amount of character and story they're introducing. I mean it's very made for TV but it's pretty good. We don't see Eddie get the call, but he's rushing back to Vermont. His flashback will be soon.
So right now Mike has called 4 kids, we have a 6 kid group, and this does not include Mike. We still only have a half introduction to 3 of the 7 characters. Eddie accidentally spills popcorn on the greasers, the joke kid Richie decides to mock them and pour his soda on them since they're assholes and they're gonna try and beat them up anyway so fuck it have some fun at their expense.
Eddie's mom is overly protective and clingy. "You don't need no friends except your mom." She's still like this with his adult (and apparently successfully running a business) self.
Pennywise is creepy clown again. The scene's effects are... functional with a touch of imagination, though elements of it could take you out. Still Pennywise is creepy.
Richie is a successful TV comedian. With pretty bad jokes. Like just sort of unfunny build up to a so so joke. It's his child hood dream, though. I bet that didn't include puking in terror in a toilet. But that is Pennywise's fault.
A cop scolds them a little about the dam, but really he's just trying to warn them 'there's been another child murder near hear, don't come here alone and don't split up while here.' Reasonable authority figure!
Richie is attacked by a bad movie werewolf which becomes Pennywise. Pennywise is far scarier. I blame Tim Curry.
We finally get Mike's flashback. I think Stan (the unnamed 6 member of the group) died. The greasers decide to fuck with him because he's black. Our group is just the people the greasers fuck with aren't they?
Still they're swapping Pennywise stories; only Stan - the science lad - doesn't have one. That is when Mike begins to approach, and they can hear Henry's gang (increased to 5). Bill, being the leader, suggests everyone arm themselves with rocks to threaten them with.
It's an impromptu rock fight and the Losers have the high ground, but when a rock hits Beverly, Ben shows that fuck this he will beat their sorry greaser asses.
Still Henry has named the group: The Losers Club.
We also learn the evil clown has been here for hundreds of years, and is able to animate pictures. And threaten to kill them from within.
Pennywise claims to be all their fears. Stan, can't take it, he knows he saw it, like everyone else but it's impossible. I see him as dying.
I am touched and moved by Bill's moment. The kid (actor) is good.
And back in the present Pennywise is fucking with Mike.
And now we get Stan's? Stan is ready to try and make a baby. Stan won't be making a baby right now. Stan will be going back home. We have 20 minutes left in part 1 and Stan... Stan isn't sure he'll come back. Still we know they all lived through the summer.
Flashback: They are practicing their slingshot murder skills. Beverly demonstrates hers and they accredit it to fate. DIVINE AID. They then move to the threshold, preparing to enter the sewer systems and the Underworld. Really I'd say more that they've crossed the threshold, that the group gathering has been Bill's finding friends and allies, and that he's moving into the very abyss. Still this film has my mind in the Hero's Journey.
They all take a hit of Eddie's inhalers (it's battery acid will eat through anything), and Henry watches from the bushes. He intends to drown them all to death.
They are literally entering a dark hole in the ground to fight a monster. This is pretty direct hero's journey stuff.
Oh Henry isn't planning to drown them just catch them and beat them horribly. 3 on 7. He intends to pincer them, but I wouldn't want to be alone in those tunnels right now.
Meanwhile Bill leads his band of Losers through the tunnels in hunt of the great white clown.
One of the greasers die and I realize the greatest problem of the film. It's just not enough. It never reaches the proper clench of terror, just missing it. You could blame the special effects, but 2nd rate special effects don't bother me that much, I'm actually going to say it's the music. As I noticed the lack of musical use in that scene. I mean they start using it now, but I am realizing they haven't been using it well before now and music is a huge part of horror.
Still Henry and his other greaser friend grab Stan and no one notices for a while. As Henry threatens to literally murder him, Pennywise comes and kills the other greaser apparently as a bug monster that shines with unholy white light and pulls people into tubes. Whatever it is he turns Henry's hair white just by passing by and Stan doesn't look.
The film is finally using music. It's not top rate, but it's better. Still doesn't quite reach fear (improper prep). Pennywise, in the form of a light surfboard passes over them and fog begins to fill the tunnels to separate them. It's a very 'why Lovecraftian films fail' moment; it feels like a bad attempt at the incomprehensible.
It begins to play on their fears one by one. Bill's failure to protect his brother. Beverly's father. Richie's werewolf (he beats it alone). Stan's... Stan just gets grabbed by the clown.
"I am eternal child. I am the eater of worlds and of children. And you are next!" Not if Eddie has battery acid and Beverly has a silver stone. They fight It off, and Pennywise tries to flee. Bill has his monster claw... He gets away, and makes sounds.
Bill wants to go after it and make sure it's dead, but the rest say it's dead. Their dam never broke to flood things. Bill makes them swear to return. Stan, the Weak Link, doesn't actually swear until all the others have, skipping his turn.
We return to the present with Stan's wife coming up to see him and... He's killed himself in the bath with a razor, writing in his blood IT.
I'm going to take a break before part 2 but part 1 was good, though I feel it didn't have the best music and more than its TV grade effects that hurt it.
For the Hero's Journey, Bill has had the Call (his brother's death), he didn't really refuse it but that's optional, and there's not so much a mentor. Still it moves into the threshold of the unknown the gathering of allies, the tests of his courage in the form of Henry's gang, and then the descent and ordeal of the Underworld. Beverly is the one who takes up the weapon and strikes IT, but Bill is the guiding hand of it all, he is the one who seizes the sword. They return to the surface and thus the ordinary world and he is resurrected with absolution for Georgie's death. He has made the Hero's Journey and I really do feel that King was thinking about Campbell when writing this at least from watching the film.
Part 2 begins with Bill's visit to his little brother's grave, and Pennywise mocking them with 7 graves, one already full. Bill tells himself he's not afraid of Pennywise, but he does not really convince himself.
There seems to be some rather active memory manipulation going on since Bill is starting to remember more and more and seems to sense when people arrive. They have been linked.
I stop typing to eat some sardines. Still we get people attempting to relive their childhood immediately after a scene of Pennywise telling the jokester that they're too old. Pennywise interrupts. We also have Beverly returning to her childhood home to meet with her father and finding a sweet old lady who becomes her zombie dad and then Pennywise. I still feel that Bev's boyfriend was something about daddy issues born of abuse.
Oh and Bill's wife is being hit on by her boss, who is also threatening her career. That's nice. He's a nice... horrible sleezebag and she is going back to the US anyway because... Ultimately I think he oversleezed.
They meet at a Chinese restaurant, but Beverly faints. Bill you're a married man you shouldn't kiss her like that. Eddie breaks down when he finally remembers Pennywise.
Bill is not telling about his wife. We also learn what happened to Henry. He went crazy and confessed to being the killer. He's still in the asylum. It is talking to him; Pennywise is goading him to murder the Losers.
Richie wants to drop out and run. However when their fortune cookies attack, he is rather convinced to consider staying.
They learn what Bill already suspected. Stan is dead. We get talk about what Stan saw and experienced and introduce the concept of Deadlights. What are deadlights?
Stan's head shows up to mock them. He mocks Billy's stutter, Richie's cowardice, Ben's regaining of weight, Bev's tendency towards abusive men, Mike's getting them there, and I think he implies Eddie is gay and hiding it.
Pennywise is pushing Henry towards Murderin' Time cause Pennywise can handle them if they only half believe, but not if they fully believe. He needs an agent. He can however kill the guy at the door. What are Pennywise's rules?
Well ok, he apparently functions on a 30 year cycle. Also their home town is sick of spirit and has people who will watch 3 guys sexually assault and prepare to rape a young girl (no younger than them but still). Still there seems to be the hand of fate and a dark curse at work with the Losers and the town respectively. I blame the space turtle.
Bill's wife is coming, and she encounters Pennywise. Good scene... oh god he has hypno eyes filled with deadlights. What are deadlights?
They split the party while in the hotel. Never split the party. Never be in a hotel in a Stephen King story. Never combine the two into one!
Pennywise impersonates Bev to make out with Ben (I'm betting it's Pennywise). Pennywise likes kissing dudes. Pennywise likes fucking with people. Oh and Mike is being murdered by Henry, but I'm going to focus on Pennywise's manipulation of people's sexual desires because eh the black guy died in a horror film. Actually this is notable in that the black guy died first (Stan didn't make it to the meet up so doesn't count). It's a famous trope (that I've rarely seen actually done except in reference to the trope) in horror, so I make note of it.
Bev finally realizes that Ben wrote the love poem... the day after Pennywise fucks with him with the idea. Still make outs time.
Part 2 feels slow. Like more seems to have happened in Part 1, I check the time it's 1 hour in with 30 minutes left and it feels like... it's just been slow.
More that the town is evil and in a way part of It. Richie sees a news report about child murder and has a moment. I find myself waiting for Bill's wife to come up again in some way.
Everyone is prepared to flee, but Bill gives a speech about how he's hellishly tired of this stuff. This is mixed to a flashback of kid Bill asking for their help and I realize I think the kids were better actors than the adults.
"Losers fight It, Losers die." Richie, that's not right. When you fought It, when you actually fought It, you won. It's only when you've been scared of fighting It, when you've whiffled and refused the call that you have died. It's not if fight then die it's if Losers don't fight It, then Losers die.
They find Bill's wife's purse. They seem to have been aware he had a wife. Bill is charging off alone in terror for his wife's safety.
We get an encounter with Pennywise and then Bill launches a boat to find him, leading to a den with skeletons outside. Eddie confesses his virginity, and his inability to love people. He felt this was important. Oh the skeleton covered ogre lair door is kid sized that's a nice touch. And there's actual audio cues and play now, have been since they entered the sewer. So I can sort of see why they'd go that way, but it's still not good over all.
They find a spider's den, Bill's wife, and... A giant spider with an ass for a head and human arms? Oh no, now the head is a head. It's alright TV movie effects. Beverly launches her silver bullet but it cannot hurt the spider's armor and then It releases the Deadlights and catch Bill, Ben, and Richie.
Eddie tries to repeat his battery acid attack, but it too fails. His belief is not pure. Beverly reclaims a silver bullet and fires it straight into the deadlights and the spider retreats wounded. Still Eddie has died. It then ends like many Stephen King adaptations in a burst of bad special effects which come across as almost comical with them pushing the spider over and killing it barehanded.
We now get Mike's voice over telling what happened to the rest with the curse broken. Bill's wife has gone into a prolonged state of shock, and Bill tries to break her free with the magic of his childhood bike. It works.
I could look at part 2 with the hero's journey in mind but... it wasn't good enough.
Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: The Whisperer in the Darkness
So I was impressed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s presentation of “The Call of Cthulhu” in film form. In fact I was impressed enough that I decided I had to squeeze in their adaptation of what is probably my favorite Lovecraft story as well.
Whisperer is my favorite Lovecraft story for what boils down to the ambiguity. While there’s something shady with the situation, there’s enough to say maybe they are being honest as well. If they just wanted to wipe out threats they could have much more easily. It’s a nice feeling of ambiguity and question of how much of it all is just the xenophobia of the protagonist. The film well...
It retains a bit of that, but it heavily pushes things towards ‘nah they’re evil’. So it loses out on what makes this my favorite Lovecraft story. That said I am 100% willing to forgive that. The story is open for interpretation, and fun because of that, to make a full length movie from it they had to expand significantly and that expansion does in the end mean coming down on ‘they’re evil’ more and they did try to keep some of that ambiguity at places. So I am willing to forgive it.
All in all the film is good for what it is. It’s a fun adaptation of Lovecraft done by people who obviously love the source material and treat it with respect and care. Their presentation of the Mi-Go is excellent, despite looking like made for TV special effects, they use it stylistically to both give a feel like Cold War era alien invasion special effects and that sort of unreal vibe that I would have liked to see in R’lyeh in the other film. The presentation of the people in the device was wonderful. The expansion still feels Lovecraftian, the presentation of the cult ritual feels B-monster movie good and still honest to Lovecraft. It is a labor of love and it is lovely for it. I quite enjoyed the film.
That said there are some obvious bads I have to discuss (if I was doing Good/Bad/Ugly for this film the alteration would be the Ugly). The film drags horribly in the first 30 minutes. They spend most of this time developing characters who have no impact on the story past this time. Oh they build Wilmarth as the non-believer, but they could have done that in 20 less minutes. You can’t wholly skip the first 30 minutes, but they could have compacted them into 10-20 minutes and it’d have worked better. Other than that my complaints are all ‘they removed some of the ambiguity’, though I do have one complaint about the ritual: It included Yog-Sothoth (or as I call him Soggy-Yoggy) and the Great Unnameable in it, while the story included both but never together and generally speaking the lists would be the same except using one of those two (implying Yog-Sothoth = The Unnameable One). As they also removed the part about the Cult of the Yellow Sign hating the Mi-Go and their followers, this makes it seem like Hastur = The Unnameable One which bothers me because Derleth presented that in defiance of “The Whisperer in the Darkness” which is one of the few appearances of the Yellow Sign/Hastur in Lovecraft. This is just my fanboy grrrr and not really an impact on the movie.
All in all if you’re a big fan of 50s B monster movies (I think, I’m actually rather hit or miss on them myself; this film had the stuff that makes them hit with me), or a big fan of Lovecraft the film is worth checking out. If not it’s probably not for you. Still I’d give it a general thumbs up.
Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: The Call of Cthulhu (2005)
So as a rule I have qualms with Lovecraft movies. I love Reanimator but it doesn’t feel Lovecraft. There’s a Color Out of Space adaption that’s good. And every other Lovecraft film I’ve seen has been bad, and less Lovecraft than John Carpenter is (The Thing still makes me think of At the Mountains of Madness despite being fairly close to the story it’s actually based on, and Prince of Darkness was more cosmic horror than most). This one is added to the pile of exceptions. I must also say my cat (blessed of Bast and a natural enemy to the supernatural terrors of the before times) tried to save me from it, continuously stopping the movie, fast forwarding and just in general trying to interrupt it, I’ve never had her be so bad about a film.
Now what to say about the film. It’s an artistic piece. In this I mean it makes me think of poetry. It is a style not meant for pure entertainment purposes, but to take a set of challenges and guidelines and use them to create something that, when taken in with appreciation for those restrictions becomes a piece of beauty and skill. As such the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly will not be done, they are all the Art. This also means that despite saying whole heartedly ‘I like it’ I’d not advise it unless 1) you have an appreciation for Lovecraft, and 2) you are willing to take ‘it emulates early silent films including their flaws’ in stride and enjoy that as well.
It is a silent film, and endeavors to look like something that might have been made in the silent film era. It puts light and shadow to excellent use, stop motion animation to make one of the creepiest Cthulhus I have seen, and the music combines with the alien atmosphere of the silent film (alien that is to the current viewer) making it a good choice for Lovecraft as it honestly gave me the same sort of feeling that I get when reading Lovecraft... Almost. It was a deeper emotional feeling than with Lovecraft, a greater fear (though it was nowhere near the fear of Ju-On for example) and creep, but a shallower intellectual one. It does not replace reading the man, but it is good and does exactly what I hope for from a faithful adaptation; give a way of enjoying that while lacking in some qualities of the original (any adaptation of a text will because of the differences in narration styles - you don’t get into the mind of the protags as much in film), has new and different ones which make for an interesting alternative. In that the film is a roaring success.
Now that is not to say the film was without its bad qualities. The action scenes were not good, they looked like Hollywood LARPers almost. R’lyeh itself had moments of the special effects being so fail as to be comical. To an extent that’s alright; R’lyeh is supposed to look in such a way that any representation will be wrong and bad, so it sort of works to intentionally look ‘fake’ in ways I’d have liked to see it not be in the style of a silent film but be CGI for that egregiously unreal feeling. I don’t know if that would have worked, and it would have ruined the purity of the art, so it’s good they didn’t but... all the angles were euclidean, they weren’t even stuff on the surface of curves (and thus non-euclidean). I’d actually give it a pass, but I watched The Vampyr which better succeeded at capturing the nightmare feeling that I look for in Lovecraft (and Frankenstein, and Dracula) and which despite actually being from this time avoided anything as corny looking as the fake skies used in this film. Ultimately they were bad. They were going for stylistic suck, for looking like the props and sound stages of the silent pictures days, but they went too far and made them look like low quality ones which is jarring as otherwise the film takes an effort to be quality (the Cthulhu while maybe not Harryhausen’s best is good quality even).
Overall, though, I enjoyed the film. It is not as good as The Vampyre, though that is the closest film I can think of to it. It is an interesting experiment and enjoyable for the watch. I do not know if it will have any more staying power than Ju-On or The Descent (Ju-On has managed to finally get me to stop having my ‘trying to sleep’ freak out being based upon The Prince of Darkness by replacing it with Ju-On). That said it’s a rather different film in that it’s a very direct and faithful (to my admittedly limited memory) adaptation and most of the staying power would come from the same scenes that stayed with you in the story and the story did those first so it is hamstrung there... while simultaneously making itself exempt from needing it. This is not a film you watch for a new story, this is a film you watch because you know and like “The Call of Cthulhu”.
Peanut Dracolich Watches (Hammer) Horror: Too Many Vampire Films
So this post is coming a bit late (seeing as how I watched these before The Mummy x2), but I had trouble managing to type it up (my computer didn’t want to let me without crashing, having Word close without explanation, and), and I forgot I didn’t post it.
After watching Dracula Has Risen from His Grave, I decided to watch some non-Dracula Hammer Horror Vampire Films. This started with The Vampire Lovers, then Captain Kronos, then a detour in The Oblong Box (I meant to talk about that eventually but might not), then my nephew pulled me away with wanting to watch one with me and after the aforementioned which both had sex scenes I had to pick one I knew was child appropriate so rewatched The Horror of Dracula, and then I was totally burnt out and my concentration shot by The Kiss of the Vampire.
Of these four films…
The Vampire Lovers was overtly erotic. There was no metaphor as there was in Dracula Has Risen, it was pretty directly shown. I am torn on this from a story telling point of view, it actually served a purpose of making Carmilla's desires clear in a way that otherwise might not be. And yet at the same time it felt like it was mostly there for 'look boobs' and… time has changed since the 70s, a few moments of breasts on TV is less impressive when the internet can show me them all day long; if I want overt porn I will get it. I do not know how to judge the more porny elements. I mean it is a vampire movie, there is always an erotic element, and some of the scenes that made use of it were well done, but I felt I was more supposed to be there to stare at two naked women chasing each other around the room than anything about the story.
Still over all The Vampire Lovers was an enjoyable film with an enjoyable story. While some of the changes from Carmilla seemed out of place and likely forced by necessity to get it past the censors (the male love interest), others worked to make the film function as a film by giving a more energetic and active climax (the one in the book has almost no sense of urgency and would have been an unsatisfactory one to a film). Ingrid Pitt did well in the role, although it was a little jarring as she is obviously a good 10 years older than her 20 year old victims and they're all supposed to be about the same age (her 'aunt' who serves as her stand in mother looks and is closer to her age than her victims) I think it was ultimately a good choice as she could bring the proper screen presence, and dignity to the role and Carmilla needs a combination of youthful beauty and that sense that she's older than she looks and it's hard to get that in films (CGI can help now, but this was 1970). I mean before my play by play got deleted I had some littler complaints, but the film ultimately did a good job adapting Carilla to the screen, but is a substantially different story. I would say of the 6 Hammer Horror vampire stories I've watched this month it is… 4th. If I throw in The Mummy it may beat out that film, it is hard to say as they feel like very different stories and it becomes more and more apples to oranges and direct enjoyment comparison is hard over that many days.
Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter is hard to place for different reasons. While it had a sex scene you don't really see anything and it is less dwelt upon (post sex conversation is more the point there). We do not have a scene of naked girls chasing each other about the room. Instead the issue here is that the film is no more horror than Buffy season 2, or Angel, less horror than Kolchak or many episodes of the X-Files. It is a story of a hero-adventurer, reminiscent of the Barbarian Heroes of the next decade or of a wild west gunslinger, who is here to kick some vampire butt. Now vampires are not easy to kill and the movie makes a single vampire a significant and grave threat even for a skilled vampire hunter. It is all things said an excellent film, but it reminds me more of a Barbarian Hero film than a Horror film, it just is one with horror elements but I am not comfortable sorting it mentally as Horror. It's a fun film, with witty dialogue, and Grost (the hunchback) is just so endearing. While it doesn't have scares, it is a well paced story which ultimately is in many ways like a movie length and high quality episode of some heroic adventure show. I'd put it up with Horror and Has Risen as one of the top 3 hammer vampire films I've watched this season, and impossible to really say which is best due to it being a wholly different genre. Sans the heroine the main cast feel like they'd be in place for a tv series, this is not saying they're bad (I love Shatner, I love Patrick Stewart when he's allowed to act, I love Bruce Campbell), but that they are not Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee level, really I'd say none bring Campbell's, Shatner's, or Nimoy's charisma either. Still the film was enjoyable, and I don't really have anything legit bad to say about it.
The Kiss of the Vampire unfortunately I watched in major burn out. Like some serious 'my brain won't give a proper horror viewing'. The film was overall, 2nd rate, though. While enjoyable, it lacked the grip of the Omen, and ultimately clocks in as the 2nd worst Hammer Vampire Film I watched this month. The story was somewhat less cliché than 'another Dracula retelling', but ultimately the film does not stand out. It is another story about a vampire trying to steal the hero's wife and being stopped. The ending was fun with a touch of ridiculous (Hammer Horror bats always are), and the sheer number of vampires make them stand out as per capita the most inept vampires I have seen. It was not without its nice moments and elements, but I'd ultimately give it a thumbs down. While it's not a horrible movie, it's not really worth it unless you're a fan of Hammer Horror and want another vampire movie from them.
And finally we got Horror of Dracula rewatched. I'm still not sure which I prefer, this or Has Risen from the Grave. I would say Has Risen from the Grave has the stronger heroines, or the more impactful ones. Horror of course has the stronger actor as a hero, but I find I might enjoy Has Risen's still Dracula-esque plot but greater divergence with the fallen priest and atheist hero over Horror. Still both are excellent films, and like all Hammer Horror Vampire films not what you go for 'shock scares'. Dracula has his moments (and my nephew despite protesting vehemently he wasn't scared did practically jump in his chair when the cat moved in the room) but one must be willing to let themselves fully immerse and want to be scared for it to really take effect – I have no issue doing that with horror films or stories, and when I don't do it even modern ones don't last long, but it is more suspense and tension than terror.
All in all I want to watch the second and perhaps third film of the Karnstein Trilogy (started by The Vampire Lovers) and to give another chance to a random Hammer Vampire film, but these things need to wait because I've watched too many in quick succession. Kiss of the Vampire I enjoyed but I think it'd do better as 'background noise' than 'main focus' (this is how I treat most things I watch outside of horror). Captain Kronos I want more of. The Vampire Lovers was promising, but needs something more; or maybe less. Dracula remains Dracula even now.
Oh after the old Hammer Horror films this was a breath of fresh air. It was a legitimately scary film (The Descent beat it out for fear factor I think, but Ju-On might have a longer impact and burn). The film made good use of music and the absence of music, good use of angles to cast things as ‘off’. It was in total a good well made creepy and scary film.
I’d actually say that it might be the best horror film I’ve watched this month. I didn’t enjoy it as much as a good watching of Alien or Evil Dead nor as much as Psycho but it is very much a pure film, a film of scares and creeps and terror that clenches at you. I would suggest it (with caveats but horror is a large enough genre, and one with enough things that can be major ‘nos’, there will always be caveats). That said I don’t feel it’s a film I will want to rewatch; the ghost story was enjoyable once, but it doesn’t have anything to draw me back to it. Which rewatchability while a plus in a film is far from a requirement.
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Play by Play below the cut.
The Good:
The Overall Effect: It’s actually hard to say ‘this was good’ because the film was overall good. They used silence and then sound early in the film to wonderful effect (sometimes it bordered on ‘you should be scared now’ but that faded as the movie drew you in). I can’t even say ‘this section was best’ because while the first two felt generally weaker, a large part of that was that the effect needed time to build, and grow.
The Covers Scene: If you’ve seen the film you hopefully know what I’m talking about if you haven’t I don’t want to spoil it (the play by play will but).
The Bad:
Early Tomio: The make up job was... It took a bit of extra buy in and suspension the first time he showed up full ghost. In generally the ghosts took a bit of extra buy in and could have ruined the film if I had not been willing to let it go and enjoy and believe. I don’t have a huge problem with these moments (I believe some investment of imagination is deserved by a film), but once or twice in the film it did get to me more than most I mention it for. I could put this in the Ugly (as it’s a visual failing) but as it’s got more stuff in the ‘necessary evil’ category I’m putting it here because it did feel like a legit flaw.
The Ugly:
Temporal Confusion: It jumps around a lot in time. I’d actually say it really ought to have had a X years later with the one section but I don’t think it’d have gotten to me in an English speaking film; subtitles add an extra layer of mental involvement (you’re reading) and that aggravated it. And it did use the confusion to good effect and it’s a legit effect in horror. Still bothered me a bit.
There are no rules: The ghost really does seem to have no real rules. I mean everyone targeted theoretically visits the house (ignoring the implications in the final scene as just artistic license). But we never really learn any rules, and there’s no real meaningful interactions with the ghost. It works, it makes it scarier, but this is a large part of why I don’t really want to rewatch (or I’m sure there’s some folk lore from Japan that adds a little, and small details I could get on a rewatch, but at the amount of effort it’d be more fun to just read up online). It’s a reason I’m not super interested in the sequels in the franchise; despite the film possibly being the best I watched I am not that intrigued by the umpteen sequels. I am certain at some point they add lore, and at some point they contradict that lore, but in a way I’d rather leave it with its lawless purity than see what they do. Still it feels like the curse doesn’t function on any rules other than ‘to an audience this would be scary/freaky’ which makes the suspension of disbelief a bit harder and leaves a subtly bad aftertaste. Again I can’t say this is truly the Bad, because it’s what makes the film work, but it is a double edged sword.
The Ordering of the Last Two Sections: The final section is really a final section, but a throwaway line in the section before it in addition to causing much of the temporal confusion tells you how it ends. The second to last section is the only one where you sort of feel hope for the human’s escape, someone actually doing something to fight the curse and who has been built up in the last section... but this only works if you aren’t paying attention to the time (my thoughts at the time were ‘if there’s 10-20 minutes left in the film she’ll make it, if there’s 30 she’s sure dead’ there were going back later to check 27 at that time of thought). In the end I think the ordering the film used is better, but it is still just a bit bothersome.
The Play by Play:
Ju-On is on to a good creepy start. I am sort of regretting... don't hurt the cat! Ok this is a good creepy start. Lots of blood lots of implied murder. Good start. I am regretting making hot chocolate because my appetite is damaged now. Of artistic note is that they made the opening have washed out and faded colors, not actually black and white but still creating a certain surreal feeling and appearance. Still it's stuff like this, stuff that makes use of music and visuals to create an effect that makes horror movies worth watching. I watch horror because it creates visceral reactions that few other movies do; I might get engaged and energized watching a heroic tale, but that's just one hit and horror can get that sort of energy, but it offers a plethora more.
We then get actual characters at the social welfare center. Someone is handing off a hard case to a volunteer who doesn't want it, and then using it as an excuse to take her to dinner. I feel sorry for her already.
And then we get 'haunted' sound screech. Not trying to create the feeling of terror with it alone, but using the music and fiddling with angles and shots to create a creepy feeling as our volunteer approaches the old lady's house. The house where she gets no response, finds it an absolute sty with everything scatter about, and the old lady unable to get up out of bed to meet her simply clawing at the glass door.
Nishina Rika. We have her name and I'm writing it down because I don't want to call her 'volunteer girl' or 'protag girl'. Rika is just so much easier.
Now this movie knows how to mix eroticism with horror, she's giving the old lady a sponge bath. Forgive me I've watched too many vampire movies of late.
The movie has not been using music outside of that creepy start. It has had minor sounds, and it is using them to good effect. We hear growling, no something scratching at the back of a sealed door and it is creepy. She goes in and we start finally getting some background music and the sudden inclusion after the lack is all the creepier. A cat yowls and we can believe a cat is behind the taped up door. Rika removes the tap to open and see inside... and it's just a cat sitting there peaceful. CREEPY SOUND and then a boy appears in the taped up closet. Rika freaks.
She seems to think she simply missed the child before leaning in to get the cat. I guess that's reasonable, after all children don't suddenly appear. They aren't birds and she wasn't hearing any name.
She starts up the stairs and CREEPY SOUND The boy is looking down at her. I'll admit I sort of jumped at the sound. It is reminiscent to Saw's laugh track except a hundred times more effective since the things are creepy and not 'dude tied up'.
Old lady is talking to ghosts and we have music again. The music rises to really creepy as a shadow demon thing attacks the old lady and then opens its eyes, the child's eyes I think, and looks at Rika. Rika faints.
We get the next part and a name for the hero of this part, but I'm bad with names and was writing the above it is not written down in time.
Same house. Same mess... but it's not quite, there's a couple living in the house, her son and daughter in law. I know I should be creeped, the tension should be holding, but... I'm still a bit burnt out I guess. And then something falls over the, younger old lady, awakens. So it would seem this is either a different family or the past. The ghost child is still there looking down from above, his black cat with him. House wife is sort of freaked out that there's someone and a cat in her house. She doesn't have a cat. In my mind she and her husband have been trying to have a child, but that's just my mind.
Good use of sound, good use of camera. Cat screams, woman screams, we do not see. It's the past, Hitomi and Kazumi, the names that were dropped in the first segment. Everything has been knocked around. The man's been blaming his mom. It's not. It's the ghost, the demonic spirit that has now stolen his wife's soul. Alright she finally reacts to his screaming and shaking, her eyes moving, and her mouth trembling, it did not steal his soul.
It walks behind him as he's calling an ambulance and he doesn't quite see it but he senses something. It's a nice moment. My feet are poised to jump up onto the seat with me. The child isn't there when he's looking, he can't see it, but he can tell there's something.
Now he finally finds it. I must be willing to be afraid, the monster is a child with some pale make up and it's just. It doesn't quite get my feet up... even as his wife dies from the curse. A dark look overcomes his face as his sister arrives.
My feet feel vulnerable still, though.
The son seems to be crazy. I'm getting Jack Nicholson vibes from him. He's lying about where his wife is. He's trying to literally push his sister out of the door, and now is talking about his wife having an affair, how that's not his child. They didn't have a child. There is something wrong here and his sister is just confused.
Possession claims him and he goes to murder his wife as the child smiles like an evil imp.
The next section is Hitomi (the sister/daughter). And we see her making a phone call (I neglected to mention) from the first part. She's NOT in the house. That doesn't mean she's safe. Something is following her. There are strange, scraping footsteps, like something is shuffling. She even sees the shadow move into the stall next to her in the bathroom.
She gets a call from her brother, but all that she gets is the creepy sound of a door creaking. She drops a stuffed bear, and then leans to grab it and a dark haired ghost presents its head. Wisely she runs. Foolishly she sends the building's security guard up after it to his death. But it is not in vain, she watches on CC tv and gets to see... she runs away before she can see and we just know he vanishes after a bit of darkness was creeping up him. Very politely she closes the elevator door in a lady's face, meaning she's alone, alone isn't safe. Alone is where the ghost child watches you. Alone is how he follows you. Every floor. Watching you.
I can already say this is probably the best scare movie I've watched this month. It may not be the scariest, but I've enjoyed it more than the Descent.
And she got a call from her brother asking her apartment number, went to the door, saw him there, opened it and he was gone and the phone made the noise of the ghost. She's run inside, unplugged the phone and ... is hiding under the covers. I'm not sure about that, but now she's trying to watch TV and the TV is freaking out and... She is rightfully scared.
CREEPY STUFF HAPPENS, GHOST IS IN HER COVERS FEET ARE UP
Toyama section. I think Toyama is the jerk from the Rika section.
The old lady is dead now. She had aged much in the short time since something happened to her daughter-in-law, and Rika is completely non-responsive.
How long was it before he checked on Rika and the old lady I wonder?
Still the house is murdering now and they've got a whole bunch of people in it (the cops have been called). They find the son and daughter in law dead in the attic.
I should put my feet down, but the ghost child might get them (and this is more comfy on current chair).
We also have a name Toshio. Toshio is the ghost child. But we've seen two ghosts I think.
Feet are down. Feet are down is scarier. Kayako, Takeo, and Toshio. The family from the beginning. Husband killed wife then found dead. That's how it began. Or so it seems.
The detective who was in charge of the original investigation quit the force and is the only survivor who was involved. That's nice.
Creepy stuff happens. I am glad there is no one jumping out to say boo. Welfare Bully (not Toyama but something that I failed to catch; Hirohashi) is dead. Toyama is the old detective. He is doomed now; his name is the section title. Actually Rika survived and she was a woman and in the house but.
Still we have two ghosts. Small child ghost (Toshio). And shadow lady demon ghost (Kayako) who is capable of looking at you through security footage. That's creepy. I am liking this movie.
They've come for Rika my feet are up.
Toyama has decided to burn the house down. I think this is gonna fail. After all there are sequels, also it just feels too early in the film for that. The house is fucking with him. Showing him scenes from some past. Toyama has been distracted and the cops are looking for her. Still he has to make sure there's not teenager upstairs before burning the house down with schoolgirls inside. Actually they might really have been there, but it feels wrong... and I think the girl who left had the same name as his daughter.
I hear a cat in the other room, it adds to the creep. The ghost lady is crawling around in a crabwalk, and Toyama is found by the cops in the midst of unintelligible panic. They see why and he runs. They are paralyzed with fear as the ghost comes and that close-up is too close.
The new section is the schoolgirl who ran Izumi. Her friends are missing. Her last name is Toyama. So this is the future? Or was Izumi the girl's older sister? Rika just went missing... or was her mom listening to a recording from when her dad went missing too. I miss something in his conversation with small child that would tell. Izumi has taped up her windows to keep the ghosts out and her schoolgirl friends think she's crazy.
She believes the three missing girls are looking in on her. And she is wearing a hidey hoodie.
Feet are back down.
Izumi is crazy. I am not blaming her. But she's gone off the deep end.
Her mom starts talking about that being how her husband was before he died; that he did the same thing with the windows and curtains. She is a broken shell and fears her daughter will die the same way. So yeah house showed him the future. House exists outside of time and space. Izumi is a demon in pictures having pure black eyes... so do the three missing girls. It is the curse.
I am rooting for Izumi to survive. The despair hoodie bring out my sympathies. I like hoodies. Plus the time is about right that it's possible, and she's seeing the ghost of her father. As for the time I feel it's in the last third of the movie, and they're developing Izumi more in that she was important in the last section and this seems to be taking longer to get to the haunting. So it's possible, though far from assured; I'd have to check the time, 30 minutes remaining and she's dead, even 20 and it's a tossup, 10 and she's probably going to live.
Something has torn off her taped up newspapers of window blocking, forming a tiny hole for the ghosts of her friends to watch her through. They're coming for her. Feet are still down. And chief ghost lady has grabbed her head. She's dead. Pulled into the little altar her mother was praying for her dead husband at.
New section is Kayako... the first victim? And we still have ~20 minutes left (after Izumi's death I had to check). We also have Rika again? I thought she got grabbed... I guess she didn't get grabbed till about when Rika did.
A cat touched her leg and Toshio is under the table. She looks older than in the first section, which is well done.
Rika's friend is at the house. Less ghostly Toshio is there. Rika is returning to the house, passing the police tape, to try and save her. Mariko's footsteps are in the dust. The bright, sunny house she saw is not the one we are now.
CREEPY STUFF HAPPENS.
Feet are up.
They're in your reflection you can't escape now. And coming out of your shirt!
I am torn between scared and almost laughing at the blood drenched crab walking ghost. Like she's been scary doing this before, but coming down the stairs in fake blood it manages to cross some line and I lightly lose the ability to take it serious. Off the steps it gets better, and we get every scene of Kayako it feels like, before Rika is alone in the house. But we heard the news of her disappearance. Ah Kayako's husband is coming. Kayako isn't killing he is? At least Rika he's going to kill as Toshio watches.
No one survives. We see an empty town, flyers for the missing littering it. No one survives. Final Creep. Ending Credits. Upbeat music to help recover from creep.
I want the lights on. I have to walk through a cluttered path in the dark for that. Fire and Brimstone.
Peanut Dracolich Watches Horror: The Mummy Double Feature
So I didn’t get to write things as I go this time because I was watching things with my nephew. In fact I didn’t get the close attentive viewing I would have liked for the purposes of talking about things because again watching things with a young child who was making faces, and talking.
I did, though, watch both films in time to compare which I and a small child preferred. We actually come out in agreement. He finished one film and left the other bored partway. I am admittedly tired of the old school of horror and want something with more shock and terror (I had intended to watch Ju-On today, but a small child wanted to watch things; on that note at some point I have 4 vampire movies and a Vincent Price one to talk about), but of the two one kept me more entertained as well.
So let’s look at the films. And some strengths and weaknesses:
Universal (1932) The Good:
Boris Karloff is excellent, whether it’s facial expressions while in full mummy wrap or walking around afterwards he is intimidating and has excellent presence. He puts me in mind immediately of one of my favorite actors due to his ability to just present an aura of menace and he is much better used here than as Frankenstein.
The Story Idea: Universal’s Mummy is an intelligent adversary, with magical powers, and fought from afar. It’s an interesting story that makes me want to read the source material.
Hammer Horror The Good:
Peter Cushing: While if I had to pick I’d pick Lee over Cushing, Peter Cushing is a good actor, and makes a good hero. His scenes are alive and interesting and while he does not seize the viewer as Lee can, he is an impressive actor himself and makes for a fine hero.
Christopher Lee: Is as always excellent. Whether it’s facial expressions while in full mummy wrap, walking around, or being a high priest he is intimidating and has excellent presence. Watching Karloff’s Mummy it’s a similar feel, and Lee was almost certainly drawing on Karloff’s for inspiration here.
The Action: Lee’s mummy makes a good menacing monster that threatens the protagonists in a very physical way. I liked it, and it came off well to me.
Universal (1932) The Bad:
The film is in black and white and unlike Dracula, Frankenstein, or the Vampyre does not put it to use; this is a minor thing but I was watching it with a small child and like me as a small child black and white is a deterrent. Still can’t hold it against a 1930s film, but I had come to expect use of shadow and the surreal quality of black and white in these old horror movies so I felt its absence.
The Action: There isn’t any and that might be part of why it bored my nephew.
The General Pacing: The film seems to drag despite only being around 75 minutes. I’d not have been bothered as much a week ago but I am getting burnt out. Still it feels slower than Frankenstein... though I like the story more.
The Heroes: While Boris Karloff is impressive, the rest of the cast much less so; pretty much any scene that lacks Karloff feels empty to some extent.
Hammer Horror The Bad:
The Story: It feels, to me, like it rests on a giant plot hole in that the villain could have killed them all earlier and prevented the desecration of the tomb. This bothers me, though not enough to make the movie unenjoyable (it’s less bothersome than in Ft13 part 2 and ultimately part of the ‘getting us there’ instead of ‘crux of it all’). Still it’s really is bothersome. At least, however, I can think of some reasons that can justify it. In addition it’s pretty basic monster stuff.
Overall:
In my honest opinion (and it’s just that an opinion) watching them back to back, sort of really tired of Hammer films... I enjoyed the Hammer film better. While the Universal studio one had the more interesting idea of a story, Hammer made better use of its story, and had the more charming cast (even though I think Karloff’s performance might have been better than Lee’s here but more on that later). Both had some major ‘wait I don’t... why?’ in them, and Hammer’s was more prominent to me, yet I still just think the Hammer film came together better and was more enjoyable.
Compared to Other Mummy Films:
I’ve only seen the 1999 Universal Studios one (and some of its sequels, plus some of the cartoon) which was not horror really and which... I think I enjoyed more than either, but I definitely wasn’t as burnt out then. I can’t really compare.
The Mummy: (Spoilers ahoy)
One can’t avoid talking about the eponymous mummy. Hammer’s reminds me of a golem story. The mummy is a puppet. Of course the Hammer film does this well, and uses it for fun with the (toned down) reincarnation plot. Universal’s is much more about the reincarnation plot; in fact Universal’s feels like something that would be a much better story to read than Hammer’s. We get a mummy who is a necromancer, he’s almost a lich on his own, this dark undead mage from 3700 years ago. A love story that stretches time, and... He cannot be beaten by physical means, but... is afraid to engage 2 old men in a fist fight. That bothered me. Burying him with the scroll bothers me. The mummy is a much more unique and interesting foe in the Universal film and allows Karloff to act and have presence that Lee in his bandages for most of the film cannot. Still the universe film in the end feels like it would make a better short story or novelization than a film, and just doesn’t hook me as entertainment. I watch the Hammer one and don’t feel ‘I should have read a short story about this’ I feel ‘This was fun’ and ‘If I hadn’t just watched an unholy amount of Hammer Films* I’d hunt down the sequel’ and that’s a decisive advantage.
*More on this when I get to a Coven of Vampire movies, or ‘Oh god did I really watch 5 hammer vampire movies in a row I need a break’ also known as ‘Beware the vampires want to seduce your wife!’
Peanut Dracolich watches (Hammer) Horror: Dracula Has Risen From the Grave
The fourth Hammer Horror Dracula film, the third with the magnificent Christopher Lee as Dracula, and the 2nd in which he speaks. The film was at its heart a Hammer Horror Dracula story, possessing the trappings of the Romanian wilderness, the small town plagued by Dracula, and so forth. In fact the film in many ways echoed the original Dracula story. There’s Dracula, the morally loose first victim, the morally upstanding second victim dragged in by his spell, her lover who must vanquish the vampire to keep his girl from being seduced away by Dracula’s dark powers.
What sets the film apart is the sexual charge. Vampires are full of sexual metaphors, but this film makes it overt (though not explicit). It all lies just beneath the surface where only a true innocent would miss it. Maybe it’s the era of film (I’ve not watched many 60s 70s vampire films) and the sexual liberation that American cinema has backslid from, but it really brings out those sexual metaphors.
This sexual charge is not really bad, it’s not gratuitous boobs for the sake of boobs, and it is not overt enough to just be erotica. Still it actually surprisingly avoids the female vampire, instead preferring displaying the addictive and yet abusive and sexually predatory nature of vampirism and makes me want to look for metaphors about unsavory relationships and think about the basic metaphor implicit in the young suitor saving his beloved from moral degeneration of being a ‘loose’ woman. I’d say that might be more an alchemical reaction that the film alone cannot be blamed for, but its choice of an atheist hero sets the stage for it even better.
And of course you have Christopher Lee offering another excellent performance as Dracula, and bringing an unrivaled charisma for the role (I find Bella Lugosi’s Dracula lacking by comparison, and even as a youth the film made me want to read the book because it had to be better). The other actors while not having Lee’s sheer Presence give enjoyable performances and the film while not being scary (it’s a vampire film it’s not supposed to be scary unless you’re scared of a foreign count coming and taking your woman because you’re a wimp and then abusing her) has its fearsome moments. Over all the film was quite enjoyable, and definitely superior to the others in the series (save perhaps the original, though to give a true assessment I’d have to watch them close to each other).
Good/Bad/Ugly and play by play below.
The Good:
Christopher Lee: I have never seen an actor more fit for the role of Dracula than Christopher Lee. I can honestly believe that he could stare you in the eye and hypnotize you, and has the dark charisma to compel a man of god to his bidding. Christopher Lee was going to make the movie on his own and he does.
The Sexual Charge: I found it quite effective for creating an impact and getting me thinking about vampires as sexual metaphors.
The Atheist Hero... and Renfield Priest: The film just had a good choice of roles. While they are basically analogous to roles in the original book (this is most true for Zena and Maria as Dracula’s victims and the loose woman with many suitors and the faithful woman torn from her love). Still while the actresses are charming, able to make small actions expressive without need for directly telling us feeling, I’m not really talking about the acting. From a story view I liked the atheist vampire slayer and the lapsed priest forced to serve the Dark Count.
The Bad:
Cliche: The story is, admittedly, rife with cliche and easily dismissed as just another Dracula story. Sexual charge alone doesn’t really make it horribly unique, but the film was well done and of its period and type an excellent one. Still it’s full of the cliche of its genre and does not edge outside in any particular aspect.
The Ugly:
Dracula’s Death: While the scene is actually beautiful and enjoyable, he comes off looking sort of suddenly so much less at the end which is sort of disappointing.
The Play by Play:
We begin with a lava lamp. It is supposed to be a creepy backdrop for the opening credits, but it's generic horror music (as expected from Hammer Horror) and a lava lamp.
We find a church and the rope for the church bell is covered in elderberry juice! Oh no. Berry juice. Our whistling finder of said juice goes to see who has been pressing berries in the bell and begins to scream, not telling the priest what he has found for he is far too shocked. I joke around but while we know there's something up there (and this is the 60s they can't be too grotesque in showing a body, we don't know what for a good time and when we do see it's a woman, upside down, blood flowing from her throat where a vampire's teeth had killed her.
We get some exposition from the new comer, a priest of the church visiting the valley that was the domain of Dracula till his death one year ago.
He finds the church with no priest saying mass, the priest drinking in the tavern instead, and the church boy a mute.
The man come to check on the town is pissed at the town for not attending church, and disbelieves that there is still evil in the castle that can reach into the House of God. Or at least he does before the villagers, when dealing with just the priest he is far more accepting (though still seems disbelieving that it's anything more than superstition) and he intends to prove there is no evil still there.
The mood is suitably creepy. The film is not going for shock and terror, but a sort of creep and dread (as is the nature of older horror films). The music is well not ineffective, but not anything great and a little too obvious. It puts me in mind of a group traveling in a Ravenloft adventure of D&D... which isn't itself a bad thing... And the local priest just collapsed on the journey. Somehow despite leaving at dawn they arrive near dark and the superior priest goes the final way alone for his companion refuses to continue.
There is dread here. Something will happen to this priest as he prays before the dark castle of the archvampire. A storm begins, the lightning as fake as the mountains, and the local priest tumbles down from where he watches a far ways off; hitting the ice which encased Dracula in the last film, and cracking it unconscious from a head wound. Blood trickles down to Dracula, and the superior priest returns to look for the local one, disgusted that he has been drinking and seemingly assuming he wandered off drunk.
We know better. And we now know that while a mirror will not reflect a vampire a pool of water will.
Lee does nothing more than stand and glower but he remains an imposing figure, the intensity of his look almost something supernatural. This is Lee's unique power.
The superior from the Catholic church returns to the town believing he has done his duty, and asks after the priest, and prepares to leave. The townsfolk claim the priest returned and left, and we see the priest is now Dracula's creature, and Dracula cannot enter his castle with that golden cross sealing it. He must have his revenge.
The film shows us the priest and his... well she seems to be his wife, but eventually it assures us she is not and in fact implies she's more likely his brother's widow... and it is his niece's birthday and she is having a young man over. One training to be a shirtless doctor, got to get some beefcake in.
Oh and we also see Dracula and his new minion digging up the corpse of the woman from the opening. She's rather rotted and it's sort of fan disservice. Still the scene is good, chilling, and for the time a bit revolting.
Still we see the local tavern. It is far more boisterous than that in Dracula's village. The waitress is jealous that our doctor to be (now in a suit) is going out with someone else. Apparently she likes all the guy flirting with her and has 'more boyfriends than she can count' and takes that with pride. We also see our heroine, the lovely Maria. She's got a very nice looking face, lovely blonde hair, a fetching heroine.
We learn something horrible about our protagonist, Paul, something that truly shocks and amazes Maria's mother and uncle, he is an Atheist. The priest has limits to how far he values honesty, and blasphemy crosses them. I wonder if Paul will still be an atheist by the end of the film.
I also wonder how long until our saucy barmaid becomes a bride of Dracula.
Paul gets drunk, Zena (the saucy barmaid) takes him to bed, kisses him, and starts to undress him when Maria comes... even after she decides to cup a feel of his crotch. She is rather disappointed that Maria drives her away. I mean he'd sort of invited while merely nearing black out drunk, but he was past remembering that and at the 'why are you in my room' stage of black out drunk.
Still our waitress leaves the tavern and begins the walk home alone in the dark, a walk that leads her pass Dracula's carriage. When it begins to follow her she reasonably starts to run, when it speeds up she runs into the woods (also reasonably). The woods are wide spaced and it doesn't help but it's reasonable. And she does manage to lose it, diving through a row of bushes. This simply leads her to walking up to Dracula where she is paralyzed with shock and his gaze. She does not resist his embrace.
She returns to the tavern before morning, dressed in her shift and a light cloak, and hiding her bite. She is cranky though more afraid that her bit will be seen. She hides it with a scarf before day proper. Dracula's priestly creature tries to rent a room, and the tavern keeper tries to say they have none... but Zena (having recognized him from the night before) speaks up despite (creepy) priests being bad for business. And Paul tells Dracula's pet priest that the Monsignor has a niece. Zena and the priest is interesting to watch. She is torn, she fears him, knows that he was part of her attack the night before. He makes her neck itch. Yet she cannot bring herself to reveal it, and in fact worked to ensure he would be there. It's an effective way to show how she is drawn to him, or more him through his master, even as she fears him and feels revulsion and an unclean self-disgust at the entire thing.
A leg would have gone up were a cat not on them, an intense showing of Dracula. And I am reminded that more perhaps than even Lugosi's Dracula, vampires from the 80s till Twilight tried to invoke Lee's tall, dark, and intensely charismatic count.
Zena is jealous of Maria once again when Dracula reveals that he wants her. 'What do you want her for, you've got me'. It's a parasitic, twisted relationship, but the sexuality of the vampire-victim dynamic is highly visible in this film. I mean it's been part of Vampires as long as they've shown up in the English language, but vampirism as a destructive, abusive relationship is rather displayed here without it being too 'treats you like an idiot and explains it' about it.
Zena grabs Maria and hands her over to Dracula. Paul finds out that Maria came looking for him and everyone assumes she's with him... not staring into Christopher Lee's hypnotic (though in this film overly bloodshot) eyes. Only Paul's arrival scares off Dracula enough that she escapes... for a time.
"You have failed me" So much menace in his voice. Christopher Lee reminds me of nothing so much as Darth Vader (on a good day of Vader's) here. And then the understated "You must be punished" just sends chills. Zena pleads for mercy, asking why he needs Maria when he has her, he has her! It's a good scene, and one which is intense.
Zena is turned completely, but the priest is tasked with killing Dracula's new creation by shoving her into the fire that heats the bakery's stove. It's an effective scene. The film is an effective film. It's the best of the Hammer Horror films other than probably Horror of Dracula that I've seen.
Maria is ashamed to go home in a state where her mother might see what has happened to her and how distraught she is at it. She hides her assault from her family for the shame of it all.
No one seems to notice that the priest is acting drugged. I mean given the period and his position as a priest, and the lack of our knowledge of what's actually happening it's understandable.
Still we get more of Maria's family assuming she was just sleeping around with her boyfriend that they disapprove of, and not that she was the victim of sexual assault. And hints that she may have actually been bitten, just not on the neck itself. Dracula arrives and you see Maria's fearousal, and despite initial fear after looking into his (no longer bloodshot) eyes she yields to him, a face of rapture as he does not quite kiss her, though she years for it, and then... he bites. It's the vampire's bite as sex in its pretty purest form. Highly charged with eroticism, elements of seduction mixing with assault, it's intense and functional.
Maria's uncle, the Monsignor, finds the bite on her throat and he knows what it is; he failed at Dracula's castle and in so doing has somehow drawn Dracula's wrath upon him.
As is the cliché in the Dracula tale they close Maria's window for her, but do not watch her and she of course opens it to invite Dracula in, baring her throat to him and a bit of her chest, waiting in eager rapture... only to be saved from Dracula when her uncle bursts into the room with a crucifix leading to her mute and disappointed seeming relaxation. Also Lee's eyes are super bloodshot again. The chase is good.
It plays with the normal symbols of the vampire story quite entertainingly in that Paul is an atheist. I mean usually the vampire is... he is the foreigner, the man who has no moral standing in the social order, who is corrupting the young women of the land with his dark ways and sexual nature. The traditional story as crafted by Stoker uses the loose woman with many suitors (Lucy, Zena) and then the chaste and holy one (Wilhelmina, Maria). And in the latter though Dracula gets a foothold upon her soul, and leaves her soiled, in the end she breaks off the affair and becomes a good, proper, chaste, and virtuous woman more devoted to her husband for the ordeal. She is more devout for it, more reliant upon being righteous and walking with God and faithful to her husband. Here we see a movement away from that religious aspect of virtue, a little death of God as the moral arbiter. The Priest is Renfield, and the Atheist is a servant of truth and virtue without God.
Oh and I skipped a (good quality) bit, but Paul is now standing in for God to force the priest back onto the path of righteousness. Paul stakes Dracula in an anti-climax, but is told that he must pray. Dracula pulls the stake from his chest for without Christian faith it cannot kill him (so that's time to back some of the prior. Fire though is a weapon that can still harm him... and Maria is coming for Dracula, coming to be his bride. Dracula casually, disdainfully even, defeats Paul, and declares his revenge complete as he leads Maria away.
Paul takes a horse and rides to Dracula's village and we get... more good scenes.
The music builds well as Dracula makes Maria unseal his castle, throwing her like an abusive boyfriend and ordering her to remove the blasted cross.
Paul arrives, and his call to her combined with the recent abuse snaps her from the spell momentarily and he wrestles with Dracula, causing the vampire and him to tumble over the railing, Dracula being impaled upon the same cross he could not remove. Finally the Renfield Priest uses pray and the vampire is defeated. The scene is both anti-climatic and effective and Maria is freed.
So, since we’re halfway through the month I decided I’d vaguely rank things in some way. Of course I must think first on how do I rank them? Personal enjoyment? Fear? Some belief in quality outside of that?
If I were to rank the films upon their artistic merit, the feeling that they are something more than just a film, the work of artifice and dark sorcery The Vampyr wins, it is a piece of art.
If I were to rank the films upon their sheer fear value, the way they cause terror and leave a lingering fear it would be The Descent; it is a thing of terror.
If I were to rank the films upon their sheer enjoyment value, the amount I simply enjoyed their spell and the act of watching it would be Dr Terror's House of Horrors (with Alien Covenant a fairly close second), it was a quite enjoyable film.
I am going to try and rank them as Horror films, though, and that ends up more vague. Fear is a part of horror, but it's not all, the ability to provoke thought is good but it too is far from all. Of course what a horror film is has changed over the years; Frankenstein and The Descent seem to hold very little in common save elements of madness; they seek to invoke very different effects upon the watcher. Still this is my personal ranking and I will rank them as I see fit. (Ranking itself is below the cut)
1) The Vampyr (32)
2) The Descent (05)
3) Dr Terror's House of Horrors (65)
4) Prince of Darkness (87)
5) Alien Covenant (17)
6) The Omen (76)
7) Poltergeist (82)
8) Frankenstein (31)
9) Friday the 13th Part 2 (81)
10) The 7 Golden Vampires (74)
11) Child's Play (88)
12) Saw (04)
13) Alien 3 (92)
14) Uzumaki (00)
So some thoughts…
The Vampyre is a shadow play of darkness and madness, which feels like watching a fever dream. Whether it's the gripping coffin scene, the dance of shadows, or just the general ambience of nightmare, it reaches beyond feelings like fear or intellectual curiosity, and reaches the sublime as the spell wraps your mind in its dark magic. It makes me start spewing pretentious word salad, and I will admit parts of it left me confused as to what was actually going on, yet it felt effective for this and not despite this. It plays upon the purest fears of horror; the unknown and death.
The Descent is brutally effective and gruesome horror. It is a film that leaves one scared. Despite monsters that are pretty much fantasy RPG goblins it uses primal fears of the dark and the enclosed space to good effect, and the nightmare that is the descent into madness adds to the effect. It's nice to see some badass female characters, and I'm sure one could find symbolism and deeper themes in it, but the intensity of the film draws you in and it'd be a waste of the spell to hunt for such things (at least on a first viewing).
Dr Terror's House of Horror is really 6 stories, each a charming one in its own right, making good use of its cast. Each story plays on different fears and elements of horror, and they're nice little tales. If I had to choose a single 'fear' within it, it'd be fear of the future.
Prince of Darkness is a cheesy, campy, 80s film. It's good and enjoyable, but it's no masterpiece by any means. It is a horror movie. I do not expect a masterpiece from it. I expect a fun film, some scares, some atmosphere, and it does deliver these things. Plus a free porn stash as a bonus! In earnest, though, it has a nice little plot that mixes metaphysics and science to create a dose of horror, and a score that is quite effectively used (as one expects from Carpenter after Halloween and The Thing). It is limited, though, by the overall quality of the plot, and the 80s cheesy feel of the film (which I enjoy) limits its horror. Bonus points for Alice Cooper as an honestly creepy homeless dude.
Alien Covenant is… It's a film with a lot of built in baggage as a prequel to Alien, a sequel to Prometheus, and part of the same franchise as Aliens. It has its strengths, the xenomorph while not terrifying as in Alien is at least scary once more, breaking part of the effect of Aliens by showing that it is not as weak and easily handled as that film made them out to be, an effective movie monster worth a dozen crawlers (it's a good thing that an individual crawler wasn't supposed to be scary). For that alone I could love the film, because the xenomorph is probably my all-time favorite movie monster and it is a shame that it has been neutered thus for so long. That said the film is too new to go into my full thoughts of the pros and cons of it without going 'spoilers, spoilers', I'm fairly sure things about it have probably been spoiled (I actually actively avoided them here but still managed to pick up a few) but still… So umm… Spoilers spoilers. The biggest flaw to me is simply the ear homing black goo. It's stupid and should feel dumb. The next would be their decision to fly into the storm, but that's a standard horror thing (I do not blame them for the detour to check out the world, but they showed they had time leeway they could have waited a few days for the storm to clear so they could check it out safely). However its true sin is my favorite thing in the movie so… The xenomorph is a side dish of horror. David, man's creation, is the main dish as a charismatic psychopath in the lineage of Norman Bates. I found this a chance for some stirring scenes between the two androids, some things that make me want to rewatch and really think about creator and created, while also finding the reveal of his laboratory delightfully macabre and fascinating. I enjoyed David as a villain, with Michael Fassbender bringing some excellent charisma to the role along with that of Walter. Daniels, as a replacement Ripley, was disappointing because she failed to fill the original's shoes (much like Elizabeth in Prometheus). It was fun, though, to see the Frankensteinian tale taken onto multiple levels at once (Prometheus tried this but Prometheus was just bad), and I enjoyed the two flavors of horror being mixed together to create something different (those flavors being 'the monster' and 'the psycho'. Oh and what we're supposed to fear in Covenant is the magical homing powers of black goo… or more the power of creation and the creation's power. David is the creation of man, but the creation with power to destroy his creators; the Engineers are destroyed by their own creation at the hand of their other creation's creation; David himself is shocked and momentarily afraid when the xenomorph threatens the camera, unlike the neomorph it is not a thing he can actually control. Fear the creation which surpasses the creator. Spoiler time ends here if you care. All in all Covenant may in ways be my favorite film on the list, and does scary better than many above it, but in the end my enjoyment of it is not as a horror film but at least equal parts science fiction (Alien conversely is like 3 to 1 horror and sci fi) and so judged as a Horror film I must deduct points.
The Omen was… I still hold to what I said at the time. It was just above middling in all things. The film was enjoyable, it worked as horror, and I might eventually rewatch it. Still it was not one to leave a long impact. I watched it. I enjoyed it. It in no way changed my fears or lack thereof about the Antichrist.
Poltergeist was one of the hardest films to place. I watched it with intestinal pain and 2 hours of pausing so it was a horrible watching condition. Still the film helped lighten the mood, and ok in a lot of ways I'm judging it from prior viewings. It has, for its time, nice effects, some scary moments (I think bodily reactions were off at the time), and an enjoyable story. Still I'd feel uncomfortable calling it good, and the films below it all fall under varying levels of 'enjoyable but' or 'I didn't like it'.
Frankenstein… A horror classic and along with Poltergeist the hardest film on this list to place. I feel like I am committing some sin by saying… I didn't like it that much. It had its charm, and its place, but I was not marvelously impressed. Vampyr, made a year later, was a much more terrifying tale (even if it confused me), and it lacks the gripping questions of the original book; what is the relation of Creator and Created and what ought it to be, what is man's right to create. It is in fact probably the worst Frankenstein film I've watched this month as far as invoking the original book's message and effect, and the others are not a Frankenstein film and Young Frankenstein. That said the movie does has its charm, was enjoyable, and honestly Boris Karloff lurching awkwardly is more menacing and terrifying than anything in the films that follow (save perhaps Alien 3). Still its placement may be more to do with its place in movie history than its actual quality and I do try to avoid that, just as I try to avoid judging special effects based upon later standards, or clichés either. Still I feel it was a better movie than the ones below it, even if some played to my personal tastes more.
Friday the 13th Part 2 was a film that was so bad it's good. I think. It had me laughing. Perhaps it's simply I am not that scared of farmers. If I was as afraid of farmers as I am afraid of chickens, cellars, well done music, green jello, TVs, the dark, or any of various other things it might have been scary. That is if they had remembered that the flat of a blade isn't a cutting tool, not to directly rub my nose in the fact that your plot is a giant plot hole, and… The film was trying at least. Still the change to the hockey mask was a good move on Jason's part. Honestly, though, rated purely for enjoyment this beat Frankenstein.
The Seven Golden Vampires: I enjoyed this film almost the exact same as Ft13 part 2. I think though that for those who enjoy what Ft13 part 2 is offering it has a higher maximum enjoyment factor. The Seven Golden Vampires promised a B movie about kung fu vampires with Peter Cushing and it delivered a B movie about Kung Fu vampires with Peter Cushing. It was not a good film. It was not a gloriously bad film which Ft13 part 2 was, but it was fun enough for what it was. Still only one of these was actually trying to be a horror film in more than the lightest trappings, and I'd say I enjoyed this film almost as much as anyone, whereas Ft13 part 2 was less my type of film.
Child's Play: So here we get into films I did not enjoy (with the exception of Alien 3 but that's just because xenomorph). Child's Play was scarier than either of the films before it. It was a better movie than Ft13 part 2 except that in being better it was worse. Ft13 part 2 was fun to laugh at (not with but at), and enjoyable because it was bad and it was supposed to be scary and it was failing. Child's Play had elements of that, but was just a bit too good to hit that sweet spot. I can see why someone might like it, I like bad vampire movies, but it doesn't hit me well, and I can't say it's good even when I try and step back from personal preferences.
Saw: I feel guilty for not liking this film. Partially because I worry about prejudice against it due to reputation. But the thing is it didn't live up to its reputation at all in any respect or either of its disparate reputations. It was not the gruesome and bile fascination fueled torture porn I dreaded. It was not the cerebral murder room horror with well-played twists I had heard it portrayed as. It was a poorly done murder room horror with twists that played out more as sudden bouts of too dumb to live than anything else. It invited me, nay demanded that I think about it, and ultimately it didn't hold up to focused attention or thought. Even to a person who loves murder rooms I can't suggest it, because it was not ultimately a good one. It might be the first for all I know (it's older than most I know of) but that doesn't save it from not being well executed.
Alien 3: Unlike Friday the 13th Part 2 this ought to have been my type of film and honestly… It was. The film is docked points for only being horror for about half the film, though, and docked points for being too long. It dragged on past its welcome. It was ultimately less enjoyable than Ft13 part 2 and only worth watching because it is an Alien film. So while I enjoyed it more than Child's Play or Saw, I have to place it below them both. I enjoyed it despite its lack of quality due to Ripley and the xenomorph; it does not stand at all on its own merits.
Uzumaki: In the manga we are presented with a Lovecraftian horror, a thing that resonated on a deep level with spirals, that was on a spiritual level a spiral which pulled in, sucking and devouring like a whirlpool. It was a series of stories all thematically connected to spirals which were scary not because Ooooh spiral but because they were creepy things of horror. The film had none of that. The side stories which made the story were gutted for the main story which itself wasn't developed leaving an empty shell. The film was bad. Read the manga.
Before I finish let's stop and see what we're supposed to be afraid of in each film. In Vampyr we're supposed to be afraid of shadows… That's supposed to be a joke but it's honest as well, more than the vampiress it's the shadows which are scary the dance of real and unreal. In the Descent we're supposed to be afraid of the dark… Well ok it's more about being closed in the dark the descent into the cave representative of Sarah's descent into madness, the darkness and closing in of the mind as one recoils from trauma mirrored by the darkness and madness of the fight against the crawlers, the dark is what we fear but the film is more than that. Darn it this is supposed to be me joking and not being serious. Dr Terror's House of Horrors is fear of Tarot Cards… for they represent the future and the danger that fate may hold for us and that one fate all men cannot avoid. Prince of Darkness is fear of music… really the score is most of the source of fear there, though it brings in Lovecraftian themes of the fear of revelations about the underlying nature of reality that science opens to us and shows how the universe may at any time kill us. Alien Covenant is I feel guilty saying this one's as it's too new so it's above in the spoiler part. The Omen is fear of adopted children… or the Biblical apocalypse with elements of a more general fear of fate for it protects Damien. Poltergeist is fear of the TV… That's not a joke answer, there's a lot of the TV dominating their lives and pulling the family apart (seen mostly with the husband's own preponderance to pay it worship) and more than ghosts it is the fear of a family torn asunder that plays upon us. Frankenstein was fear of fear itself… Ok the honest one was fear of Boris Karloff, but the intro's warning of how scary it was actually served as good primer to let yourself be afraid except the movie wasn't scary. Friday the 13th Part 2 was fear of farmers… I'm sticking with fear of farmers. The 7 Golden Vampires was fear of Kung Fu Dracula… don't expect that to change. Child's Play is fear of dolls… more seriously it's mainly fear of your child being hurt. Saw was fear of puzzles… ok really it was more… the moral dilemma of do you break under the pressure or stand firm. Alien 3 was fear of the xenomorph… Seriously it was banking on the preexisting fear of the specific monster. Uzumaki was fear of nothing for there was nothing in it to fear (ok it was fear of spirals but). Now of course this is sort of tongue and cheek. But really they do fall into certain types of horror. Vampyr is the fever dream, a classic part of Dracula and Frankenstein (the books) the biggest horror in either. The Descent is the monster movie combined with extreme brutality and blood for intensity, and the themes of madness to dig just a little deeper and give a cerebral bite. Dr Terror's uses different things in different tales but most are supernatural monster stories, the finer aspects would ruin the individual stories (as forecast as the twists are), and one is nature rebels which is a type of horror film. Prince of Darkness is a cosmic horror story combined with elements of haunted house and zombie. The Omen is harder for me to classify my first thought is that it's sort of cosmic horror as well, Damien is destined to win and cause the apocalypse, but we are far too special to god in it for traditional cosmic horror, I'm going to say 'Christian horror' with elements of the classic changeling story. Poltergeist is a haunted house tale. Frankenstein is a monster movie, theoretically the same type as Alien 3, Child's Play, Vampyre, and many others (it's a broad category) but really like Alien 3 and Child's Play it's a pretty pure monster movie (Alien 3 is also action/sci-fi but as a horror tale). Friday the 13th is a Slasher flic using a Psycho Killer. The 7 Golden Vampires is a Vampire film. Saw is a murder room; people are trapped in a room by a madman and must kill each other to escape, it's a nice story concept. Uzumaki is creep/weirdness as horror, though the manga moves into cosmic horror territory it's not there in the movie.
Peanut Dracolich Watches (Hammer) Horror: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
I don’t know if it’s really the first kung fu horror spectacular; Mr. Vampire and Chinese Ghost Story are the kung fu horror spectaculars I am familiar with and come from the 80s. Still the film promises a dumb (it was mid 70s Hammer and a mid 70s kung fu film) kung fu flick with vampires and some horror trappings, and it delivers exactly that.
It’s a B movie. It’s a dumb, but enjoyable, little low impact, low investment film. You watch it to see Grand Moff Tarkin (well he became the Grand Moff 4 years later) thrown into a kung fu movie. It is at a functional level for that. Ultimately it gives what it promises and does it well enough. It doesn’t give more, it doesn’t give something quite different, and it doesn’t make promises it can’t keep. There are disappointing aspects, but it feels like Hammer Horror made a 70s kung fu film and if you’re watching it you probably know what that means to expect; you hopefully know what to expect with Hammer Horror at least.
Overall I’d say it’s a film worth watching if you know you enjoy that sort of dumb, obviously fake sets, weapons that are just as fake, and kung fu fighting from when it was a lot slower typically. If you don’t enjoy old B movies, or don’t enjoy them unless they’re truly horrible, don’t watch it.
Good/Bad/Ugly and play by play after the cut.
The Good:
The Premise: This is why you’re watching the film and it delivers it at the expected B movie scale.
The Heroines: Are relatively strong and independent characters for the type of film. They are not super strong and independent and I’m pretty sure they never directly talk to each other, but I can only remember 3 of the 8 guys talking at all. They both get damsel moments, but... one of them still fights better than most of the guys in the film and the other one is the non-combatant that demanded to go vampire hunting.
Gratuitous Boobies: The film enjoys showing extras’ breasts when it has an excuse to. If you enjoy that in a film, it’s here. And as the later Hammer Horror films got known more for sexploitation (I haven’t watched many of the later ones but the internet tells me so) it’s the sort of thing that you should have been expecting going in.
The Bad:
Dracula: The actor lacks charisma and stage presence. He’s not just no Christopher Lee he’s one of the flattest and least interesting vampires I’ve seen. He also dies a pathetic death. Thankfully 7 other vampires who are more...
General Villain Incompetence: Oh for Orlok’s sake. So the golden vampires get some good stuff in by the end of the film and actually serve as a threat to our heroes, but their early showings are atrocious. They first show up having difficulty dealing with a limping farmer. If they hadn’t given him a limp the movie would have been noticeably better just because they were undercutting their main villains by doing so.
Gratuitous Boobies: The film enjoys showing extras’ breasts when it has an excuse to. I try to be accepting of it because... I do have a certain fascination with breasts, but it sometimes serves to take away from a scene and I wonder why the villains are so eager to rip their shirts. Apparently they want a good view as they sacrifice them.
The Ugly:
The Undead Soldiers: I actually think they were primarily women in theory, but the zombie soldiers were pretty ugly creatures and between their sound cue and general effects deserved a place in a far scarier movie. I probably actually ought to have put them in Good instead of Ugly but.
The Deaths: The vamps die ugly.
The Play by Play:
The last Hammer Horror Dracula film, and one without Christopher Lee in the role. However Peter Cushing is there as Van Helsing and the premise sounds hilarious. And having watched 13 horror movies in 13 days I need a bit of a break from scary. Still I feel guilty so I am watching it in the dark and will do my best to buy in and play along but... I expect to break down into a more humor filled enjoyment of a 61 year old Grand Moff performing martial arts stunts in a film that had the Shaw Brothers working on it.
You also may or may not get a full play by play. I'm tired of typing out scenes, though why is there a Chinese looking nativity scene sign near what appears to be Dracula's castle? The music is in theory passable, but the production value and the D on the coffin is a bit taking me out. Still I'm not trying to buy in much which hurts.
The Dracula just doesn't have the presence. When he speaks it's... he's not my Dracula. His approach is pretty good, too smooth and even for him to be walking. The music is also theoretically good, but the set just looks so set like.
Still the worst element is the disappointing Dracula. He has none of the charisma of Lee, or Lugosi, nor Gerald Butler in Dracula 2000, nor the vampire from The Brides of Dracula. What I'm saying is he has no charisma. Unlike the Chinese vampire cultist who ruled in the name of the titular 7 Golden Vampires. I mean he's still no Lee or Lugosi but he doesn't make me want to laugh more than the bat effects. So I am happy when he steals the Chinese guy's body, I am unhappy that he voices over the dude, but the voice works somewhat with the bombastic motions of the new body. It's an improvement. It's not scary, it's like a 70s Kung Fu flick, over the top and hammy, but hey it's different.
We are transported to 1904 China, and it feels like a Shaw Brother kung fu flick. Until we hear Cushing giving a lecture about Chinese legends and how some are just legend, and some are true at their heart. He of course then talks about a village threatened by vampires, and the poor limping farmer who rose to the task of protecting it. Apparently with a hoe. Sets are like something from a 70s Kung Fu flick (that is to say extremely fake). And I'm not really trying to buy in to the horror or even suspend my disbelief which honestly the film probably deserves some attempt but... Kung Fu Vampires. I will try to be better...
A bunch of women are tied to slabs around a pool of blood, and our vampire cultist is proceeding over it. There's a sense of horror here. Pacing is good. One of the girls is topless. The vampires look like wrinkled and rotten things. The effect there is good. His daughter is one of the girls. The scene is drawing on a little too slow. He's a limping farmer with a hoe and he's managed to release his daughter before they really react. He's a limping farmer without a hoe and he wounded a vampire and escaped. I'm sorry limping farmer beat on your vamps pretty effectively they lost some fear.
In the film's favor the golden skulled undead rising as reinforcement look pretty good.
Still things just aren't quite well enough put together for me to buy in. Still there is the sense of danger. Even so the limping farmer stole their mystic golden bat and placed it upon a shrine to a god and touching it causes the vampire to burst into flame even after they kill him. The music is actually effective, so is the army of the dead, but I just can't buy in; I may be a little inured at the moment.
After the story the Chinese historians he was lecturing mock him and say that he is trying to discredit China by saying that they'd believe such things as vampires like some superstitious backwards Eastern European peasants. One dude, though, believes.
And we see Van Helsing's son. He doesn't impress me.
Full screening the movie (I'm watching it on youtube) helps, gets the white away, the white was bad.
Still the film gives us some things worth mocking. Van Helsing reacts fairly calmly to someone breaking into his rooms and trying to sneak up on him. He simply asks the man who he is and offers him tea. And the guy, well apparently he's here to apologize, and request Van Helsing's aid as a vampire catcher. I'm not sure why he didn't just knock, that'd be a rather more polite way to apologize than via breaking and entering.
We also have the younger Van Helsing flirting with a woman and then pissing off the local crime boss by destroying his excuse to get close to her by stating he'd already promised her his services as an escort. Good gentlemanly behavior. Still while she is, as she puts it, 'the totally emancipated woman' who could have said no to the tong on her own, she doesn't exactly resent the escort... it gives her a chance to talk to him about his father she's infatuated with.
Of course we find out how well saying no would have gone for her when they are attacked by a group of kung fu assassins and saved by a pair of kung fu brothers. Still the young Van Helsing (Leland I think) actually fought or tried, and they were following him so he probably kept her from being abducted by a Chinese crime lord. She even shows she realizes this.
The Older Van Helsing, though, doesn't want her to come on the vampire hunt, but everyone else disagrees with it... Possibly because she's financing the trip (and the son likes her and recognizes 'she has a will of her own').
On the subject of the heroine (I'm bad with names) she is not up to the usual sex appeal of a Hammer Horror heroine, not to say she is unattractive, but part of this is also presentation; her presentation is less sex as well. Given later Hammer films are known for sexploitation the fact that she doesn't live up to the appeal there as the ones from the first 3 (before they were that) is worth noting.
No mention is to made of horrific tension as the film has descended into kung fu action. It's not trying to be scary. It's a horror story (vampires and all, yada yada) but it's a kung fu film. The weapons are ludicrously fake,some of the fight techniques are Vulcan neckpinch level, and it's... fun.
The movie does make me wonder. Their grandfather was a limping farmer, this is a group of kung fu weapon master brothers and one sister, why do they need Van Helsing? A limping farmer gave them a good fight. Of course the film is trying to explain that right now with 'you're the expert and will know what to do to beat them for you are the chosen one' but... WHY DID THEY GIVE THE FARMER A LIMP?
We get a scene of vampires ripping the shirts of women open and abducting them. The farmers fighting them now are not very good at it. They outnumber them but their hoes do nothing.
Van Helsing informs us of some things: A wooden stake works on vampires in the East apparently. The image of the lower Buddha works on them like the crucifix on a European one, fire doesn't work in Europe but he doesn't know about in China. He does not point out that the Scandinavian heroine is jealous of the fact that his so is infatuated with her... or is she jealous she's encouraging him to go help wash the dishes you dumb-butt. She's more interested in the leader of the kung fu brothers it seems.
On the villainous side of things we get more boobies. The film is enjoying the chance to show them. Still the Chinese Dracula is more intimidating than the original actor.
Van Helsing is psychic. Leland is a dumbass. Scandinavian financier has a caring/motherly side.
Still while they're hiding in the cave for the night, the kung fu vampires arrive. This would be fine except suddenly the vaguely hopping skeleton army. The immortal undead things do little to them... Till Van Helsing tells them how to strike their weak spot. And the archer manages to fell one of the seven golden vampires, striking him with an arrow causing him to emit a truly silly laugh and a death scene which makes him seem like he's doing a rather insensitive idiot act. A second of the golden vampires is killed, his death less humorous, a... Van Helsing just tripped backwards into a fire. He just stumbled into the fire. Of course he uses this to pick up a burning brand and show that the Eastern Vampires are vulnerable to fire. Leland spent the fight punching like one of the mooks and having trouble with it. He finds women who can fight hot, though, so that's good.
Having just defeated half of the enemies with no losses, the Kung Fu brothers are disheartened. I have no idea why they're disheartened. Apparently curb stomping the enemy makes them afraid. Also they never buried their grandfather, but left his bones to bleach in the sun despite knowing where he was. That's... I'm pretty sure that's really disrespectful. Like what the nosferatu dudes, tend his corpse so it can rest in peace.
And Financier Lady is now without her shirt, wearing oly a tank top that shows cleavage if she leans forward. I feel I am expected to rejoice at this. Leland continues to be a dumb ass.
Dracula is kowtowing to great demons of hell dedicating himself to their service. Dracula have more self respect. You don't do favors. You're an archvampire, you're your own master. I don't care if you want an undead army. Bad Dracula have some self respect. Still he attacks the town which our heroes have fortified and... our heroes immediately abandon the fortifications to fight the enemy outside of them. Because you spend all day fortifying just for fun, not for practical purposes.
Still they begin to beat the 3 remaining vamps when the zombie army arrives and they decide that maybe they should have like used their fortifications after all. Maybe. After all the zombie army is the scariest thing in the film.
One of the brothers is killed! The villains are not WHOLLY incompetent. Unlike Leland who... Well ok he fights better with his fist than a gun (he can't aim for the heart it seems). Still the one thing I was afraid of in this film happened, both our heroines have just become damsels, such is the fate of emancipated women. One is carried off by the zombies, and one is bitten in the throat by one of the vampires and immediately turns into a vampiress and attacks the kung fu brothers' leader forcing him to stake her, which in Hammer tradition makes her bite vanish. In an act of lover's suicide he stakes himself as well, because once you have staked your romantic interest it's all you can do. No to be honest she bit him so he knew what was going to happen to him and he ended it first.
Oh and the Kung Fu Girl hasn't becomes captured. In fact she has now outlives over half of her brothers. Yes. She's still getting beaten up... Oh now she's kidnapped. I can accept it more after 4 of the guys are killed.
Leland jumps on a horse and takes chase, going to confront the vampire that carried her off, and I'm not sure if we're down to Dracula and 1 other or 2 others now. Still we're down to 2 kung fu brothers, Van Helsing, Leland the Mute Donkey, and our abducted heroine.
She is strapped to the ritual slab to be bitten and drained of blood, but Leland saves her beginning to fight the vampire. He is doing better than expected. Which is to say he hasn't died yet, though he is losing until his Papa comes and spears the vampire in the back. Don't mess with his dumb ass, it makes Van Helsing angry. I think we're out of vampires other than Dracula.
Everyone leaves save Van Helsing who pauses and encounters Dracula. Who is goaded out of the Chinese dude's body. No! Film, don't! The other guy had more charisma. He was hamtastically awesome with his dialogue. No, why ;;
We then get to watch as a 60 year old man gets backhanded about a bit, before Dracula impales himself upon a broken spear shaft. Dracula is dumb in this film. His death is dumb. He should feel bad next time he revives.
Oh and the ending credits tell me I misspelled Leyland's name, I'm not fixing it.
Going into the film I knew only vague things. Someone got covered with blood. It was probably underground. I’d heard things about it being compared to Saw because both were bloody horror movies and Saw came first. Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs up. Something about Dante imagery.
Of these things some were true. This film is full of gore. Do not watch the film if you don’t like gore. It is also a gruesome, brutal, and at times brutally effective horror film. It is capable of gripping at you tightly, the danger rush rising, and in some ways is the best horror film I’ve watched this month. I’d still rate it only 5th or so, but for a certain niche it is truly great. What it does it does well.
It is not merely a thing of blood, violence, and poor spelunking choices. There is a moral aspect to it, which is well played, and we see mankind’s need to hang on to each other when in danger or all hang separately.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, as well as the play by play below.
The Good:
The Moral Dilemma: Don’t read this bit if you haven’t seen the movie Well if you’ve seen the movie you know the basic gist of it. Still it’s nice to see the choice between vengeance and forgiveness played out, and the fake out that goes with it is also nice. It sets up a wonderful end.
You can read again.
The Brutal Action: I am not adverse to gore and brutality. While I usually find it no substitute for other parts of horror, here it was done well and in a gruesome way that really worked really bloody well. The deaths were gory, but it wasn’t just here’s a gory death be scared, and the action, when they fought the crawlers (as the ending credits called them, I’d have called them the orloks or cave goblins) it was effective action that fit a horror film.
The Setting: This has to be mentioned as it was a large part of making the film work. The narrow, dark, and claustrophobic cave is a scary place and the darkness, trapped in the dark, was used to good effect. Still it feels sort of like saying Alien’s best feature was it was set on a space ship.
The Bad:
The Stupid: Guys it’s obviously not the right cave. Guys don’t crawl down a tunnel that narrow that readily. Sam don’t try climbing that what are you doing? Beth... There’s a lot of stupid moments in the film. While it works despite them and some (guys it’s obviously not the right cave) are acceptable as genre conventions of a sort (a horror movie about being at a place where people shouldn’t be is expected to use a bit of stupid for it) eventually they got a little grating.
The Crawlers: Their biology is egregiously dumb. They’re blind, but shown to be attracted to light. They see with echolocation, but seem to have worse hearing than humans. They sniff people, but can’t actually smell them. They are cave predators, but poorly armed humans kill them when outnumbered without good lighting. They are only scary due to their numbers and the cave itself; they’re less intimidating than Aliens xenomorphs, the setting fixes some of this, but they are not that scary in and of themselves. Bonus points, though, for making them look like Count Orlok bringing in that horror and potential homage.
The Fake Outs: There’s a lot of empty cat scare like fake outs in the first 30 minutes of the film. They don’t really add much to the horror and just sort of add time. While one has purpose in showing us one of Sarah’s hallucinations the others are pointless.
The Ugly:
The Blood Pool: While I could mention the bone-setting scene, because as much as I liked it it was gory really gory, the blood pool gets points for looking like chili and tomato sauce.
The Bats: Not quite 60s movie bad but bad, really quite bad.
The Play by Play (I suggest watching the film first though note lots of gore)
I know nothing about this film other than it's 'recent' (here apparently meaning newer than the 90s), something about people covered in blood, and critical reviews mention Dante symbolism. This is the extent of my knowledge.
I now know it starts with people the scariest of all acts, white water rafting. As I don't like water due to being 1/4 wicked witch on my godmother's side that might actually be something I'd not enjoy and seriously be scared doing.
Still this is only a quite prelude for a car crash wherein one woman is injured and a dude dies with copper tubes through him. Quick, sudden, brutal. No real horror because it's just a quick death in a random accident, but the woman wakes up in an abandoned hospital alone and confused. Lights begin to turn out towards her and we get some madness view, and she begins to run from the encroaching darkness calling her daughter's name.
Then we cut out of her mad take upon the world and see that it is a normal hospital and well lit. Still her husband and daughter are dead. I'm guessing she'll try and resurrect them or something (and also that her husband was cheating on her).
And we cut to 1 year later and the Appalachian mountains. The English do not like our country music. And the national park sign has been shot, who the frick did that. Still it's the Appalachians I'm familiar with them, they include some nice mountains, and some creepy ones.
Still it's 5 women alone in the woods. Or perhaps 6. Movie is thus far dark in a sort of sad, depressing way. This seems thematically fitting given the main woman's (I will have to learn their names) depression over the death of her husband and daughter. And even now she's have a nightmare about getting a pipe through the head. Shocking imagery but it creates a little surge of fear and then it's gone and the tension and build up reduced by the surge. It wastes the unease. I say it wastes it because it'd been doing a good job of building it actually, the depressing dark is a tension of its own. I mean I guess I could call them Protag, Asian, Dark, Doctor (in training), Older Sister, and Punk, but I need proper names, I don't like those. So we have Juno, Sarah, and I'll try. One is Rebecca. Juno puts the guide book back in the car, this is a mistake.
I think the film wants to find a waterfall scary? And then jump scare with crows. It's not poorly done. It gets a little jump, but it is more setting up what they were scavenging, a dead elk. It's also not quite a full jump scare, but it's pretty nice and fun.
They arrive at the mouth of the cave. I feel like if this is a common attraction there'd be more of a path leading to it. Like it doesn't look like there's been that many people as they kept talking about. Holly comes down too quick and almost hits someone because she's crazy punk girl.
One of them finds an indentation in the stone shaped just right to place your fingers in and it's either bloody or the color of blood. That's disturbing. We are then greeting with a sudden burst of bats as a fake out scare. It's better than Friday the Thirteenth Part 2's cat scare, but the bats look pretty bad, I had thought that by 2005 we could do bats more effectively. Still we have a group of women in a cave which is an effective setting for horror and since it's all women we won't have the guy who is designated to die through heroic sacrifice. I'd say something about how none of them are black so we don't have the black guy dies first, but... most of the horror movies I've watched has the black guy die sort of middling if it has one at all or else specifically are referencing the trope. Still natural instinct from media and the like is a man as the protector (see heroic sacrifice) so it makes you more prone to worry about their safety (regardless of the validity of it).
Grieving protagonist lady finds the next part of the journey. Or she thinks she does. It's a tiny hole that a guy probably couldn't get through and which they have to swim part of the way through. This seems like the wrong path. One of them even states as much. It's like a how not to go spelunking at the moment. They ought to take a look around for another path, but they aren't (it'd insult her after all) so they instead follow that path. One of them (Sarah, the grieving protag) gets stuck because she has a bag. She also has a total break down with elements of claustrophobia. And then a rock shifts almost crushing her, and the entire tunnel collapses.
Scene is sort of intense, but you know she's not going to die. They're all fine for now, but they lost the ropes and are caved in.
The truth comes out. They aren't in Boreham Caverns. They're in a new cave system that no one has explored before. The rest are justifiably pissed at Juno for lying to them (though they ought to have known something was up). Juno notes that she lost something in that crash too (she was banging Sarah's husband) and they move on.
They reach a place where one of them has to ninja warrior across a pit by hanging off the roof. Thankfully they're not all guys, cause guys are heavy and grip strength is not great for them. She finds a piton in the ceiling already, though, meaning they're not the first ones in this cave.
Juno, being a death seeker, goes the hard way, reclaiming the rope and along the way. She gives the excuse that they need everything they've got which is true enough, but she slips but survives slamming into the cliff face. She also points out the obvious: Whoever came this way before didn't make it out. It's most likely a dead end. Also they went through most likely 100+ years ago due to the age of the piton.
They find a cave painting of the mountain, and 2 caves. Of course this is an ancient cave painting. It gives hope, but... who knows if it's still true. There's also a hint of there being something else in there with them?
Oooh we see them use the old fire trick for getting out of a cave (you find an air flow). Then Holly runs off and falls down a hole in a rush for 'daylight'.She smashes her leg and bone is exposed. My stomach churning fascination with gore comes out wanting to see more, but her shin is broken and stabbed through her flesh. It's disgusting but effective. Thankfully one of them is a med student... who has to push the bone back in. I am not easily affected by 'gore' and the field operation is fun to watch, but if you're queasy about such things.
More signs that they're not alone, and we see the creature. It's humanoid, pale white, and agile. Of course Sarah is the one who saw it and she's prone to hallucinations so Juno doesn't believe it.
Sarah thinks it's a man. Med-student says doesn't matter they need out of there for Holly. No one points out that if it was a man who ran from them he might not be willing to help. And the daylight was 'phosphorous in the rock' but phosphorous doesn't glow constantly and they weren't shining a light on it when they saw it. This feels weird. Still they find hundreds of dead animals. Sarah, in the middle of the animal kill pit starts screaming out to people. And then Count Orlok is behind one of them and it runs, scrambling up onto the roof of the cave, but now they've all seen it and it's ot human.
My ankles itch. And Holly's throat is bitten out, by the crotchless cave vampire, who then runs off only to return when Juno tries to steal its kill. It starts fighting her like an animal over its kill, and Juno hits it with an ice axe, but it has friends. Or maybe I should be saying he. Ken doll as they are it's definitely got masculine secondary sexual characteristics.
Our second death is Juno, having just fought off two of them, killing the person who came up behind her without saying anything. It's pure reflex action, and the approach was horribly stupid (though actually I think her light broke, still voices), but that doesn't wholly ruin the scene. Still we have Juno on her own in the dark, and then we have Rebecca, Sarah, and I'm not sure if Rebecca is Med-Student or not.
Still eventually Sarah sleeps for we have a scene of her waking up in the midst of human skeletons this time (and a pipe of some sort? Maybe it's a can of nuclear waste?). Maybe she was knocked out since this is where they eat Holly. The scene is gruesome, bloody, and kind of scary. I want the cat off my lap so I can raise my leg. My other leg isn't raising either though.
Sarah almost barfs but holds back, and thankfully these creatures don't have the best darkness adapted senses as while it reacts to the sound, and starts sniffing her it doesn't seem able to tell she's there without a light on. Strange for cave dwellers. Juno's shouts scare it off.
Also oddly 'beeping watch that sounds unnatural as can be' attracts them, but human voices scare them... except then attract them. It's weird.
So having thought too much on the creatures' behavior and evolutionary adaptations (I like making up creatures so I think on these things) I'm a little pulled out of things. Doesn't help that the movie has entered a lull after a few payoffless scenes of danger. Still I can feel the vestiges of that fear.
One of the creatures swings down at Rebecca and she tells Sam (med-school girl) to run; protective big sis that she is. When Juno kills this one, Rebecca stops out of arms reach and starts panting in terror until Juno recognizes her, Juno also doesn't reflex lash out, but this is still smarter approach.
We're told that they're totally blind and have echolocation. That's why they've been attracted to light. They don't have pupils.
Still Juno has badassed her way into finding the markings of the prior spelunker(s), and saving Sam and Rebecca, but she refuses to leave without Sarah. Beth warns Sarah not to go near Juno, still surprisingly alive but in the feasting chamber. This is bad advice, but I can understand how. Beth also tells Sarah that her husband was cheating on her with Juno. Sarah has to mercy kill Beth.
And one foot up when a creature jumps on Sarah from behind. We see a female of the species. She looks like a hag from D&D. Sarah kills the female in a pool of chili and emerges covered in tomato sauce, grabbing her torch before a male comes and starts slobbering on her as she plays dead. The others hear Sarah's scream of conquest and...strangely the fear is gone. I don't know why but I shifted a leg for comfort and it's gone. Even when a whole mass appear to chase the three other than Sarah I don't feel it. When it becomes obvious Sam is going to die soon I become a bit scared again, because I liked med student, but she dies due to stupid and apparently just a complete break down so I care less. Gets Rebecca killed too. Good going.
Juno survives through sheer badassness once again. But reuniting with Sarah she claims to have seen Beth die which... Well Beth should have been dead with that wound, so it's a reasonable claim for Juno to believe, but given what Beth said she won't be believed or trusted now. Still Sarah and her meet up and some fear returns as the creatures arrive to... Seriously get pawned in their natural element. With lots of gore.
They find a lit area and Sarah reveals that she knows about the affair and Beth (wordlessly) and when she is certain that Juno knows it, certain that more are coming, she stabs Juno on the knee and leaves her to die at their hands. A moral damnation of our heroine. Even so she finds the exit, climbing up a hill of bones to emerge to the surface reborn. And I am torn. She killed someone who had sins, but none deserving that murder (Beth's death was the fault of her stupid) and yet she is the survivor. It is an interesting moral twist, and I cannot tell whether we're supposed to find her justified in the act of murder because of the affair or... Never mind it's another hallucination and a good scare scene. Kudos film, kudos. She had fallen and so the escape didn't make that much sense, but the film had had enough that didn't already. But no, she is simply lost in her madness, a final break deep within the Earth. Quite effective.
Peanut Dracolich Watches: Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
So this film is different. It’s an anthology of shorter tales, all with a Twilight Zone feel, or perhaps more Tales from the Crypt but I never watched much of the latter so my mind goes to Twilight Zone. Of course the 60s Twilight Zone (I haven’t seen the newer take save an episode or two) was a wonderful series and comparing something to it is not a bad thing. It is just worth noting that in many ways this changes the pacing and effect.
I also had horrible interruptions, so much that I stopped the film halfway and rewatched it the next morning. So the purity of effect was thus diluted. This hit hardest for the 3rd of the 5 tales, for it was both the low point of the film (I believe), and where I got to before I finally had to stop due to interruptions. As such I may be judging it unfairly, as it did not have the proper build up since on rewatching the intensity of the first two segments was reduced.
This is a film I would heavily suggest watching before reading the play by play, in part because the film was all around enjoyable. It was not a grotesque death filled slasher, it was not tense psychological horror, but it was a fun series of horror stories, which simultaneously made use of the advantages of cinematic presentation (sound, images, and acting) but kept the charm of a horror story that is so often lacking in a horror film; of course this is a warning as well, I typically watch horror films for a very different experience than a horror story and while this managed to combine the advantages of film with the nature of a classic horror story (well anthology) it is not the same sort of intensity and danger rush as a horror film. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of taste and the moment. I would say that it might be the film I enjoyed the most of the ones I have watched thus far, but that Vampyre with its nightmare shadow play is the better horror film, and for those normal experiences I desire from horror films I would turn to Prince of Darkness or Alien Covenant instead (or well Alien but that one I only partially watched this year).
The good, the bad, and the ugly and the play by play below the cut.
The Good:
The Acting: Although Peter Cushing really shines, the acting in all 5 of the anthology stories is good. Donald Sutherland gets a special mention, and Christopher Lee is a perennial favorite of mine. Still all the roles ranged from charming with minor mannerisms that added to Peter Cushing.
The Makeup on Peter Cushing: I would not have actually recognized the Grand Moff, time traveling Doctor Who, vampire slayer; he did a good job with an accent and affected personality, and a good job at the make up as well. All in all it was excellently done.
The First and Last Stories: Despite not having Christopher Lee, these two were probably the best tales. Little touches of foreshadowing, classic horror creatures done well, two excellent, short little horror stories and well worth watching on their own though the framing narrative does improve it, and all the stories would be worthwhile episodes of an anthology show.
The Overall Structure: They knew what they were doing with the ordering of tales, starting and ending strong, with a weaker middle which can be supported by the surrounding tales. Placing Lee in the 4th story both made wonderful use of his noble bearing (in the overarching narrative and story itself) and helped prop up what might have otherwise been a fairly average tale.
The Bad:
Predictability: Even on the first watching the stories are fairly predictable, everything foreshadowed well in advanced and the twists (when there are twists) while still quite enjoyable and satisfactory will not actually surprise. This is the worst thing about the film and still not that bad (if I were to rank the films of this month I’d currently place this one 2nd).
The Third Story: I’d say this was the weakest story in the bunch. Still worth watching on its own in a sort of horror story anthology show, but not as strong as the others. I think I’d have enjoyed it a fair bit more with a proper uninterrupted viewing experience, but more than the other 4 stories it relies upon the grip of terror from the other tales and in many ways its upbeat music (throughout most of it) squanders that grip.
The Ugly:
The Bat: Let it be known that the 60s could not make a convincing bat. It will shock and draw you out of the spell somewhat, and require the conscious decision to ignore the badly done bat.
The Plant Special Effects: Not as bad, but there’s a few scenes where it’s pretty bad. It’s the 60s so it’s to be expected and I can’t really hold it against the film, but it is to be mentioned.
The God-Forsaken Interruptions: This was just my personal viewing experience which forced me to rewatch the first two segments due to the sheer number of interruptions and internet failures I suffered.
And now for the Play by Play If you’re interested in watching the film, watch it first while it is highly predictable and nothing will surprise you by the time it happens, it does use twists that are more enjoyable seeing firsthand first (Why I don’t give this warning more... Because most of the films are better known, so that general cultural osmosis has already ruined the twists, or I found bad enough not to care, or I simply omit the Play by Play due to not wanting to give things away, here it is included because of my irritation at interruptions which might be enjoyable to someone)
We've got Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. I do not expect a masterpiece, but I feel it will most likely be an enjoyable film.
Music in opening credits is suitably creepy, and we have a train station, and a train as well. Several men are getting on the train. One of them has immediate presence. Well actually several of them do. One of them I immediately note because Christopher Lee is a man with Presence with a capital p, but he's not the only one with stage presence that does not require a single word. Just the only one whose name I know and who makes me go Oooh Yay!
Still we've got 'man who plays with children's doll', 'man who makes me think of Shatner in his early Twilight Zone roles', 'man who whistles' (and tried to close the door on Christopher Lee), 'man with the death glare that scares the aforementioned' (Christopher Lee), and 'Man with the Winning Smile'. Lee still stands head and shoulders above them, but Winning Smile is likeable. The music changes and someone is given additional focus, the final member of our party; the Doctor... Terror that is.
And somehow this film makes me feel like I'm missing things if I take my eye off the screen for a moment. Even if it is just how people react to be gazed at by the Doctor. It makes them uncomfortable, even Christopher Lee raised an eyebrow though he was otherwise stoic. It was an expressive eyebrow.
We get a few establishing moments with Lee and the Doctor, using the rest of the cast as support to do so. The Doctor is a doctor of metaphysics, a field Lee calls nonsense; when he dropped his bag asleep everyone else immediately began to help pick it up, Lee did nothing; Lee recognizes the tarot, but seems to scorn it, the Doctor on the other hand is a devotee. It really actually establishes more than that, but pictures are worth a thousand words, and ephemeral impressions are hard to put into words.
The Doctor about how man's destiny is made of two parts natural and supernatural; his tarot deck can forewarn of the supernatural they are to experience in their life. It is his house of horrors. He explains how a reading works (4 cards to tell the future, 1 to tell how to change it if it is possible). Lee then calls it nonsense.
We then get to tarot reading, of man who made me think of Shatner. The Chariot. The High Priestess. The Moon. The Enchantress (though the card says La Force and its number is Strength). And we go to a story with !Shatner (he doesn't actually remind me that much of Shatner it was a brief momentary thing). He's an architect, and as I don't know his name he is now Mr. Brady.
He sold his old house to someone who wants to alter the house and the rich widow wants his help altering it. We see some of the servants of the house, one of whom was a young girl when he left and is now quite the beauty and Mr Brady is attracted to.
We learn that the house was his family home.
Having been interrupted for long enough I decide just to restart the film and I must note that the make up artists and Cushing's voice work is good; I'd not recognize Grand Moff Van Who not knowing it was him (I'm not the best with actors in general, but he's one I've seen a lot), and even rewatching the scene it holds me just from the charm and the charisma of the actors.
Of course letting myself fall into the spell of the Doctor I find that when the story about the widow and the island begins it is a little lacking. It's not that the rest of the cast is bad. They've all shown a good bit of charm, it's just that they are not Christopher Lee... or really Peter Cushing (who does hold the scene with his charisma).
Also not being interrupted I must note that Valda (the girl who Mr Brady, actually Mr Dawson, thinks is pretty) gives Mr. Dawson a rather cold look that unsettles him.
But yes this is his family home which was in the family for centuries before he had to sell it. And with a well aged widow, he of course must flirt. We learn that she is in semi-seclusion in the Hebrides because of a breakdown at her husband's funeral, and intends to turn a portion of the house into a ballroom not for dancing, but to make a museum to display her husbands collections. There is a sound like a wolf's howl and Mr. Dawson goes to look into it, but sees nothing out of the windows and finds a locked cellar door. Valda makes a creepy appearance.
The next day the cellar key is missing, hidden by Valda it would appear. Though he gets the key from her grandfather, and Valda... creepily watches. And my fear of old cellars (I blame Evil Dead) rears its head when he enters the creepy old cellar and Valda watches. He immediately finds out someone has been reading too much Poe, for he finds a hollow wall and behind it a coffin, the cellar of a legendary werewolf who claimed the house was stolen from him by Dawson's ancestors. And the plaster is new.
Valda, who had been ominously watching moves away from the top of the stairs and Dawson and the old servant pull the coffin free and try to open it. Failing they go for tools and the werewolf opens it from within. And you know what I'm just gonna pull a foot up. Still the legendary werewolf is free and the men know it.
We get some nice scenes with the widow, and a letter from Valda telling Mr. Dawson she needs to see him. She's immediately found dead (or unconscious and bleeding) outside. There's a trail of (very fake) blood leading into the cellar; and like Kirk Dawson is half shirtless. Still while I mock the barechestedness of our hero, and the effects, the scene isn't bad. One must be willing to let their imagination play along with the 52 year old effects but it's well done.
While I was sidetracked thus, Dawson opened the coffin, found a wizened old corpse, gets his hand bloodied (though he soon seems to forget this), and decides that curse it all he'll melt the silver cross made from the silver sword that killed the werewolf into silver bullets. He takes vantage over the coffin, and finds that when it opens it is empty. The werewolf is attacking the widow. He rushes to save her... and I won't tell you the end.
It was a good, gripping story, a well done, short tale of terror which hit well and was all around well done. Putting me in mind of a Twilight Zone of Horror.
We see a bit more of ... I'm lagging behind the film too much, I'm stopping this because it's too intense to pause. Or at most I'm going to be vague at best.
The next story is set somewhere sunny; suburbia or the equivalent, and a story of a plant. A plant that screams in pain when attacked and resists cutting.
It has advantage of the fear, still extent, from the story before, that well done quick paced thing that packed more punch in 30 minutes than many have packed in their entirety and more per minute than most finales. At the same time it's got a high bar to overcome.
The family dog is investigating the plant and I'm scared. The family dog is dead and I'm sad.
The film defines bacteria as plants were they considered plants in the 60s? Fungus also is mentioned and lichen, before we get into your actual plants. Moss. Ferns. Flowering plants (no mention of conifers). And finally insectivorous plants. There's some really shoddy understanding of evolution here, but it's... I will buy in. An intelligent plant that defends itself and knows its enemies. A plant like that could take over the world. It sounds a bit silly but the film sells it well for the concept.
The plant has brain tissue in its leaves. And my wifi crashes stopping me from streaming. 15 or so minutes later I'm back but that means I have lost much of the build up and effect pulling back to the end of the first story. Still Christopher Lee helps blow the embers but it's definitely a dimmed effect.
Oh and here I get to say his cards: Fool, Magician, Hanged Man, and the Sun. The movie is doing its work to pull me in, but I no longer feel that clench at my heart, and my feet can be lowered once more.
Oh yes since it's not that sort of victim-killer film, I haven't talked about making people likeable so that you fear for them, but the film is good at it. Bill, the man with the doll, jokes with his wife, has a daughter, doesn't do anything asinine. Reacts to weird vine that is acting supernaturally, by contacting botanists (though it seems like he knows them). And the dog dies and with the foreknowledge and reduced grip it's less impactful. Also the brain tissue doesn't look the most brain-like.
That said I'm back where I was. The plant reaching for the botanist. The little girl not wanting to play outside without her faithful dog since it's just not fun without rusty. The plant grabs the man and begins to choke. His struggle could be more intense, it is rather minimalistic, but it works well enough. They call the head botanist for the plant has killed man.
This plant is murderously aware, almost psychic. It cuts the phone line to prevent calling for help. It attacks the man and suddenly has covered the house. It is something else. With the spell broken by RL circumstance it lacks effect, the silliness coming through more. The ordering was important, a strong foot first before a weaker second story, but even this story is a worthwhile episode of something like Tales of the Crypt. Then they realize it fears fire for "There's one thing that every sentient species is afraid of: fire. If something ever develops that isn't it could be the end of the world." Ironically man doesn't fear fire much. Still the botanist escapes. The story ends.
The effect of the story isn't enough on its own, and the ruined tempo hurts. And as I say that I am called and forced to interrupt again.
Still the Doctor presses the whistling man (a musician) to get his fortune told. Judgement, the World, the Tower, and the Devil. He makes a joke, but is told not to jest at the image of a god. For it is a powerful and malign god of voodoo.
Cut to an all white jazz band.
And I'm just gonna start fresh tomorrow and hope for less interruptions; the spell was too good to waste the film with this many souring it.
So I begin again with Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Opening music is by now a familiar little bit of a chill. It is a nice little opening score, though not really horror except that you expect horror knowing it is. The opening is more Twilight Zone than anything horrific, though again that might just be Mr. Dawson's right side of his face reminding me of Shatner for some reason. The first true horror element is Christopher Lee's appearance, because he counts as horror on his own. I jest of course, while he has an intimidating presence, and uses it here, it's not in and of itself horror. Instead the first is the music that plays as Dr. Terror himself arrives, the way he wipes the fog from the door, the music as he looks about the men. It's not ill done, though it's some masterpiece. Still it is not jarringly hamfisted; this is just me watching the scene for the 4th time in 16 hours.
Pter Cushing has charisma here, a little touch of the classic story teller. It is enjoyable to watch. Lee's stuck up and stick up his krampus persona forms a good foil to Cushing's story teller.
Since he's explaining the tarot, I find it worth noting that for the first two stories (and I suspect the others) the 5th card is Death and he refuses to actually reveal it because it means the future cannot be changed; they will die. Yet Death is a card of change.
With the first story the symbolism of most of the cards is fairly clear. The High Priestess is the Widow, the Moon equates to the Werewolf, the Enchantress is indicative of that she is a witch, but also the battle with the beast. The Chariot... Well I forget its true meaning and its meaning in the story is more obscure than the rest. Maybe just that he'll arrive via a carriage upon the island.
And it leaves me wanting to know more about Valda's situation. We don't get to see how she is bewitched, though that is my suspicion. I am not saying this is a bad thing. The story as presented makes sense, the acting implies and foreshadows that she's a false lead. It's all well done, albeit a little predictable and on the rewatch it does suffer but that's rewatching something the next day it will suffer. Though the less predictable bits (while you can guess the widow is bad, it's harder to guess there's a werewolf tomb) are beautifully foreshadowed as well, the actress playing the widow doing quite a good job.
Still I would like to see Valda's story. Not here, but as a supplemental material. It could be an interesting tale.
Still on a rewatch the effect and horror is substantially subdued and plot holes become more apparent. I'm not going to point out things that only bother me because it's a rewatch, that's not fair to the film as they don't really tear apart the story. And even on a rewatch it works better than some films I've watched this month. Still it lacks the grip upon the heart, the chest squeezing grasp of terror. At the same time it's a child friendly fear. Something that you could watch with a kid and they'd enjoy and yet it'd not create the nightmare causing effects of something like Evil Dead or Phantasm.
Still we are to the beginning of the second story. The Fool is a journeyer, it represents his vacation, and the dog in the picture is his dog. The Magician is the botanist, the hanged man is the vine's method of killing, and the sun is what makes plants grow. For just picking Major Arcana it's a good choice of cards.
The second part is better for coming after the first, but with the reduced effect of a rewatch much of that is lost. It's just not enough to keep it up, but a breather is often needed (90 minutes of tension is too much after all).
Also I like scientists in stories like this. Where it is not a SCIENTIST HAS GONE MAD WITH POWER but science will protect us from the horrors that nature may spawn. And on the rewatch while his struggle is stiff and unmoving (like could be a fake person entirely), his hands are at least in place to try and prevent being choked, ad the vines have his arms. Still in a modern film he'd be futilely kicking. Also I like how the plant is smart enough to cut the phone lines. It's as if it has grown telepathic, able to sense ill-intent towards it and act upon such plans. Still the scientists boss from the ministry escaped, and learned its weakness. While the family may be doomed (as the Death card implies) the plant will be napalmed.
No it's the musician, and I note that as he taps he snaps his fingers creating a beat. It's a nice touch and gives the Doctor a way to know he's a musician, just like the doll told him the man had a daughter.
Still I wonder how much of these stories the people see. This is the one that feels the slowest start. The band practicing as they're told they're going to the West Indies, the music light and upbeat... growing even cheerful when they go to the West Indies and there's a song about how everybody's got love. I feel a lack that wouldn't have been there if I hadn't been interrupted the first time, the tension having bee lower so draining off much quicker.
The musician called Dambala a monster and the club goes quiet, death gazes all towards him. We get stories of the Voodoo dances, the wild half-naked dancing in the woods; and he's told not to go since it's a religious ceremony not a place to ogle chicks. He goes to secretly watch from the bushes, like a peeping tom staring at the.. women in ankle length skirts, and shirts that show some of their stomachs. Oh no, he's not watching the girls. He's stealing the notes of the song, like some musical Prometheus performing a sacrilege against their god by trying to turn his sacred music into a cheap musical trinket for the English.
He doesn't notice the men silently coming up behind him, standing there, watching him, until they carry him within. The priest is pissed at him having written down the sacred music, and is more pissed when the musician suggests going 50-50. Still these Voodoo worshipers are reasonable sorts. He warns that if he steals from Dambala, then Dambala will be avenged upon him. Don't piss off a vengeful god you foolish Brit.
He still intends to steal it when they get back to London, and as he mocks the god's ability to harm him, he topples backwards as the railing falls out from behind him.
The story is not too scary, the grip and intensity is weak, the music is upbeat, the end result is obvious. Still the musician is a charming thief, likeable even as he does things that are foolish and selfish, and the story is enjoyable. It is a shame the spell was broken last night.
Still the film makes a simple door with a loose hinge swinging back and forth creepy. Everyone ignores it, but the winds begin to pick up more and more as they play, and soon papers and flying. Before too long tables are threatening to rise, and lost in the music the musicians still play, no reaction from them. Trumpet wild and it ends and... the musician doesn't belief anything. You were in door when a windstorm struck; Biff what are you thinking.
Of course when he's alone, at night, and the wind is still stirring, he grows uneasy. When he bumps into a large black man he grows scared. When he trips over a trashcan and sees a poster with a monstrous face he grows lost in his own dread. When he almost gets hit by a car stepping out straight in front of it, he is panicked. It's so so.
Still it has gone quiet except for the occasional wind. The wind that is closing windows. Slamming doors. The lights going out at his apartment. It's a good, tense bit. And when he manages to get a light on, there is a voodoo practitioner in full make-up coming for him, an avatar perhaps of the god. He reaches for Biff as if to choke and the musician faints. Still vengeful or not Dambala is not an evil god, he merely takes the music and leaves; if Biff is dead then it was sheer terror. After all the fifth card is Death, and this time they catch out Dr. Terror's attempt to hide it.
He finally gets Christopher Lee to agree and there is no tapping. We begin with Lee mocking some modern art as an atrocity.
We get two ideals of art. 'Art is supposed to have meaning.' And 'Art is supposed to create a reaction from within'. Still Lee praises a chimp's painting, leading him to mockery.It was not just a chimp's painting but a fairly sorry painting in general.
The artist he had been mocking begins to haunt him, mocking him with the fact, driving the art critic deeper and deeper into a corner, till at last he decides to act. He runs the artist down with his car, hitting him, and cutting his arm off with a wheel. An act of mad vengeance... but the artist survives.
Still the guilt, or more fear of being caught out, eats at Lee's character, even as the loss of what made him who he was drives the artist to suicide. Shooting himself through the head. A final act we see from his point of view before the hand that was lost comes for Lee, crawling in his car towards him as he drives. He throws it from the car, shocked and horrified. And that grip that has been lacking is growing once more, my feet and ankles tingle, my chest seizes just a bit.
There comes a rapping upon Lee's chamber door a rapping that will not answer. Frightful he begins to open the door only to find no one there, shuddering afterwards at the terror he had felt. He's jumping at shadows, not realizing the hand is crawling towards him. It grasps his foot and he seizes up with terror for a moment before tossing it into the fire.
Still the event haunts and worries him. And charred but not destroyed the hand returns. The hand can bleed, but it is now out for his life. Still he throws it into a lake in a box to swim with the fishes.
His fear is not gone, but he feels the weight lifted. We do not and upon a... Well let's just say the end is satisfying. And the poetic justice is sweet. While I think the first story was best thus far, it was a good one.
And we get the fifth tail, the blonde, blue eyed man's, the man with the winning smile. The Empress, the Hermit, the Star, and the Lovers.
He's an American, a New Englander. He's marrying a French woman. It's a happy little scene, his new wife moving into the house, but the grip of fear like the artist's hand about the throat, still hangs about. Is he using a screwdriver as a can opener? I know it’s been done but that just seems to be a way to get.. He cuts himself in the process and her reaction to blood is strangely sensual, almost aroused or certainly hungry. After all she cleans his wound with kisses. If it hadn't been sunny I'd be fearing a vampire. That she turns into a bat at night and flies away does little to reassure me she is not one.
We see the morning where we learn that our protagonist of the tale is a doctor, along with one other doctor in town (Blake). His wife doesn't like Blake.
Apparently lacking blood is not anemia now. I'm pretty sure that's a top of anemia, a specific type, but still 'it's not anemia the quality isn't wrong it's the quantity' is dumb to me; though I am not expert on anemia. Still the boy has a vampire bite upon his throat, and Dr. Blake says if it were medieval times.
We get a nice, tense scene of Blake and the vampiress playing a bit of cat and mouse in the lab building, but the bat effect almost ruins it; it's a pretty average bat effect for the 60s but those were always bad.
Another day and the child's blood is drained a bit more, and Blake decides to sit by his window with a pistol, slamming it shut before the vampire and shooting the bat. She comes home with a bloody hands. Blake sharpens his stake, our good 'protagonist' (he's really not the protagonist but) says that Nicolle is his wife. He is wooden, tears in his eyes. He doesn't want this, he's near to breaking down.
Teary eyed he tells her that he loves her after she returns and goes to sleep, kisses her sleeping lips, and stakes her. The cops come and he claims Dr. Blake will confirm it. And then...
We do not see what doom is there for Dr. Terror, but we see his fifth card: Death. They conclude the train is going to crash, they pass through darkness and Dr. Terror vanishes. They slow down, having reached the end early, only to emerge from the train into a dark station in an other worldly realm. The train has crashed, they rode with the Grim Reaper, and now all five are dead.
