Today’s song of the day comes from the soundtrack of one of the greatest Canadian films ever made, 1980’s Prom Night! I dare you not to dance!
Tag Archives: Horror
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: The 1980s Part One
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we begin the 80s!
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films
Friday the 13th (1980, dir by Sean S. Cunningham)
The Shining (1980, dir by Stanley Kubrick)
The Beyond (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci)
The Howling (1981, dir by Joe Dante)
Horror On The Lens: The Creeping Terror (dir by Vic Savage)
Today, we have got a true classic. First released in 1964, The Creeping Terror is the best film ever made about a carpet eating people.
This film is famous for its use of narration. Apparently, the original soundtrack was lost and, after attempting to dub a few scenes, director Vic Savage instead just hired radio news reader Larry Burrell to tell people what was happening in each scene. As well, Savage himself later vanished when the film’s investors came looking for their money. No one is really sure what happened to Vic Savage, though there is some evidence that he subsequently died of liver failure in 1975. I like to think that Vic Savage faked his dead and that he is still alive somewhere, probably in his 90s and drinking pina coladas on a beach.
Some consider this film to be one of the worst ever made. I love it.
Artwork of the Day: Master Thriller (Artist Unknown)
Artist Unknown
This cozy cover is from 1939.
Music Video of the Day: The Valley by Bill Wyman and Terry Taylor (1985, dir by Michele Soavi)
Today’s music video of the day is for an instrumental piece that was composed by Bill Wyman and Terry Taylor for Dario Argento’s 1985 film, Phenomena.
Put together by Michele Soavi, this music video features not only scenes from the film but also clips of Dario Argento directing both Jennifer Connelly and Fiore Argento. Soavi, of course, went on to have a directorial career of his own, directing four classic horror films before stepping away from feature films to take care of his ailing son. Soavi has since returned to directing, though most of his subsequent work has been for Italian television.
Enjoy!
Horror On TV: Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy in The Pumpkin That Wouldn’t Smile (dir by Chuck Jones)
Awwww, that poor pumpkin! Well, hopefully, he’s smiling now!
This animated special originally aired on Halloween night in 1979. I would imagine that the crying pumpkin probably traumatized children across America. Hopefully, all the kids were out trick or treating when this aired. Myself, I remember that when I was a kid, I would help my mom carve a pumpkin every year. And then I would get so depressed when we later had to throw it out. Seriously, I would get really attached to those jack o’lanterns.
Anyway, this cartoon is before my time but I have a feeling that, if I had been around to watch it, I would have been depressed for a whole year afterwards.
Enjoy!
Doctor Who — Horror of Fang Rock (1977, directed by Paddy Russell)
The first serial of the 15th season of Doctor Who finally allowed viewers a glimpse of an alien race that they had previously only heard about.
The Rutans are the mortal enemies of the Sontarans. Their war has gone on for centuries, with neither race getting the upper hand (or tentacle, as the case may be). Nearly every episode in which the Sontarans appeared involved an attempt to turn Earth into an outpost against the Rutans. In Horror of Fang Rock, a Rutan travels to Earth and tries to do the same thing against the Sontarans. Luckily, the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) are there to stop it but not before every other character in the serial has been killed.
Horror of Fang Rock takes place early in the 20th Century, at an isolated lighthouse on an island in the English channel. Other than The Doctor, Leela, and the Rutan, the characters consist of two lighthouse keepers and the four survivors of a shipwreck. They’re all noble English stereotypes, with names like Lord Palmerdale, Colonel Skinsale, and Adelaide Lessage and none of them survive the horror of Fang Rock.
When I first saw this serial as a kid, it actually left me feeling rather depressed. It certainly didn’t seem like everyone deserved to die. Even my mom, who rarely watched the show with my dad and me but who did sit through the first 25 minutes of Horror of Fang Rock before finding something better to do, was surprised when I told her that no one had survived.
When I recently rewatched this serial, I better appreciated just how efficiently Horror of Fang Rock is put together. It mixes traditional gothic imagery (like the fog-covered island and the dark lighthouse) with aliens and it does a good job of it. The Rutan itself turns out to be a glowing green mass. It looks convincingly evil and extraterrestrial. As soon as it appeared, I understood why the dull-witted Sontarans never seemed to be sure how to defeat the Rutans. The Rutan was a creature totally unlike the usual humanoid aliens that populated Doctor Who. It also made sense that only the Doctor and Leela would be able to survive a confrontation with the Rutan because the Rutan was so alien that rest of the inhabitants of the lighthouse had no idea how to respond to it.
At the end of this serial, the Doctor causes the Rutan mothership to explode. Leela looks straight at the explosion and, as a result, her brown eye turn blue. Louise Jameson’s eyes were always blue but they weren’t considered to be the right color for the savage character she was playing so, for her first few serial, she had to wear extremely uncomfortable contact lenses. One of her conditions for returning for Season 15 was that she would no longer have to wear them. The show’s producers gave in and that was the right decision. By the time Horror of Fang Rock came along, Baker and Jameson had moved pass their initial awkwardness and were now a strong team.
holds up well as one of the few Doctor Who stories to actually be as scary as the show’s critics claimed. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are at their best and the Rutan proves to be the rare Doctor Who alien to live up to the hype.
Horror Scenes That I Love: Bela Lugosi in Dracula
Dracula (1931, starring Bela Lugosi as the Count, Dir by Tod Browning, DP: Karl Freund)
On this day, 143 years ago Bela Lugosi was born in what is now Romania. Lugosi began his career in his native country, appearing on stage. After serving as an infantryman in World War I, Lugosi moved into the movie industry and appeared in silent Hungarian films. The young Lugosi was an activist, involved in labor issues and trying to unionize the Hungarian film industry. When a new government came to power in Hungary in 1920, the politically-active Lugosi moved first to Germany and then eventually ended up in the United States. After a period of working as a merchant seaman, Lugosi returned to acting.
He first played Dracula on stage in New York City. In 1928, while touring in the role of Dracula, he moved out to California and quickly became a part of the Hollywood community. When Universal produced a film adaptation of Dracula in 1931, Lugosi was the obvious choice for the lead role. The film made Lugosi a star and it also typecast him. Lugosi never stopped acting, though the films varied widely in quality. By the end of his career, Lugosi was a member of the Ed Wood stock company. Even appearing in something like Bride of the Monster, Lugosi still made an impression.
In the scene below, from 1931’s Dracula, Lugosi suggests that Edward van Sloan’s Van Helsing should perhaps leave the country.
A Blast From The Past: The Man With Wax Faces (dir by Maurice Tourneur)
For today’s horrific blast from the past, we have a French horror film called The Man With Wax Faces. Filmed in 1914 by Maurice Tourneur, this 11-minute film was the first horror movie to be set in a wax museum. Based on a play that had earlier been performed at the infamous Grand Guignol, The Man With Wax Faces was technically very advanced for 1914. This film is not just a horror story. It was also a chance for Tourneur to experiment with and explore what could be done on film.
The story is a simple one and one that viewers should be able to follow, even if they can’t read the French title cards. An arrogant man who claims that nothing has ever frightened him accepts a bet to spend the night in a wax museum. Secretly, his friend also stays in the museum to make sure that all of the conditions of the bet are honored. Madness and tragedy follow.
Director Maurice Tourneur also made some films in Hollywood during the silent era, before eventually returning to France. His son, Jacques Tourneur, follows in his footsteps and directed several memorable horror films, including Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie. and Night of the Demon.
October True Crime: Swearing Allegiance (dir by Richard Colla)
“Greenish brown female sheep,” the two lovers at the center of 1997’s Swearing Allegiance often tell each other.
It’s their code and only they understand what it means. It’s not that hard to figure out.
Greenish Brown = Olive
Female Sheep = Ewe
Olive Ewe.
Say it out loud.
I love you.
That seems cute until you really think about it. David Graham (David Lipper) and Diane Zamora (Holly Marie Combs) are high school sweethearts in Texas. They go to different high schools but they’re totally in love (or they say). David is planning on attending the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Diane is entering the Naval Academy and she hopes to someday be an astronaut. Diane is so convinced that she and David are going to be together forever that she loses her virginity to him. David, for his part, seems to be a bit of a lunkhead but he leads the ROTC with an intense determination. They’ll tell anyone who asks that they’re going to get married and be together forever.
And yet, neither one ever really tells the other, “I love you.” Instead, they speak through code. It’s cute. It’s the sort of thing that I used to do when I was like 12. But when you’re nearly an adult and you’re still saying, “Greenish Brown Female Sheep,” it suggests that you might not be as ready for life outside of high school as you think you are.
One night, after a teary David confesses to Diane that he cheated on her with one of his teammates on the school’s track team, Adrianne “A.J.” Jones (Cassidy Rae), Diane snaps. Instead of dumping David, she tells him that the only way they can make things right is by murdering Adrianne, which is what they proceed to do. They almost get away with it. With the police focusing their attention on the wrong guy, David and Diane leave town for their respective colleges. David and Diane swear to themselves that, from now on, they are going to live with honor and loyalty….
This made-for-TV movie was based on an actual crime that happened outside of Mansfield, Texas in 1995. For years, the crime itself lived on as a cautionary tale that was told to teenage girls (including myself) in order to keep us from sneaking out and sneaking around. Interestingly enough, in 2005, Zamora’s attorney said that the prosecution deliberately withheld evidence that David Graham had been lying about having sex with Adrianne Jones as a part of twisted scheme to keep Diane from breaking up with him. I don’t know if that’s true or not but I do know that, whatever may have happened between Adrianne and David Graham, she deserved better than to be murdered and then turned into a cautionary tale.
One thing I do like about the film is that it is clearly on Adrianne’s side. Cassidy Rae gives a sympathetic performance as Adrianne, playing her as a genuinely nice person who fell victim to David and Diane’s toxic relationship. David Lipper is a bit blank-faced as David but Holly Marie Combs is appropriately intense as the obsessive Diane Zamora. The film actually aired before the case went to trial, which shows that, even in the 90s, there was always a thin line between tragedy and entertainment.
Zamora and Graham are currently both in prison. Zamora took a polygraph in 2007 but the results were tossed out when it was determined that she was trying to alter her breathing to fool the machine. As Zamora now claims that Graham alone was responsible for killing Adrianne, I imagine they’re no longer speaking about greenish brown female sheep.
Through the Shattered Lens 