For the last seven years, I have kicked off my Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-thon with a silent film. This seems fitting to me, to begin my yearly horror pilgrimage in the days of the genre's cinematic roots. If we are talking classic horror stories of the silent era, few were more popular than Robert Louis Stevenson's “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” There were at least twenty adaptations of the novel during the silent years alone. The most well regarded of these voiceless versions of Stevenson's tale is the 1920 one from Paramount, starring John Barrymore. (To show you how common Jekyll and Hyde were during the silent days, this isn't even the only version of the story from that year.) I first saw this particular take years ago, when I was first exploring silent horror, and wasn't much impressed with it. But perhaps my opinion will change with time, I figured.
You all know the story by now. Of the saintly physician Dr. Henry Jekyll, who becomes obsessed with the duality of man and concocts a potion to contain his baser instincts, accidentally birthing a vile alter-ego by the name of Mr. Edward Hyde. Perhaps time would be better spent summarizing how this version is different from Stevenson's oft-adapted book. Like most adaptations do, Jekyll receives a love interest here, a finance named Millicent. In an interesting touch, her father is the man who unknowingly sends Jekyll down the path towards becoming Hyde, by introducing him to London's night life. Despite being upfront with Jekyll and Hyde's true identities, as all adaptations are, this adaptation still weirdly maintains some of the mystery elements from Stevenson's book.
As a fan of classic horror, and especially silent horror, I've grown quite use to the amount the melodrama that piles up in these old films. Yet even by that standard, this “Jekyll and Hyde” is pretty egregious. The romantic subplot is drearily overblown, Millicent spending long portions of the film pining for Jekyll. This is despite a noticeable lack of chemistry between the two, as Jekyll is depicted as so saint-like here, it's hard to imagine him having romantic feelings for anyone. Adding to this is the lack of attention given to the dance hall girl, Hyde's romantic obsession. The film depicts her as slutty and wanton, the filmmakers clearly thinking she gets what she deserved. This melodramatic atmosphere is encapsulated in John Barrymore's performance. Barrymore gesticulates wildly, reaching for the heavens, stretching his limbs, and collapsing to the floor. It's an utterly unbelievable, almost comedic bit of acting.
Ultimately, my opinion of 1920's “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” remains largely unchanged. It is an adaptation bogged down with too much text and melodrama. While many have praised Barrymore's performance over the years, I'm not a fan. Honestly, the acting here sums up everything I dislike about silent movie performances. Act with your eyes, not your hands, man. Having said that, the make-up and more dreamy touches are pretty great. (And were considered especially shocking in its day.) This version of “Jekyll and Hyde,” in my eyes, proves most noticeable for heavily influencing the 1931 adaptation with Fredrick March, my vote for best take on the material. Though, if nothing else, this is a better “Hyde” than King Baggot or Spencer Tracy. [5/10]
The king of Gimmick Horror, William Castle, began his independent career making hokey ghost stories, gothic thrillers, and monster movies. After “Psycho” came out, he correctly realized that unhinged killers and bloody murder were the future of the genre. Following “Homicidal,” his most blatant “Psycho” emulation, Castle would create another story of madness and dismemberment. “Strait-Jacket” would bring two other key figures into the fold. The first of which was Robert Bloch, the writer of “Psycho,” which lent the project a little more esteem. The second was Joan Crawford, well into the psycho biddy portion of her career. The combination would result in another campy classic.
Twenty years ago, Lucy Harbin came home to discover her husband in bed with another woman. Her immediate reaction was to take a fire axe and hack both of their heads off. Her daughter, Carol, was the only witness to the crime. Now, after two decades in a mental institute, Lucy has been set free. She goes to live with her now adult daughter on an isolated ranch. Lucy does her best to re-adapt to life but is haunted by disturbing nightmares and unsettling visions, all reminding her of her crime. Carol wonders if her mom is truly better. When heads start getting lobbed off again, she really begins to fear that mom has gone crazy again.
Or maybe Joan Crawford was just happy that her newfound horror stardom kept the paychecks rolling in. As was expected of the hag horror subgenre by this point, the performances are on a largely histrionic level. More than once, the script calls on Joan Crawford to shriek and prattle on manically, which she is more than able to do. She cracks up during a social party with Carol and her boyfriend. When confronted by the potential groom's parents, she wails in tear-strewn anger and fear. It's totally over-the-top which is, of course, totally fitting to the material. “Strait-Jacket” is high camp and that's exactly the level Crawford's performance is on. It's very entertaining to watch.
Being a William Castle flick, “Strait-Jacket” came packaged with a memorable gimmick. Attendees received a small, cardboard axe with every ticket purchased. Maybe not as cool as joy buzzers in the seats or Emergo but, if you can find a surviving one, I bet it would go for big money on eBay. “Strait-Jacket” probably could've been a serious shocker, as it has some effective black-and-white photography and a score with some spooky, whispery choir sounds. Castle and Crawford were more than happy to settle on campy fun though. The director makes sure you understand that, as he includes numerous moments of Crawford posing melodramatically with scissors or knives. (And ends the film on a pretty good joke, by decapitating the Columbia logo.) Ain't nothing wrong with campy fun though, especially on the first day of the Six Weeks of Halloween. [7/10]
In 2020, all but the most gullible proponents of the supernatural accept that the Amityville Horror was an elaborate hoax. The bizarre events said to terrify the Lutz family after they moved into 112 Ocean Avenue, as recounted in Jay Anson's eponymous book, was a scheme cooked up by Ronnie DeFio's defense attorney. Yes, DeFio really did kill his family and the Lutz really did briefly live in the house. That's where the factual elements of Anson's book ends and the fiction begins. Despite how widely discredited the story was, even in 1979, that didn't stop the motion picture adaptation of “The Amityville Horror” from being wildly successful. In fact, the film became American Independent Pictures' highest grossing release.
I read Anson's book this past summer in preparation for this review and, I have to say, I found it pretty poorly written. Anson's screenplay improves on his source material but follows more or less the same outline. Ronnie DeFeo murders his whole family in November of 1974. One year later, the Lutz family – husband George, wife Kathy, and kids Matt, Greg, and Amy – move in. Weird shit begins happening almost immediately. Flies buzz constantly inside. Amy communicates with an unseen entity called “Jody.” A Catholic priest is driven from the house and suffers multiple maladies. George begins to act strangely. A foreboding red room is discovered in the basement. Soon, the family has to contend with the possibility that their home is haunted by evil spirits.
The film works best when it dials down the over-the-top touches a bit. As the Lutz family are introduced to the different rooms in the house, quick shots of the murders that took place there flash on-screen. Rosenberg's direction occasionally creates a really nice moment, when a gliding tracking shot going from room to room implies a supernatural presence, without showing any explicit effects. The same thing happens during a shot of Kathy sitting in the kitchen, an unusual breeze picking her hair up. Scenes like this, that emphasize a sense of wrongness in what is supposed to be someone's home, are “The Amityville Horror” at its most effective. Two of the spookiest moments were invented for the film: The babysitter getting trapped in a closest and the bleeding walls, which play off a common fear that's easy to relate to and a just plain unnerving visual. The subtler scares prove more effective... And I can't believe I'm referring to bleeding walls as “subtle” but here we are.
We've established that “The Amityville Horror” isn't especially well written or that effective as a horror movie. Why did it resonate with the public so much? In “Danse Macabre,” Stephen King supposes that the film proved a potent metaphor for anyone whose newly purchased dream home turned into a money pit. Leaks, plumbing problems, faulty windows, heating issues, and persistent pests are all much more indicative of a home in disrepair than a haunted house. There's even a prominent moment were 1500 dollars disappears, making the subtext of the house ruining the family's finances rather literal. Much like “The Exorcist” before it, “The Amityville Horror” also sees its non-religious family fleeing back into the arms of traditional Catholicism when faced with the supernatural. (Though, as in “The Exorcist” and “The Omen,” whether those beliefs have any actual power against the devil is debatable.) Which definitely speaks to the cultural trends of the time, a reaction to the rise of new age practices and a general snapback from the freedom of the hippy movement.
Most likely, the found footage film will likely be remembered as the defining horror trend of the early 2010s. Before that, in the slightly earlier 2000s, Japanese ghost movies made an indelible impact on the genre. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for someone to mash the two subgenres up. In fact, director Kōji Shiraishi – of the later “Carved: The Slit-Mouth Woman” – would create “Noroi: The Curse” two full years before “Paranormal Activity” caused the found footage approach to blow up. “Noroi” has since gone on to become one of the better regarded films of the genre. Which makes it as good a choice as any to watch on the first day of the marathon.
In 2004, Masafumi Kobayashi, a maker of paranormal documentaries, vanished in a house fire. Before this incident, Kobayashi was creating a doc called “The Curse,” a screening of which comprises the majority of the film. While investigating strange noises and psychic powers, Kobayashi uncovered a legend surrounding Shimokage, a village that was destroyed when a dam was built in the seventies. Supposedly, the villagers summoned a demon named Kagutaba, which they had to appease once a year with a ritual. Now, it would seem Kagutaba has re-emerged, drawing Koyagashi, a local eccentric, a telepathic young girl, and a young actress into a web of supernatural terror.
The main reason “Noroi: The Curse” is such an effective horror picture is the sheer amount of creepy images and ideas on display. The Kagutaba demon is represented with a carved wooden mask, which looks both alien-like and fetal, that subconsciously appears throughout the film. The found footage style is especially effective when a ghostly figure is glimpsed in the background. Or during the vintage recording of the demonic ritual. Creepy incidents, like a woman randomly going into a choking posture, as if she's being hanged, occur often. The film successfully establishes a tone of creeping dread, most notably when the village's dogs – already established to keep evil spirits away – are strewn through the forest, all dead. It all leads up to the disturbing image of ghostly fetal creatures gathering around a child. The special effects and lo-fi presentation combine to make this particular sight look practically real.
Then again, plot coherence and tonal consistency are not so important in Japanese horror films. A tone of unsettling grimness and some potent ghostly images should probably be enough for any horror movie. Unsurprisingly, that combo has won “Noroi” quite a few fans. The film would be distributed across the gray market before Shudder finally picked up its streaming rights, giving it an official release stateside. (A home media release still has yet to emerge.) Shiraishi has gone on to other notable projects, including another well-regarded found footage flick called “Cult.” Maybe I'll check that one out someday. Despite a largely incoherent plot. “Noroi: The Curse” is still an enjoyably creepy time. [7/10]
Like a lot of people, I signed up for Disney+ not too long after it launched. While I have increasingly negative feelings towards Disney's behavior as a corporation, I remain a fan of many of their films and shows. The streaming service has a few examples of spooky or spooky-adjacent programming. Including previously reviewed paranormal kids show “So Weird,” its first official re-release of any type and the main reason I signed up for the service. Or TV movies like “Mr. Boogedy,” “Don't Look Under the Bed,” and the “Halloweentown” series. But it could be better! Where's “Watcher in the Woods?” Where's “Something Wicked This Way Comes?” Where's “The Skeleton Dance,” one of the studio's most iconic short films from all the way back in 1929?
Like a lot of early Disney shorts, “The Skeleton Dance” doesn't have much in the way of story. As a church bell strikes midnight, the skeletons in the neighboring cemetery leap to life. They proceed to dance, play music, and engage in physical comedy with one another until the rising sun forces them back into their graves. Of course, images of frolicking skeletons were not anything new, even in 1929. “The Skeleton Dance” is the most whimsical adaptation of the medieval idea of the Danse Macabre – people of all social statuses being united in the commonalty of dying and rotting – you're likely to see. Instead, Walt Disney and animator Ub Iwerks would mostly use the set-up as an excuse for wacky slapstick.
Though admittedly a bit dated from a modern perspective, “The Skeleton Dance's” animation and music largely still looks great. The amount of cartoony detail built into this short is still impressive, while the music score is catchy. This would be the first of Disney's long-running and highly successful Silly Symphonies series, must of which favored music and animation over story. Disney has not acknowledge the dancing skeletons as much as some of their other spookier characters over the years but there's been the occasional nod. It's available through Disney's official Youtube page, though its public domain status – one of the few Disney products whose copyright was been allowed to lapse – means it can be found all sorts of places. Iwerks was so fond of the short, he could remake it in color in 1937 as “The Skeleton Frolic.” That one is also good, technically stronger, but the original is hard to beat for its spooky, scary energy. [7/10]
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