Halloween 2021: October 5th

City of the Living Dead (1980)

Throughout the early days of his career, Lucio Fulci directed whatever types of movies were popular in Italy. He made seven films with comedy duo Franco and Ciccio. He directed spaghetti westerns, sex farces, a few gialli (several of which retroactively became classics), and even a pair of Jack London adaptations. He continued to leap around genres in the eighties, making a poliziotteschi movie, a barbarian flick, and a post-apocalyptic film. Yet the release of “Zombi 2” would truly alter the trajectory of his life. He spent most of the eighties making blood-soaked horror movies. The global success of that undead gut-muncher opened the door for Fulci to make a trilogy that combined increasingly graphic gore with Lovecraft-influenced stories and eerie atmospheres. This so-called Gates of Hell Trilogy would kick off with 1980's “City of the Living Dead.”

A medium named Mary Woodhouse has a vision of a priest hanging himself in a cemetery outside the town of Dunwich. The ritual begins a chain reaction of events that will unleash the living dead and start the apocalypse. Mary is so frightened by this, she falls into a death-like trance. Buried alive, she's rescued by a detective named Peter. They set off for Dunwich, believing they can prevent the gates of Hell opening if they reverse the ritual before All Saints' Day. Strange and foreboding things are indeed happening in Dunwich. Bizarre deaths are taking place and people are haunted by ghostly spectres of rotted corpses. Teaming up with a local psychologist and his girlfriend, Mary and Peter try to undo this hellish violence before it's too late.

The more of Fulci's films I rewatch as an adult, the more unsettled I am by the doom-laden ambiance they created. “City of the Living Dead” is perhaps the most atmospheric of Fulci's movies. The opening vision of the Dunwich cemetery – actually shot in Georgia – is strewn with fog. Later on, howling winds blow through the increasingly desolate town. The last act is set largely within underground tunnels decorated with cobwebs and skeletal remains. More than its visuals, “City of the Living Dead” unnerves thanks to its mean-spirited and hopeless tone. A young child is repeatedly endangered. Loved ones return as spectral, murderous zombies. People are driven to hateful violence with minimum cause. The ghostly priest, someone who is supposed to be a figure of forgiveness, looks on with a grin as he triggers all this bloodshed. As he did with “The Beyond,” Fulci successfully creates a feeling of apocalyptic dread here. Fabio Frizzi's droning, unsettling music – which resembles his “Zombi 2” score quite a bit – also deserve a lot of credit for the film's oppressive mood.

If “City of the Living Dead” works because it's about horrible things happening for no reason, it's also flawed for the exact same reason. As with the other entries in Fulci's trilogy, the plot here is largely an excuse for gory set pieces. And they are fucking nasty. A local pervert spies what is either a baby doll or a dead infant writhing with worms. Later, those same goopy worms get scooped onto someone's face. The pervert meets his end when an outraged father shoves him head-first into a power drill. Naturally, Fulci lingers on the drill slowly approaching his temple. He continues to linger as it gradually works its way through a blood-filled rubber head. No moment is more gratuitous and drawn-out then the ghostly priest causing a woman to vomit up her entire digestive tract. We watch for several minutes as blood, large and small intestines, and a stomach all spiral out of her gaping mouth. It's utterly vile. Fulci's habit of stopping the movie to focus on the gore eventually becomes repetitive, as zombies repeatedly wrench people's skullcaps off and squish their brains out. 

Unsurprisingly, a movie best described as “a bunch of evil shit happens in a small town” does not have an especially sturdy story structure. The film splits most of its time between two sets of characters. Catriona MacColl's medium and Christopher George's detective are in upstate New York for most of the movie, trying to get to Dunwich before its too late. Meanwhile, Carlo De Mejo and Janet Agren, as the shrink and his friend, are noticing the weird stuff happening in their cursed town. The film also includes numerous subplots about a little boy haunted by his dead sister, a bar owner who shrugs off the poltergeist activity in his building, and the aforementioned town pervert going on the run. Characters come and go and the climax is more-or-less totally nonsensical.

Like a lot of Fulci's movies, “City of the Living Dead” seems genuinely nihilistic in a way that unsettles me. The final image of the film is stark, sudden, and totally bleak. (Also like Fulci's other movies, crash zooms are gratuitously abused.) This mixture of foreboding – George rescues MacColl from her coffin but almost stabs her with a pickaxe in the process – and gross-out shenanigans – room full of maggots! – results in a movie that I don't really enjoy revisiting... But nevertheless leaves an impression. Say what you will about Fulci as an artist but the dude knew how to get a reaction out of you. While inferior to “The Beyond,” which would essentially take the same formula and improve upon it, “City of the Living Dead” still has an odd power to unnerve that overcomes its lack of plot and overly showy gore gags. [7/10]

She Creature (2001)

In the early 2000s, creature effects master Stan Winston – who was one of my heroes at the time – made the move into producing as well. He would partner with actress Colleen Camp and Lou Arkoff, son of A.I.P.'s Samuel Z. Arkoff, to produce a series of five films. Each one would take their title from an old A.I.P. monster movie, though the stories were new. Up-and-coming filmmakers would direct, with Winston's studio providing the creature effects. In homage to the A.I.P. originals, this series was entitled Creature Features. They premiered on Cinemax and HBO, before being released on DVD later on. The first to air was “She Creature,” which is also the best regarded of these Creature Features.

In 1900s Ireland, Angus and his barren wife Lily work as sideshow performers. Her act, which involves dressing up as a mermaid, attracts the attention of a strange old man. He takes Angus and Lily to his home where he shows them a real mermaid: A mysterious half-woman, half-fish in a tank that he's spent decades researching. Convinced that this could be his ticket to fortune and fame, Angus steals the mermaid. Along with a crew, Angus and Lily begin a treacherous boat ride across the ocean to America, the mermaid in tow. As the journey goes on, Lily develops a strange link with the creature.. Who is more dangerous than anyone can imagine.

“She Creature” was directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, who previously made neo-noir “Judas Kiss” with Carlo Gugino. He would go on to make more films, mostly ensemble comedies, with Miss Gugino. (This isn't his only horror-related credit, as he also directed “Rise: Blood Hunter” and co-write “Gothika” and “Snakes on a Plane.”) Though she gets second billing, Gugino really is the star of “She Creature.” She senses the mermaid is dangerous from the beginning but Angus refuses to listen. Their marriage is revealed as increasingly loveless as the movie goes on. Also aboard the ship is a man who knew Lily in her previous life as a lady of the evening. Much like the mermaid, and most women in the 1900s, Lily is trapped in a situation she can't escape and surrounded by men who can't understand her. 

Gugino's performance and the feminist subtext of “She Creature” make it a little more interesting than it would've been otherwise. The movie is overly invested in the mythology surrounding these mermaids. Lily reads the old man's extensive notes on the mermaid species. How they turn into humans under the full moon. How they can live forever in captivity as long as they feed on human flesh. How they originate from a mysterious string of islands, their magical influence on humans. Gutierrez was so invested in the lore surrounding these creatures that the film's full title is “The Mermaid Chronicles Part I: She Creature.” He ends the movie with a promise that there's more stories to tell in this world. Though I have to admire the gumption of a made-for-cable horror movie being so ambitious, the film is a lot more interested in the mythology of its monster than the viewer is. 

“She Creature” generates a minor amount of tension from its at-sea setting. As the body count rises, the crew grows increasingly weary of its captain and the monster on-board. In its last act, the sexy mermaid turns into the intimidating Queen of the Lair, a scaly but regal sea beast. As you'd expect from Stan Winston Studios, the effects are very good. “She Creature” becomes a reasonably entertaining monster-on-the-loose picture in its last ten minutes, the Queen ripping off heads and stabbing her tail through bodies. Yet even these moments are undone by some atrocious directorial choices. The various monster P.O.V. shots, supported by a cheesy musical score, look terrible. There's also some ill-timed shaky-cam. 

One assumes that “She Creature” focuses on Lily's strife and the mermaid's backstory because its made-for-TV budget limited the amount of pricey monster mayhem the film could feature. Gugino is the stand-out in the cast – Rufus Sewell as Angus is such a tool, you really can't relate to him – and the creature effects are cool. Yet it's not quite good enough to justify its ambitions. Obviously, a “Mermaid Chronicles Part 2” has not followed in the last twenty years. Still, despite its flaws, this “She Creature” does manage to be slightly more entertaining than the A.I.P. movie it took its title from. [6/10]

Tales of the Unexpected: The Flypaper

After watching an episode of Roald Dahl's other anthology series earlier in the season, it seemed right to include an installment from his later, far better known entry into the same genre. While the episode of “Tales of the Unexpected” I watched last year is considered among the series' creepiest, “The Flypaper” also seems highly regarded. It follows Sylvia, a twelve year old girl coming home from her piano lesson. A young girl in the area was recently murdered and the police fear a predator is about. While riding the bus, Sylvia is accosted by a creepy older man named Herbert. He continues to harass her, even following her off the bus to a phone booth. A kindly old lady appears to shoo the man off but Sylvia is not out of danger yet.

“The Flypaper” is not based off Dahl's writing. Instead, it's adapted from a short story by Elizabeth Taylor. (Not that one.) Yet it has something in common with Dahl's best known work: It presents a thoroughly unsentimental vision of childhood. Sylvia is a bitter little girl. The audience hears her internal monologue. She snipes at her piano teacher, who is highly critical of her. At home, she overhears her aunt talking badly about her behind her back. It's no wonder Sylvia has a healthy distrust of authority. Everyone she seems to know is mean-spirited and patronizing. 

While Dahl, at least in “Willy Wonka” mode, might have suggested a grouchy child deserves punishment, I don't think that's the intended moral of “The Flypaper.” Instead, the episode draws considerable tension from a more common place dilemma. Like most young girls, Sylvia has been taught to be polite in public. It's obvious Herbert is a creeper but she doesn't immediately get up and leave when he approaches her. She sits in her seat and tries to hide her identity, yet he's still able to figure out her name. This is definitely a suspenseful, uncomfortable situation which builds towards a cynical, extremely dark ending. In fact, it has to be among the darkest endings I've ever seen on a television show. Don't talk to strangers, kids. “The Flypaper” definitely mines very real forms of evil for uncomfortable thrills. [7/10] 

They Caught the Ferry (1948)

Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of the most influential filmmakers to ever live and certainly among Denmark's greatest directors. Yet he often had trouble financing his movies in his lifetime. After the end of World War II, because he needed the money, he began making educational shorts for the Danish government. Among these works is "They Caught the Ferry," an eleven minute short meant to encourage safer driving among the public. The film follows a couple on a motorcycle who arrive in Assens via ferry. They hope to catch the ferry to Nyborg on the other side of the island, which leaves in forty minutes. They dangerously speed across curving country roads, in hopes of reaching their destination in time. Instead, they only succeed in making an appointment with death.

On paper, "They Caught the Ferry" is nothing more than a public safety film. In execution, it's an effectively grim story about tragedy that could've been easily avoided but still feels inevitable. From the moment the motorcyclist and his girlfriend leave the first ferry, they are warned to be careful. The man ignores these concerns. The camera carefully watches his speedometer approach 100 mph. As the music pounds, the unavoidable feeling that something bad is going to happen increases. The driver acts increasingly irresponsible, weaving around multiple vehicles and horse-driven carts. By the time they begin to race alongside a truck, a barely noticeable skeletal rib cage painted on its back, we know what's going to happen. Yet the feeling that these characters are doomed right from the beginning, and the accompanying sense of dread, is impossible to shake.

Emphasizing this inevitable meeting with fate is the film's visual design. Dreyer's features are notable for their incredible stillness, which makes the sense of speed in "They Caught the Ferry" surprising. The camera cuts quickly between the motorcycle's spinning wheels and the countryside zooming by. Capturing the feeling that the driver is going too fast is important to establishing "They Caught The Ferry's" grim tension. By the time we get a glimpse at the truck's cadaverous driver, the lack of control is truly felt. Dreyer's trademark stillness returns for the final images, which depict the double-meaning in the title. Overall, "They Caught the Ferry" makes its point while still sending a chill down the viewer's spine. [7/10]