Halloween 2025: October 14th

 

Song at Midnight (1937)
Ye ban ge sheng 

When it comes to the international perception of Chinese cinema, the filmmakers of Hong Kong tend to dominate the conversation. That's where all the “cool” stuff comes from, right? They've got the wuxia, the kung-fu movies, the heroic bloodshed, the types of films that tend to excite film nerds. Of course, mainland China has its own film industry, which has been growing in leaps and bounds in recent years. However, historically, horror has rarely been a popular genre on the mainland. Since 2008, depictions of ghosts and the supernatural have technically been banned by the government, making macabre stories much trickier to tell. There are exceptions though. If you go way back to 1937, you'll find “Song at Midnight.” It's often credited as the first Chinese horror movie, a local variant of “Phantom of the Opera” that is regarded as a classic film in its home country. It's been remade multiple times but, ya know me, I wanna go back to the beginning.

While Gaston Leroux's classic novel is an obvious influence, “Song at Midnight's” plot also contains elements of “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Cyrano de Bergerac,” and a random shout-out to “The Invisible Man.” The setting is an abandoned theater soon to be demolished. A traveling group of actors known as the Angel Theatre Trope arrive at the location, deciding to refurbish it enough for one last round of performances. Leading man Xiao'ou is having trouble with the lyrics of the opening song though. That is when an unseen voice from the shadows begins to coach him. He soon learns that this is the voice of Song Danping. A great stage actor and veteran of the Second Chinese Revolution, he would have his face horribly disfigured with acid by a rival. He claimed to be dead, a shock so horrible that it drove his lover, Xiaoxia, into muteness. Xiao'ou agrees to pose as Danping to assuage Xiaoxia's shattered mind. As a thank you, Danping gives him a revised version of one of his old plays. It proves to be a hit but attracts the attention of the owner of the theater, the same man responsible for scarring Danping's face.

As someone who has watched a decent number of old monster movies, I'm well aware that melodrama is a common feature in them. “Phantom of the Opera” is already a story about a love triangle, dark secrets, lost romance, and dramatic declarations. “Song at Midnight” – good pun in the title there – amplifies these elements considerably. This is the kind of story where, after Danping and Xiao'ou have known each other for months, the teacher suddenly learns that his student has a girlfriend. This breaks Danping's heart, who hoped that his apprentice would take his place as Xiaoxia's lover. The idea of a girl going mute after hearing of her beloved's death or said man keeping his fate a secret to spare her feelings are further examples of the kind of events that usually only happen in narratives such as these. The climax revolves around someone stepping into a room at just the right moment. It's all fairly contrived and overheated, the kind of storytelling you have to be prepared for.

“Song at Midnight” is also very much a product of its place and time. Given the setting and story, there's quite a lot of singing here. Whether the style of Chinese ballad popular in the thirties will resonate with modern ears is entirely a matter of taste. I thought they were okay. It's certainly an indicator of the then-political climate that its disfigured anti-hero is a former man of the revolution. His writing is openly political and that topic seems to resonate with the crowds Xiao'ou sings to. I don't know much about this period in time in Chinese history. However, it's obviously significant that Danping would ultimately be silenced for his outspoken politics. When his identity is revealed in the last act, the classic horror cliché of the angry mob with torches takes on a new political dimension, of a dissident being pursued by the conformists of the day. That is what's fascinating about international variations of well known stories. They reconfigured elements we are familiar with into something culturally specific. That's interesting. 

Classic horror fans will have to be patient with this one. The dilapidated old theater does make for a cool setting. When Xiao'ou is invited into Danping's lair, there's some very cool ambiance of spider webs and fog. The shots of the phantom's shadow cast huge on the wall are classical stuff. When Danping's deformed face is revealed, it represents the most blatantly horrific content in the film. That is a very strong scene, a slow zoom-in on the make-up, that still looks quite grotesque. The scenes of Danping wrapped up in bandages are always kind of cool. However, as far as phantoms go, this one is fairly benevolent. His intentions are ultimately good, he is genuinely only misunderstood, and he doesn't kill anyone until the very end of the movie. The phantom figure is not the story's villain at all, despite hiding out in a secret room in the theater. As far as movie “monsters” go, I think Song Danping would only count on a technicality. 

The prints of “Song at Midnight” currently in circulation do not seem to be in the best condition. The version I watched is very dark and murky, with a few scenes difficult to decipher. Scratches, grain, and dust are present throughout. The sound quality is not great either. A couple of times the dialogue is sped up, as if everyone was suddenly voiced by the Chipmunks. It's entirely possible that I would've gotten more out of “Song at Midnight” if a clearer, restored print was available. Either way, I imagine the film will be of most interest to historians. As a “Phantom” fan, it is fascinating to see such a version of the story filtered through another culture's sensibility. At the same time, it is slow, extremely melodramatic, and greatly in need of a little more classic horror trappings. [6/10]

 

 

 

House IV (1992)

Through no intentional planning on my behalf, all of the film series I've been watching this October have featured little to no link between the movies. These are “franchises” in the truest sense, in which the name brand is the star. “Warlock” was about warlocks, “Watchers” was about watchers, and “House” was about houses. The haunted home that was a gateway to Roger Cobb's Vietnam War trauma and the wacky mansion full of alternate dimensions, ghost cowboys, and crystal skulls of the first two “House” movies had no connection, while “The Horror Show” was barely a haunted house movie at all. Seemingly to piss me off, the fourth “House” – sometimes seen with the subtle “The Repossession,” to match part two's equally punny “The Second Story” – bucks this trend. Kind of. Let's get into it.

Yes, “House IV” returns to the Cobb family, though it makes no mention of Roger's son Jimmy, his ex-wife Sandy, his career as a horror author, his history in the war, or the haunted house he previously resided in. Instead, the film sees Roger and his new wife Kelly, alongside their teenage daughter Laurel, debating what to do with the old family home. His brother, Burke, wants to sell it and develop the land. Roger insists the home stay in the family. Driving away from the mansion that night, there is a car wreck. Laurel is left paralyzed from the waist down and Roger is left a burnt skeleton. Kelly makes the hard decision to take her husband off life support and he passes. Now a widow with a daughter in a wheel chair, Kelly is still being pestered by Burke to sell the house. This is when weird stuff begins to happen around the home. Kelly discovers that the building sits atop an ancient Indian gateway to the spirit realm, which must be guarded. Burke begins to send enforcers from the Mafia, to which he owes money, in order to convince Kelly to change her mind.

 

Beyond the general concept of a haunted house, the first two “House” movies were connected by their weirdo creature effects. The films sought to bring the ghost movie idea into the eighties by packing the houses full of vividly created monsters. If nothing else, “The Repossession” continues this trend towards wacky, rubbery critters. Probably the high-light of the sequel, and the most “House”-like sequence, involves a pizza developing a singing human face, which Kelly attempts to dispose of. Another highlight has the mobsters suddenly becoming the insect and snake masks they wore earlier in the film, giving the movie an excuse to include a twitching, elaborate homage to “The Fly” in its last third. There's also a decent gag where the dog-shaped lamp Laurel is fond of transforms into an actual snarling Rottweiler, with a lampshade still attached to its head. It's clear that “House IV” doesn't have the budget of previous installments and uses its creature effects much more sparingly. However, these scenes are still the sequel's most memorable. 

Unfortunately, such antics do not occupy most of the motion picture's runtime. Instead, “House IV” feels entirely too much like a maudlin family drama about trying to move on from loss. The focus is definitely on the mother/daughter relationship, Melissa Clayton being utterly wholesome and precious as Laurel. At times, when paired with the clownish henchman, the sequel feels a bit like a family-friendly TV movie. (Despite a scene where Kelly takes a shower, the camera lingering on Terri Treas' body-double as blood sprays from the shower head on her breasts.) The reoccurring scenes where Kelly is haunted by the memory of pulling the plug on Roger puts to fine a point on the theme of survivor's guilt. The repetitiveness of these flashbacks is more frustrating since the script, otherwise, isn't interested in exploring the depths of grief. Kelly and Laurel are sad about their husband/dad dying. They feel bad about it for a while and then they stop feeling bad. It should be a bit more complicated than that, don't you think?

It's hard to avoid the idea that “House IV's” creative team – the only directorial credit from Sean S. Cunningham's “DeepStar Six” writer Lewis Abernathy, working from a story by four people plus Jim Wynorski – only had a vague outline for a motion picture here. To fill it up, they incorporated some random ideas. Such as the evil half-brother being beholden to a short-staturesd mob boss, who has quite a lot of toxic waste to dispose of. That points towards some sort of environmental angle, which would've been trendy in 1992. Also trendy at the time was Native American mysticism. This element appears whenever Ned Romero's character is on-screen. However, the film doesn't seem aware of actual indigenous folklore, using this element as seasoning on an otherwise underdeveloped story. At least Romero's role isn't too patronizing or stereotypical, beyond the debatable merits of the “Wise Old Indian helping out the White Folks” trope.

“House IV” was released direct-to-video in January of 1992. Having watched a lot of early nineties, DTV sequels this month, I have found that the format could be a place where creative types were free to get a little loose, a little messy, to rewarding results. Video stores were also, sometimes, the last refuge for series that weren't quite popular enough for theatrical releases. Examples of films that the producers wanted to churn out for the sake of a quick buck without expending any real money or good ideas on it. “House IV” is, sadly, mostly the latter. It has one or two funny ideas and some alright make-up effects but it overwhelmed by a feeling of disinterest from those behind the scene. It's okay, we'll always have “The Second Story.” [5/10]

The Twilight Zone (2002): Night Route

It is time for my yearly attempt to see if there are any decent episodes of the 2002 version of "The Twilight Zone." "Night Route" is about Malina, an English teacher who is engaged to Adam, a hunky and kind guy. While out walking her little white dog Vigo one night, she is nearly hit by an ominous black car. Afterwards, a bus stops on her street, the driver and riders looking at expectantly at her. Malina continues to see the bus, despite there being no route on her street. She starts to hallucinate that she's bleeding from the forehead. She can no longer remember how her and Adam met and he seems uncertain too. People she's never met before claim to know her. She begins to suspect a sinister and impossible seeming conclusion: That she died the night the black car nearly hit her and all of this is a dying fantasy. 

The writers of 2002's "Twilight Zone" seemed determined that each episode must have a twist ending. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn't come up with a twist besides "what if this thing was actually another thing?" From the minute Malina is almost hit by the car, it's obvious what is happening here. She has visions of a head wound, not unlike what a fatal strike from a speeding vehicle would look like. One of her students reads Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," with the creepy bus clearly being a modern update of the poem's deathly carriage. The "Dead All Along" ending is such a hacky trope that "Night Route" feels it can only use it by acknowledging how common it is. Malina herself recognizes what is happening and mentions "Jacob's Ladder" to her boyfriend. This does not stop "Night Route" from ending the exact way you expect it to. It does cause the episode to obnoxiously tagged on an additional twist, that Malina's dying dream is a vision of the life she could have led if she hadn't simply watch the world go by. See, like a bus passing through! We know this is the intended meaning of "Night Route" because the characters explain all of this right before the credits roll. 

Since we all see the ending coming, "Night Route" becomes a mostly tedious experience of waiting for the twist to reveal itself. Ione Skye plays Malina and gives a flat, unconvincing performance. When paired with writing that blatantly draws attention to itself, you get the impression that nobody was much convinced this episode could be good. Forrest Whittaker seems sleepy and bored in the host segment too. Which I know is kind of his style but it contributes to "Night Route" being an underwhelming experience. The dog is pretty cute though. I liked the scene where he jumps up on the bus and looks at Malina, as if questioning what her deal is. [5/10]

Beneath the Skin (1981)

Sometime in 1977, influential environmental activist Ira Einhorn murdered his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux. He kept her decomposing body, wrapped in plastic and shoved into a trunk, in his apartment for two years. Though questioned by police, Einhorn wouldn't emerge as a suspect until neighbors began to complain about the smell. During that time, Einhorn dated filmmaker Cecilia Condit, who was unable to sense the odor due to the medication she was on. After Einhorn fled to Europe, and before she made viral favorite “Possibly in Michigan,” Condit would sum up her feelings about the ordeal in “Beneath the Skin.” The eleven minute short recounts a stream-of-consciousness recollection of the events leading up to and following the murder along with Condit's complicated emotions surrounding having dated a notorious killer. This is accompanied by imagery of a woman lying in bed or swinging on a swing, photo projections upon sleeping faces, and rotting bodies. 

“Beneath the Skin” occupies the artsy-fartsy end of the horror genre. It is a deeply personal reflection by a woman upon the fact that, no matter how honest and respectable her boyfriend may seem, that the odds he's going to kill her is never zero. The narration, recounted in a distinctively nasally voice, shares deeply personal thoughts and feelings on such an emotion. Much like Condit's “Possibly in Michigan,” there's a musical tone to the rambling, non-stop dialogue that eventually does burst into a song that feels improvised. The visuals are abstract and shadowy, fleeting images distorted and projected atop each other. Brief glimpses of rubber corpses exist alongside shaky hand-held footage of skulls and a woman pulled from her bed by an unseen force. When contrasted with the imagery of the same woman sleeping or playing on a swing, it draws attention to the free-floating sense of anxiety all women feel existing in a world made more for men than them. 

The narration, one assumes, are Condit's personal reflections on the Einhorn case. Her words are equally humorous, coming off as almost dismissive of the murder that happened, while also slowly causing a chill to creep up your spine. Just taken as an audio-visual experience, “Beneath the Skin” gives the impression of your mother informing you of some traumatic, horrible event that happened to her as casually as she would would recall the evening's pot luck. Inevitably, the free-form narration eventually has Condit admit that she sometimes feels like it could have easily been her rotting in that closest, a chilling thought that is delivered with the same flippant relaxedness as the rest of the short. Weird and somewhat annoying, “Beneath the Skin” is nevertheless a fascinating peek into the mind of an artist and her brush with an unhinged killer. Einhorn, by the way, claimed the CIA murdered Maddux and framed him. He remained at-large for seventeen years before finally being caught, extradited back to the U.S., and dying in prison in 2020. Condit could not be reached for comment but we have “Beneath the Skin” to tell us how she felt. [7/10]