4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we take a look at the mid-50s!
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: The Mid 50s
Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954, dir by Jack Arnold, DP: William E. Snyder)
Tarantula (1955, dir by Jack Arnold, DP: George Robinson)
Bride of the Monster (1955, dir by Ed Wood, DP: Ted Allan and William C. Thompson)
It Conquered The World (1956, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Fred E. West)
A few months ago, I rewatched the original 1988 Child’s Play.
I have to say that I was surprised by just how well the film held up. Today, of course, everyone knows about Chucky. Everyone know that Chucky was originally Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), a serial killer who was chased into a toy store by police detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). Knowing that he had little chance of escaping and not wanting to go to back to prison or face the electric chair, Charles Lee Ray performed a quick occult ceremony. While lighting crashed all around the store, Charles transported his soul into a “Good Guy” doll.
That doll was later purchased by a hard-working, single mom named Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks). She gave the doll to her six year-old son, Andy (Alex Vincent). There was nothing that Andy wanted more for his birthday than a talking Good Guy doll. Unfortunately, Good Guy dolls were also very expensive and Karen wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to afford to buy one. But, when she ran into a homeless guy who happened to be selling stolen merchandise out of his shopping cart, Karen was able to make Andy’s birthday a happy one! Andy unwrapped the doll and smiled as the doll introduced himself as being “Chucky” and asked if he wanted to play.
Unfortunately, it soon turned out that Charles Lee Ray wasn’t going to stop killing people just because he was now trapped inside the doll. If anything, being trapped in the doll made Ray even more homicidal. It makes sense if you think about it. I’m sure that Charles Lee Ray didn’t realize that performing that voodoo curse would cause him to wake up as a plastic toy wearing overalls and being expected to be a 6 year-old’s best friend.
Anyway, Chucky went on a rampage, killed several people, and everyone blamed Andy. Not even Karen believed Andy when Andy explained that Chucky was the one killing people with toy hammers and blowing up houses. Or, at least, Karen didn’t believe Andy until she herself was attacked by Chucky. With Chucky freaking out about the prospect of being stuck in the doll’s body for the rest of his existence and wanting to possess his new owner instead, Karen and Mike teamed up to protect Andy from the world’s worst birthday present.
To be honest, Child’s Play shouldn’t work as well as it does. The story is ludicrous, even by the standards of late 80s horror. There’s no way that a doll should be able to do things like throw a hammer with enough force to send someone flying out of a window. (Making the scene even stranger is the fact that it’s not even a real hammer but instead a little plastic Good Guy hammer.) And yet, the film does work and not just as an example of nostalgic camp. This is a scary and emotionally effective story, even if you already know the truth about Chucky. It helps that Alex Vincent gives a totally natural, uncutesy performance as Andy. Your heart really breaks for him as he begs the adults in his life to understand that it’s Chucky who is doing all of the bad things and not him. As well, Catherine Hicks deserves a lot of credit for taking her role seriously. And finally, the great Brad Dourif does wonders with just his voice. At first, it’s undeniably funny to hear his angry voice coming out of Chucky but Dourif delivers his lines with such unhinged conviction that it’s actually rather frightening when he suddenly drops the act and starts cursing out Karen. After all of the sequels and the subsequent television shows, Chucky himself has become a bit of a pop cultural icon. He’s almost as lovable as Freddy and Jason combined. But in the first Child’s Play, that doll is seriously scary. He may be small but he has the energy and ruthlessness of a feral beast. When he attacks, you have no doubt that he’s not going to stop until he’s gotten what he wants and what he wants is usually for someone to die.
The first Child’s Play earns its status as a horror classic by being surprisingly scary and also surprisingly emotional. You really do end up caring about Karen and Andy. When Karen finally went after that smug, murderous doll, I definitely cheered a little. Take that, Chucky!
For today’s Horror on the Lens, we have a made-for-TV movie from 1973. As you can tell from the video below, it originally aired as a part of ABC’s Tuesday Night At The Movies so it’s only appropriate that we are also sharing it on Tuesday.
A Cold Night’s Death tells the story of two scientists (Eli Wallach and Robert Culp) who are sent to a remote research station to investigate the apparent disappearance of another scientist. They soon come to suspect that they may not be alone and soon, paranoia rears its ugly head. With its frozen landscape and its ominous atmosphere, this movie feels like a distant cousin to John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Grim Reaper was so hardcore that they ever had Satan himself watching over their concerts!
See You In Hell is probably best remembered for Beavis and Butt-Head’s epic takedown of both the video and the singer.
Unlike certain other musicians — Oh hai, Winger — Grim Reaper was actually a good sport about Beavis and Butt-Head’s mockery. Mike Judge once told David Letterman that one of the scariest moments of his life was when he ran into Grim Reaper’s lead guitarist while backstage at a concert. Judge was expecting the guitarist to be angry with him but instead, he said that the band enjoyed and agreed with Beavis and Butt-Head’s critique. He also sent Judge copies of the band’s other two videos so that the boys could take a crack at them.
On tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, James Franciscus plays a father who discovers that trying to change the future isn’t as cut-and-dried as it seems. When Paul (Franciscus) dreams that his daughter is going to be murdered 20 years in the future, he moves to the town from his dream to try to prevent it. He ends up falling in love with Julie (Meg Foster), who happens to be engaged to man named Ed (Karl Swenson) who looks just like the man who Paul dreamt was going to murder his daughter!
This episode originally aired on September 29th, 1972.
The Bunker Game, which made its debut on Shudder earlier this year, opens with what appears to be a bit of alternate history worldmaking. The viewer watches a black-and-white documentary that presents a world in which the Nazis conquered Europe during World War II but, ten years after Germany’s victory, the United States dropped an atomic bomb. As a result, Europe is now an atomic wasteland. A handful of survivors managed to find shelter in Italy, hiding out and forming a new society in an underground bunker that was built by Mussolini in the 30s. The underground society is an authoritarian one, where mad scientists experiment on the citizens and storm troopers seem to be around every corner. However, there is a small rebellion brewing….
Sounds potentially interesting, right? Well, don’t get too attached to the alternative history spin because, within the first few minutes of the film, it’s revealed that the people in the bunker aren’t actually citizens of an authoritarian state and, while the Bunker is indeed real, the rest of Europe is just fine. It turns out that documentary was just a part of an elaborate and very expensive game. Instead of being the last refuge of the Third Reich, the Bunker is full of LARPers, people who have spent a good deal of money so that they can spend a week pretending to be …. well, Nazis.
Now again, this sounds like it could be potentially interesting. Why would a group of people pay money in order to enter a real underground bunker and pretend to be some of the most evil people who have ever existed? It’s an intriguing premise but, just as with the alternate history angle, don’t get to attached to it because it doesn’t take long for the film to abandon the whole LARPing plot.
Instead, unforeseen circumstances lead to the game ending early and most of the LARPers heading home. The BunkerGame proceeds to tell a fairly standard story about a handful of people who find themselves isolated in the now-deserted Bunker. When one of their friends disappears, they split up to search for him and soon, some sort of supernatural force is killing them one-by-one. The group is made up of identifiable types. One person is quirky. Another person is serious and professional. Another is a stereotypical zoomer. Another one is too uptight and obviously destined to go crazy before the movie is over. For the most part, the film focuses on Laura (Gaia Weiss) and her cousin, Harry (Mark Ryder). Harry is determined to leave the Bunker and never again deal with any LARPers. Laura, meanwhile, finds herself strangely drawn to the Bunker, even once it becomes obvious that something is killing all of her friends. Harry cannot understand why Laura would want to be part of the Bunker Game in the first place. Laura cannot understand why anyone would want to live in the real world. Most viewers will probably be able to guess where this is all going.
That said, The Bunker Game gets the job done. The underground bunker is a wonderfully creepy setting and, even if they are playing types, the cast still does their best to bring their characters to life. (Of course, all of them are playing characters who spent a lot of money so that they could pretend to be Nazis so, well-acted or not, most viewers will have limited sympathy for them.) Though it’s hard not to regret that the film didn’t do more with its potentially interesting plot, director Roberto Zazzara does a good job of creating and maintaining a properly ominous atmosphere. For what it is, The Bunker Game works well enough. One can regret that it’s not thematically challenging while also acknowledging that, whatever flaws the narrative may have, the film still gets the job done. Those who are just looking for a well-made horror film and who aren’t necessarily concerned with whether or not the plot makes total sense will probably enjoy The Bunker Game.
One day, someone said, “Why don’t we remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers but instead of having the pod people act emotionless, we’ll have them turn into predatory lesbians?”
Of course, the movie went straight into production.
Erica Roby plays Melissa, who works for a PR firm in Los Angeles. After a meteorite shower, she starts to notice that the people at work and in her apartment complex are all getting strange new ginger root plants and they are all starting to act out-of-character. For example, Melissa’s formerly bitchy boss, Samantha (Jessica Bork), suddenly wants to make out all the time. Meanwhile, the husband of one of Melissa’s clients break into Melissa’s apartment, says that his wife has been replaced, and then shoots himself. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the body snatchers have once again arrived on Earth and that they’re replacing humans with doppelgangers. (The main difference is that the body snatchers waited for their victims to fall asleep while the doppelgangers just hatch from the plant and beat whoever it is that they are replacing to death.) Melissa and her co-worker, Billie (Danae Nason), team up with Detective Alexander (Marat Glazer) to track down where the plants are coming from and destroy them. It’s a Body Snatcher film so don’t expect a happy ending.
Actually, the idea of doing a softcore version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers seems like such an obvious one that I’m surprised that no one did it until 2007. In everything from its visual look to its dialogue to its attitude towards sexuality, Invasion of the Pod People feels like the sort of film that used to show up on late night Cinemax during the 90s. The 90s version, though, would have had Shannon Tweed and Andrew Stevens and that would have been an improvement on the people who are starring in the version that was actually released. Invasion of the Pod People had potential to be a guilty pleasure but the visual style is so flat and unappealing and the soundtrack is so muddy that the movie feels much longer than just 85 minutes. With a little fine-tuning and a more invested cast, Invasion of the Pod People could have been a Skinemax classic but it was just released ten years too late.
You are an office drone, just trying to get your work done without causing any trouble or getting on the bad side of the co-worker who is always reprimanding you for doing something to embarrass everyone else. You are at your desk, not bothering anyone, when suddenly you feel it running down your face. It’s blood. Your nose is bleeding. And no matter how much you try, you cannot get it to stop. Even though there’s an event that you simply cannot get out of attending, you cannot get your nose to stop bleeding.
Nose Bleed is a text-adventure game that is primarily about dealing with a bloody nose but it’s also a game about social anxiety, office politics, and the horror of knowing that there is nothing you can do to prevent further embarrassment. There’s only so long that you can hide a nose bleed and when the people you work with discover what’s happening, their reaction leaves much to be desired. Not only is the text well-written but the visuals also put you right in the story. As the nose bleed continues, just moving the curser from one option to another causes a trail of blood to appear on the screen. Towards the end of the game, my screen was almost totally red. Just like the character in the game, I couldn’t stop the bleeding. It sounds grotesque but this game is about more than just a nose bleed. It’s about the experience of dealing with people who, when they see someone else in distress, can’t do anything but worry about how it’s going to effect them. It’s about the guilt that comes with being told that everything is always your fault. The horror is both visual and psychological and it’s not always easy to deal with the emotions that the game captures. But the ending is very satisfying, making this one of the best recent horror games that I’ve played.
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from the 1953 film, The War of the Worlds.
Now, it’s probably not quite correct to say that I love this scene. This is a scary scene and not necessairly one that you’ll want to revisit a hundred times. Instead, this is a scene that I think is extremely well-done. It’s a scene that perfectly establishes the fact that, in this film, humanity has no hope when it comes to defeating the Martians. Trying to reason with them, as Uncle Matthew does, is useless. Trying to fight them, as the army does, is useless. Matthew is atomized as he approaches in peace. The tough and plain-spoken military man — a reassuring authority figure in so many 50s films — is destroyed as he orders everyone out of the bunker. The Martians, meanwhile, are unstoppable and, even worse, they are without mercy or concern for the people that they are destroying.
Seriously, this is a frightening scene when viewed today! I can only imagine how it traumatized audiences in 1953. If you need evidence of this fact, just consider that YouTube actually put a warning on the video that it might be too traumatic for some viewers.
After watching this scene, all I can say is Thank God for the common cold.
Through the Shattered Lens 