#quarantween

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #7: As Above, So Below

This is a movie guaranteed to dig up that claustrophobia you didn’t know you had.  The Paris catacombs make for a naturally spooky setting, but it’s not the unquiet dead that provide the major scares- it’s those tunnels, their tight fits, the lack of sunlight and fresh air, and the ever present fear of a collapse that will make you hold your breath.  Though the visions and ghosts and cultists don’t make things any easier.

Scarlett, an Indiana Jones type, is determined to find the philosopher’s stone somewhere below the grave of Nicholas Flamel (the writers presumeably counting on a whole generation of media-consumers knowing who Nicholas Flamel was.)  Together with a cameraman, a reluctant friend, and a team of urban explorers, they set out to uncover what has not seen light in hundreds of years.  But the path keeps going down long after they should have hit the bottom- and why is an old landline telephone ringing beneath the earth, anyway?

The first half of the movie is extremely Lovecraftian without even a single tentacle in sight, as Scarlett digs into ancient languages and forbidden tombs to uncover clues about the mystery that drove her father to his death.  Once we go beneath the catacombs, it feels more like a nightmare session of Dungeons and Dragons (Tomb of Horrors, anyone?), complete with a player complaining that it makes no sense for his character to be going down there.

I’d like to commend the movie’s atmosphere, scares, and characterization (Scarlett starts off as brash and selfish but displays true heroism by the end), but most of all I’d like to commend it for playing fair.  You know what I mean- horror movies are fond of setting up rules and then demolishing them in the name of a last-frame scare.  Not this one.  Once the rules are set, they’re set.  That means it’s possible to work with the rules and maybe even escape- but that’s only if you don’t get killed before you work them out.  Even playing fair, it’s still a dangerous playing field.

If I have a complaint about this movie, it’s that it didn’t really gain anything from the found footage style.  I’m not opposed to found footage horror, but I feel like it should contribute to the movie as more than an aesthetic choice- Paranormal Activity relied on the footage to capture things that happened while the protagonists were asleep, while What We Do in the Shadows drew dark comedy from the fact that a full camera crew waltzed into a vampire masquerade party and expected to go unnoticed.  It doesn’t detract from As Above, So Below, but it doesn’t add anything either.

Overall, though, this is a tightly crafted descent into hell.  And once you get out, a gasp of fresh air never felt so good.

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarent-ween movie #9: Carmilla (1989)

This tv adaptation of the classic vampire story is a strange little thing I first read about in one of David J. Skal’s books, and finally found on youtube.  It’s ambitious, troubling, romantic and ambiguous, all of which are qualities that apply to the original novella.  The strangeness starts by transporting the story from the mountains of Styria to a reconstruction-era southern plantation (I wasn’t totally sure at first, given the largely black staff, but they do mention the heroine’s mother died “before the war.”)

Marie (Ione Skye of Say Anything) is a lonely young lady who only has her overprotective father for company- that is, until the arrival of Carmilla (a luminous Meg Tilly)  The sickly but charismatic girl charms and seduces her, to the point where Marie is willing to let her feast upon her blood and ultimately run away with her into a new life.  Carmilla, for her part, falls in something like genuine love with Marie- as one of the characters notes, it’s the reason Marie hasn’t already been killed.  A Van Helsing-ish inspector played by Roddy McDowall, the only actor in the whole movie to bother with a southern accent, traces a strange plague to the plantation doorstep, and from there to the room of the lovely Carmilla.  (Perhaps he’s a previous incarnation of Peter Vincent!)  But is it already too late to save Marie?

I appreciate this movie’s dedication to Marie’s point of view, and it is hard not to be seduced ourselves by the lovely Carmilla.  I’m not sure how I feel about Miss Hodgett, the black housekeeper, who was on to Carmilla from the beginning- she isn’t given any cartoonish dialect to speak, and she is the first to figure out what’s wrong, but her role in the plot is still subservient to Marie’s story.  Is it any different than the peasants and charm salesman of the novella, whom the vampire disdained?  I don’t know, but it’s hard not to notice.

I would still encourage anyone who loves the original work to give the 1989 Carmilla a look, if only out of curiosity.  Whatever its faults, I think the eerie glow of Meg Tilly’s face will from now on be what I see when I think of Carmilla.

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #17: Spider Baby

About a minute into this movie I started squealing.  “This!” I yelled.  “This is what the criminologist in Rocky Horror is parodying!”

The subtitle of Spider Baby is “the maddest story ever told” and I think they’ve earned that brag.  It’s a story about the Merryes, a sort of proto-Texas Chainsaw Massacre family, who have a physical/neurological condition so rare it’s named after them.  This condition causes them to slowly regress into pre-human monsters, and the only reason they’ve managed to stay around this long is because their long suffering caretaker Lon Chaney just can’t bring himself to abandon them.  Then, like an episode of The Addams Family, normal people come to visit!

The sixties seem to have been an odd transitional phase for horror movies, just barely removed from corny monster vs. monster Universal movies, just a few years away from the rise of the slasher film.  They’re still playing with the same old-fashioned set ups and effects, but the humor is darker and meaner and the scares are far less expected.  Perhaps they can’t show anything too scandalous (Spider Baby keeps implying cannibalism is about to happen but it never does), but they can definitely be more shocking.  The studio system is dead!  The drive-in is alive!  Throw every idea you have at a movie and see what happens!

That seems to be the philosophy behind Spider Baby, in any case.  From the cartoon opening and theme song to the heavily telegraphed stinger at the ending, this is something akin to a thrill ride at a shady carnival.  Real people don’t act like the folks we’re seeing on screen, not even the obligatory innocent romantic couple.  The acting is so campy I have to assume it was deliberate- this was after Brando brought the Method to Hollywood, even in low budget indies you were seeing more naturalistic performances than this.  It rises to the level of art with the Virginia and Elizabeth Merrye, the murderous oddball sisters, whose performances are so crazed they become mesmerizing.  (Perhaps this would be the place to break out tumblr terminology about “unhinged” and “feral” female characters.)  They’re scary and funny and, let’s be honest, probably intended to be titillating.  Of course, they’re not involved in any gore or nudity, though if Spider Baby were made even a few years later they absolutely would have been.

Spider Baby is an experience.  I can’t guarantee it’ll be a good experience for every viewer, but it will certainly be nothing like anything they’ve ever seen.

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #6: The Exorcist

I’ve spent over a decade of my life being too scared to see this movie.  Usually things like that don’t meet my expectations when I finally see them, but The Exorcist is in fact pretty damn scary.  And that’s in 2020, when we’ve been inundated with gore and special effects; I can’t imagine how terrifying it would have been in 1973.  Pity the poor hippie kids who went to this movie in search of a thrill, especially if they’d dropped acid ahead of time.

The plot of the film is really all there in the title: someone is possessed, and someone else has to exorcise them.  There’s no real twist to be found in the straightforward narrative, and it doesn’t really need one.  Each little detail about the ordeals of poor Regan and Father Karras is increasingly intense, until it builds to the only kind of climax and resolution possible.  Nothing looks or feels hokey; it’s all about the series of events that would lead rational people to decide that only a supernatural explanation is possible.

For my money, the agonizing hospital sequences are a lot scarier than the showier gross-out scenes, but whatever your particular fears, this movie has you covered.

Demonology is a wild and weird subject, as is the notion of exorcism itself.  (Regan’s exorcism is uncomfortably reminiscent of the case of poor Anneliese Michel, who was arguably exorcised to death by well-meaning priests.  It’s hard not to think about that while watching the movie.)  Being at the mercy of something with control over our words and bodies is one of the most powerful fears in the human psyche, whether it’s you or a loved one who is the target.  The Exorcist is digging into real monster-under-the-bed territory in that regard.

This movie starts out as slow torment, and by the end it’s hitting us with a full on blunt force attack.  Both ways, it gets the job done.

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #19: American Scary

I’ve found my dream job at last.

While many people of my generation only know horror hosts from their depictions in media after the fact (Vampira in Ed Wood, Elvira’s movie, perhaps the incessantly cackling Crypt Keeper) they were a big deal back in the day, and still exist on local public access stations and horror conventions.  To kill time on the air (and sometimes to compensate for the low quality of a movie), they would introduce the horror movies their channel could afford rights to show, and perhaps do a skit or two in between commercial breaks.  They also existed in radio and comic book form, but cheap tv seems to have been where they really flourished.  They themselves were the draw, moreso than the films they showed- they joked, they chewed the scenery, they wore outrageous costumes.  Little kids loved them, stoner college kids loved them, whole families would come running into the tv room when they heard the voice coming from the screen.

American Scary is a documentary about the horror host phenomenon, featuring many of the hosts themselves reminiscing (including Neil Gaiman, who apparently hosted a Fox horror movie special.)  We see lots of talking heads in outlandish makeup recalling who their personal role models were and speculating on the future of the archetype.  Naturally, my favorite interviewee was Joel Hodgeson, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a twist on the horror host format which featured a whole cast of science fiction-themed hosts who interacted with the movie while it was playing, not just during breaks.

From the brief clips we see, the actual humor of these horror hosts varies wildly (it’s sometimes pretty played-out shtick, but Svengoolie actually seems pretty funny!)  It wasn’t just about making jokes, though- hosts and fans recall that the character’s interruptions both served the purpose of providing the viewer with a friend to watch the movies with, and of breaking up the tension and reminding any children watching that it’s all just a show.  Plenty of horror movie reviewers exist on youtube today, even ones with characters, but this was entirely its own type of para-social relationship.  Will we ever see a real resurgence?  In today’s constantly-shifting media landscape, I couldn’t possibly guess.

American Scary isn’t a terribly in-depth documentary or academic cultural review, but it’s a charming overview of a once-common type of performance.  Several of the hosts talked about how their job was to celebrate Halloween every week, and who can argue with that philosophy?  We want our heroes, our villains, and we also want the occasional living cartoon ghoul.  Invite them into your home once again, if only for the length of a single movie.

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #3: Good Boy

Gavin de Becker wrote that when dogs take a dislike to a stranger, it’s often because they can feel their human getting anxious about that person.  Good Boy is based around that premise, as adorable emotional support dog Reuben takes issue with all the people who make his human, Maggie, nervous.  Unfortunately, he does a little more than just bark.

I really, really love the premise of this movie (and not just because it’s a dog-focused horror movie that includes absolutely no violence against dogs!)  And the setup is lots of fun, as we see Maggie, desperate for companionship, find the dog of her dreams (and of her enemies’ nightmares.)  Judy Greer is relateably neurotic (and later on, gleefully unhinged) and the canine they cast to play Reuben was a perfect pick, with his tiny innocent face and his white fur (all the better to let the blood show up!)  But once they establish the first act, they don’t really know where to go from there.  Horror usually escalates, but here it plateaus.  By the end of a more intense movie, Reuben would be ripping up hordes of Maggie’s enemies, not doing the same stuff as before.  There are a couple moments of pathos- some nice people get killed, and there’s a scene where Maggie sings that just breaks my heart- but rather than having a climax, it just sort of fades out.  And I’m not demanding an explanation of what Reuben’s deal was (Hitchcock and du Maurier never gave one to the birds), but I still felt unfulfilled at the end.

I keep watching Into the Dark (Hulu’s Blumhouse-produced original horror movies) even though the vast majority are mediocre because occasionally you find a real gem.  This isn’t one, but it does have a gem of an idea within it, and to me it was worth watching for that.

Besides, I have to give the filmmakers credit for finding a unique twist to the werewolf archetype!

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #16: Requiem for a Vampire

Well.  Um.  How do I describe this movie.  The question it raises is not ‘what price does eternal life carry?’ but ‘how close can a movie be to porn without being technically classified as such?’  Amazon Prime won’t play it, and Dailymotion had it taken down for explicit content, but Kanopy of all places had it!  Kanopy!  Thank your local public library!

Insofar as there is a plot, it’s Blood for Dracula meets Rocky Horror.  Two girls fresh off a heist gone wrong (I think?) stumble into a castle owned by a cult of vampires.  These vampires have lots of other women chained up for both blood and sex.  Since the girls are virgins, the vampires plan to initiate them (I guess it doesn’t work if they aren’t virgins?  The characters do say “you can’t be both a virgin and a vampire” so the situation is a bit muddied.)  One girl looks forward to her transformation and brings back some chump to the castle to get eaten.  The other girl finds her own chump to lose her virginity to in order to be spared the vampire’s curse.

There is some characterization here- the lead vampire is an aging, grey haired fellow who confesses himself tired of life and believes it may be time for the vampiric race to die out.  I suppose the two heroines’ characterization comes in what they chose to do with the men they seduce- sacrifice or save them.  As far as traditional filmmaking goes, the cinematography is lovely, and the colors dance in a manner more traditional to an art film.  Director Jean Rollin was known for sexy surreal horror, and hey, that’s a nice niche if you can make it work!

Do I recommend Requiem for a Vampire?  Let me put it this way: right from my summary in the second paragraph, you will know instantly whether or not you would like this movie.  If you are interested, it’s definitely more visually interesting than most 1970s sexploitation films, and it has a fun time playing with vampire cliches.  And if you aren’t interested, stay far away.  You have been warned.

[forthegothicheroine]

Quarant-ween movie #1: Green Room

I’m not a punk kid, but I was willing to be one for the duration of this movie.

Hardcore band The Ain’t Rights are in desperate straits, in need of at least one paying job to cover gas money.  And so they accept a gig they really shouldn’t, as their promoter has a friend (”Don’t talk to him about politics!”) who can get them onstage at a far-right skinhead club.  The band make the most of the situation by playing the club a rousing cover of “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”, but soon they have to worry about a much more dangerous reaction than an angry crowd and a few hurled bottles.  Trouble is, they walked backstage at the wrong moment, and now nobody seems keen on letting them leave.

I don’t know for sure what makes a movie punk, but if this is such a movie (what with its gore, fast pace and eagerness to kill off the main cast), then it’s not gleefully nihilistic punk.  It’s angry, political, desperate punk.  Think The Clash.  Despite what some other reviewers have said, I found the band kids perfectly likable as they tried to keep each other alive, cooked up inventive ways to use sonic equipment to disable attack dogs, and admitted to loving Simon and Garfunkle.  When something bad happens to any them, it’s not fun to see.  It’s a straightforward and super-tense experience, as the band (and a skinhead girl club patron who was also in the wrong place at the wrong time) get whittled down and do a bit of evening the odds themselves.

When one of the protagonists coldly shoots a disarmed enemy, another asks if this is really what they’re doing now.  The movie shares that question.  There’s no attempt to equivocate about which side is right and which side is wrong, but there is an overwhelming air of heartbreak that it happened at all.

Oh, and watch for a non-nazi invocation of Odin.  That bit’s a killer.