October 30th: Frankenhooker, dir. Frank Henenlotter, 1990. (Canada) 3.5/5 pumpkins


Nothing in this film makes a lick of sense and I wouldn't have it any other way. Why would our "hero" take body parts from numerous hookers to revive his dead fiance? Why would he design deadly crack that causes the smoker to explode if he needed an intact body to steal? If he only needed it for one hooker, why did he make so much of it? Why is nobody in his fiance's family upset by the eyeball-sporting brain he's playing with in the beginning of the film? Has he already killed before? Seeing as how this film is really an exploration of one man's intense mental illness (Street Trash scene-stealer James Lorinz does a casual, deadpan descent into madness hilariously), it would not surprise me. It's hard to craft a film where you are actively rooting against the protagonist every step of the way, but Henenlotter succeeds. It helps that he gives it a very Tales From the Crypt morality play-ish wicked ending. Nobody does seedy New York City better than Henenlotter either (well, maybe Larry Cohen in Q - The Winged Serpent) and this one is especially seedy and sleazy. Worth it for the wildly ecstatic reaction the hookers have to the giant bag of crack and the scene where the muscle-bound pimp is, um, dealt with.

October 29th: American Mary, dir. Jen and Sylvia Soska, 2012. (Canada) 0/5 pumpkins


Congratulations, American Mary - you win worst of the month by far. This isn't a film so much as it is an infomercial for a subculture of which the Soska sisters are fond. The most inept characterization ever - at first I thought this film might just be very arch, but around the halfway point I had to concede that it's just that the Soskas have no idea how to write even broad caricatures. It's a complete narrative mess - it wants to be a revenge thriller but completely drops that thread, which it had been building towards for almost half of the runtime, in favor of a series of vignettes about the titular character's rise in the body modification world. But then it decides to return to the revenge well later for some reason, and throws in a rushed, forced climax that they haven't put in the requisite legwork for. This film is a feminist manifesto? Bullshit - it's every bit as exploitative and trashy (not that that's a bad thing in and of itself) as Last House on the Left. The sisters' direction is as blunt and unsubtle as they come, the acting is across-the-board atrocious, and the grand guignol gore setpieces pull their punches. The American film Excision - released the same year - mines very similar territory to much better effect. A complex protagonist, sharp direction, a full narrative arc filled with building tension, a wicked sense of humor, and an unflinching eye where it counts. I'd say American Mary might have a marginal purpose as background noise in a tattoo/piercing parlor, but any owner of such an establishment would probably be better off just showing this documentary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455980/. I've not seen it, yet I feel comfortable making that statement.

October 28th: Rabid, dir. David Cronenberg, 1977. (Canada) 4/5 pumpkins


I almost did a 31-day marathon without a single Cronenberg film. That would have been unconscionable for me. It's a very similar film to Shivers in subject matter and tone, in that it deals with infection (particularly of a sexual nature), but handled much more adeptly. It helps that he got much better at providing a tiny emotional core at the heart of this film, which makes the climax hit all the harder, even though it ostensibly has a happier ending (at least for humanity, if not Marilyn Chambers) than his first film. The psuedoscience is sharper, the acting is miles above Shivers (porn star Chambers acquits herself quite well, especially as she becomes more despondent and helpless as the film rolls to a conclusion), and Cronenberg's eye is more confident and experimental. It's not the masterpiece he would give us next (The Brood), but it's not far off, either. 

October 27th: Vampyr, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932. (Germany/France) 5/5 pumpkins


Very, very bummed I didn’t get the chance to catch this at the local repertory theater this week due to conflicting schedules and the fact that it was only screened twice, while Cabin in the Woods gets about 6 screenings (I love Cabin unreservedly, but c’mon, it was just in theaters). I’m not enough of a film scholar to say anything insightful about this. It’s proto David Lynch – a fevered nightmare collage.

October 26th: House of Dark Shadows, dir. Dan Curtis, 1970. (United States) 2.5/5 pumpkins


Two of my friends are die-hard fans of the Dark Shadows TV series; they even own that limited, pricey box set of the entire run which is housed in a coffin box large enough for a small toddler and have been to a convention set at the gothic manse this series condensation was filmed at. I’m grateful I watched this with them, as I’d otherwise have no idea what was going on (and as it was, outside of the main vampire Barnabas Collins and his bumbling henchman, I still didn’t grasp all the characters). Cramming hundreds of episodes worth of plot and characters (the show ran well in excess of 1,000 episodes), this is a mess, albeit a well-intentioned mess. Some great unintentional comedy, nice setting, but turgid acting. It’s a soap opera, though – what more do you expect?

October 25th: The Hunger, dir. Tony Scott, 1983. (United Kingdom) 4/5 pumpkins


Why the hell did I wait so long to watch this? Staged Bauhaus concert to kick things off, David Bowie, lesbian vamps, absolutely dripping with atmosphere…this film is like catnip to me. It’s also nothing more than a long perfume commercial. Christian Die-or? Charnel No. 5? Dolce Gorebbana? That said, is there any other horror creature with looser rules than vampires? This one doesn’t even bother to explain away its transgressions; all that explanation would just get in the way of the billowing silk curtains and illicit trysts.

October 24th: Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The House by the Cemetery), dir. Lucio Fulci, 1981. (Italy) 4/5 pumpkins


Wow. There are so many things to love about this movie. The creepy moppet, interminable bat attacks, the rapid-fire eye close-ups, incomprehensible plot with more dangling threads than the titular house sports dangling cobwebs, wonderfully atmospheric music, nutso gore, bleak-as-hell ending…yeah. It doesn’t make a lick of sense and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

October 23rd: Poltergeist, dir. Tobe Hooper, 1982. (United States) 5/5 pumpkins


Holy shit I love this movie. It had been a long time since I had watched it all the way through, probably at least 10 years, so revisiting it was doubly great. Watching it this time, I was struck by just how much of an assault on America’s perceived safety and place in the world it is. It’s like a cruise missile aimed at the heart of Reagan’s city on a hill. All of those middle class trappings set up in the film’s opening – “The Star-Spangled Banner” and television, planned communities with families biking and playing in the streets, beer and football, annoying neighbors and hidden habits…hell, Craig T. Nelson reading a Reagan biography in bed – all of them are swept away by the malevolent forces unleashed through greed, disrespect, and ignorance. It’s impossible to tell exactly how much Stephen Speilberg filmed vs. Tobe Hooper, but both of their hands are all over this in the best way possible. Speilberg lends a sense of wonder and grounded family dynamics, while Hooper shades in the edges with creeping dread, the existential helplessness Carol Anne’s parents feel, and some good old-fashioned spookhouse scares. Everything’s clicking here. Nothing is scarier than suburbia.

October 22nd: Lifeforce, dir. Tobe Hooper, 1985. (United States) 2/5 pumpkins


This is going to be a really unpopular opinion, but I give up trying to be a fan of Lifeforce. This was my third go-round on it and while I probably enjoyed it more this time than my prior viewings, there’s just too many fatal flaws. It’s a shame, really, because it’s a great premise (naked space vampires!), boasts great production design and effects, and Tobe Hooper puts together some great scenes. But in the end the nonsensical plot (why are there hoards of zombies at the end and not vampires?) and odd pacing put me off. The fatal flaw is our main actor, Steve Railsback. He was really great as the X-Files’ Duane Barry, but in a concentrated dose like this, his painful overacting and downright goofy facial expressions take me right out of the film. Dan O’Bannon’s writing doesn't do him any favors; I imagine it’s hard to give lines like “Her sexuality had such power…it was almost…spiritual!” and endless “Lemme go! Lemme go!” the proper gravitas. Scream Factory’s new Blu-ray looks goddamn fantastic, I’ll say that much. Come for the great FX and Mathilda May’s undead boobage, stay for the…well, I dunno. It's a real purdy film. 

October 21st: Paperhouse, dir. Bernard Rose, 1988. (United Kingdom) 2.5/5 pumpkins


Candyman is one of my favorite horror films of the '90s and that film's director, Bernard Rose, is what drew me to this film. An outcast girl, lashing out in part due to her anger at her alcoholic father (who is away from home on work assignment), doodles a house in her notebook, featuring a sad-faced boy in the upper window. She begins to dream herself into the landscape she's created, soon becoming friends with the boy and discovering that whatever she draws in the real world, appears in her dream life. Of course, she colors a bit outside of the lines accidentally, endangering her and her new friend. I really wish I would have seen this film when I was 11 years old or so; it might be a revered personal favorite now. Unfortunately, seeing it for the first time when older reveals a movie that's of two minds about whom it's targeting. It operates on a younger level mostly, but some of the sequences in her dream world would be kinda disturbing for a young kid. Too much of the film’s narrative is left unexplained, such as a psychic connection with a fellow patient her doctor is caring for, much of the family’s background, etc. That said, Paperhouse has some wonderfully creepy and stark imagery, and it’s often an honest portrait of being an outcast kid on the verge of adolescence with a fairly adult message – there are no pristine fantasy worlds and wherever you go, you bring your baggage with you. Pity about the much-too-pat ending.

October 20th: Nekromantik, dir. Jörg Buttgereit, 1987. (West Germany) ?/5 pumpkins


Sooo...

I don’t know what to do with this film. I didn’t watch it so much as cringe at it. More than anything, Nekromantik reminds me of Georges Bataille’s novella Story of the Eye, about two young lovers obsessed with bodily fluid and sexual congress with the dead. That’s basically what this film is, and it’s about as hard to digest as that book. This was a grueling endurance test; it dares you to keep watching. It gleefully skirts the lines between artful transgression, pornography, and b-movie schlock, often all at once. I’m sure there’s any number of ways to interpret this film, especially in the context of 1987’s West Germany – is it a German answer to the Italian Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, condemning the state for not coming to grips with its not-too-distant Nazi past? A proto-Funny Games, damning and indicting the audience for their bloodlust (emphasis on lust), yet still presenting it to them anyway? (The scene where our main character visits a cinema to watch a rampantly misogynistic and ugly slasher film while the theater-goers gaze bemusedly and make out would seem to support this.) Violently ugly, unapologetically gross, yet lyrical and poetic, Nekromantik is my new benchmark for confrontational art. Just don't ask me I actually like it, because I don't have an answer. 

October 19th: Innocent Blood, dir. John Landis, 1992. (United States) 3.5/5 pumpkins

After watching Martin play around in my hometown, I decided to make it a Pittsburgh-centric weekend (and hey, another vampire film – Pittsburgh’s got a real supernatural beastie problem what with this and all the damn zombies). I’ve put off watching it forever, mostly because of its less-than-stellar reputation. That said, it’s John Landis returning to horror comedy with an absolutely amazing cast – how could it possibly go wrong? It doesn’t, but the film could definitely use more bite (ahurr). A French vampire with a taste for dangerous men decides she’d like some Italian food, so she decides to chow down on some Pittsburgh mobsters, only she gets a bit sloppy and leaves a loose end lying about. Innocent Blood has style to spare, and the conceit of a mobster and horror mash-up is original and occasionally inspired, although the implications of an undead cosa nostra(ratu) weren’t fully explored enough for me. Anthony LaPaglia is ably doing his usual beleaguered straight guy routine, Robert Loggia chewing scenery is worth the watch alone, and it’s lots of fun to play spot-the-horror-icon in guest roles. Even when the film flagged, I was kept engaged by Landis’ wonderful use of Pittsburgh – he seems to have really fallen for the town during filming, as he works in enough visual nods and place names to satisfy even the most unreconstructed yinzer (there’s even a joke about not wanting to cross a river). I do believe I’ll pay a visit to the Original Oyster House sometime soon and ask they’ll take some pictures of me in the basement with a toaster oven.

October 18th: Martin, dir. George Romero, 1978. (United States) 4.5/5 pumpkins


I should be doubly shamed for not watching this film until now. I’m a horror nerd and a life-long Pittsburgher. For shame. Martin is absolutely incredible and without a doubt Romero’s best film next to Dawn of the Dead. (It might even eclipse that film, given Martin’s taut structure – not an ounce of fat here.) Romero plays a delicate balance of is he/isn’t he with the true nature of Martin – bona fide creature of the night (albeit one immune to most of the vampiric rules), or a mentally disturbed teenager whose illness is fed and abetted by his abusive grandfather? And really, which is more frightening? Romero chooses the down-and-out industrial suburb of Braddock as the backdrop to this utterly bleak fable and it’s a perfect setting – Martin lopes through the crumbling streets and drab townhouses, paying witness to sordid and empty relationships, economic losers, and the crushing monotony of the suburban middle class. There’s a lot of ways to read this film – most strikingly as a parable for puberty and the dangers of an ignored and dispossessed underclass (Martin, as a representative of this class, ventures to the higher-income and bucolic neighborhood of Highland Park to cull his victims). This one is winning October thus far for me.

October 17th: El día de la Bestia (The Day of the Beast), dir. Álex de la Iglesia, 1995. (Spain/Italy) 2/5 pumpkins


In which a priest has read too many Dan Brown pulps, and, uh...hijinks ensue. I guess. This film boasts a really interesting premise - Father Ángel proclaims to know the date of the Apocalypse through the use of numerology, and just in the nick of time. He proceeds to commit as many sins as possible in the hopes that he’ll be able to sell his soul to the devil and thus be present at the birth of the Antichrist, whom he plans to kill. To help him in this quest, he enlists a dimwitted metal record shop owner and an unwilling charlatan TV psychic. The Day of the Beast shoots for a level of manic energy that Peter Jackson was operating on in the early 90s, but doesn’t boast a script near smart or clever enough. The promising first act devolves into our characters running around bashing each other with Looney Tunes aplomb and some of the worst CGI on record. It’s not a complete misfire – it’s acted engagingly enough, has a few nice gags, and outside of the CGI is competently produced. It’s neither funny or scary, though. This is one toothless man-goat.

October 16th: Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, dir. Joseph Zito, 1984. (United States) /5 pumpkins


In lieu of a review, I'm just gonna drop this in here. Do with it what you will.

October 15th: Kairo (Pulse), dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001. (Japan) 3/5 pumpkins


Asian horror has long been one of my blind spots. I’ve only seen a handful of J-horror films and while some of them are among my favorites in the genre (Godzilla, House) I’m left cold by the majority of what I’ve seen. Ichi the Killer? Eh. Audition? I actively dislike it. I Saw the Devil? Getting better, but too disjointed. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural disconnect or some failing on my part (although I somehow managed to avoid everything but The Ring during the American remake of J-horror craze – but I do love that one, and makes me wish Gore Verbinski would take on another horror film). Pulse is often considered the gold standard of modern J-horror, however, so I decided to give it another shot. I’m please to say I enjoy it more than any others I’ve seen, but that’s damning with faint praise. It’s actually a straightforward ghost story, although the film muddles the edges with some pulled-from-the-ass philosophical musings on the spirit world getting too full. More successful are the mournful comparisons of death with life in our modern, disconnected society (it’s a Luddite film at heart, as our hero is a charmingly technophobic slacker), and of the essential loneliness of urban life. Pulse actively eschews any sort of jump scares, aiming for a permeating sense of dread and unease. The sound design helps immensely in this regard – outside of a Lynch film, I’ve not often seen a filmmaker use sound to such an unsettling degree. The hum and drone of hard drives and monitors is omnipresent, even when the characters aren’t surrounded by banks of computers. Ambient noise and atonal orchestral pieces buzz in the ether, sometimes cutting out completely to highlight the isolation our characters feel and, ultimately, long for. That said, the film moves at a downright glacial pace (as slow as a 56k modem, if you want an Internet pun), is over-long by at least 30 minutes, and the vast majority of the characters are blank ciphers (though that may be the point). A mixed bag, but I admire the sickly apocalyptic tone and technical prowess on display.

October 14th: The Hidden, dir. Jack Sholder, 1987. (United States) 3/5 pumpkins


Or, To Live and Slime in L.A. I wouldn’t consider this film horror, strictly speaking – it comes off more as a sci-fi actioner, with a bit of fish-out-of-water police procedural thrown in. In other words, more Men in Black than Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That said, it’s a fun ride. Otherwise normal, law-abiding people start acting in violent, homicidal ways, drawing oddball FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan doing a dry run for Twin Peaks’ Agent Cooper) to team up with gruff local detective Tom Beck (Michael Nouri). It turns out these crimes are actually being committed by a parasitic alien who has a penchant for fast cars, a lack of impulse control, and a preference for inhabiting the bodies of stocky men. As is de rigueur for a buddy cop film, our heroes are terribly mismatched, with Beck being a straight-laced family man and Gallagher a cryptic loner. Hints that Gallagher might be a bit more than he originally claims allow MacLachlan some nice moments of dry humor, though they come too quickly in the film and give away the game a bit early for my tastes. There are a few Cronenbergian body horror touches present, but either a stingy FX budget or just overly cautious restraint on director Sholder’s part keeps them infrequent and on the fringes. It’s a slight film, but moves at a brisk pace and you can’t argue with Concrete Blonde on the soundtrack.

October 13th: Friday the 13th, Part III, dir. Steve Miner, 1982 (United States) 1.5/5 pumpkins

Was I saying nice things about the Friday franchise a few days ago? I take all of that back. I’m beginning to think that the only consistent part of this franchise are the always-lively scores from Harry Manfredini. Jason gets his hockey mask in this installment, so I guess completists would need to suffer through for that moment but otherwise, wow. There’s not a single thing here to recommend. The blandest cast of characters Jason/his mother has dispatched to date, a script that completely upends Jason’s M.O. (why is he suddenly killing Crystal Lake villagers who aren’t in his camp/didn’t provoke him?), nary a shred of genuine suspense, crappy 3-D shots (at least these provide unintentional laughs), and the cheapest effects/costumes yet. And what is with these damned films spending their first ten minutes or so recapping the previous film? As I mentioned in my Part II write-up, continuity isn’t a priority for these films and they’re only being released a year (or less) apart, so it’s not exactly like we need the reminder. Really, by the third film in this series, I’m assuming the producers/directors are already preaching to the choir – the initiated don’t need the reminder and for the untested, this isn’t an episode of Game of Thrones – you’re seeing a Jason film – what more context do you require? Unless you’re dumber than the unfortunate schlubs in this film, of course. I almost forgot to mention the racial ickiness in this one - the antagonists of the film outside of Jason are a group of 3 asshole punk/bikers, 2 of which are black. They are, of course, the only people of color in the film (and thus hacked open first, if we aren't counting the opening kills). This isn't even generally regarded as the worst in the series, so I'm sure I'll be in for some real punishment when I invariably decide to plod onward.

October 12th: The Burning, dir. Tony Maylam, 1981. (United States) 4.5/5 pumpkins



This was my second go-round for this slasher and I found myself appreciating it even more this time. There’s nothing inventive or original about this one, as it follows the rote (even by ’81) framework of a camp-set slasher. It was, in fact, one of the first films from Miramax and Harvey Weinstein, made to cash in on the success of Friday the 13th and sports a story that’s almost identical to Friday’s sequel. What sets this film apart is its unflinching gruesomeness (thanks to Tom Savini), direction a notch or two above your usual slasher, an eerie soundtrack courtesy of Rick Wakeman (keyboardist from Yes), and an entertaining cast of victims/heroes, including a very young (and hair-sporting) Jason Alexander (George Costanza from Seinfeld) and Holly Hunter. Yes, this film has an actual Oscar-winner on board (though I don’t recall her actually having any lines). The script is miles above the usual fare, with genuinely funny moments that help flesh out the campers before the gardening shears start slicing, characters making decisions that aren’t completely irrational, and even the upending of a few genre tropes (sex in and of itself is not a death-worthy punishment, inversion of the “Final Girl” standard, a relatively large group of survivors). Oh, and our villain has a pretty good motivation this time out - I'd be pretty pissed off, too. The Burning drags a bit towards the middle, but makes up for that pacing issue with a grim, slowly simmering atmosphere that builds throughout (exploding in an infamous sequence where half of the film’s victims are dispatched within the span of about one minute) and one hell of a finale.

October 11th: Demons, dir. Lamberto Bava, 1985. (Italy) 5/5 pumpkins

There are few films I enjoy introducing people to more than Demons. What’s not to love? Amazing soundtrack (although the sequel’s is even better), humor both intentional and unintentional, completely batshit plot (and subplots that come out of nowhere), inventive gore – 80s trash horror simply doesn’t get any better than this. What’s the film about? Oh, fine – Berliners receive a mysterious invite to a new theater screening; it turns out more is opening than just the grade-z horror film strung up for the night. Namely, the gates of Hell. The demons in question don’t really follow any rules, at times acting more like ravenous zombies, at others like, well, demons – calculating and mischievous. They seem to go through some sort of life cycle since one demon’s back cracks open and a wholly new creature sprouts from its back, but that only happens once, so maybe not? Does it matter? Not when we are treated to a physics-defying motorcycle-and-katana massacre soundtracked by Accept. I’ll never know why this isn’t a perennial midnight screening during the month of October (at least in the Pittsburgh area); it’s tailor-made for that, from the bad dialogue to the setting of a movie theater. Just don’t try on any demon masks you find in the lobby.

October 10th: Shakma, dir. Tom Logan, 1990. (United States) 1/5 pumpkins


A baboon slaughters co-eds (who are playing a Dungeons and Dragons-esque game in a hospital, for some reason). That's about it. This threadbare premise would have been pushing it at the length of your average X-Files episode; at 1 hour and 46 minutes, it's fucking interminable. That said, some of the shots of the titular baboon careening down hallways and launching himself at his victims are simultaneously hilarious and horrifying. Poor Roddy McDowell, he deserves better than this. 

October 9th: Friday the 13th, Part 2, dir. Steve Milner, 1981. (United States) 2.5/5 pumpkins


It's kind of a dirty secret of mine, but outside of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, I'm woefully underschooled in 80s/90s horror's biggest franchises. I've only seen the first three Halloween films, the first two Hellraisers, and until last night, only the first of the Friday the 13th films. (I'm not counting bits and pieces gleaned from late-night cable as a teenager.) Part of the reason I've ignored the Friday films is that the first is such an underwhelming movie - Sean Cunningham is far from what you'd call an auteur and the first installment is completely lacking in any charm or innovation, ending plot twist aside. Imagine my surprise when Part 2 turned out to be a much more interesting and weirder film. Let's throw out the fact that this film renders the first utterly meaningless - after all, if Jason is still alive, why was his mother on a murderous revenge killing spree in the first film? If Jason was standing right by when his mother was killed, why didn't he spring into action then? One doesn't go into a slasher franchise expecting continuity, however. (Or logic - how does a mute, backwoods, unschooled, mentally retarded, and cash-strapped hulk of a man investigate, track down, and stalk his mother's killer? He's not a superhuman demon as of yet in this franchise.) All that said, the conceit that Jason's been keeping a shrine to his dead mommy, which our final girl exploits through psychology, makes for a much more interesting ending, and that final jump scare is worth full price. Although, what DID happen to Paul???

October 8th: The Invisible Man, dir. James Whale, 1933. (United States) 4.5/5 pumpkins


Is there any doubt that James Whale, more than any other person - actor or director, is the MVP of classic Universal horror? Nobody was better at infusing these seemingly simple monster movies with metaphor (which indisputably reached its peak with the follow-up to this film, Bride of Frankenstein), nor were any of the other Universal directors able to maintain such forward momentum or suspense in their pictures. (Outside of the three pictures Whale directed, Universal wouldn't have another film with as much verve and craft until Creature from the Black Lagoon, over 20 years later.) Compare the stuffy drawing room drama of Tod Browning's Dracula with the humor-laden inn scenes here, or the kinetic action scenes on display (containing a surprising amount of violence and a large body count) with those of the preceding, unfortunately flat The Mummy. That Whale was able to make such a gripping picture when his main character is either completely off-screen or concealed under layers of gauze is even more testament. Claude Rains certainly did his part, too - we might be lacking a face for him, but his voice fills the screen and is larger than life, especially as his character becomes ever-more unhinged throughout the picture. Whale is also wise to surround the invisible man with vivid supporting characters, and this might be the funniest of the Universal monster cycle. The innkeep's hysteric wife, the bumbling constable, the nebbish townspeople - there's always a supporting character to keep events from flagging. Oh, and the special effects are pretty fucking nifty, especially for the year in which it was made.

October 7th: Ginger Snaps, dir. John Fawcett, 2000. (Canada) 4.5/5 pumpkins


Another old favorite for this day. Visually, it's kind of drab and unflashy, but then I wonder if that's intentional, to further highlight the tedium and sameness of the planned suburban community the film's sisters dwell in (and yet are very much separate from). I'm not a teenage girl, nor have I ever been that, so I can't speak from a position of authority but this has always felt like a very honest and heartfelt allegory for female puberty. That's not a great revelation on my part or anything - it practically hits you over the head with it - but I think it's executed with sincerity and sympathy. (The sequel does an equally admirable job dealing with drug addiction, at least until it goes off the rails in the third act.) It's a very grounded film - the characters don't feel like caricatures and act in believable (if irrational) ways to the events happening around them. I always forget how much humor Mimi Parker brings to the picture as the girls' oblivious, clueless mother. It's prevented from getting a perfect rating because of one horribly false note, that being the scene where the younger sister tries out an antidote on a classmate; it's shot and scored as if it were an outtake from The Adventures of Pete & Pete. That, and the film becomes much less interesting when it shifts from character-driven to a typical monster chase in the final scenes (though competently done and sporting a thankfully tactile werewolf, not CGI). There's a dearth of quality werewolf films out there. Treasure the ones that nail it. 

October 6th: Les Raisins de La Mort (The Grapes of Death), dir. Jean Rollin, 1978. (France) 3.5/5 pumpkins


I went in to this one expecting the usual 70s eco-horror picture, but got a lot more than planned. Yeah, as the oft-repeated Mystery Science Theater 3000 catchphrase says, we get plenty of humans "tampering in God's domain," but The Grapes of Death offers much more. Like the titular vineyard grapes which have been sprayed with a nasty toxin, the film has been doused in some Cronenberg-worthy sexual transgression and leftist political subversion. The plot, such as it is, just follows a woman around the French countryside as she battles through hoards of wine-besotted "zombies" on the way to her fiance, the manager of a local winery and the inventor of a new (and untested) pesticide. I say "zombies" in quotation marks because the unfortunate souls in this film aren't undead, but rather driven to insanity and gloopy flesh by the tainted wine. It's much more The Crazies than Night of the Living Dead. This adds a lot more depth to the monsters - particularly disturbing is a father's remorse over having slaughtered his wife and daughter. Repulsed by what he's become, he implores her to finish him off. It's a haunting bit that packs much more wallop than a traditional zombie film could pull off. Scenes like that, the often-striking visuals, and some out-of-left field musings on what it means to truly fight for France and the casual exploitation of the working man elevate this above the usual pulp. I don't know if there's an especially strong through-line to the politics on display here, but making wine the vessel of the bourgeoisie's self-imposed stuporous destruction is a nice touch.

October 5th: The Abominable Dr. Phibes, dir. Robert Fuest, 1971. (United Kingdom) 3/5 pumpkins
"A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and impaled an eminent surgeon. Words fail me, gentlemen."


I was prepared for this one to be a bit odd. I was not prepared enough. I’m kind of ashamed to say it, but I’ve only seen three other Vincent Price films – Last Man on Earth, Witchfinder General, and Masque of the Red Death. ...Phibes was unlike any of those films. It has the garish color palette of Masque, but that’s where the similarities end. This really felt like two separate films that only come together in the end. For half of the running time, it’s a dry British comedy/police procedural. The other half is like watching a villain-centric episode of the ‘60s Batman television show (especially when it comes to Phibes’ various methods of offing his quarry – one could easily assign each murder to one of the rogues’ gallery). It’s a pretty slight film, but moves along on its humor and self-aware campiness. Cool sets, more gruesome makeup at the end than I expected, and tongue firmly in cheek. I wonder if the sequel is worth investigating.

October 4th: Night of the Creeps, dir. Fred Dekker, 1986. (United States) 4/5 pumpkins
"Thrill me!"


With the ladyfriend wanting a horror-comedy this night, I couldn’t resist revisiting Night of the Creeps. In the years since Slither has come out, I’ve gravitated towards that film at the expense of this one, but that’s just silly – there’s no reason the two can’t coexist. Can one actually have too many mind-control space slug films? What I find really odd about this ramshackle wink of a film is that it’s able to pull off a number of moments with surprising emotional heft. The argument in the dorm room, the recorded good-bye note, weird-face walking in on Tom Atkins mid-suicide…they all land with the proper gravity. And then next thing you know you’ve got a dog puking alien slugs into a frat boy’s mouth. One could get whiplash from this film. I was happy to see that Netflix had the better of the two alternate endings; I can’t even remember which is the original anymore. I wasn’t planning on watching Halloween III this marathon, but one dose of Tom Atkins might not be enough. I already did The Fog last year. 80s self-aware camp doesn't get much better than this. 

October 3rd: In the Mouth of Madness, dir. John Carpenter, 1995. (United States) 4.5/5 pumpkins
"God's not supposed to be a hack horror writer."


I was in need of comfort after the endurance test of Wolf Creek 2, so I turned to an old favorite. It’s unfortunately John Carpenter’s last moment of greatness, but it’s one hell of a way to close things out. ...Madness might not be his most taught or suspenseful film (that would be The Thing), but it’s certainly his smartest. I somehow neglected to notice this on every single prior viewing, but Carpenter didn’t write it himself, which I found surprising since it’s full of his dry, gallows humor and much of the metaphysical dialogue of which he’s so fond. (During one of the overcooked discussions between our hero and his companion on the nature of reality, I turned to my girlfriend and asked, “Is this a deleted scene from True Detective?”) At any rate, ...Madness takes such delirious delight in toying with, subverting, and pointing out the horror tropes it gleefully trucks in that it carries you over its flaws, such as Carpenter’s rather out-of-place soundtrack and the fact that in the end, it doesn’t really say all that much. (An indictment of the power of pop culture? A warning not to take the horror genre so seriously? A condemnation of the genre's tendency to fall back on familiar structures? I dunno.) I first watched this film as I was deep in the throes of a teenage Stephen King adoration, and just on the cusp of a Lovecraft obsession, which was perfect timing - the film’s antagonist is an amalgamation of the two of them, with all their flaws and strengths. Oh, and I’d like to start a petition that Sam Neil should be in a larger number of horror films. His presence isn’t guaranteed to make for a great movie (Daybreakers isn’t anyone’s favorite anything), but he is never less than fully engaged and really seems to believe in what he’s doing.

October 2nd: Wolf Creek 2, dir. Greg Mclean, 2013. (Australia) 1/5 pumpkins
    "Flying kangaroos!"

I was hoping I'd avoid a real stinker until later in the month. Alas. It's been years since I watched the first Wolf Creek and I don't remember much of anything about it, other than I didn't hate or love it; pretty standard mid-aughts torture fare, perhaps a bit more grisly and unforgiving than most. One thing's for sure - I'll definitely be remembering the sequel (for all the wrong reasons). Aggressively ugly, mean-spirited, tedious, and uninventive. One aspect I do remember from the first film is that it takes its sweet time to build up - you spend the first 40 minutes or so with the ostensible victims, get to know them, etc. WC2 seems hell-bent on inverting that formula, and places the focus squarely on our killer. The trouble is that John Jarrett isn't anywhere near as funny or intriguing as director Mclean seems to think - he's been turned into your standard slasher franchise killer, albeit without any sort of decent gimmick or motivation (beyond some half-cooked nativism that's a transparently limp-wristed attempt at cultural relevancy). He's spitting out one-liners like Krueger in Nightmare Part 6, only with half the wit. And to have wasted a high-speed game of dodgeball with kangaroos? Unconscionable. It tries to pull the rug out from under you towards the end of the first act, much like fellow Aussie horror film Razorback did, only without any of the verve or genuine shock that earlier film possessed. The cinematography can't hold a candle to that film, either. The barren outback is never threatening and seldom even breathtaking through Mclean's lens. Can't even watch the fucking thing as travel porn. Such an oddly constructed, haphazard dud. Who the fuck was even asking for this sequel 8 years after the fact? 

October 1st: Dark Waters, dir. Mariano Baino, 1993. (Russia/Italy/UK) 4/5 pumpkins

This was a wonderfully creepy way to kick things off. It's a thinly veiled take on Lovecraft's 'Shadow over Innsmouth,' but what it really brought to mind was Argento's 'Suspiria.' It's highly atmospheric, sacrifices plot at the expense of style, and Baino paints his subterranean catacombs and wandering heroine with orange, flickering candlelight, not unlike how Argento bathed Jessica Harper in red gel lights as she explored the school. It's very deliberately paced (no dialogue until about 10 minutes in, and then it's another 10 or so before we get any actual, real conversations), at least until the last third where it dumps a whole bunch of convoluted plot in your lap at breakneck pace. That should be a detriment, but just adds to the disorienting nature of the film. Great dream sequences, wonderful settings, adequate acting...the only drawback is the score, which is anything but subtle and is very much of its time - synths attempting to replicate orchestral sounds and falling flat on its face. Plenty of creepy religiosity, formless beasts, secret family histories, and lots of very striking visuals - well worth the time. It was filmed in post-Soviet Ukraine, so I guess it's very timely as well. Or not.