“Room for one more, honey!”
Agck!
This classic episode of the Twilight Zone originally aired on February 10th, 1961. It was written by Rod Serling, directed by Jack Smight, and stars Barbara Nichols.
Tag Archives: review
The Daily Horror Grindhouse: Castle Freak (dir by Stuart Gordon)
Originally released in 1996, Castle Freak is a film that I watched a few years ago and seriously, it totally freaked me out! Seriously, this is one truly creepy, scary, and disturbing film. I imagine that I’m not alone in having nightmares after watching Castle Freak.
Castle Freak takes place in Italy and yes, the main setting is a castle. (One the reasons why Castle Freak was so effective in freaking me out is because I have actually been to Italy and I have stepped inside castles much like the one featured in this film.) The castle belonged to a duchess who has recently passed away. The duchess’s son, Giorgio, is still alive. The duchess it seems was a bit insane and, after being abandoned by her husband, she was so angry that she had Giorgio chained up in the basement. After being trapped for years, Giorgio has reverted to a feral state, speaking in grunts and growls. Horribly disfigured, Giorgio is served a meal a day by a frightened maid. When Giorgio finally escapes (via breaking off his own thumb so he can slip out of his manacles), he is looking for revenge against humanity.
Giorgio is probably one of the most frightening monsters in cinematic history but yet, like all great monsters, he is as much a victim as a villain. One reason why the film works is that, even though you’re terrified of Giorgio, you can’t blame him for being angry. Indeed, one of the film’s strongest moments come when Giorgio sees his reflection for the first time and wails at the sight. Jonathan Fuller gives a great performance as Giorgio.
Just as Giorgio escape, the duchess’s last remaining descendants move into the castle. John Reilly (Jeffrey Combs) is a recovering alcoholic. Years ago, a drunk John had an automobile accident, which led to the death of his son and the blinding of his teenage daughter, Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide). His wife, Susan (Barbara Crampton), cannot bring herself to forgive John for the accident.
Though neither is initially aware of the other’s existence, there’s an obvious bond between John and Giorgio. Much as the duchess never forgave Giorgio, Susan will never forgive John. Giorigio was held prisoner by chains while John was held prisoner by both his own guilt and Susan’s anger. Both of them are capable of monstrous acts with the only difference being that John has yet to totally surrender his humanity to his rage. It’s somewhat appropriate that, after John picks up a prostitute from town, it’s Giorgio who ends up killing her because Giorgio really is John’s id unleashed. And now, John’s entire family is in danger to falling victim to that id.
Castle Freak is a frightening movie, one that mixes shocking gore with other more subtle scares. Director Stuart Gordon makes good use of the castle’s ominous atmosphere and he also gets wonderful performances from his entire cast, with Jeffrey Combs as the stand-out. This is a scary and gory film that was truly made for intelligent adults.
And finally, that scene where the blind Rebecca talks about her hopes and dreams while Giorgio stands unseen beside her?
Pure nightmare fuel.
Film Review: Sicario (dir by Denis Villeneuve)
If you told me that I had to describe the new film Sicario in just one word, that word would be “overwhelming.”
And then I’d get really mad at you for making me sum up my feelings about Sicario in only one word. Sicario is a great film, one of the best of the year so far. It’s a film that works as both an exciting thriller and an examination of the grim reality of the Mexican Drug War. It’s a film that may anger you and it certainly won’t leave you feeling very optimistic as far as the endless, corrupt, and unwinnable war on drugs is concerned. And, ultimately, it is a very overwhelming viewing experience, one that quite literally left me breathless.
And what’s frustrating is that I really can’t tell you as much about Sicario as I might want to. Sicario is a film about secrets and, if I reveal even one secret, I risk messing up the experience of watching the film for you. And that’s something that I would never want to do because Sicario is a film that deserves and needs to be seen and experienced. And this is a film that you should go into with as little advanced knowledge as possible.
So, I’m going to ask you trust me here. I’m going to ask you to believe me when I tell you that Sicario is a great film but that I can’t tell you the exact reasons why. It’s a film that comes at you disguised as being a typical action film and then it sets about defying every single expectation that you might have. I have been so conditioned by watching so many action films that I constantly found myself assuming that I knew what would happen next. And, nearly every time, Sicario proved me wrong.
Here’s what I can tell you. Kate Marcer (Emily Blunt) is a FBI agent who, after discovering an Arizona house that is full of dead bodies, is assigned to a joint task force that has been tasked with taking down a Mexican drug lord. Kate finds herself working for Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who works for a government agency that he consistently refuses to name. Idealistic and naive, Kate is shocked by Graver’s ruthless methods and confused as to why she’s even been assigned to work with him. (Kate continually complains that Graver’s operation seems to have no purpose and that his methods are often illegal. Graver usually just smirks in response.) Also working with Graver is the enigmatic Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a Columbian lawyer who says few words and is surprisingly good with a gun.
Up until the film’s final 30 minutes, we see nearly the entire story through Kate’s eyes. And, much like Kate, we spend much of the film confused. We struggle to figure out just what exactly it is that Graver is trying to accomplish and just how exactly Alejandro fits into his plans. Emily Blunt gives a great performance as Kate but, at the same time, the film cleverly subverts our expectations about what we expect to happen with her character. After all, we’ve seen Looper. We’ve seen Edge of Tomorrow. And when Sicario begins, we have every reason to expect that this is going to be another film where Emily Blunt is going to kick everyone’s ass. And, make no doubt about it — Emily Blunt does get to kick some ass in this film but this film suggests that, in the end, it doesn’t matter if you kick everyone’s ass. Certain things just cannot be changed.
And then there’s Josh Brolin, who is wonderfully glib as Matt Graver. You distrust him as soon as he appears on-screen but he still remains a compelling enigma. But, ultimately, this film belongs to Benicio Del Toro. If there was any doubt that Del Toro is one of the greatest actors working right now, Sicario should dispel it. When we first meet Alejandro, he seems like he’s just a burned out shell of a man. We look at him and we assume certain things about his character and we think we know exactly what is going to happen with him. At first, Del Toro gives such a quiet and introverted performance that it’s almost easy to forget about him. But then, as Sicario reaches its violent and thought-provoking conclusion, Del Toro suddenly steps forward and take over the entire film. Even after we learn his big secret, Alejandro (and Del Toro) continues to surprise us. It’s a great performance and it will be a great injustice if Del Toro is not, at the very least, nominated for an Academy Award.
Along with Del Toro, the other great stars of the film are cinematographer Roger Deakins and the director, Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve may not be a household name but he’s one of the best directors working today. He’s a filmmaker who can use the conventions of genre (the action genre in this film, the mystery genre in Prisoners) to tell a story about how people are living now and why things are the way that they are. (In many ways, Denis Villeneuve is Steven Soderbergh without all the pretentious affectations.) Villeneuve’s skill as a director is on full, thrilling display in four separate set pieces, each of which is full of heart-pounding tension and sudden violence. As for Roger Deakins, he captures images of Mexico and the south Texas that feel almost alien in their ominous beauty.
Sicario is one of the best films of the year. See it!
Horror Film Review: Cat People (dir by Paul Schrader)
Before I get around to actually reviewing Paul Schrader’s 1982 reimagining of Cat People, I’m going to suggest that you take a few minutes to watch the film’s opening credits. Say what you will about Schrader’s Cat People, it has a great opening, one that perfectly sets up the rest of the film.
In this version of Cat People, Irena (Natassja Kinski) is a naive young woman (and virgin) who, after the death of her parents, has spent most of her previous life in foster care. Irena travels to New Orleans, where she reconnects with her older brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell). From the minute that Irena meets her brother and his housekeeper (Ruby Dee), it’s obvious that something is off. When Paul looks at her, he does so with an unsettling intensity. At night, while Irena sleeps, Paul wanders the dark streets of New Orleans.
One morning, Irena wakes up to discover that Paul is missing. Having nothing else to do, Irena wanders around New Orleans. When she visits the zoo, she feels an immediate connection to a caged panther who stares at her with a familiar intensity. It turns out that the panther was captured the previous night, after he mysteriously appeared in a sleazy motel and mauled a prostitute.
It’s at the zoo that Irena meets zookeeper Oliver Yates (John Heard). Oliver gets Irena a job working at the zoo gift shop. where Irena is befriended by Oliver’s co-worker, Alice (Annette O’Toole). One day, Irena witnesses the panther kill another zookeeper before it then escapes from its cage.
That night, Paul suddenly shows up in Irena’s bedroom. He explains to her that they are a cursed species. Having sex causes them to turn into panthers and the only way to avoid the curse is through incest. A terrified Irena flees her brother and soon finds herself living with and falling in love with the increasingly obsessive Oliver, all the while knowing that giving herself to him physically will lead to her transformation.
From the very first second of the film. Schrader’s Cat People is an exercise in pure style. If the original Cat People was largely distinguished by its restraint, Schrader’s version is all about excess. Everything that was merely suggested in the original is made explicit in this version. As tempting as it may be to try, it’s somewhat pointless to try to compare these two versions. Though they may both be about a woman who turns into a panther when she has sex, they are two very different films.
Schrader’s Cat People walks a very fine line between moodiness and absurdity, which is perhaps why I enjoyed it. Making great use of both the sultry New Orleans setting and Giorgio Moroder’s atmospheric score, Cat People is compulsively dream-like and enjoyably over-the-top. Cat People is often described as being an example of a movie that could have only been made in the coked up 80s and truly, this is one of those films that’s so excessive that it’s becomes fascinating to watch.
(I think that often we are too quick to assume that excess is necessarily a bad thing. If you can’t be excessive when you’ve got Malcolm McDowell playing an incest-minded cat person in New Orleans, when can you be excessive?)
Schrader’s Cat People may not have much in common with the original version but the film’s best scene is the only one that is a direct recreation of a scene from the original. In fact, in recreating the scene where Alice is menaced while swimming in a public pool, Schrader actually improves on the original. Brilliantly performed by both Annette O’Toole and Natassja Kinski (whose cat-like features made her perfect for the role of Irena), it’s the only scene in the film that can truly be called scary. Starting with a tracking shock that follows Alice as she jogs, the stalking scene is practically a master class in effective horror cinema. If nothing else, you should see Cat People for that one scene.
And you should also see it for the wonderful soundtrack! Let’s end this review with David Bowie’s theme song, which you may also remember from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.
Horror on the Lens: The Golem: How He Came Into The World (dir by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese)
Yesterday, for our Horror on The Lens, we featured It!, a British film what happens when Roddy McDowall discovers the legendary Golem.
Today, we are very proud to present another film about the Golem, one that is definitely held in higher critical regard than It! (Sorry, Roddy!) The 1920 German film The Golem: How He Came Into The World is, for lack of a better term, an origin story for the Golem, one that shows how the Golem was originally brought to life to protect the Jewish people from persecution and how it was later corrupted by a combination of the dreaded demon Astaroth and pretty human jealousy.
The Golem is also a landmark of both German Expressionism and horror cinema, a dream-like tribute to both the power of the human imagination and the strength and resilience of the Jewish people. This is one of those films that everyone should watch at least once.
And yes, it is a silent movie. So, put your favorite music on in the background and watch The Golem!
Horror on TV: The Twilight Zone 1.13 — “The Four of Us Are Dying”
In this episode of the Twilight Zone, a con man (Harry Townes) has the ability to change his face to make himself appear like anyone he wants to be. Needless to say, this ability doesn’t quite work out as well for him as he might have hoped.
This episode originally aired on January 1st, 1960.
(If the video is not showing up below — some browsers apparently have problems showing embedded videos from Hulu — you can watch the episode at http://www.hulu.com/watch/440771.)
The Daily Horror Grindhouse: Savage Weekend (dir by David Paulsen)
Filmed in 1976 but not released until 1979, Savage Weekend is the story of a brave boom mic that takes a trip to upstate New York for the weekend and ends up witnessing a lot of decadent behavior and, eventually, a few gruesome murders. Sadly, the brave little boom mic apparently has no social skills because everyone pretends like they don’t see it, even though it shows up a few dozen times, always floating at the top of the screen.
It’s also the story of Otis (William Sanderson), a local redneck (I’ve never been to upstate New York but I still find it amusing how movies always portray it as being a step away from Deliverance country) who spends his time talking to his father’s gravestone. Apparently, when Otis was younger, he found out his girlfriend was cheating on him so he branded her with an H. Why an H? Because, we’re told, Otis doesn’t know how to spell whore.
Well, okay then…
Actually, if you’ve watched any number of these type of films, you’ll immediately recognize William Sanderson. Sanderson played a countless number of backwoods weirdos and he always did a pretty good job. (He also played the poignantly sympathetic J.F. Sebastian in Blade Runner.) Interestingly enough, in real life, Sanderson has a law degree.
Savage Weekend, incidentally, has a brilliant opening. After running through the woods, a woman finds herself cornered by Otis. As Otis approaches her, he gives her a strange little half-smile. It’s super creepy and scary and the rest of the film never lives up to it.
That said, Savage Weekend is an interesting film, even if it’s not a particularly good one. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or if it’s a happy byproduct of the filmmaker’s general incompetence but Savage Weekend has a truly surreal feel to it. It moves at a deliberate, almost dream-like pace. Characters appear and then vanish for lengthy periods of time. Plot points are raised and then abandoned. As a result of an inconsistent script, much is hinted at without ever being truly revealed. It makes for a very odd viewing experience.
Plotwise, it’s your standard slasher film. A group of people find themselves in an isolated location and are picked off, one-by-one, by a masked killer. Whereas most slasher films feature teenage victims, Savage Weekend is distinguished by the fact that all of the victims are adults and they’re all way too old and successful to justify continually making the type of stupid decisions necessary for a slasher movie to work. Two of them, Robert (Jim Doerr) and Jay (Devin Goldenberg), are stockbrokers. Marie (Marilyn Hamlin) is the ex-wife of the Governor of New York’s press secretary. (At one point, someone mentions that the governor was corrupt and apparently committed suicide. It’s one of those plot points that comes out of nowhere.) Meanwhile, Marie’s sister, Shirley (Caitlin O’Heany), is accompanied by her best friend, Nicky (Christopher Allport). Nicky is flamboyantly gay and, shortly after being introduced, he single-handedly beats up three rednecks and then dramatically announced, “I was raised in the Bronx!”
Since the first murder doesn’t take place until an hour into the film, we spend more time than usual getting to know our victims but none of them behave in any sort of consistent manner, which adds to the film’s dreamlike feel. Nicky clutches a barbed wire fence while watching Shirley fool around with Jay. Marie appears to be on the verge of touching herself while listening to the story about Otis branding his girlfriend. Later, a good deal of screen time is devoted to Marie and another redneck milking a cow, with the camera zooming in on the milk shooting out of the udders. While being stalked by the killer, Nicky puts on makeup while a lingerie-clad Shirley dances through the house while tango music plays on the soundtrack.
It all just feels very odd and strangely paced, as if huge chunks of the script were either not filmed or left on the editing room floor. But that oddness (along with the boom mic) is exactly what makes Savage Weekend an interesting movie.
Horror Film Review: The Curse of the Cat People (dir by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise)
So, you can add the 1944 film The Curse of the Cat People to the list of films that made me cry.
And I know that you’re probably going to point out that it’s already a very long list and I know that some people believe that I cry at every movie that I see. (Listen, if I cried every time that I watched a movie, that would mean that not a single hour would pass without me shedding tears and … well, anyway, lets move on…) But seriously, The Curse of the Cat People is a wonderful and heartfelt film.
Technically, it’s a sequel to the original Cat People. Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph) are married now and they have a six year-old daughter named Amy (Ann Carter). Irena (Simone Simon) does return but we’re never quite sure whether she’s a ghost or if she’s meant to be a figment of Amy’s imagination. There is no mention of Irena being cursed, though a hissing cat does make an appearance at the beginning of the film. In the original Cat People, Elizabeth Russell played a mysterious woman who asked if Irena was her sister. In The Curse of the Cat People, Russell appears in a different role but, interestingly enough, she’s still linked to the memory of Irena.
Instead, The Curse of the Cat People is about Amy. Amy is a shy girl who spends most of her time daydreaming and Ann Carter (who was 8 years old at the time) gives a very real and very authentic performance, one that is totally the opposite of the type of performance that we often expect from child actors. I was a shy child myself (I was famous for always hiding behind my mom whenever I saw a stranger approaching) and, from the minute Amy appeared, I knew exactly how she felt and what was going through her mind.
While Alice feels that Amy’s daydreaming is harmless, Oliver worries about her daughter. At one point, he says that he fears that she’ll never leave her fantasy world and that she’ll grow up to be like Irena. (Interestingly enough, this line suggests that Oliver still doesn’t believe that Irena was actually a cat person.) Amy, meanwhile, has a vision of Irena standing in the backyard and soon, the two of them are best friends.
At the same time, Amy has also become friends with Julia Farren (Julia Dean), an elderly woman who lives in the neighborhood. Just like Amy, Julia lives in a fantasy world. She treats Amy like her own daughter. Meanwhile, Julia refuses to acknowledge her true daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell), accusing Barbara of being a spy and saying she is only pretending to be her daughter. Barbara grows more and more resentful of Amy and that resentment leads her to consider doing a truly terrible thing.
I guess it’s debatable whether or not The Curse of the Cat People can truly be called a horror film. While it does have elements of the horror genre, The Curse of the Cat People is ultimately both a coming-of-age story and a plea for adults to allow their children to be children. It’s all so heartfelt and so wonderfully performed by Ann Carter, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Elizabeth Russell, and Simone Simon that I couldn’t help but cry at the end of the film. The Curse of the Cat People is a great film to watch in October or any other month.
Lisa Reviews An Oscar-Nominated Horror Film: Jaws (dir by Steven Spielberg)
There’s little that is more intimidating than trying to write a review of the 1975 best picture nominee, Jaws.
I mean, seriously, what’s left to be said about this film? Jaws is one of those movies that everyone has seen and everyone loves. And, even if someone somehow hasn’t seen the film, chances are that they still know all about it. They know that it’s a movie about a giant shark that attacks Amity Island, just as the summer season is starting. They know that the town’s mayor refuses to close the beaches, because he doesn’t want to lose the tourist dollars. They know that the final half of the film is three men (Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw) floating around in a boat, searching for a shark. And they certainly know that, whenever you hear John Williams’s iconic theme music, it means that someone is about to get attacked.
Jaws is such a part of our culture that probably not a single day goes by without someone saying a variation on “we’re going to need a bigger boat.” Did you know that, on twitter, Ben Gardner’s boat has its own account? And despite getting pretty graphically dismembered about halfway through Jaws, poor little Alex Kintner has an account as well!
What’s amazing about Jaws is that, even though everyone’s seen it and it’s been parodied a few thousand times, Jaws remains incredibly effective. I still find myself cringing whenever the shark catches Alex Kintner and that geyser of blood explodes out of the ocean. I still jump whenever the shark suddenly emerges from the water and scares the Hell out of Roy Scheider. I still laugh at Richard Dreyfuss’s hyperactive performance and I instinctively cover my ears whenever I realize that Robert Shaw is about to drag his nails across that chalk board.
And then there’s that music, of course! Even after being used, misused, and imitated in countless other films, the Jaws theme still fills me with a sort of existential dread. The mechanical shark was notoriously fake-looking and was rarely seen onscreen as a result. The camera and the music stand in for the shark and it works beautifully.
The one unfortunate thing about Jaws is that it’s been so critically acclaimed and so embraced by audiences that I think people tend to forget that it is primarily a horror film. Mainstream critics tend to look down on horror as a genre so, rather than admit the obvious, they claim that Jaws is more of a thriller than a horror film. Or they talk about how it’s actually meant to be a political allegory or an environmental allegory or an examination of male bonding.
So, let’s just make this clear. No matter what the elitist critics or even Steven Spielberg himself may say, Jaws is primarily a horror film, with that relentless killer shark serving as a prototype for such future horror fiends as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and both of the Ghostface and Jigsaw Killers. (Jaws even opens with a stereotypical slasher movie death, as a nude and stoned swimmer is suddenly attacked by an unseen killer.) If not for Scheider, Shaw, and Dreyfuss floating in the endless ocean, you would never have had films — like the Blair Witch Project — about people being lost and stalked in the wilderness. And when that shark attacks and graphically rips apart its victims, how different is it from something you might find in a George Romero or Lucio Fulci zombie film?
On the basis of Jaws and Duel, I think it can be argued that, if Steven Spielberg hadn’t become America’s favorite director of crowd-pleasing, Oscar-contending blockbusters, he could have been one of our best horror directors. Sadly, Spielberg has pretty much abandoned horror and I doubt that Jaws would be as effective if it were made today. (I suspect that the temptation to resort to a cartoonish CGI shark would be too great.)
But that’s all speculation.
What matters is that Jaws remains one of the greatest films ever made.
And it’s a horror film!
Horror on TV: Twilight Zone 3.12 “The Jungle”
Along with starting each day of October with a horror film here at the Shattered Lens, we’re going to end each day with a horror-themed television show.
While I had previously caught a few episodes of the Twilight Zone during one of the annual holiday marathons on SyFy, I didn’t truly appreciate the show until I first exchanged e-mails with my friend in Australia, Mark. Among other things, Mark expressed a very eloquent appreciation for The Twilight Zone and that inspired me to watch quite a few episodes that have been uploaded to YouTube and Hulu. Along with being an essential piece of television history, the best episodes of the Twilight Zone remain watchable and entertaining 50 years after they were first broadcast.
Considering the esteemed place that the Twilight Zone continues to occupy in American culture, it seems appropriate to feature it during Horror Month here at the Shattered Lens.
The Jungle, which first aired on December 1st, 1961, is a personal favorite of mine. A businessman returns to New York from Africa. While in Africa, he upset a local witch doctor. Though the businessman, at first, laughs off the possibility that he may be cursed, it soon turns out that he’s wrong. There’s a lesson to this episode and here it is: Don’t piss off a witch doctor.
When I first saw this episode, the final scene caused me to have nightmares!
(By the way, I’m embedding this episode from Hulu. Sadly, you will have to deal with commercials. However, it’s really a great episode!)
(It has also come to my attention that some browsers do not work with embedded Hulu vidoes. Seriously, the internet is so frustrating! If the embedded video is not appearing on your browser, you should be able to watch this episode on Hulu. Here’s the link — http://www.hulu.com/watch/440777. I apologize for the inconvenience but still, it is a really good episode!)
