Halloween 2019: October 7th

Don't Look Now (1973)

As a young horror nerd, just figuring out what the established classics of the genre I needed to see were, I read a lot of books and internet articles about the Best Horror Movies of All Time. A title that came up a lot was Nicholas Roeg's 1973 psychic thriller “Don't Look Now.” Due to the nature of film writing in the modern age, I had the movie's infamous twist ending spoiled for me. When I finally sat down to watch “Don't Look Now,” I figured I could still get some enjoyment out of it. After watching “Don't Look Now,” I was slightly baffled. In my opinion, it was a well-made movie but I didn't find it especially scary or unnerving. Speaking as someone with a broader-than-most definition of the genre, I didn't think it was a horror movie at all. Well, I'm a little wiser and a little older now. I figured it was, perhaps, time to revisit “Don't Look Now” and see if my opinion has evolved any.

John and Laura Baxter have experienced a loss no parent should ever suffer. Their little daughter Christine drowned to death outside their home the summer before. Both have trouble recovering from their grief, Laura sinking into depression and John burying himself in his work as an art restorer. The couple travels to Venice, where John is working on an ancient Catholic cathedral. A chance in encounter in a restaurant puts Laura in contact with a psychic woman, who claims her daughter is happy... And alive. Laura's rejuvenated by this information but John remains deeply skeptical. As she visits the psychic more, Laura starts to feel as if something bad is going to happen. John starts to see a diminutive figure in a red rain slicker, like the one his daughter wore on the day she died. Is this possibly connected to the murders plaguing Venice?

“Don't Look Now” is clearly a film awash in grief. After the opening death of their daughter, there's this unavoidable sense that tragic events are going to be repeated. The movie works best for me when focusing on that softly unsettling sense of foreboding. The supernatural elements always seem to foretell something evil: Laura collapses at the dinner table, after her first encounter with the psychic. Her second meeting – in which the woman re-enacts a sexual encounter between the married couple – is similarly disturbing. John is put in more direct danger, when an accident leaves him dangling off a platform in the cathedral. Yet most of “Don't Look Now's” horror is not that overt. The film draws an unnerving energy out of seemingly non-sinister sequences, like John trying to communicate with an Italian man in an apartment hallway.

Yes, there is a certain lyrical quality to “Don't Look Now.” This is best displayed in the film's most lauded sequence. After talking with the psychic, Laura and John revitalize their relationship with an intense sexual episode. The lovemaking – considered so graphic at the time that people thought it might be unsimulated – is intercut with the couple dressing afterwards. It's an interesting choice, which seems to emphasize how much closer the two are yet there's still something between them. That level of visual artistry is unavoidable when Nicholas Roeg, the artsy-fartsy director of “Walkabout” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” is behind the camera. “Don't Look Now” is certainly a gorgeous looking film, beautifully shot and expertly crafted.

Ad yet, despite seeing all the positive elements in “Don't Look Now,” I still feel like I just don't get it, you guys. For a movie so explicitly about grief, so little time is spent depicting the desolation of John and Laura's marriage. We're kind of just meant to assume their love was once great and now it's gone. There are long stretches in the movie, where Laura flies back to England and John mistakenly believes she's still in Venice, that adds little to the story and generates no actual tension. That famous ending, often referenced and studied, simply baffles me. What exactly does a murderous dwarf in a red rain slicker have to do with anything? It comes out of nowhere and, yes, I realize that's exactly the point but it doesn't make me feel much or think anything.

So is it me or the film? The acting is excellent. There's a lived-in sorrow to Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie's performances, his out-bursts being especially powerful. Pino Donaggio's score is lovely. I have to admire that Roeg is making such an ambitious film. It's certainly a good movie. Yet whatever other people see in “Don't Look Now,” whatever has made it a modern classic, just escapes me. It doesn't connect with me emotionally and its psychic ruminations are mysterious more for their own sake, in my opinion. Maybe I should re-watch this one again once I have kids? Until then, I shall remain respectful but ultimately detached from “Don't Look Now.” [6/10]

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

The internet has found a way to reclaim the black sheep in several long-running horror franchises. “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” has gone from one of the most widely loathed sequels of all time to a beloved cult classic in its own right. “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning” is considered so-bad-it's-good, where it once was just so-bad-it's-awful. Similarly, “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge” was long considered a disappointing follow-up to the original. For a long time, many believed the sequel felt disconnected from the original's lore. That it was campy, where the first was scary. In the last few years, however, “Freddy's Revenge” has started to develop a fan base of its own thanks to its queer subtext.

Since the first “Elm Street” was a certified hit, and horror franchises were big business in the eighties, New Line Entertainment was happy to make a sequel. Even if Wes Craven was disinterested in returning and good ideas for a follow-up were sparse. They even wanted to re-cast Robert Englund for a while, before quickly realizing what a mistake that would be. Understandably, the sequel has few direct links to the original. What happened in the first movie has already passed into local legend, which is a nice touch. Other than that, this is a new story about Jesse Walsh, a confused young man, whose family has recently moved into 1428 Elm Street. Soon enough, Freddy starts to haunt his dreams. But the burned-up Springwood Slasher doesn't just want Jesse's soul. He wants his body too.

Above, I said “Freddy's Revenge” had a queer subtext. Which really undersells how blatant the movie's homoerotic element is. This is among the gayest horror movies ever made, thick with homosexual longing. Jesse awakening in only his tightly-whities, bathed in sweat, writhing from unwanted dreams, is a reoccurring image. He gets his pants pulled down, ass exposed, on the baseball field by friend/rival Grady, which is then followed by wrestling and sweaty push-ups. Grady further pranks Jesse by wrapping a snake around his head. Later, Grady flat-out says Jesse wants to sleep with him. When Freddy first meets the boy, he tells him he needs his body. Later, Jesse expresses fear that this strange man will “take him again.” Freddy's appearances in the real world and Jesse's budding gay desires seem intertwined. After running into a sadistic gym teacher at a leather bar, Jesse transforms into Freddy in the shower and kills. (Keep in mind, this is after the gym teacher has been stripped nude and whipped on the bare ass with a towel.) Grady's half-nude form similarly arouses Freddy's powers later on, prompting Jesse to penetrate his friend. The gay element is so strong that fairly innocuous lines about sticks up asses or kicks in the butt becoming significant.

Was turning Freddy Kruger into the avatar of a teen boy's simmering homosexuality the right decision? Well, think about it. When commanded to clean up his room, Jesse instead performs a needlessly suggestive dance. (While wearing Elton John glasses, no less.) Lisa then enters the room, the boy embarrassed to be seen acting this way. She helps him stick his stuff – all this gay stuff – into the closest. That's where the two discover Nancy's journal about Freddy. Throughout the film, only Lisa's clean straight love can beat Freddy back. Yet the final shock makes it clear that this doesn't work. Because you can't cure being gay. Freddy dwells in the subconscious, in the repressed. If we accept Freddy as a symbol of the horrible child abuse that happens behind closed suburban doors, we must also accept him as a symbol of the gay desires a teen boy is ashamed to admit he has. (Desires, pointedly, not understood by his abrasive father.)

All of this is absolutely fascinating but, yes, it is fair to admit that “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” isn't as good as the original. The sequel's deviation from the first film's established rules are odd. Why would Freddy want to leave the dream world, where he's all-powerful, to enter reality, where he's just a jerk with a glove? This is made obvious during the pool party scene, where a crowd of brawny teens are cowering from 5”10 Robert Englund. (Not to mention Freddy's sway over the waking world, already inconsistently portrayed, grows even more wild here.) Most of the sequel's attempts to be scary fall flat. The opening bus ride to Hell is more goofy than scary. So is a laugher of a scene involving an exploding parakeet. The appearance of demon-faced dogs or a hissing monster cat come out of nowhere and are undone by unconvincing special effects.

Yet the sequel isn't without its effective moments. Director Jack Sholder, previously of “Alone in the Dark” and later of “The Hidden,” has a strong visual eye. A point-of-view shot gliding around the family house is fantastically assembled, easily among the movie's spookiest moments. There are legitimate attempts at building atmosphere here, such as in Jesse's nighttime walk through the foggy Springwood streets. The sequel packs in some fantastically gooey special effects. Freddy emerging from Jesse's body, growing from an eye in his throat, is a clever concept. As is an immediately iconic  shot of the burned serial killer posing in front of a plume of fire. This is probably my favorite make-up design for Freddy, the blades growing straight out of the fingers, his flesh as bubbling and greasy as mall food court pizza.

By the way, lead actor Mike Patton is out and proud and plays Jesse as fairly effeminate. (Patton recently completed a documentary about how his horror stardom and queerness intersect.) Director Sholder claims complete ignorance of the film's obvious homoerotic elements but screenwriter David Chaskin would eventually admit it was all totally deliberate. Like many other fans, it took me a while to get over the odd digressions from series lore “Freddy's Revenge” makes. However, also like a lot of other fans, I now appreciate the really interesting things about the sequel. Campy but fascinating, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” now sits among my favorite in the series exactly because it's such a defiantly different take on Freddy Krueger. [8/10]

Tales from the Cryptkeeper: Waste Not, Haunt Not

Despite the title, this episode of “Tales from the Cryptkeeper” has nothing to do with an especially fastidious ghost. Instead, it revolves around two stereotypically nerdy brothers, currently working on putting together a mind-blowing project to win the science fair. After creating a barrel full of dangerous chemicals, they decided to dump it in the local swamp, instead of disposing of them through the proper channels. This illegal dumping awakens a slimy swamp blob, that pursues them back to their house.

“Waste Not, Haunt Not” is definitely the worst episode of “Tales from the Cryptkeeper” I've seen thus far. It's largely because the two brothers are deeply annoying protagonists. I wasn't kidding when I described them as stereotypical nerds. They have thick glasses, pants hiked up too high, pocket protectors, nasally voices, asthma, etc. This is the sort of visual cliché that was already discredited by the late nineties. Their laughs and screams are repeated over and over again through the 22 minute run time, deeply annoying the viewer. The monster, meanwhile, makes fart noises all the time. I even take issue with the episode's moral lesson. I really don't think ten year old kids are the ones who are dumping illegal toxic waste in public places. The Cryptkeeper delivering pro-environment, anti-illegal dumping messages is extremely odd. [3/10]

Forever Knight: Amateur Night

“Amateur Night” begins with the unlikely sight of a drive-by shooting claiming a little girl... In Toronto. From there, we leap to a film set where movie star Alix Logan is starring in a cop flick. Schanke has gotten himself hired as technical adviser and criticized the production as especially unrealistic. Hoping to be taken seriously by critics, Alix decides to ride along with Nick and Schanke as they investigate the gang activity that lead to the young girl's death. Before too long, the movie star is being pursued by the real life killer. Meanwhile, Nick thinks back to the time in the forties, when he was first trying to become a cop in Chicago and his inexperience almost got his partner killed.

“Amateur Night” features some bizarre tonal shifts. It opens with the very grim sight of a child being killed in a senseless, random act of violence. From there, it segues to the comedic sight of an intentionally cheesy film shoot. Large swathes of the episode are comedic, devoted to Schanke being star-struck and Logan's brash reactions to actual police work. And then there's the depiction of startlingly white gangs, which is an element of unintentional comedy. In the episode's final minutes, it swings back to grim, returning to the idea of a dead kid. Weird! The flashback scenes are most interesting for the insight into Nick's backstory and the sight of LaCroix in a beatnik-esque Nehru jacket and pendent. [5/10]