Halloween 2022: October 31st - HALLOWEEN

I had plans for Halloween tonight. I was going to assist my buddy, JD, in operating the haunted trail type get-up he assembled in his yard. This was something of a last minute plan, which is why my costume was totally thrown together with things I had laying around the house. I still think I managed to be a pretty decent looking hardboiled detective. Unfortunately, trick-or-treating got totally rained out this year. On top of that, I've had a bit of a cold all day. Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let these things ruin my mood. If I can't have a proper Halloween in the outside world, I'm at least going to consume as many horror movies before dawn as I can. That's what we're all here for anyway, right? 

Werewolf by Night (2022)

Monster movies got me into superhero comics. Yeah, I liked Batman and Spider-Man as a kid. Yet it was the discovery, in my early teens, that Marvel published a whole slew of monster comics in the seventies that really got me into collecting what is collectively known as cape shit. Watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe overtake popular culture has filled me with many mixed feelings. Yet the announcement last year that Marvel would be producing a “Werewolf By Night” adaptation blew my minds. Even after the explosion of superhero media in the last decade, I always thought Jack Russell and the gang making it to the big screen was a long shot... Which, I guess, it was. Because Marvel/Disney and composer-turned-director Michael Giacchino have made “Werewolf by Night” into an hour-long Halloween special, not a feature film. Nevertheless, this is the most hyped I've been for a Marvel project in a long time.

The death of legendary monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone has left his most powerful artifact, the Bloodstone, up for grabs. All the most powerful hunters in the world – plus Elsa, Ulysses' apathetic daughter – gather to compete for who will next wield the Bloodstone. Among the assembled is Jack Russell, who is seemingly far more soft-spoken than the others. Jack is actually there to free the monster – a man-thing named Ted – from the maze he's been put into. When the other hunters discover his deception, Jack and Elsa are imprisoned. This is not Jack's only secret though. He is cursed to become a werewolf by night. 

Aside from adapting some of my favorite Marvel characters, “Werewolf by Night” is obviously tailor-made to appeal to me for another reason. From the black-and-white cinematography to the gothic title card, “Werewolf by Night” is an attempt to pay homage to the Universal Monster movies. Now, the homage doesn't go much deeper than digitally adding cigarette burns to the frame. The cinematography doesn't really capture the look or feel of forties monster movies. But Giacchino and his team still created an amusingly moody looking hour here. There's some nice fog in several screams, such as in a cool pan up a twisted open cage.  More than anything else, “Werewolf by Night” delights in its monstrous characters. Once Jack transforms half-way through – his make-up largely practical, by the way – he's growling at the camera and ripping off ears. When Man-Thing (my all time favorite Marvel character) stomps on-screen, he's depicted as a lovable straight man. There's even a talking, puppet-like corpse thrown in, simply for the hell of it.

The film is focused on its feral heroes in another way too. “Werewolf by Night's” acrobatic action scenes are surprisingly gory, with blood even splattering right on the camera at one point. Those who feel fear burn at the Man-Thing's touch in spectacular fashion, reduced to ashes in seconds. The elaborate sword fights include a decapitation and multiple dismemberments. There's still the CGI flash-and-bang we've come to expect. The werewolf being tossed around by a big blast of red energy is the special's low point. Yet there's an almost martial arts movie like fluidity to the majority of the combat here. Watching the colorful monster hunters fall, one by one, is loads of fun.

The whole enterprise, no matter how bloody it may get, is kept pretty light-hearted. Those who hate the Marvel house style, of sarcastic one-liners being peppered among the action scenes, will not have their minds changed by “Werewolf by Night's” script. Yet the cast is mostly on the right page. Gael García Bernal is largely soft-spoken as Jack, bringing a relaxed quality without sacrificing the unease he surely feels. He really shines when conversing with a giant pile of CGI moss or Laura Donnelly, as Elsa. Donnelly has an action heroine attitude, with the right level of sarcasm and a handle on the action scenes. 

I have no idea what future plans Marvel has for this motley crew of monsters and misfits. Should “Moon Knight” get a second season, one imagines Jack Russell will appear. It's also easy to assume that Elsa Bloodstone could crop up in that incoming “Blade” movie. I can also see Disney trying to turn Man-Thing into their next Groot. (Which would be a frankly amazing reality to live in.) There's no post-credit scene to tease out sequel strategy. Even if “Werewolf by Night' remains a one-off, I had a great time for it. As far as Disney's big budget productions go, I can't imagine one being more in my wheelhouse. “Werewolf by Night” is a fleet-footed bit of monster-filled mayhem and I loved it. [8/10]

The Lodger (1944)

Alfred Hitchcock's breakthrough as a filmmaker was his 1927 film “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog,” an adaptation of a popular novel and stage play inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders. Even though Hitchcock is unquestionably the master of the cinematic thrillers, his “Lodger” is not the most highly regarded version of this often told story. Marie Belloc Lowndes' novel would be adapted again, seventeen years later. This time, “The Undying Monster's” John Brahm was in the director's chair. Though Brahm's name has never become an adjective synonymous with suspense, his “Lodger” seems to be the most famous and critically lauded version of this story.

The time is 1888 and the place is the Whitechapel district of London. A mysterious killer known as Jack the Ripper holds the city in the grips of terror, murdering and mutilating actresses on the foggy streets. Meanwhile, Robert and Ellen Bonting have rooms for rent in their tenet building. A strange man calling himself Mr. Slade rents out the attic room. He stays out most of the night, carries a leather bag, often burns his clothes, and speaks vividly about the beauty and evil in women. He seems especially fascinated with Kitty, Ellen's niece and an up-and-coming cabaret singer. An inspector from Scotland Yard, also enamored with Kitty, begins to suspect Slade may be the Ripper.

While Hitchcock's adaptation is subtitled “A Story of the London Fog,” Brahm's version is the one loaded with shadowy, foggy atmosphere. The streets of London are often thick with fog, darkness straining against the white of the mist. This is not the only way “The Lodger” is a visually rich experience. Early on, there's an extraordinary tracking shot of a woman walking down the street and disappearing behind a wall. We hear her scream, before a red liquid – wine from a shattered bottle standing in for blood – rolls into frame. During an attack in a lowly flat, the camera trembles as we focus in on a screaming victim's face. While Ellen attempts to grab a fingerprint from Mr. Slade, as he discusses his master plan, his face is bathed in shadows. “The Lodger” is filled with little touches like that, sinister glances from around a corner or light casting strange shadows on the wall.

There's no attempt to align the story with the facts of the Ripper case, obviously. This is most evident in the censorship standards of the time preventing the film from even acknowledging prostitution. Instead, the killer targets actresses, dancers, and singers. Especially those that show a lot of leg, like Kitty. Despite these limitations, “The Lodger” still finds a way to delve into the psycho-sexual hang-ups of its murderer. Laird Cregar as Slade, shot from low-angles or his eyes lit like Dracula, speaks at lengths about his motivations. His twin loathing and fascination with women is discussed in terms of love and hate, of cutting the evil out of beauty. The trigger for this, we discover, was his brother – whom Slade has an almost homoerotic longing for – being driven to suicide after such a woman broke his heart. The film can't verbalize the killer's Madonna/Whore complex in explicit terms but it still finds a way to explore it. To dig into the idea of a man who resents women for the desires they awaken in him.

Hitchocock's “Lodger” derived suspense from the ambiguity over whether the Lodger was the murderer or not. There's never much doubt in Brahm's film that Slade is the Ripper. Cregar's laconically rambles on, about the cleansing power of water, or burns bloody clothes. That it takes so long for Ellen and Inspector Warwick to begin to suspect him frankly strains plausibility. Now, the tension becomes a question of when and if Slade will strike. The last act, when he finally confronts Kitty in her dressing room and slowly freaks the fuck out, is bristling with suspense. As is the chase scene that follows, which concludes in explosive fashion. “The Lodger” is never lacking in tenseness, even though we know who the killer is from the minute he appears. 

The cast is likable too. Cregar is a creditable, compelling creep. Merle Oberon is lovely as Kitty and has strong chemistry with George Sanders, as the inspector. A romantic scene, where they flirt while looking at Scotland Yard's black museum, even manages to be kind of charming. While her song-and-dance sequences might go on for a little too long, I actually kind of like those too. I guess my tolerance for musical theater is increasing as I age. And it doesn't distract from the film's positive attributes any. Visually stunning, suspenseful, and full of depth, Brahm's “The Lodger” is one of the few times when Hitchcock was truly outclassed. [9/10]

The Gamma People (1956)

When I think of the great Hammer horror directors, my mind immediately goes to Terrence Fisher and Freddie Francis. Maybe I'll think of Roy Ward Baker, Don Sharp, or Val Guest if I go a little deeper. An overlooked talent for the studio was John Gilling. Gilling would direct several hidden gems for Hammer, such as “The Shadow of the Cat,” “The Plague of the Zombies,” and “The Reptile.” (As well as the regrettable “The Mummy's Shroud.”) Before working with England's most iconic horror studio, he'd work on the fantastic gothic horror picture, “The Flesh and the Fiends.” Gilling also dabbled in the science-fiction genre. Before making the luridly entitled “Night of the Blood Beast,” he'd handle an obscure bit of atomic panic horror called “The Gamma People” in 1956. 

American reporter Mike Wilson and his English photographer, Howard, are traveling via train through Eastern Europe. Their car is diverted in the obscure nation of Gudavia. The tiny village seems inviting enough at first, though Wilson is annoyed by how cut off it is from the rest of the world. Yet the outsiders soon start to notice that the locals act strangely. A little boy named Hugo is a weirdly self-assured genius, bossing others around. At night, zombie-like minions patrol the streets. Soon, the two visitors uncover a conspiracy by a mad scientist to create a race of gamma radiation infused slaves.

I guess the biggest difference between American science fiction of the 1950s and British sci-fi of the same period is the age of the protagonists. The heroes in U.S. sci-fi flicks were usually handsome, stout-chinned scientist, if not teenagers. In the U.K., the heroes were almost always stuffy old men. “The Gamma People” is a great example of this. Heavyset character actor Paul Douglas plays Wilson. He's a grumpy blowhard who is perpetually annoyed with everything that comes his way. He spends nearly the entire movie bitching about how inconvenienced he is by this whole adventure. Leslie Phillips plays his sidekick, Howard, and he's absurdly British. His posh accent sounds like a parody of Britishness, his prissy attitude constantly being a source of humor. These two are about as unlikely a pair of sci-fi heroes as you could get. It's pretty funny.

Most sci-fi of the fifties reflected the anxieties of the Cold War era. “The Gamma People” definitely does as well, to a certain degree. After all, radiation is what the mad scientist used to further his evil goals. Yet “The Gamma People” strikes me as a World War II throwback in many ways. The exact location of Gudavia is never given but it strikes me as highly Germanic. The native speak German, for one. The fashion on-display is a mixture of Austrian, Swiss, and German traditions. It's interesting that one of the main villains in the film is a strict little boy, whose constantly trumpeting his own brilliance. There's a definite shade of the Hitler Youth to the haughty kids. The villain of “The Gamma People” is identified directly as a tyrant, another way the threat reflects fears of Nazi Germany than Cold War anxieties. It's not like WWII was a distant memory by 1956. Filmmakers were still regurgitating the fears of the past. 

As long as it's focused on these two goofballs stumbling into a weird, sci-fi conspiracy, “The Gamma People” is pretty amusing. The film does pick up some memorably bizarre circumstances. Such as the heroes waltzing through an Octoberfest style parade. Or Howard harassing, and then getting beaten up, by a group of school children. The monsters on the poster, the mindless goons created by the gamma rays, only are in a few scenes. Yet they are a memorable presence nevertheless, atomic zombies that attack in packs while starring ahead blankly. The movie also ends with an exploding castle, which is always neat. 

“The Gamma People” definitely drags in-between these more outrageous moments though. The appeal of watching the two squarest heroes imaginable fumbling through an oddball mystery wears thin before the end. The black-and-white cinematography is mostly pretty flat. Though I enjoy seeing “Blood and Black Lace's” Eva Bartok again, her role – as a subservient Fraulein who immediately falls for Wallace – isn't the best. Still, there's laughs to be had here, along with some interesting insight into post-war reflections on Nazi Germany. That makes “The Gamma People” worth a look. [6/10] 

The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

After watching “The Oily Maniac” the other day, I find myself in the mood for another drippy monster movie. And what horror menace is drippier than “The Incredible Melting Man?” This is a movie I've been hearing about my entire life. I think, to monster kids in the seventies, it's a ridiculous title that stuck in their brains for years to come. I mean, seriously, who hasn't wonder what a melting man would look like? (This is why, I think, Tim Burton made the melting man one of the residents of Halloween Town.) At the same time, “The Incredible Melting Man” has long been considered an all-time turkey. So which is it? Is the Melting Man a minor horror icon or one of the worst movies ever made? 

Steve West is an astronaut, part of the first manned flight to Saturn. While in orbit around the great ringed planet, Steve is blasted with a mega-dose of cosmic radiation. It kills the other astronauts but leaves him in a horrible near-death state. Upon awakening, his flesh starts to slowly melt off his bones. He is irrevocably drawn to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the living, in order to stay alive. General Michael Perry, of the Air Force, is dispatched to hunt this melting man down, tracking the mildly radioactive melting man with a Geiger counter.

Trivia insists that writer/director William Sachs wrote “The Incredible Melting Man” as a parody of fifties horror movies, before producers insisted it be filmed straight. This is evident in more ways than one. Premise wise, “Melting Man” is very much a throwback to B movies of the past. By the standards of 1977, the story is old fashion. During a time when the genre was leaning towards slasher flicks and exploitation fare,  the premise of an astronaut mutated by his experience in space, turning into a monster upon returning home, definitely feels more akin to a fifties movie. The lurid title, purposely fantastical, also feels like an intentional throwback as well. 

As much as “Incredible Melting Man” may sound like a fifties flick, its content is very much of the seventies. A young Rick Baker created the titular monster and it's a truly gruesome make-up. Steve's constantly dripping appearance, leaving bits of himself everywhere he goes, is gross as can be. We see his eyeball, ear, and an arm plop off as the movie goes along. The constantly wet creature is only the film's most memorable special effects. The movie is quite gory. Steve devours a nurse's head, tears a fisherman's head off, eats another guy's face, and drops a victim on a live wire. Sachs frequently emphasize the gory attack sequences with some truly questionable slow-motion. The nurse running in slow-mo from Steve, or the fisherman's head cracking open after careening over a waterfall, are truly misguided choices. 

Another way Sachs' script recalls fifties B-movies is that there's very little to it, outside of the monster-on-the-loose premise. In order to pad the movie to feature length, it frequently cuts away to the most random bullshit. A very silly scene, so silly the score gets knowingly comical, involves an elderly couple driving along and debating whether they should steal some lemons from an orchid. The script seems unusually concerned with General Perry's wife, often cutting away to the married couple having mundane conversations about what's for dinner or other such everyday topics. Lengthy digressions include a little girl being frightened by the Melting Man and – just so you know this is a seventies exploitation film – a sleazy photographer trying to convince a model to go topless. 

Baker's effects are unforgettably gross. The movie is well aware that its putrefying monster is the star of the show. It even allows the creature a mildly tragic death, continuing past the story's logical end point just so we can see poor Steve melt all the way. Distributor AIP was aware of this too and built the entire advertising campaign around the reeking make-up. Sadly, the film doesn't have much else going for it. Occasionally, there's a moment of campy distraction here that makes this a little more than just a display for sensational special effects. I wouldn't call this one of the worst movie of all time, like Trace Beaulieu of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” did. Yet it doesn't deserved to be remembered much, outside of some stand-out work from a rising make-up superstar. [5/10]

Humongous (1982)

Back when I was knee-deep in my eighties slasher phase, I tried to design a table top card game based on the subgenre. I quickly abandoned the idea, upon realizing how bad I am at designing game rules. Before that point, part of the game would've involved different killer cards based on the archetypal categories of killers. Alongside unseen murderers, supernatural entities, and wise-cracking murderers was what I called the Brute. Those would be hideously deformed monster-men, usually the result of backwoods incest or some other such malignity. While Jason Voorhees is the iconic Brute, another pitch-perfect example of this type of slasher is 1982's “Humongous.” Director Paul Lynch's other contribution to the slasher movement, after “Prom Night,” it was forgotten for years before inevitably being restored for a spiffy Blu-Ray release. 

At a Labor Day party in 1945, the daughter of a millionaire is assaulted by a man at the party. He's then mauled by dogs before she kills him herself. Forty years later, a group of teens – led by brothers Erik and Nick, their sister Karla, and their respective girlfriends – go out on a yacht for a weekend of partying. While attempting to rescue a shipwrecked sailor, the yacht crashes on the shores of isolated Dog Island. They find the island totally devoid of life, a crumbling mansion and the skeletons of dogs being the only signs of civilization. But the group isn't alone. The hideously deformed son of millionaire heir Ida Parson is still alive on this island. And he is hungry.

“Humongous” begins with a graphic and disturbing rape scene. The camera lingers on the woman's body as she's forcibly disrobed and then focuses on the man's face as he assaults her, shouting misogynistic phrases at her the whole time. This disturbing moment is then followed by a cathartic burst of violence, as he's immediately violently killed. Such a brutal opening establishes a theme of bodily discomfort and disrupted sexuality. Sandy and Donna, Erik and Nick's girlfriends, are constantly sniping at each other's bodies. Even though both couples have healthy sex lives, nobody seems satisfied. Everyone's relationship with their bodies and their desires in “Humongous” are dysfunctional.

These are not the only interesting ideas in “Humongous.” Lots of slasher movies are set out in the woods. Yet placing these teens on a deserted island, where just about all animal life has died, makes the characters seem even more isolated. Paul Lynch knows how to make the most of the setting, making the cast look truly lost among those trees. Once the gang make it to the abandoned home, there's relics of a past life all around. It's effectively spooky stuff but, unfortunately, “Humongous” straddles that unsteady line between creating a sense of eerie isolation and featuring lots of scenes of people just wandering around the forest. None of “Humongous'” characters are all that defined and the film has a few too many dull stretches, just watching them explore the island.

It doesn't help that the film uses its murderous monster sparingly. The deformed offspring puts in limited appearances until the last act. Even when he does appear on-screen, Lynch's direction keeps the creature bathed in shadows. While this will disappoint anyone who is looking for some monster action, “Humongous” does make its killer an intimidating force. We only see it raging in the basement, throwing bones around. He bursts through walls, leaps from the water, and relentlessly pursues his victims. The climatic scuffle with the final girl proves especially intense, as the Humongous crushes a head. “Humongous” nicely finds the balance between making its monster a mysteriously threatening force and a pathetic beast that has been left unloved and abused. 

“Humongous” ultimately proves a bit frustrating. There's enough moments that work well, such as that horrifying opening and the intense final chase, to suggest that Lynch and his team knew what they were doing. Yet “Humongous” is also a bit too slow, the build-up to the murderous finale feeling a little tedious at times. There's some intriguing idea within the standard slasher set-up and a degree of spooky atmosphere. Yet I can see why this one sipped through the slasher fanatic cracks. I like the movie alright, as I have a higher tolerance for this kind of stuff than most, but “Humongous” never quite reaches its full potential. Those posters are great though, there's no denying that. [6/10]

Out There Halloween Mega Tape (2022)

One of my favorite discoveries in recent years was “WNUF Halloween Special.” I went in expecting a typical found footage thriller and instead got a pitch-perfect recreation of a nostalgic TV broadcast, including delightful fake commercials. I've dug into director Chris LaMartina's work a little but what I really wanted was a “WNUF Halloween Sequel.” I wasn't the only one, as the “WNUF” cult following has increased in the near decade since the film's release. LaMartina must've heard the demand as this year finally saw a proper follow-up. “Out There Halloween Mega Tape” attempts to do for nineties television what the original did for eighties nonsense. Sounds like a perfect note to end Halloween on.

Presented as a bootleg VHS from “Trader Tony's Tape Dungeon,” the “Mega Tape” collects two mid-nineties television presentations: The first is a Halloween installment of 1995 daytime talk show, “The Ivy Sparks Show.” The second half picks up with Sparks a year later, as she's now the co-host of paranormal program, “Out There.” Specifically, it's a live broadcast of an episode that interviewed a UFO cult on October 31st, the night the mother ship was suppose to take them home. The night would grow increasingly strange as it went on. Through it all, we see vintage commercials and learn the fate of reporter Frank Stewart and spiritualists the Bergers. 

As in the first “WNUF,” LaMartina and his team show an uncanny ability to replicate the look and feel of nineties junk television. Some of the fake commercials presented here – such as spots for a denim store, a clothing brand, atheletic shoes, a new age music CD, a PSA about HIV, and utterly convincing network bumpers – are indistinguishable from the real thing. The “Ivy Sparks Show” segment does a good job of replicating the pacing of talk shows from hosts like Ricki Lake and Sally Jesse Raphael. This is especially evident in the theme song and dramatic reenactments bits. The “Out There” scenes, meanwhile, clearly draw inspiration from “Sightings” and the “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?” special. I remember the 90s' hunger for all-things UFO related and LaMartina brilliantly captures that feeling.

While “WNUF Halloween Special” played things mostly straight, its humor arising from the awkwardness of live television, “Out There Halloween Mega Tape” is more blatantly comedic. The “Ivy Sparks Show” segments are blatantly ridiculous. They detail a wannabe goth vampire getting a preppy makeover and a woman describing her affair with a ghost. Sparks being demoted to co-hosting “Out There,” often taunted with her old catchphrase, is a running joke. There's some naughty gags hidden in the extraterrestrial evidence “Out There” presents. A clearly stoned B-movie star drops obviously farcical trivia throughout the special. Many of the commercials are intentionally silly, such as a loan business dressed as the Lone Ranger or a toilet paper starring a mummy. They are funny but it breaks the immersion a little bit, when these throwback scenes are played for laughs. 

LaMartina makes his movies for tiny budgets and that's evident throughout “Out There Mega Tape.” Sometimes, the lack of funds runs into the movie's desire for realism. A briefly glimpsed cartoon looks limited, even by the standards of nineties animation. A commercial for a chocolate bar also features some shitty animation. (It's also an obvious shout-out to “Ernest Scared Stupid,” one of countless homages throughout.) A throwback to the Beanie Babies craze feature very cheap looking toys. There's some ugly green screen effects in ads for fake movies – would-be blockbusters, covering kaiju and disaster flicks – that do not impress. The other fake-movies-within-the-movie include a judge themed slasher flick and a mini-golf set “Gremlins” rip-off, neither of which are very convincing. I'm willing to forgive this stuff, considering the clearly limited budget, but it's another element that makes “Out There” less realistic than “WNUF” was.

While the original “WNUF” clearly took target at religious fanaticism, “Out There Halloween Mega Tape” is more about media accountability. A “Ivy Sparks” bumper about violence in the media then cuts to a commercial for a  Super Soaker-style water gun, emphasizing that it's a gun. Sparks' catchphrases, of “Be Nice!,” obviously comes off as hypocritically in comparison to the trashiness of her program. The finale, which the film marches towards with surprising grimness, suggests that maybe it wasn't a good idea that nineties pulp TV encouraged lunatics so much. Not quite as biting an observation as the original's but appreciated nevertheless.

It's clear that Chris LaMartina has put a lot of thought into this. There's countless connections to the original, minor faces reappearing throughout. Some of the shout-outs are incredibly subtle, such as WNUF being bought-out by a bigger cable company between 1995 and 1996. This lore extends to the DVD case – which goes into more details about "Trader Tony" – and even into the extra features, which includes an in-universe episode of the Purple Stuff Podcast. All of LaMartina's films are a labor of love and this is clearly true of “Out There Halloween Mega Tape.” I enjoyed the sequel so much, the movie scratching a certain itch that nostaglist like myself feel all the time. It's a bit a step down in quality from the original “WNUF” but I still enjoyed this a ton. [7/10]

Well, guys, I did my best. I'm not going to lie to you. 2022's Halloween season was disappointing for me. I didn't get to do any of the neat October rituals. Bad weather or bad planning saw to that. I tried to pack in as much horror movie madness as possible and I can't say I didn't meet my goal. But I'm heading out of October and into November feeling more exhausted than exhilarated. 

Better luck next year? I guess that's how it goes sometimes. The spirits giveth and they taketh away. Let's hope the next time I visit the October Country, it's full of more whimsy than mischief. The pumpkins will rot in their field and the scarecrows will wander back home to their post but Halloween lives in the heart always. Until next time, fellow travelers. The crypt doors are closed.