With “Hereditary” immediately being praised as a modern classic, a new benchmark in the genre, it was rather smart of A24 to stay in the Ari Aster business. Initially conceived as a Sweden set slasher flick – the film was produced by B-Reel Films, probably not coincidentally a Swedish company – Aster would develop the soon-entitled “Midsommar” into its own beast. The film would combine the currently trendy “elevated horror” trend with the film world's newfound fascination with “folk horror.” Much like the director's previous film, “Midsommar” would receive rave reviews from critics and a more split reaction among horror fans. Though horribly out of season right now – the movie was fittingly released in mid-July, save for an extra limited release of an extra-long director's cut at the start of the month – I figured I had to review it this Halloween, since it's one of the buzz-iest horror flicks of the year.
A tension has crept into college students Dani and Christian's relationship. He's becoming increasingly unwilling to handle her emotionally fragile state. This reaches a breaking point when Dani's bipolar sister kills her parents and then herself. Christian's friend Josh has been planning a trip to an isolated pagan community in Sweden for his thesis, at the insistence of Pelle, whose family lives in the village. Though Christian is reluctant, Dani is ultimately invited along. Once in the Harga community, the students are treated warmly... But are also exposed to the disturbing practices of the cult, which includes the elderly committing suicide. When Josh threatens to expose some of the town's secrets to the world, people begin to disappear. Dani, however, finds herself feeling more accepted.
More than anything else, it's Aster's highly detailed direction that makes “Midsommar” such an immersive watch. The diorama-like set-ups of “Hereditary” lead to hyper-symmetrical visual design here, seen in the triangular temple at the center of the cult or rune-covered stones smeared with blood. Yet it's clear that Aster's main trick is to create an unnerving, freaky atmosphere that is broken up by sudden bursts of high impact violence. There's a sense of wrongness to every scene in the village. The numerous drug trip scenes – psychedelic mushrooms are used in place of any actual magic – are exceptionally well created, with subtle visual effects that make the viewer uneasy. This makes the sudden extreme gore even more unnerving than it would've otherwise been, Aster using every trick he can to make the exploded heads and shattered limbs hit the audience as hard as possible.
Early on, Ari Aster described “Midsommar” as an “apocalyptic break-up movie.” Dani and Christian pretty clearly have a toxic relationship. The film never makes him a cartoonish bad guy. He's a more everyday type of asshole. He gaslights his girlfriend frequently, smoothly (and probably unintentionally) manipulating her into apologizing for things she didn't even do. He repeatedly makes it clear that he doesn't really care about Dani very much, ignoring her clear trauma over her family's death and even forgetting her birthday. While she's noticing the very strange things happening in the village, he becomes obsessed with his thesis project... Which he's basically stealing from Josh. As if the point couldn't be clearer, Aster names the guy Christian in a movie mostly set in a pagan community. Just like he blew up familial resentment into a tale of demonic terror with “Hereditary,” “Midsommar” weaves a story of relationship toxicity into a folk horror narrative.
“Midsommar” definitely isn't as scary as “Hereditary.” While it has a similarly unnerving atmosphere, this film certainly never reaches the heights of hysterical terror that film did. “Midsommar” also has a lot more comedy, the culture clash discomfort being played for awkward laughs as much as unease. Or in the way Will Poutler's Mark, an utterly clueless and often stoned dude-bro, blunders his way through this alien community. Yet it's still an intricately designed movie with gorgeous production design, fantastic direction, wonderful performances, and a fascinating collection of ideas contained within it. Aster says he hopes to take a break from horror with his next film. Which I get, as creating emotionally intense films like these must be exhausting. Yet he's really, really good at this creepy stuff. I hope his absence from the genre doesn't go on too long. [9/10]
Of the 1930 stable of horror stars, Bela Lugosi is generally accepted to have had the weakest post-breakout roles. While Peter Lorre would be directed by Hitchcock and Karloff had a critically acclaimed run of films produced by Val Lewton, Lugosi would spent most of the thirties and forties starring in serials and Poverty Row productions. Among Lugosi's B-movie run, “The Devil Bat” is probably the best known. Not because the movie is especially well liked by classic horror nerds or genre historians. Instead, “The Devil Bat” is in the public domain, meaning it has been re-released on cheapie box sets more times than even Count von Count could possibly number.
The Martin Heath Cosmetic company has grown rich off the work of chemist Dr. Paul Carruthers. He's starting to feel pretty resentful about it. So the doctor cooks up an elaborate scheme of revenge. Using electricity, he has grown a common bat to the size of an eagle. He then treats the animal to attack anyone wearing a special brand of aftershave, which he then gifts to the people he hates. Soon, the community is terrified by the Devil Bat, which flies into the night and tears out its victims' throats. Industrious reporter Johnny Layton and his ever-ready photographer “One-Shot” McGuire are soon on the case.
While I've always preferred Karloff and the Chaneys, there's no denying that nobody could ham it up quite like Bela Lugosi. “The Devil Bat's” best scenes are devoted to Lugosi's villainous scheming. He talks to the Devil Bat, elaborating verbosely about the destiny he has planned for the flying mammal. While wandering his secret laboratory, Lugois listens to his own inner monologue, which further explains to the audience why he's seeking revenge against the family that owns the cosmetics company. Probably the film's best scene has Carruthers' pride getting the best of him, as Martin Heath explains how the doctor could've been much richer if he had gone about things differently. Lugosi's face twists into a deep scowl as he begins to pontificate about imbeciles and bombastic ignoramuses. It's pretty fucking great.
“The Devil Bat” is by no means a sophisticated horror film. The special effects are extremely unconvincing. The titular killer is brought to life via close-ups of a clearly uncomfortable flying fox and a large, highly unconvincing rubber prop that listlessly flaps its wings through the night air. The fake bat is repeatedly shown leaving Lugosi's attic and, when it attacks people, the victims flop around awkwardly with this thing attached to their necks. The plot is heavy on cliches, with a spooky laboratory in a stone room with crackling electric equipment. Yet there's undeniable charm to these elements. “The Devil Bat” is incredibly creaky, with long scenes of Lugois tooling around his laboratory or people waiting in the dark woods for something to happen... And, because I love old black and white horror movies from the forties, I sort of love this stuff.
Adding to “The Devil Bat's” charm is its pair of exceedingly goofy heroes. Dave O'Brien's Johnny Layton is the kind of fast talking reporter hero you always imagine was prevalent in forties films. He's got a colorful editor always breathing down his neck, he sticks his in where it doesn't belong, and he's not above bending the truth for the sake of a good story. Donald Kerr as “One-Shot” is even goofier, bouncing off the film's hero and making outrageous demands of the editor once he has that power. He even gets a love interest of his own, in the form of the Hearth family's french maid. The scene where he photographs here is only mildly sexist by modern standards and is even sort of cute.
And one more thing about “The Devil Bat.” Its one of those movie that's about 30% montages of newspaper headlines, informing us of the (entirely off-screen) terror the Devil Bat has plunged this town into. Yet these moments have the incredibly cute touch of a bat's shadowy silhouette floating over the newspapers. That's exactly the kind of doofy but cute touch that makes this an enjoyable little B-picture. Add in a fantastically hammy performance from Lugosi and classic horror fans with a tolerance for rinky-dink bullshit will probably find themselves enjoying this one. Hey, Kino Lorber just put out a Blu-Ray remaster so you don't even have to settle for the hundreds of shitty looking public domain releases either! [7/10]
Tales from the Cryptkeeper: Cold Blood, Warm Hearts / The Spider and the Flies
The second episode of “Tales from the Cryptkeeper: Season Two” is one of those installments with two stories in it, for some reason. “Cold Blood, Warm Hearts” is presented by the Old Witch, after she once again interrupts the Cryptkeeper's host segment in a way that I'm already getting bored with. “Cold Blood, Warm Hearts” concerns the sea-side town of Culver Bay, where reports of a monster in the water is scarring people off. An obsessive fisherman plans to hunt down the monster, much to the chagrin of a reporter who sees the monster as a potential endangered species that needs to be protected.
“Cold Blood, Warm Hearts” does have its interesting moments. The sea monster has a cool design, looking like a serpentine mermaid with glassy deep sea fish eyes and teeth. This leads to an unexpected twist that genuinely caught me off-guard, setting up a surprisingly cute ending. (There's also way more quasi-nudity in that ending than I ever would've anticipated.) I'm less of a fan of the blatant Quint rip-off that hunts the fish monsters. Or of the weirdly jerky animation and bland character designs. Season two of “Tales from the Cryptkeeper” is laying on the moral lessons thicker this time, as “Cold Blood, Warm Hearts” is obviously a tale about not judging books by their covers.
The second story “The Spider and the Flies,” is told by the Cryptkeeper. Set in the wild west, it depicts a boy who has a tense relationship with his little sister. He especially hates her habit of making nasty tasting pies. Meanwhile, the town is soon overwhelmed by a plague of ferocious spiders. A mysterious mask man rides into town and promises to get rid of the spiders, assuming the townsfolk pay his astronomical fee. That's before the kids uncover a previously unknown weakness of these spiders.
I thought “The Spider and the Flies” was going to turn into a variation on the Pied Piper story, with spiders instead of rats and a presumably less dark ending. Instead of teaching kids that you need to fairly compensate blue-collar workers, “The Spider and the Flies” goes for the much lamer moral of learning to love your annoying little siblings. The horde of spiders are more cute than they are scary, their reign of terror seeming pretty harmless ultimately. The reveal about the mysterious man is easy enough to predict, though that story thread ends in an incredibly sudden fashion. At least the animation is better than the first half. Over all, this is a really uneven episode. [5.5/10]
Forever Knight: A Fate Worse Than Death
As the first episode of “Forever Knight's” season two sheds a little more light on Nick Knight's origin, the second episode of the season looks into the past of Jeanette, another of LaCroix's offspring that has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Nick over the centuries. The episode begins when a call girl is murdered in a family man's hotel room. This leads Nick and Schanke to Julie, who shares the same pimp as the murdered girl. Nick suspects that man is responsible for the killing but the mystery soon grows more convoluted. Meanwhile, Jeanette feels sorry for Julie, as she was also a “lady of the evening” a long, long time ago and sees herself in the confused young woman.
“A Fate Worse Than Death” almost feels like a subversion of the disposable sex worker trope, which “Forever Knight” has presented uncritically before. By being explicitly about how prostitute are abused – by their pimps and society at large – it adds more depth than is usually afforded sex workers on cop shows. Julie has agency and the similarities to Jeanette's own past help further flesh that out. Sadly, the episode throws all that ambiguity when the true identity of the killer is revealed. The sex workers may not exactly be disposable but they aren't really respected as human beings with really difficult jobs. Luckily, the episode is still worth seeing thanks to the interaction between Nick and Jeanette, which is rich with history and features some nicely spooky sequences of foggy city streets and medieval castles. [7/10]
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