Richard Roundtree has passed away. He was 81 years old and, for moviegoers in the past, present, and future, he will always be the epitome of cool, John Shaft.
Rest in peace, Richard Roundtree.
Tag Archives: movie
Horror Scenes I Love: Anthony Perkins In Psycho
Poor Anthony Perkins!
Anthony Perkins did not start his career as a horror icon. A talented young actor, Perkins started his career on Broadway and eventually, he started to appear in films. From the start, he was usually cast as nervous young men, the type who awkwardly smiled and struggled to talk to people. Perkins was promoted as a romantic lead, with the Studios and his agents making sure that Perkins was regularly photographed dating Hollywood starlets like Natalie Wood. As witty off-screen as he was nervous on-screen, Perkins was a popular figure in Hollywood. He received his only Oscar nomination for his performance as a young Quaker in 1956’s Friendly Persuasion.
Perkins’s entire career changed when Alfred Hitchcock cast him as the seemingly timid motel owner in 1960’s Psycho. Perkins was reportedly Hitchcock’s first choice for the role, with Hitchcock saying that he felt only Perkins or Dean Stockwell was capable of bringing Norman to life. Perkins was not nominated for Best Actor but the role pretty much defined him in the eyes of many. Perkins spent the rest of his career trying to first escape the shadow of Psycho and then eventually embracing his status as an icon of horror.
Perkins’s performance has been imitated so many times that there’s a tendency to forget just how good he is in the role. In this episode, Perkins-as-Norman discusses his mother with Janet Leigh.
October True Crime: Goodnight Sweet Wife: A Murder In Boston (dir by Jerrold Freedman)
1990’s Goodnight Sweet Wife opens with a frantic 9-11 call.
A man named Charles Stuart (Ken Olin) calls the Boston Police Department and says that he and his pregnant wife have just been shot. He says that he got lost while trying to drive home and that a black man got in the car, made Charles drive to a remote location, robbed Charles and his wife, and then shot them. When the police finally manage to track Charles down, he’s nearly dead as a result of having been shot in the stomach. Carol was shot in the head and is pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital. Her baby, named Christopher, is delivered via C-section but dies a few days later.
The city of Boston is outraged as the crime makes national news. The story that thousands hear is that Charles Stuart, a hard-working and financially successful man who has never had any trouble with the police, took one wrong turn, ended up in a “bad” neighborhood, and lost his wife and his son as a result. As Charles recovers in the hospital, the police make capturing his assailant their number one priority and soon, black men are being stopped and frisked in the streets.
With the entire world mourning the loss of Carol and Christopher Stuart, there are only a few people in Boston who are willing to take a careful look at Charles’s story. There are quite a few inconsistencies in Charles’s story, not the least of which was his claim that he was shot in a nearly deserted area of town when the neighborhood is actually one of Boston’s busiest. Some start to suspect that Charles killed his wife and then shot himself to make it look like a robbery and the fact that Charles nearly died from his wound is not proof that Charles was actually the victim but instead just a sign that Charles didn’t know where to shoot himself in order to not nearly die. However, even with all of the inconsistencies in Charles’s story, the police still announce that they’ve arrested a man for the crime. Charles even identifies the suspect, William Bennett, as being the murderer.
Of course, as is revealed in flashbacks, Charles Stuart is a murderer and he’s not a particularly clever one. He’s the type of murderer who openly talked to people about how he was considering committing a murder. He’s the type who roped his own brother into helping him fake the robbery. Far from being the successful professional that he presented himself as being, Charles was mediocre broker who depended on his wife’s salary to finance his lifestyle. With Carol pregnant and planning on quitting her job to be a full-time mother, Charles decided to kill her for the insurance and he also figured that he would be able to get away with it as long as he blamed the crime on a black man.
Tragically, it turned out that Charles Stuart was almost right. In both the movie and in real life, Charles Stuart was believed because he didn’t look like what most people thought a criminal looked like. He was a young, handsome, middle class white guy and because he couldn’t face the prospect of having to cut back financially, he killed his wife and his son and he nearly put an innocent black man in prison. The film does a good job of depicting the consequences of both Stuart’s crime and the rush to judgment on the part of the police. Ken Olin plays Charles Stuart as being outwardly friendly but empty on the inside, a cold sociopath who is incapable of truly caring about anyone but himself. In real life, Stuart chose to jump into the Mystic River rather than face the consequences of his actions. Stuart’s brother, who helped Charles fake the robbery and later turned Charles into the police, died in a homeless shelter 30 years later. Carol’s family set up a scholarship fund in her name to aid students in Mission Hill, the neighborhood where Charles claimed he had been hijacked. One of the scholarship’s first recipients was the daughter of William Bennett.
The Films of Dario Argento: Opera
It can be argued that 1987’s Opera is one of Dario Argento’s most personal films.
In the mid-80s, Argento was hired to direct an opera, in this case a production Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth. Argento described the opportunity to direct an opera as being a case of one of his childhood dreams coming true. Unfortunately, certain people were scandalized with the idea of hiring a director of violent horror films to direct the opera, even though Macbeth is one of the most horrific of Shakespeare’s plays. I mean, if any story seems to be custom-made for a director who is known for his complex set pieces and his willingness to indulge in graphic imagery, it would seem to be Macbeth. Despite this, the production was canceled and Argento was left feeling like an outsider in his own industry.
Along with his disappointment over the canceled production of Macbeth, Argento was also suffering on a personal level when he directed Opera because he had just separated from his long time partner and collaborator, Daria Nicolodi. The two of them had a notoriously volitale relationship, one that led to some of Argento’s best films and reportedly some of his biggest on-set fights. Despite the fact that they had split up, Argento still wrote a role for her in his latest film. At first, Nicolodi refused the role but she changed her mind when Argento promised her the most spectacular death scene in the movie. However, when it came time to shoot the scene, Nicolodi apparently grew paranoid that Argento was planning to kill her for real. Fortunately, Nicolodi was incorrect about that and Argento was totally correct about her scene being one of the best in the film.
Opera takes place during a production of Macbeth, one that is directed by a controversial horror director named Marco (played by Ian Charleson, the star of the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire). When his star is injured in an auto accident, Marco is forced to cast the young understudy, Beth (Cristina Marsillach), as Lady Macbeth. Despite the doubts of many, Betty gives a strong performance in the role. She stuns the audience. Perhaps the power of her performance is due to her own traumatic memories of her mother being murdered by a never captured assailant.
Speaking of murder, people around Betty start dying as well, often while Betty is forced to watch. The black-gloved killer often come out of nowhere, gags Betty, and ties her to whatever is nearby. The killer always tapes a row of needles under Betty’s eyes, keeping her from being able to close them or to look away as the killer then proceeds to murder her friends. The first victim is Betty’s handsome boyfriend, Stefano (William McNamara). The second murder is a costumer (Barbara Cupisti). Three of the opera’s ravens are killed, leaving the remaining ravens determined to get revenge.
Betty, it should be noted, refuses to go the police about what she has witnesses because she thinks that the killer is the same person who murdered her mother. You have to wonder at her logic or the fact that director Marco agrees with her decision. Personally, if I witnessed a murder as brutal as the murder of Stefano, I would go to the police. It’s hard to really sympathize with Betty’s decision, as much as the film seems to think that I should.
Opera has a lot of fans and it does feature some of Argento’s strongest visuals. Towards the end of the film, there’s an extended raven attack in the opera house that is one of Argento’s greatest set pieces. And, for all of her fears that she was about to be killed for real, Daria Nicolodi’s shocking death scene is Argento at his best. Both Ian Charleson and Urbano Barberini give excellent performance and, even if the genesis of the film was found in Argento’s anger over his canceled version of Macbeth, there’s a lot of affection to be found in the film’s portrayal of what goes into putting on a massive production. One gets the feeling that, for once, Argento actually likes the majority of the characters in the film.
That said, I have to admit that there are a few things that I don’t particularly care for in Opera. If I liked Phenomena more than most viewers, I like Opera a bit less. After each murder, Argento attacks our ears with heavy metal and I assume the point is to contrast the stateliness of the opera with the chaos of the killer’s actions. But, while I can respect Argento’s logic (assuming that was his logic), the music itself tends to be repetitive and, after the second time that we hear it, it gets kind of boring. And Betty is not a particularly sympathetic protagonist, both due to the way she’s written and also Cristina Marsillach’s less than convincing performance in the role. Reportedly, Argento and Marsillach did not get along during filming and perhaps that explains why her performance never really seems to come alive. Everyone in the film insists the Betty is a revelation of Lady Macbeth but there’s nothing about Marsillach’s performance that makes us believe that. It’s hard not to feel that the film would have been improved if Cristina Marsillach and Barbara Cupisti had switched roles.
(Director Michele Soavi, who has a small role in this film, did later cast Cupisti as the lead in his film Stage Fright and watching Cupisti in that film, it’s even easier to imagine her as the lead in Argento’s film.)
The film ends on a strange note, one that seems to serve as a call-back to Phenomena. What I find interesting is that critics who like the film overall tend to be critical of the ending and the idea of Marsillach talking to a lizard. Whereas I, someone who does not like the film quite as much as some others, absolutely loves the ending because it’s just so weird and it comes to use from out-of-nowhere. It’s as if Argento is saying, “You might have kept me from directing an opera but it’s my movie and I’m in control here.”
Opera did well in Italy and the rest of Europe but, as was so often the case, Argento was screwed by his American distributors. Opera was originally supposed to get an American theatrical release but, when the distributor went bankrupt, the film was only given a video release, with much of the gore edited out to ensure that the film received an R-rating and could be carried by Blockbuster. (That’s right. Blockbuster wouldn’t carry anything above an R. Where’s your God now, video nerds?) Fortunately, all that was edited out was put back in when Opera was released on DVD in 2002.
The (Reviewed) Films of Dario Argento:
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: Special Sam Raimi Edition
4 Shots From 4 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!
Today’s director: Sam Raimi!
4 Shots From 4 Sam Raimi Films
The Evil Dead (1981, dir by Sam Raimi, DP: Tim Philo)
Evil Dead II (1987, dir by Sam Raimi, DP: Peter Deming)
Army of Darkness (1992, dir by Sam Raimi, DP: Bill Pope)
The Gift (2000, dir by Sam Raimi, DP: Jamie Anderson)
Horror Film Review: Army of Darkness (dir by Sam Raimi)
This is not going to be a traditional film review because let’s just state the obvious. Army of Darkness is great. Everyone knows that Army of Darkness is great. Everyone loves Army of Darkness. It’s not like you’re reading this review because you need to know whether or not Army of Darkness is a good film.
Now, interestingly enough, not everyone recognized just how good Army of Darkness was when it was first released. A lot of reviewers were confused by director Sam Raimi’s mix of of horror (because the Deadites are scary under any circumstances) and slapstick comedy. Today, we’re used to films and television shows that attempt to mix comedy and horror. Ryan Murphy’s built an entire career out of mixing gore with camp and, as a result, he’s the favorite horror filmmaker of people who think they’re too good for horror. In 1992, when Army of Darkness was first released, mixing horror and comedy caught critics and audiences off-guard. What’s interesting is that 31 years later, Army of Darkness still feels fresh while many of the comedy horror films that followed feel tired.
I think one reason why the film continues to work is because it’s obvious that both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were truly committed to bringing their demented vision to screen. The film features Campbell as Ash Williams, the S-Mart clerk who, after a night of fighting the Deadites and losing his hand, has found himself in the Middle Ages, captured by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) and expected to live the life of a medieval slave.
Ash is often described as being one of the dumbest movie heroes of all time but, as this film shows, Ash’s stupidity is also his secret weapon. While others heroes would probably get caught up trying to rationalize or understand the situation in which they’ve found themselves, Ash just accepts it. While others heroes would strategize or try to figure out a clever way to get out of their situation, Ash simply fights back and runs straight into trouble. “This is my boomstick!” Ash yells at one point and, while it establishes himself as being a great warrior, it’s also a case of Ash bragging on himself. Ash is a big fan of bragging and it must be said that it usually works out for him.. When Ash is attacked by evil Ash and several miniature Ashes, the mindless delight that all of these different Ashes take in trying to destroy each other is infectious.
Of course, Ash’s stupidity can also be his biggest downfall. For me, the best part of this film is when Ash tries to recover the Necronomicon from the haunted forest. He is given three simple words that he needs to repeat before taking the book. Before entering the forest, he practices by repeating the words twice but refuses to repeat them a third time because “I’ve got them!” Of course, Ash doesn’t have them so he does what any of us would do. He attempts to mumble the third world. This, of course, raises an army of the dead.
(My second favorite part of the film is that the army of the dead is surprisingly talkative as they rise from their graves. My third favorite part of the movie is Ted Raimi continually popping up as different supporting characters, occasionally even arguing with himself. My fourth favorite part of the movie — well, I’ve got a lot of favorite parts of this movie. Army of Darkness is one of those endlessly quotable movies about which you can spend hours saying, “Remember when….”)
“Shop smart, shop S-mart,” Ash says at one point and it’s tempting to laugh because Ash isn’t smart but he’s determined and his oddly confident and he manages to find a strange sort of joy in every situation that he finds himself. He’s the ultimate blue collar hero and Army of Darkness is the ultimate celebration of Ash Williams, Bruce Campbell, and Sam Raimi.
Horror Film Review: The Giant Claw (dir by Fred Sears)
You know, a lot of people are a bit of dismissive of 1957’s The Giant Claw because they say that the monster — a big flying turkey from an anti-matter universe that has somehow slipped into our universe — is not convincing.
They make fun of the fact that, instead of hiring Ray Harryhausen like they were originally planning to do, the producers decided to save money by going for his non-union, Mexican equivalent.
They make fun of the scene in which a French-Canadian trapper announces that the Turkey Monster is actually a mythological beast that has the body of a woman, the head of a wolf, and the wings of a bat because the Turkey Monster certainly looks nothing like that.
They laugh at the scene where the Turkey Monster chases an airplane, even though I think that would be pretty terrifying if I was actually on the airplane. I mean, the last time we were flying home from the UK, we hit a bit of turbulence and it traumatized me for days. I can only imagine how I would feel if I looked out the window and I saw a giant flying turkey chasing after the plane.
Critics will even make fun of how the turkey sounds, mocking it for its weird “caw caw” noises.
Well, alright. Let’s just admit it. The turkey isn’t the most menacing monster in the world and yes, it does sometimes sound a bit hoarse and it could definitely stand to put on a little weight but seriously, how can you not love this thing?
As for the film itself, it not only features one of the greatest monster of all time but it’s also a love story! Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow) is a pilot who sees a UFO and who faces an attempt, by the government, to cover up what he’s seen. As happened to so many of the people who saw UFOs in the 50s, he’s accused of being either mistaken or an outright hoaxer. Meanwhile, Sally Caldwell (Mora Corday) is a mathematician who is originally skeptical of Mitch and his claims but who realizes that he was right when they’re attacked by the Turkey Monster. Their plane crashes in Canada, where they are rescued by a French-Canadian trapper named Pierre Brousssard (Lou Merrill). While the Turkey Monster is terrifying the world, Sally and Mitch are falling in love and since Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday are the most attractive people in the film, it only seems right. They’re a cute couple, who cares if the script makes any sense?
Anyway, back to the Turkey Monster. The Turkey Monster is protected by an anti-matter shield, which makes it impossible for it to be attacked by missiles and planes. A high-ranking general is left repeating, “Missiles and bombs,” after realizing that they’re all useless against the turkey.
Eventually, the Turkey Monster makes its way to New York City and announces that it’s not going anywhere!
Well, you know what, Giant Turkey? If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!
Sadly, the Turkey’s New York visit doesn’t end well and that’s a shame. Benjamin Franklin famously suggested that America’s official bird should have been the turkey as opposed to the eagle. Looking at the Giant Turkey sitting on the Empire State Building, how can you disagree?
Seriously, don’t listen to the critics. The Turkey Monster is one of the most entertaining monsters of all time and The Giant Claw is tons of fun!
Horror On The Lens: Haunted House of Horror (dir by Michael Armstrong)
First released in 1969, The Haunted House of Horror features a group of 20-somethings who, bored with the usual parties, decide to that it might be a kick to hang out in a supposedly haunted mansion. Once they’re in the mansion, they decide that it might be even more fun to hold a seance!
(Seriously, what is the deal with people holding séances in haunted mansions? That really seems like the last place where you would want to mess with potentially malevolent spirits!)
The party becomes much less fun once someone starts killing off the group, one-by-one.
This film is notable for two reasons. First off, it features Frankie Avalon in one of his attempts to break free of his Beach Party typecasting. Secondly, the role of Richard, who is played by Julian Barnes, was originally offered to a young singer named David Bowie. Reportedly, Bowie was quite excited about doing the film but, in the end, the producers worries that he and Frankie Avalon would not get along. I’m not sure why. David Bowie had a sense of humor and, judging from his Casino cameo, so does Frankie.
October Positivity: Patmos (dir by Jimmy Murphy)
First released in 1985, Patmos imagines the final days of St. John the Evangelist.
The film opens with John (Louis Rolston), the last surviving member of Jesus’s original disciples, having been arrested by the Romans and sentenced to the penal colony of Patmos. At Patmos, he lives in a cave and, despite being an elderly man, he is expected to take part in hard manual labor. The commandant of Patmos is Catalinus (Mark Mulholland), an arrogant centurion who is known for his temper. For Catalinus, being assigned to Patmos is a bit of a demotion and he’s eager to take his anger out on John.
John, however, refuses to allow Catalinus to break him and his quiet dignity starts to impress some of the Roman centurions. (“I’m not paid to think,” one centurion replies, when asked for his opinion on John.) It also starts to impress John’s fellow prisoners. When John starts to have visions of the eventual apocalypse, the other prisoners help him to record them. When Catalinus starts to execute the other prisoners and demands that John renounce his religion and his visions, John is faced with a difficult decision. Should he claim to have rejected God or should he stand firm in his beliefs, even in the face of Catalinus’s cruelty?
Well, there’s never really any question as to what John is going to do. This film was made to be shown in church basements and at religious camps so there’s no way that John is going to renounce his faith. That said, the film deserves a good deal of credit for not making it appear as if John’s decision was an easy one. Everyday, as John is led out of his cave, he has to pass the people who have been crucified in an attempt to intimidate him into silence. His fellow prisoners soon start to demand that John give into Catalinus’s demands, even as John tries to explain why he cannot. Catalinus’s cruelty is actually supported by what we know about the techniques that some Romans used to keep order in their prison colonies so the idea that he would execute everyone but John is not an outlandish one. The cruelty, as the saying goes, is the point.
(Indeed, Catalinus’s arrogance and his anger at being defied should seem familiar to anyone who has ever had to deal with a middle management bureaucrat.)
That said, when a film is called Patmos and deals with the final years of St. John the Evangelist, most people are going to be watching because they want to see how the film portrays the visions of revelation. Patmos, being a low-budget film, goes for a simple approach. We see horsemen riding across Patmos, each bringing a plague to Earth. There are occasional shots of people begging for food and there’s also a sepia-toned sequence that takes place in Heaven. As I said, it’s simple and it’s obvious that the film’s low budget played a huge role in how the apocalypse was presented. But that simplicity is actually rather effective. After sitting through so many flamboyant and over-the-top portrayals of the end of the world, it’s hard not to appreciate the starkness of Patmos’s imagery.
The acting is a bit uneven but Louis Rolston is appropriately wise as John and Mark Mulholland is appropriately arrogant as Catalinus. Patmos is an effectively done apocalypse film, one that makes good use of its low budget.
October Hacks: Sweet Sixteen (dir by Jim Sotos)
1983’s Sweet Sixteen takes place in a small town in Texas.
Sherriff Dan Burke (Bo Hopkins) does his best to try to maintain the peace but it’s not always easy. Not when a good majority of the town is prejudiced against the Native Americans living on a nearby reservation. There’s a major archeological dig happening on the reservation, headed up by Dr. John Morgan (Patrick Macnee), but the town doesn’t care about any of the artifacts that Dr. Morgan and his team might discover. They’re too busy harassing local activist Jason Longshadow (Don Shanks) for stepping into the wrong bar.
However, a distraction from all of the casual racism has arrived in the form of Dr. Morgan’s daughter, Melissa (Aleisa Shirley). Soon, it seems like every teenage boy and young man in town is lusting after Melissa. Melissa, for her part, is only fifteen years old and is struggling to deal with all of the attention. Sometimes, she enjoys the attention. Sometimes, she just wants to be left alone. (Believe me, as someone who had adults hitting on her when she was 13, I could relate.) Melissa’s birthday is coming up and her mother (Susan Strasberg) is planning on throwing a big party and inviting the whole town to come over and celebrate. Sheriff Burke thinks it’s a great idea. “This town could use something to celebrate.”
The only problem is that any boy who so much as looks at Melissa ends up getting brutally murdered. When an old Native American man named Greyfeather (Henry Wilcoxin) is spotted near the scene of one of the crimes, the local redneck blame him for the murders and tragedy ensues. Sheriff Burke has to find the real murderer and, whether he likes it or not, he’s going to get some help from his kids, Hank (Steve Antin) and Marci (Dana Kimmel).
Hank and Marci really are this film’s secret weapons. In the past, I’ve been pretty critical of Dana Kimmel’s performance in Friday the 13th Part 3 and her insistence that her character be re-written to reflect her own religious beliefs and desire to be a good role model. However, Kimmel is really likable (and perhaps more appropriately cast) as the fiercely intelligent but still relatively innocent Marci, who reads murder mysteries and is totally excited about the prospect of getting to solve a real murder. Hank is perhaps a bit less enthusiastic about about crime-solving than Marci but he still helps out his sister because she’s his sister. Awwwwww!
Sweet Sixteen is a bit of an untraditional slasher film, one that is as concerned with social issues as is it was stalking and slashing teenagers. Perhaps that explains why it has a slightly better cast than the typical 80s slasher, with veteran actors like Patrick McNee, Susan Stasberg, and Bo Hopkins acting opposite equally capable but younger actors like Kimmel, Antin, and Aleisa Shirley. It’s also a surprisingly likable slasher film, due to the Dana Kimmel and Steve Antin’s engaging lead performances. Honestly, I think it’s kind of a shame that there weren’t a series of films featuring Marci and Hank solving crimes. Dana Kimmel and Steve Antin make quite a team in this above average slasher.
Through the Shattered Lens 