Halloween 2021: October 24th

The Night House (2021)

I know life is slowly getting back to normal for a lot of people but the truth is we are still knee deep in a global pandemic. I'm vaccinated and plan on getting a booster shot but still wear my mask everywhere. We are still living through some strange times, where mundane activities feel weird. Like going to a movie theater, one of my favorite past times. I reactivated my A-List membership a while ago and still make the effort to go to the theater a few times a month... But it's tricky. I often second-guess myself when thinking about leaving the house for this kind of stuff. It's why I've missed more than a few films I was otherwise interested in, largely because a lot of movies come and go from my shitty multiplex within a week. Such as “The Night House,” the latest from David Bruckner. I really wanted to see it but it was gone from theaters before I had a chance. Another side effect of the COVID situation is that the window between theatrical bookings and VOD premieres is shrinking, meaning I'm able to catch up with “The Night House” now.

One morning, without explanation, Beth's husband Owen rowed a boat onto the lake outside their house and shot himself. He leaves behind only a vague, ominous suicide note. Beth is left thoroughly traumatized by the incident but her agony is only beginning. She begins to see, feel, and hear strange things in the house. She has disturbing dreams and visions, of girls fleeing through the woods and a house across the lake that is a mirrored replica of their home. Beth soon discovers that this house is real, that Owen was building it in the woods. This is far from the only disturbing secret about her late husband she uncovers. As she digs deeper into the evidence, Beth discovers that not everything is as it seems.

“The Night House” fits the stereotype of a modern “elevated” horror movie by being about grief. But this isn't just a pithy byline here. “The Night House” digs into the ugliness of mourning. The sudden death of her husband has left Beth broken. She's rude with friends and snippy with the parents of her students. She swings wildly between bouts of deep depression and sarcastic moods. In her darkest moments, she breaks down into tears, screaming out for the man that has left her behind. Beth had feared that life was meaningless and her husband gave her hope. That hope left with him. It's one of the most genuine depictions of grief that I've seen on-screen recently. Rebecca Hall gives it her all, depicting a woman completely at a loss to handle all the conflicting emotions she's feeling.

As an exploration of grief, “The Night House” is very compelling. Especially when Beth is faced with the horrible revelation that the man she loved wasn't who he appeared to be. As the story goes on, Beth discovers her husband had a secret life. His computer is full of folders of other women, most of whom looked a lot like Beth. She soon encounters one of the other women her husband seemingly attempted to seduce, though the other woman insists they never slept together. This is something people who loose their spouses probably have to deal with frequently, the uncomfortable fact that death reveals every unflattering thing about their partner. “The Night House” takes it someplace even darker, of course, forcing Beth to realize something far more disturbing: No matter the horrible things Owen did, she still loves him. She still misses him. That feels almost like a bold statement for a movie, horror or otherwise, to make: That sometimes the people we love do horrible things but it doesn't change how we feel.

In fact, “The Night House” is so engrossing as an exploration of all the messy feelings around grief, that I don't know if its supernatural element was even necessary. “The Night House” indulges in a modern style of horror storytelling that I call “spooky shit happening for no reason.” Beth has nightmares that vary between ghostly activity, ominous noise on the soundtrack, and loud jump-scares involving screaming women leaping into frame. The most clever of these style of scares occur in the last act, when the structure of the home shifts around Beth as she's pulled through it. An explanation for what's happening is provided before the end, yet much of “The Night House” still feels like the film throwing in stuff it thought was creepy for creepiness' sake. I'm glad these incidents are tied into the script's themes eventually, even if I wonder if the movie wouldn't have been more disturbing without them.

In some ways, “The Night House” is almost the opposite of David Bruckner's last feature film, “The Ritual.” In that one, the themes of grieving and survivor's guilt felt totally tacked-on while the chilly atmosphere was impressive. Here, the story is way more interesting when focused on Beth's feeling than when attempting to craft scares. Don't get me wrong, the scares are actually pretty good. This is a handsomely produced and executed motion picture. Yet Rebecca Hall's performance, and a script that gives her the necessary room to explore, is what makes “The Night House” really impressive. Nevertheless, Bruckner remains a talent to watch. I'm intrigued by his upcoming “Hellraiser” reboot. [7/10]

The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

You might have noticed that, this Halloween season, I've been trying to pair up classy horror movies with total trash. And one of the kings of trash was the late, great-depending-on-your-definition-of-great Herschell Gordon Lewis. Lewis made at least 32 movies between 1961 and 1972. Though best remembered for his gore movies, Lewis worked in whatever genre was popular among drive-ins and grindhouses at the time: Nudie Cuties, hicksploitation, drug movies, biker flicks, juvenile delinquent stories, and even a kid's movie or two. Herschell never let his lack of skills hold him back from making a buck in these profitable genres. Yet something was clearly running dry by 1972. After making “The Gore Gore Girls,” Lewis took a break from filmmaking that lasted thirty years. 

Strippers all around the city are being brutally murdered by a mysterious killer. Reporter Nancy Weston is tasked with uncovering the perpetrator. In order to help her uncover the truth, she enlists the help of P.I. Abraham Gentry. Gentry and Weston begin poking their noses around the usual bars and skin show joints. They uncover a Vietnam vet with a fetish for smashing gourds, run afoul of radical feminists, and repeatedly annoy a flat-chested waitress. Oh, and watch a lot of strippers take their clothes off. Will Gentry be able to stop the killer from striking again or is every woman who gets naked on-stage in danger?

Lewis' movies are well-known for their amateurish qualities and “The Gore Gore Girls” isn't really any different in that regard. With one exception. Frank Kress, stars as Gentry. Like many actors who appeared in H.G.L. films, has no prior or subsequent acting roles, far as I can tell. Yet he's certainly entertaining. He brings a lot of campy flash, as he tosses sarcastic zingers at everyone around him. He even has some personal flair, as he twirls a cane and wears a succession of nice suits. A will-they-won't-they? is baked into the script between Nancy and Abraham, though Kress' performance is bitchy and camp enough to make we wonder about his preferences. Sometimes, Kress' performance is still pretty broad and Amy Farrell, as Nancy, is frequently terrible. But anyone giving a half-decent performance in a H.G.L. joint is unexpected. 

I don't think Lewis ever had any illusions about the quality of his movies. How self-aware his work was, concerning its lack of objective skill, varied from film to film. “The Gore Gore Girls” represents the Godfather of Gore in an unusually goofy mode. The camerawork is still frequently haphazard, with many badly framed shots. The script juggles multiple subplots awkwardly. Long stretches of the movie are devoted to just watching the strippers do their job. (Though these sequences aren't without a certain energy.) “The Gore Gore Girls” tries to compensate with knowing comedy. The women's lib subplot seems like a (hard-to-read) attempt at social commentary. Henny Youngman drops in to tell some jokes. Knowingly bizarre elements like the smash-happy bartender, an easily duped cop, and rivalries among the women are present.

Honestly, self-aware Herschell Gordon Lewis is not as much fun as it sounds. The director's brand of trashy, incompetent nonsense works best when played straight. This is most apparent in the movie's numerous gore sequences. Extremely crude gore effects were a trademark of Lewis', by this point. A smashed opened head is full of indistinct cuts of meat. Sheep eyeballs are yanked out of a mannequin's head, which is then roughly manhandled. A fake head is shoved into a deep fryer. Yet jokes are cooked into these scenes of messy, gross, very fake gore as well. A stripper's bare ass is beaten to pulp with a meat tenderizer. Nipples are clipped off and sprout two distinct flavors of milk. I don't know, Herschell's brand of schlocky butchery is a lot more tolerable when it's not winking at the camera. 

Still, despite being slightly insufferable, “The Gore Gore Girls” is kind of fun. There's enough humor of the unintentional variety here – the murderer's final fate is hilariously abrupt and the movie ends with drawn-out, incredibly bull-shitty exposition – to keep me entertained. Considering the unseen killer wears black gloves and a trench coat, I can't help but wonder if this was Lewis' incredibly crude attempt to emulate the giallos that were popping up at the time. And most of the girls are pretty attractive, if you're looking for that kind of thing. H.G.L. would eventually return to trash cinema, after thoroughly establishing himself in his second career as an advertising expert and direct-mail consultant. “The Gore Gore Girls” isn't the most entertaining of this distinctively American filmmaker's trash epics but it's got one or two prime cuts inside it. [6/10]

Monsterland: Plainsfield, Illinois 

It seems every streaming service wants their own prestige horror show these days. Blame Netflix and Mike Flannigan. Hulu already had “Into the Dark” but nobody remembers that show exists anymore. So, last year, the platform brought us “Monsterland.” That would be an eight episode anthology drawing from Nathan Ballingrud's award-winning short story collection “North American Lake Monsters.” The show's episodes are also loosely connected by being set in different American states, though that doesn't seem to be an especially prominent feature. The internet tells me that “Plainsfield, Illinois” is the best reviewed episode of the show, so that's the one I'm choosing to review. 

“Plainsfield, Illinois” follows Shawn and Kate, a lesbian couple that have been married for fifteen years. They met on their college debate team and spirited conversation has always been a hallmark of their relationship. Yet, in recent years, Kate's increasingly severe bipolar condition has made Shawn wonder about their commitment to each other. After a successful night out, the two return home and get into a huge fight. Kate draws a bath and slices her wrists open... Except she doesn't die, not entirely. She continues to exist as a slowly rotting zombie, her body degrading and her mind slipping away. Shawn tries to keep her wife alive, even as it becomes increasingly clear that nothing of the Kate she loved remains anymore.

The premise of a rotting zombie as a metaphor for a dying relationship is thoroughly old hat by this point. They made three separate movies about this exact same topic. “Monsterland” doesn't really bring anything new to the metaphor, even with the LGBT twist. (I was not surprised to read that Ballingrud's original story, entitled “The Good Husband,” was about a heterosexual relationship.) Kate losing her memory, becoming more difficult to be around, and literally falling apart – and Shawn increasingly sacrificing everything to be with her – is obviously meant to remind us someone doing their best to ignore a relationship that is obvious past its expiration date. This element of the episode works best when going for dark humor. Kate's eyeball falls into a plate of spaghetti. She clutches dead animals like stuffed animals. The nosy neighbor's pet dog yawns at a perfectly choreographed moment. 

What does work about “Plainsfield, Illinois” is the emotional center of the story. We cut back-and-forth between the dead present of Shawn and Kate's marriage and the passionate beginning of their relationship. Shawn believes her love is stronger than the mental illness in Kate's head. Yet the moments when Shawn – an excellent performance from Roberta Colindrez – breaks down and criticizes her wife, admitting that it's being extremely difficult living with her, are cathartic. The episode rambles a little after reaching its logical end point but it does end on a sweet note, Shawn realizing that some of the things she loved about her wife lives on. I'm not sure if I'm totally sold on “Monsterland,” based on this one episode. Does the rest of the series focus more on the horror or on the interpersonal drama? I guess I'll have to watch to find out. [6.5/10]

Under the Car (1992)

During my research, I came across the title "Under the Car" and that was enough to intrigue. The comments on the YouTube upload informed this was another horror short that a cable network — Showtime, in this case — used to play as late night filler. That was enough to get it on my watchlist. Only after watching it did I learn it was directed by Alan B. McElroy, who I mentioned earlier in the season as the writer of "Wrong Turn." Quite a coincidence. The short follows five friends, heading back to their car after a night of drinking and joviality. Before they leave the isolated parking lot, an unseen creature crawls under their vehicle. It attacks and kills two of them, with the remaining survivors trying increasingly desperate plans to escape. 

There are quite a few things about "Under the Car" that I really admire. It's a clever, low budget premise, isolating most of the story to the interior of a single car. We've all experienced the chill of walking back to your car at night, all alone, and the story plays on that idea nicely. McElroy is also smart enough to pack the short with enough novel incidents to fill up a twenty-six runtime, without overstaying its welcome. Keeping the monster off-screen is another way to make a meager budget work for the movie. The images of people pulled out the car or under it, by something unseen while strange noises are heard outside, is way creepier than any special effects could ever be. The rather Carpenter-esque score is also effective, establishing a tense mood right from the beginning. 

Not everything about "Under the Car" works perfectly. The cast is capable enough. However, the script still has the characters overlooking some obvious escape strategies or standing perfectly still when the monster is barreling down on them. There's also an attempt to add some depth, by having a long-held secret come out during a tense moment. I don't know if that was necessary at all. There's also some underwhelming optical effects, of paralyzing electricity gripping the victims. This proceed the film giving us an extremely underwhelming look at the monster at the very end. 

You can also tell this was a product of 1992. Not just because the women have permed hair and jackets with shoulder pads, but because Clayton Rohner's comic relief character does things like sexually harass the girls and crack jokes about the men being the gay. Despite its flaws, this is still a pretty effective little slice of horror.  Maybe not enough to get me to check out McElroy's sole feature directing credit — a David Hasselhoff vehicle called "Layover" — but well done enough. [7/10]