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.