Halloween 2024: September 19th

Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

At one point in the forties, Ray Milland was Paramount's top leading man, a status solidify when he won a Best Actor Oscar. By the sixties, his star had fallen enough that he started making B-movies for American International Pictures. Milland probably didn't think of himself as a horror star, despite appearing in classic ghost story, “The Uninvited.” That would change at AIP, Milland lending his name to pictures like “Premature Burial,” “X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes,” and “Frogs.” Sometimes, these lower budget jobs would come with other perks. Milland had done a bit of directing before but he'd return to the behind-the-camera position with 1962's “Panic in Year Zero!” The film is also another early example of the nuclear apocalypse subgenre. 

Harry Baldwin and his family – wife Ann, son Rick, and daughter Karen – head out for a weekend fishing trip. Their fun plans take an unexpected turn when they see bright lights flashing in the sky. A closer look reveals mushroom clouds over Los Angeles. Nuclear war has began. The Baldwins drive further into the country, seeing signs of civilization collapsing around them. As they attempt to build up supplies, they have to contend with gangs roaming the streets, looters robbing stores, and shop owners getting violent. Taking shelter in a cave, Harry attempts to keep his family safe in this frightening new era, a gang of psychotic beatniks soon closing in on whatever peace of mind they manage to find in a terrifying age.

Like many movies set in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, “Panic in Year Zero!” grapples with some big ideas. Namely, if society fall apart suddenly, what would you be willing to do to keep you and your loved ones safe? Seemingly minutes after realizing what has happened, Harry has shifted right into survival mode. He's looking into hoarding food and supplies, while fearful of looters. The trust he has in his fellow man vanishes. Now, every stranger is regarded with suspicion. He becomes willing to point a gun at people to get his way, much to his wife's dismay. Before the end, he'll have to kill to keep his family safe, the guilt of which he grapples with. Harry and his son are burying food, living in a cave, cutting down bridges, and setting fire to roads. The world has changed, suddenly and violently, and all the old rules are out the window. 

It's a situation that bends towards horror quickly enough. There are no radioactive mutants in “Panic in Year Zero!” Being a low budget film, we never see the devastation dropping a nuke on L.A. wrought. But we hear about it, thanks to infrequent radio broadcast that the Baldwins tune into. Honestly, the suggestion of piles of dead bodies crowding the streets is almost more chilling than seeing them would've been. A trio of unhinged beatniks seemingly see the start of a nuclear war as an excuse to go totally feral. They murder a near-by family and, in a surprisingly dark moment, assault Karen. Once Harry devotes himself to tracking down the perps, that essentially makes “Panic in Year Zero!” a rape/revenge movie from 1962. If giggling, jive-talking psychos hadn't wandered into the story, the film would still be characterized by a constant uneasiness and tension. The fear of attack, the threat of elimination, dangles in the air at all times.

As unexpectedly grim as “Panic in Year Zero!” gets, there is a strange dichotomy at play here too. The film is about the old world dying, the government going so far as to designate a new dating system. (Which is where the title comes from.) Hallmarks of the wholesome nuclear family remain though. When hiding in a cave and eating canned goods, Mom still cooks. The family still gathers around the dinner table and says grace. Rick, played by an absolutely boyish Frankie Avalon, still seems to take joy in hunting deer with his dad. After they rescue a female captive – heavily implied to be a sex slave – from the nut jobs, Rick immediately turns to trying to charm the girl. More than anything, Dad still captains this ship, the women remaining submissive to their father and brother. “Panic in Year Zero!” doesn't take it as far as the likes of “Robot Monster,” where a “Leave It to Beaver” existence thrives happily in the wasteland. Amusingly, it depicts the wholesome, early sixties way of life surviving after the bombs have fallen. 

As a star, Ray Milland does a decent job here, showing the proper amount of confliction over what he's forced to do while remaining a commanding presence. As a director, he does alright too. The movie's crisp black-and-white cinematography brings with it a certain moodiness, especially in the night scenes. “Panic in Year Zero!” also has a somewhat hopeful ending, suggesting that the authorities will be able to restore order soon enough. That's another example of the script's gee-whiz-aw-shucks attitudes poking through, despite the otherwise grim context of everything that happens. The result is a somewhat campy, sometimes creepy seesaw ride through nuclear armageddon. [7/10]

Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001)

I'm not sure how to explain it but horror movies made after the turn of the millennium have a noticeably different visual style than films made earlier. Maybe it's because this is around the time that digital cameras began to replace celluloid film. Perhaps I'm sensitive to the minor aesthetic changes because this was the time period when I truly started to pay attention to movies. Whatever the reason, you can always tell when you're watching something made in the 2000s versus the nineties or eighties. “Children of the Corn: Revelation” is, on paper, not that different from the other sequels in this misbegotten franchise that Dimension had been cranking out almost annually for nearly ten years by this point. Yet the differences in style and tone are immediately distinct to me, bringing me back to the guttersnipe era of JNCO jeans and Nu Metal. 

Jamie Lowell's grandmother disappears from the ratty apartment building she lives in. Jamie goes to investigate and discovers a number of bizarre things about the place. Despite being situated in an urban area, a cornfield has sprouted up by the train tracks outside. Strange kids seem to loiter around the building. After investigating further, Jamie discovers that her grandmother was the only survivor of a cult of children. The group, led by a boy named Abel, besmirched any adults, and all died in a fire in a tent revival... That happened to be in the same spot as the apartment is now. Jamie soon uncovers that the spirits of Abel and his followers have returned, sacrificing the residents of the building, who then return as weirdo kids out of the mysterious cornfield. 

From any traditional perspective, “Children of the Corn: Revelation” can largely be described as a chintzy attempt at a horror movie. The film is almost entirely set in and around a cheap-looking apartment building set. The ghostly quality of these children are emphasized mostly by some light make-up and having them appear and disappear suddenly. Any attempts at flashier special effects – such as one of the ghost kids vomiting up what I think is maggots or maybe corn cornels – look incredibly shitty. When crawling corn stalks or a giant fireball appear in the last act, the effect is definitely unconvincing. The score is so cliched and unimpressive that I think some of it might be library music. Basically, “Revelation's” extremely low budget could not be more obvious. It's a feature film – barely anyway, as it runs about 70 minutes minus credits – that appears to have been produced for half of what your average “Masters of Horror' episode was made for.

Despite the obvious lack of money and resources behind “Children of the Corn: Revelation,” you can tell some effort was taken to try and create something decent out of this. Danny Nowak's cinematographer truly is better than it had to be. There's some nice fog deployed a few times. Low angles on the corn rows or a statue of an angel out-front at least sell the illusion of this apartment building being kind of spooky. Abel, this film's Isaac stand-in, is comically unintimidating in his oversized suit. (Especially when he speaks with a grown man's voice.) But backlighting the actor was a good try at making something out of nothing. Lead actress Claudette Mink is making an attempt. Jamie is never given anything resembling an actual character arc but Mink is a mildly likable presence. Michael Ironside also shows up as an ominous priest, croaking a few spooky lines, and disappearing before the end. As always, he brings far more gravitas to a nothing role than was required.

All in all though, “Children of the Corn: Revelation” works better when operating as a trashy, extremely dumb slasher movie. The apartment building is full of a cast of ridiculous, one-note personalities. There's a stoner building supervisor, a grouchy old man in a wheelchair who screams profanity at everyone, a pill-popping gun nut, the kindly shop owner down the street. The film throws in a stripper with a heart of gold too, providing this exploitation movie with the required amount of nudity. Her death is probably the film's most delirious high-point, as she's drowned by animated corn stalks in a bathtub. The wheelchair guy's dive down the stairs is funny too. The movie doesn't have much gore – must've spent that money on all that CGI corn – and the death scenes eventually stop trying. However, for a handful of brief interludes, "Revelation" is an enjoyably junky piece of schlock

I want to describe the film as residing at the bottom of the direct-to-video horror sequel barrel. However, I've seen most of the later “Puppet Master” movies, so there are definitely examples cheaper and shittier than this. Egyptian-born director Guy Magar previously made “Stepfather 3” and a bunch of TV. This is his final credit, suggesting it wasn't an exactly positive experience for him. The sequel surely represents the “Children of the Corn” series circling the drain. Aside from the kids and the corn, the connections to the previous films are minimal. He Who Walks Behind the Rows gets a single mention, the phrase seemingly used as a term for Satan. And yet... How am I suppose to hate any movie that features a stripper getting drowned by evil cornstalks? Maybe I have some nostalgia for this kind of garbage. (A “House of the Dead” arcade cabinet gets a prominent cameo and that's something I definitely have nostalgia for.) Whatever the reason, I didn't come away from “Children of the Corn: Revelation” hating it, as low-effort and super cheap a piece of nonsense as it is. [6/10]

Dead of Night: The Exorcism

The 1945 film "Dead of Night" gets credit for popularizing the horror anthology format in England. The movie was an admitted influence on Amicus' omnibus features in the sixties. Perhaps it also anticipated the popularity of horror anthology shows on British television in the seventies. Coincidentally or not, a series also named "Dead of Night" would air on BBC2 in 1972. Of the seven episodes produced, only three survive to this day. Despite its rarity and relative obscurity, the program remains critically acclaimed among fans of this kind of thing. Especially the first episode, "The Exorcism," which would be introduced to a new audience when re-aired in 2013. 

Married couple Rachel and Edmund purchase a dilapidated cabin in the British countryside, renovating it into their vacation home. They invite Margaret and Dan over for a Christmas dinner. Strange events begin to occur. Rachel plays a song on her harpsichord that she's never heard before. The cabin loses power. Edmund's wine tastes like blood. When the food causes everyone's throat to burn, they realize something is seriously amiss. Rachel sees a child's corpse on the bed. The outside world vanishes into impenetrable darkness and the windows refuse to be broken. The source of this haunting is revealed when Rachel is possessed by the spirit of a woman who starved to death in this cabin, centuries ago, while the local lords threw lavish feasts. 

Early on in "The Exorcism," Edmund mentioned how his socialist father is disappointed in him. Clive then cracks a joke about how he would rather be rich than a socialist. This is framed against background chatter over a miner's strike. This goes hand-in-hand with how the couple bought the cabin at a bargain before spending a lot to upgrade it into the modern day, gentrification entering into the conversation. All of this not-so-subtly sets up this theme of the rich caring more about their creature comforts than their fellow man. When Rachel's possession begins, actress Anna Cropper delivers a weeping, tortured monologue that details the haunting's backstory. A sad story of a family denied food by the near-by ruling class, a mother who watched her husband executed for stealing bread, whose children slowly starved to death. No wonder one of the first things the ghost takes from these interlopers is their ability to enjoy food. The idea of the have-nots getting revenge on the haves from beyond the grave is certainly present. Yet "Dead of Night" utilizes these ideas so solemnly that it feels like a cry of sorrow for those in poverty than any sort of ironic punishment for those that create the conditions in the first place. 

In addition to its thoughtful exploration of class division, "The Exorcism" also works as a chilling depiction of the supernatural. As the strange events begin to pile up, the partygoers debate about how far rationality can be stretched before the question of the paranormal must be confronted. When combined with the quiet, isolated setting, the slow escalation of weirdness creates an unsettling atmosphere. It's easy to imagine yourself in such a nightmarish scenario, how you'd react to such events before admitting something ghostly is happening. By the time the outside has been replaced by an all-consuming darkness, "The Exorcism" has headed in a chilling, existential brand of horror where the cast must question what they've done to deserve this. Confined to one location, the result is an hour of television that grows more unsettling as it delves deeper into its dark, sad story. Writer/director Don Taylor – not to be confused with the American actor/director who handled the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Night Gallery" episodes I reviewed – also made the "During Barty's Party" episode of "Beasts," so he was clearly talented at creating incredible tension in confined, stage-like settings. "The Exorcism" is chilling. [9/10]

The Addams Family: Wednesday Leaves Home

After not being in the last few episodes, I'm glad "The Addams Family" took some time to focus on the kids. When Wednesday is caught setting off Uncle Fester's dynamite caps, her parents discipline her by saying she can't play with her pet spider, Homer, for two weeks. Distraught, Wednesday decides she's going to run away from home. Pugsley convinces her to only pretend to run away from home and hide up in his room instead. When Gomez and Morticia discover this, they decide to use reverse psychology on the girl and act unconcerned about the news. All this does is convince her to actually run away from home. Head of the police's missing persons department, Sgt. Haley, becomes involved much to his growing frustration. 

"Wednesday Leaves Home" is a good episode for illustrating the central thesis of "The Addams Family." Namely, the contrast between the macabre but perfectly happy Addams and supposedly functional "normal" society. Gomez and Morticia never panic all throughout this situation with their daughter, only reacting with reasonable concern. Sgt. Haley, played by an ideally high-strung Jesse White, is in a constant state of irritation and frustration. It's not surprising that dealing with the kooky Addams causes him to relocate to another district. Moreover, the episode depicts the Addams parents as capable of growth. The way they handle Wednesday's initial supposed attempt to run away from home wasn't the best. By the end, they've come to realize that making a child feel loved is more important than enforcing any sort of discipline. 

Of course, this is still a show from 1964. Its attitudes are going to be antiquated through modern eyes. When Wednesday first gets in trouble, there's a series of gags about Uncle Fester suggesting capital punishment. The episode uncomfortably builds on this joke, Fester going on about how his father used to beat both him and his mother. The show making light of abuse isn't, ya know, great. At least Gomez and Morticia dismissed these comments, brushing aside any "My parents whooped me and I turned out fine!" boomerisms. Considering a later scene in the episode features Gomez and Morticia playing with a whip, maybe we can take this whole interlude as an example of the Addams family's general attitude towards paddling and lashing. 

Overall, "Wednesday Leaves Home" just impresses me with how many gags this show can fit into a half-hour. The episode opens with a fantastic joke, of Morticia painting a landscape that is revealed to be an entirely black canvas. Once again, the way John Astin widens his eyes or smirks is enough to get a laugh. The reveal of what Wednesday's middle name is a great bit of world play. The quick back-and-forth between the cast members, especially White when interacting with Carolyn Jones or Lisa Loring (carrying her weight despite being so young), is strong here. Simply a lot of sharp, funny dialogue in this episode that plays off the conceit of the Addams' morbid nature. The final joke of the episode, about Sgt. Haley's badge, is a strong note to take us out on. Overall, probably my favorite episode of the series so far. [7/10]