Halloween 2022: October 18th

Gretel and Hansel (2020)

A while back, there was that trend of studios doing big budget reimaginings of classic fairy tales, in an attempt to mine the name recognition of public domain stories for box office success. The fad produced few hits and even fewer good movies. The premise of a dark and gritty take on “Hansel and Gretel” probably sounded like a late attempt to leap on those coattails. Yet 2020's “Gretel and Hansel” came to us from Osgood Perkins. Norman Bates' son has garnered some critical praise for his prior two, excruciatingly slow exercises in horror mood making. His fairy tale movie was clearly more inspired by Robert Eggers than Rupert Sanders. I was personally excited for the film because it was a starring role for one of the genre's most promising young up-and-comers. The idea of Sophia Lillis and Alice Krige, one of my favorite character actresses, facing off was enough to get me into theaters in 2020. It was one of the few films I saw in theaters during that ill-fated year. 

Sometime in medieval Germany, teenage Gretel and her younger brother Hansel are kicked out of their home by their widowed mother. The two siblings encounter danger as they search for shelter and food in the inhospitable forest. Their luck seems to change when they stumble upon a cabin full of delicious food. The old woman who lives there is friendly, inviting them inside and giving them all they could eat. The woman takes a special interest in Gretel, sensing growing powers in her and hoping to teach her... Yet the witch's abilities come with a horrible price. Which is especially important once Gretel notices that Hansel has seemingly vanished one night.

Perkins clearly didn't pick the “Hansel and Gretel” story just because it would be easy to retrofit the already gruesome tale into a horror movie. Instead, he takes the Brothers Grimm's structure and makes it a feminist reclamation of classical witch tropes. Gretel is coming-of-age, a young woman in a time that is not kind to girls on the cusp of adulthood. She rejects a job offer from a rich lord, who bluntly asks about her virginity. The awakening of her powers is tied to her period. The first demonstration of her powers Gretel makes is to make a wooden pole – not unlike the classical broomstick – stand up. The witch's devouring of children is re-contextulized not just as the scariest thing a kid in the Late Middle Ages could imagine. Instead, it's framed as a rejection of traditional femininity. The witch doesn't just want to be a mother. She actively destroys young life, instead of creating it. Ultimately, Gretel rejects both this violent refusal of a motherly role and the traditional path for a girl her age. 

Perkins and screenwriter Rob Hayes don't just do a boring, grounded take on the classic fairy tale. Instead, “Hansel and Gretel” creates something more akin to a dream-like setting. The film begins with a new-to-us folk tale being told to the audience, suggesting a theme of legends unfolding and being spread from generation to generation as bedtime stories. We later discover that this isn't the whole version of the story either, further showing how fiction can overtake reality. Moreover, this is certainly not an accurate recreation of medieval Europe. It's a lot grittier than most fairy tale adaptations... But Gretel and Hansel also encounter a vampire-like creature on this journey. When they ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms out of desperate hunger, the audience is made privy to their vision. The movie often crosses dreams and reality, sometimes to the point were we are uncertain where one ends and the other begins. The film finds the sweet spot between gritty re-imagining of a well-known story and something more ambitiously surreal. 

Helping further draw the audience into this world is a beguiling visual presentation. “Gretel & Hansel” is one of the most gorgeous horror films I've seen recently. Perkins playfully sprinkles the film with symbols. The witch is introduced under a triangular structure. This reoccurs throughout the film, in the shape of her cabin or her classic witch's hat. At one point, the film even puckishly puts Sophia Lillis' eye in the middle of such a triangle, recreating the infamous Masonic eye-in-the-pyramid. The colors throughout are rich, looking like a Rococo painting. The blacks and whites, along soft blues and autumnal tones, further this dream-like tone. The production design is brilliant and detailed. Every frame of “Gretel & Hansel” is like a painting, brought to life to draw the viewer in and enrapture the eye.

Grounding this story that's so heavy in symbols and dream logic is a pair of intense performances. Sophia Lillis brings the same kind of vulnerability, that made her such a stand-out in the “It” movies, to this role. She's strong-willed and tough but not in an unbelievable fashion. Instead, she repeatedly makes it clear how scared and confused she is by all this, while also sticking to her beliefs. It's a captivating performance. This new scream queen faces off against a veteran of genre cinema. Casting Alice Krige, who has played so many wicked matriarchs in genre cinema, as the Brothers Grimm's Witch is almost too on-the-nose. Yet it's also a juicy part for the veteran actress, who clearly delights in playing both a persuasive, kindly hostess and someone clearly planning ominous things. 

If there's any flaw in “Gretel and Hansel,” it's the decision to remove Krige from the final act. At first, I also wasn't sure about rob's pulsating electronic score, wondering if something more orchestral didn't better suit the setting. Only second viewing, I actually think the music works great. “Gretel & Hansel” was not exactly a hit for the recently reformed Orion, grossing only 22 million at the box office. Yet, with a modest 5 million dollar budget, it didn't have to be. It received good reviews, though some called it too slow. (Personally, I found it far better paced than Perkins' last two movies.) I hope the film – which is surprisingly graphic for a PG-13 rating – gets more press in coming years, as I think it's excellent. A gorgeous shot and assembled reconstruction of a classic story. [9/10]

Gargoyles (1972)

I've talked a lot before about the influence Stan Winston had on me, as a youth first getting into horror movies. I was impressed by how he created iconic monsters out of nothing but latex and rubber. I ended up reading a lot about Winston's career, and how he got his start in the make-up industry. Stan’s first big break came when he created the creatures for the 1972 made-for-TV horror film, “Gargoyles.” It was the first job for the make-up artist and the fledgling studio he had created. Winston and his team would win an Emmy for their work, beginning an incredible career. The title has always stuck in my head and I've always been curious about it. Is the movie around those gnarly gargoyle make-ups any good?

Dr. Boley is an archaeologist and a folklorist currently writing a book about demons. He meets up with his daughter Diana and travels into the New Mexico desert to look at a possible discovery. A man running a roadside museum has a skeleton of a winged, horned humanoid. Dismissing it as a hoax at first, Boley and the others are soon attacked by living, breathing gargoyles. The brood of winged demons have been living in the desert for centuries, awakening every one hundred years to breed again. The talking leader of the gargoyles kidnaps Boley's daughter in an effort to protect his species from extinction.

When I think of seventies made-for-TV horror films, I usually think of subtler fare. The character-driven mystery of “The Night Stalker,” the creepy atmosphere of “Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.” TV movies usually didn't have the budgets for elaborate creature effects. Which makes “Gargoyles'” status as a straight-ahead monster movie surprising. This is primarily a movie about humans being threatened by scaly beasts. There’s a shockingly tense attack in the roadside museum, which continued down the road when the monster leaps onto the roof of a car. Sound design and frenzied editing ratchet the tension up quickly. After a frightening scene of a gargoyle appearing at the foot of someone’s bed, the film doesn’t back down from showing its monsters. And maybe it shouldn’t, as the green, horned, reptilian beasts are suitably intimidating. They look at least as good as the creatures on contemporary sci-fi shows and maybe a bit better. 

Sadly, "Gargoyles" is never as intense or scary again as it is in those early scenes. The film quickly sets out to demystify the creatures. While the beginning implies a supernatural, demonic origin for the gargoyles, a cryptozoological explanation is soon provided. The gargoyles have always existed alongside mankind, reawakening every century, and the primordial stories of demons and monsters are based on them. Whether we are suppose to fear the creatures or sympathize with them is inconsistent. The intelligent, talking leader of the gargoyles — played by blaxploitation star Bernie Casey but dubbed over by Vic Perrin — repeatedly clarifies that he just wants his kind to survive. Yet the movie still treats the monsters as a threat that must be exterminated, up until an abrupt ending that swerved back in the other direction. Should we be afraid of the gargoyles or feel sorry for them? Must they be wiped out or is coexistence possible? The film can't make up its mind. 

While the creature effects probably could've worked in a theatrical film, it's otherwise obvious that "Gargoyles" is a seventies TV movie. Director Bill Norton would go on to make "More American Graffiti" and that William Katt dinosaur movie but has largely worked in television. The visuals here are generally flat and workmanlike. The musical score is full of dramatic stings, usually right before the fade-to-blacks that signal a commercial break. Cornel Wilde plays Dr. Boley as an intellectual hero at first. By the end, he's blasting gargoyles with a rifle like he's a cowboy fighting Apaches. In fact, the action-packed finale — which also features a young Scott Glenn tossing Molotov cocktails around — continues this western-like feeling. In the sense that the gargoyles go down pretty easily, outmatched by the technologically superior humans. 

Ultimately, I think "Gargoyles" is an example of a little too much sci-fi getting into this horror premise. Once the film starts treating the titular beasts essentially as an alien race, instead of fearsome demons, it loses a lot of its bite. It also has shockingly little to do with the ideas of gargoyles, as in fearsome statues on the outside of churches. "Demons" or "Devils" would have been just as fitting a title. But those Stan Winston creature suits are bitchin'. Casey's lead gargoyle is quite expressive, while the other horned and scaled monsters are fittingly fearsome. "Gargoyles" starts strong but quickly peters off. But I am glad I finally got to watch it, even if the nineties cartoon will probably continue to be the first thing I think of when I hear the title. [6/10]

Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House

This is how popular R.L. Stine's kiddie horror series "Goosebumps" was in the nineties: Fox produced several hour-long episodes that aired in prime time. "Welcome to Dead House" is adapted from the very first "Goosebumps" book and follows the Benson family, who have recently bought a home in the town of Dark Falls. Mom and dad are excited but siblings Josh and Amanda hate moving. Amanda starts to see odd people in the house, who vanish before anyone else notices. Josh observe that the town is mostly empty e and the other residents are never out when the sun is shining. Their dog, Petey, is constantly freaked out. After uncovering a newspaper that reports a chemical leak at the local factory, the truth is uncovered: The town folks of Dark Falls and blood-sucking, undead ghouls. 

For whatever it’s worth, “Welcome to Dead House" is the least goofy episode of “Goosebumps” I’ve reviewed so far. The musical score is surprisingly discordant, with none of the clown shoes bullshit that undermined the atmosphere in previous episodes. While words like “kill” are never used, and no blood is ever on-screen, the family’s lives are still endangered by the undead residents. Time is devoted to establishing the spooky old house and a scene of Amanda spotting an old man in the attic is almost suspenseful. The climatic scenes of the ghouls tearing through the home and cornering the family recalls any number of classic zombie movies. 

Even in its best moments, “Goosebumps” is still “Goosebumps.” There’s still a lot of silly nonsense here. A few scenes play as awkward or comical on-screen, such as some ghoul kids circling our heroes or the method the villains are defeated. The acting from everyone is quite goofy, with the performers playing the zombies really going over-the-top. Several elements of the story, like the wreath over the fireplace inexplicably warding off the ghouls, are left unexplained. (Considering they drink blood and burn in the sunlight, maybe the ghouls were conceived as vampires and the wreath was a crucifix. But religious topics are a no-no in kids medium.) The plot is extremely easy to predict, with a number of events — such as the almost clever twist ending — being foreshadowed to hell and back. 

R.L. Stine has denied this but every “Goosebumps” story I’ve covered contains a moral for the kids. Usually, they boil down to treating others with respect but “Welcome to Dead House” seems to teach that some deals are too good to be true. There's a wisp of a more intriguing idea here though. "Welcome to Dead House" could've been a metaphor for a town that dies when it's main employer — the chemical plant in this case — closes down. George Romero, of all people, wrote a treatment for a feature adaption of the story that, unsurprisingly, seized on this idea. Who knows what a Romero kids movie might've looked like but I'm sure it would've been better than this. "Welcome to Dead House" is tolerable, even half-effective at times, but is still designed for the elementary school bracket. [6/10]

The Cobweb Hotel (1936)

Of all the golden age animation houses, Fleischer Studios was always the one least afraid of getting freaky. The studio readily delved into spooky imagery, such as in the crazy hauntings of "Minnie the Moocher" or the utterly phantasmagoric "Swing You Sinners!" Dave Fleischer only toned it down a little when he made the leap to color, with 1936's "The Cobweb Hotel." The short follows a fiendish spider, who sets up a hotel to attract flies... None of whom realize it's actually a trap, that the spider intends to eat all of them. When a pair of fly newlyweds arrive, they too are ensnared in the sticky webs. 

“The Cobweb Hotel” probably scared the crap out of some kids back in the thirties. The spider villain is rather creepy looking, with his fuzzy, gangly limbs and a dangling, pointed nose. It’s the voice acting that truly makes me uncomfortable, as the spider grumbles each line in a throaty croak. About the only thing cute about him is that he pulls his silk from a spindle on his back, a nice touch. The high-pitched screams the flies make while trapped in the webs are disturbingly vivid too. They seem all too aware that the sadistic villain intends on eating them.

Of course, this is still a classic cartoon. There's a plucky, boxer fly hero to stand up to the carnivorous spider. The second half of the cartoon is largely devoted to the hero outsmarting or dueling with the baddie. He gets soundly humiliated and the heroes receive their happy ending. Still, the first half has a weird, tinny dread to it that's hard to overcome. As you'd expect from the Fleischers, the animation is fluid and the characters are stretchy and expressive. The songs are annoyingly catchy. It's a classic cartoon with just enough sadism in it to feel properly cursed. [7/10]