Halloween 2021: October 31st - HALLOWEEN

I went into Halloween with no plans beyond watching a ton of horror movies and reviewing them, like I always do. At the last minute, I was called upon to help a friend with handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. This necessitated me throwing together a costume with literally some random stuff I had lying around my house. The result was an extremely hodgepodge Frankenstein costume. Dealing with the neighborhood kids, in search of candy, is always delightful. I'm a softie for that kind of stuff. After wrapping up there, I returned home and got back to the final day of the Halloween Horror-fest Blog-a-thon. October 31st only comes once a year, so I have to make it count. On with the reviews!

Muppets Haunted Mansion (2021)

Among hardcore Muppets aficionados, there is much debate around whether or not Disney has done right but Jim Henson's iconic felt creations in recent years. The 2011 theatrical reboot was moderately well received, though a vocal minority insisted it missed the spirit of Henson's work. The 2014 sequel was both a creative and box office shrug though. The attempt to retrofit the characters into a modern sitcom structure the next year was widely despised. The recent Disney+ series, “Muppets Now,” started out alright but degraded into mean-spiritness too quickly, in my opinion. Yet Disney is determined to keep this brand alive and, this year, rolled out what is somehow the very first Halloween special to ever star the characters. 

It's Halloween night and the Muppets are throwing a big party. Gonzo the Great has other plans, however. He's been invited to an exclusive night at the Haunted Mansion. Fifty years ago, his hero – a magician called The Great MacGuffin – disappeared while inside. Nobody is said to be able to survive a night inside the structure. Gonzo, being the impossible-to-frighten weirdo he is, looks forward to such a night. Pepe the Prawn tags along, under the mistaken assumption that this is a celebrity-packed Hollywood party. Both of them will encounter many strange things as they stay overnight inside the Haunted Mansion. 

“Muppets Haunted Mansion” earns points for maintaining the variety show structure of the original seventies TV series. This is an hour full of puppetry, songs, goofy humor, and celebrity cameos. The story structure is very loose and allows for a number of gags. There's even an extended homage to the reoccurring ball room dancing sketch from the old show, where random couples around a dance floor crack silly puns. Among the special guest stars, I don't recognize a lot of them. But Will Arnett, as the “Ghost Host,” and Yvette Nicole Brown, as a smart-mouthed limo driver, have mildly amusing small roles. The list of blink-and-miss-them cameo is a random hodgepodge of names like Danny Trejo, Pat Sajak, and the sadly late Ed Asner. 

From the title on down, it should be obvious that “Muppets Haunted Mansion” is an extended act of corporate synergy. This is a special meant to advertise the Haunted Mansion attractions around the world in various Disney parks, as much as it is to remind audiences that the Muppets exist. The narrative roughly follows the structure of the ride itself, taking Gonzo and Pepe through the graveyard, into the stretching room, and featuring the famous wall paper and “Doom” Buggies. The Hitchhiking Ghosts and “Grim Grinning Ghosts” naturally appear as well. Though Kermit and the gang are technically absent from the story, the famous Muppets play various roles throughout the Haunted Mansion ride. So Fozzy is mashed up with the Hatbox Ghosts, Piggy with Madame Leota. Kermit appears as a ghostly master-of-ceremony, with Rowlf as an organist. Honestly, I was kind of impressed with the sheer number of Muppet cameos they sneaked into this one. Characters from the original show, “Muppets Tonight!,” and the movies drop in for brief appearances.

As for the special's actual entertainment value, it starts out strong. Pepe, a character I'm otherwise not crazy about, does produce some decent laughs with him continually confusing between the Haunted Mansion and a regular party. This does lead to an amusing cameo from John Stamos, of all people. A running gag about a skeleton and mummy that can't quite get the timing right on the dramatic sound effects made me chuckle. The Electric Mayhem, appearing as Piggy's spectral band, complaining about needing more break time was another solid joke. Yet this special probably only should have been a half-hour, as its energy seriously sags in the second half. An extended sequence devoted to Pepe being married to Taraji P. Henson, as a murderous bride, feels belabored. Gonzo getting a lesson in friendship doesn't have much dramatic weight and the monster-filled chase scene that follows is limp. Also, a joke about a screaming goat was funny once but is repeated several times.

Despite definitely being uneven, “Muppets Haunted Mansion” does rank among the better “Muppets” spin-offs in recent history. It was clearly mostly shot on green-screens, which might just be a reality of COVID era production. I would've liked a little more Halloween ambiance, though I guess that would've distracted from Disney pimping their theme park attraction. I'm also still adapting to Matt Vogel as the voice of Kermit, who still strikes me as too nasally. The special itself made me chuckle a few times and kept me mildly diverted for most of its runtime, which I suppose is all we can ask for from something like this. I certainly hope this is a predecessor to more Muppet Halloween specials and that they work out some of the pacing bugs in future installments. [6/10]

The Undying Monster (1942)

Most of the attempts to emulate Universal's iconic series of monster movies were made by low budget studios. I've definitely gotten the impression, from retrospective documentaries and books on the topic, that other studios thought they were above the horror genre. But I guess the second wave of Universal Monster flicks, in the late thirties and forties, must've made enough money that even Universal's biggest rivals took notice. A year after "The Wolf Man" came out, 20th Century Fox would release their own version of the werewolf legend. 1942's "The Undying Monster," when it's infrequently mentioned, is usually regarded as a handsome take on classic horror tropes. 

Stately Hammond Hall, along the cliffs of the foggy British countryside, is home to a curse. Centuries ago, the Hammond lord is said to have sold his soul to the devil, emerging once a generation to sacrifice the latest heir. The modern Hammond family – including Oliver and his sister Helga – regard this as nothing but a superstition, though Hammond men do tend to die young. While out on the rocky cove, Oliver and a female friend are attacked by an unseen beast. Kate falls into a coma, Oliver is injured, and his pet dog is torn to pieces. Scotland Yard detective Robert Curtis arrives to unravel this mystery, find the killer, and resolve the case of the Hammond monster once and for all. 

The first thing you're going to notice about “The Undying Monster” is how gorgeous it is. Hammond Hall is an atmospheric location, full of chilly stone hallways and fireplaces that cast ominous shadows. At one point, the camera is even situated behind the flames of the fireplace, watching Helga and Oliver in front of it. The banisters, enormous windows, and wooden spires of the interior provide all sorts of interesting sights for the camera to peer around. Outside the castle are rocky flats that are, naturally, blanketed with wispy fog. There's a tomb as well, with elaborate statues of knights and a wolf-like creature. (That, for whatever reason, has prominent breasts.) All of this is captured with moody direction that goes heavy on the shadows. Whenever people or monsters are sneaking around the darkened rooms, “The Uncanny Monster” settles into an absolutely delicious groove of classic horror ambiance.

Another aspect of “The Undying Monster” that elevates it above your typical old dark house fare is a likable cast. Heather Angel, as Helga,  is a reasonable heroine. In the first scene, she grabs her brother's rifle and goes after the monster herself. She's never quite that proactive again but it's a scene that makes an impression. James Ellison plays Detective Curtis, making no attempt to disguise his American accent despite being from Scotland Yard. He's a likable hero, dissuading local police by spinning a wild story about an unleashed monkey. He stays sensible but is also wiling to go above and beyond to get results, all while maintaining a sense of humor. I also found myself liking Heather Thatcher as Chrissy, his comic relief sidekick. She's not as broad and annoying as characters like this usually are. In fact, “The Undying Monster” is refreshingly free of clichés. There's no love triangles, no melodrama. This is a focused mystery.

It's such a mystery, in fact, that I sometimes wondered how long I'd have to wait for the monster to show up. The movie sets up plenty of red herrings. The family servants are sneaking around and making ominous comments, suggesting they definitely know something. Helga's husband, a scientist himself, intentionally destroys evidence at one point. A surprisingly acrobatic fist fight in the tomb reveals another potential suspect. By the time a minor character dies off-screen – one of only two deaths in the whole movie – “The Undying Monster” is starting to feel a little on the dry side. Luckily, the movie does not wuss out with a “Scooby-Doo” ending like so many old dark house flicks. It makes us wait but there is some satisfying, if subtle, monster action in the last ten minutes. Even if it's then capped off with some laborious exposition. 

Director John Brahm would go on to make “Hangover Square” and  the 1944 version of “The Lodger,” proving he had a real knack for classy and atmospheric horror. Both of those movies starred George Sanders, who was the studio's original pick to play the detective role in this film. He flat-out refused and it is, admittedly, hard to imagine Sanders in the role. “The Undying Monster” basically gets by on its incredible mixture of shadows, fogs, and castle setting. As a mystery, it's a bit long-winded. As a monster movie, it plays things a little too close to the chest. Yet I'm a sucker for black-and-white ambiance, meaning I still enjoyed this one a lot. It's definitely among the best Universal Monsters knock-offs I've seen. [7/10]

Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)

In the realm of B-movie barons, Sam Katzman is not as widely beloved as your Sam Arkoffs or Roger Cormans. Yet Katzman carved out a steady career for himself throughout the thirties and fifties. At Monogram Pictures, he helped crank out westerns, jungle adventure movies, serial, and the occasional thriller. In the forties he made countless programmers for Columbia. Yet what really endeared Katzman to genre nerds was a sextet of monster movies he produced in the mid fifties. After “Creature with the Atom Brain” – which I reviewed last Halloween – and “The Werewolf” came “Zombies of Mora Tau.”

Off the Mora Tau coastline of Southern Africa, there is a legend. A ship hulling diamonds sank off the coast a hundred years ago, after stealing them from an African temple. Every attempt to salvage the diamonds have failed, because the zombified crew members of the ship still roam the jungles and seas. George Harrison is determined to get those diamonds and has brought along a professional diving team to help. His team, led by heroic diver Jeff, soon runs afoul of the zombies of Mora Tau. Jeff develops a romance with Jan, the great-granddaughter of the ship's captain. When she's endangered, by the ever-encroaching undead threat, he has to make a choice over whether the diamonds or her safety is more important. 

 

“Zombies of Mora Tau” is notable for a number of reasons. It is, as far as I can tell, the first movie to feature underwater zombies, predating “Shock Waves” and Fulci's “Zombie.” It's also a zombie movie that has more in common with “Night of the Living Dead” than “White Zombie.” These shambling, hostile corpses are all automatous, with no voodoo master to lead them. In fact, there's no mention of voodoo at all. The characters standing up against a horde of undead attackers also predates “Night” and all its imitators by ten years. Their condition is even communicable, though there's no biting. While the image of blank-faced zombies wreathed with seaweed is memorable, they aren't much of a threat. They are easily frightened by fire and can be taken down by a single bullet. The heroes fight off the animated corpses with relative ease. It turns out, if you take away the rot and the cannibalism, your typical zombies just aren't very scary. 

“Zombies of the Mora Tau's” importance to the undead genre, as a bridging film between “I Walked with a Zombie” and George Romero, is also not the first thing I noticed about it. The main thought I kept having while watching it tonight was “This is the whitest movie about Africa I've ever seen.” It's unavoidable. This is a movie ostensibly set in Africa without a single character of color. Presumably, some sort of local magic is responsible for animating the zombies, for installing the curse, but all of that backstory happens off-screen. All the zombies are white. All the heroes and villains are white. Even Jan's grandmother is a little old white lady, living off the coast of Africa. It's just really funny to me that this movie attempts to float on the mystical reputation of “Darkest Africa” without bothering to include even a token black character. 

Yet I don't think the future of the zombie genre or narrow-sighted racism is what were on the producers mind with this one. Instead, “Zombies of Mora Tau” is basically “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” but with zombies. All the men who have pursued the diamonds, who have followed the greed in their hearts, have ended up dead. Harrison's all-consuming hunger for the diamonds ends up getting his girlfriend – played by “Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman's” Allison Hayes – turned into a zombie too. He has to choose between his love and his greed. Guess which one wins out. Ultimately, the film's hero is defined less by his bravery and daring than by his willingness to realize that this treasure is not worth it. An act of selfless heroism is what saves the day and breaks the curse. It's easy to see this coming but “Zombies of Mora Tau” is still most interesting when focusing on what motivates these men. 

All in all, “Zombies of Mora Tau” is a B-movie totally typical of its time and place. What makes it funny is entirely unintentional. What makes it ahead-of-its-time was completely unplanned. Sam Katzman would soon move onto “The Man Who Turned to Stone,” “The Night the World Exploded” and his most notorious production: “The Giant Claw.” Katzman's prolific career would continue well into the sixties but he would rarely touch on sci-fi/horror again after these projects. I'm not surprised this one was gained a cult following of sorts, accounting to the handful of things that's interesting about it. Yet this was mostly struck me as a pretty droll B-flick. [5/10]

Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Horror was going through an interesting time in the early seventies. The gothic horror films that defined the genre for decades were falling out of favor. Yet the harsher forms of exploitation horror that would become the new normal was only beginning to take shape. You were seeing these two styles bleeding into each other, in the gorier and sexier Hammer horror films of that period. Or films that took a more psychological approach to supernatural premises. Before “The Exorcist” became the new standard, “Rosemary's Baby” was briefly the template for a string of films that explored broken psyches from the inside out. It was during this time that a peculiarly entitled cult classic named “Let's Scare Jessica to Death” was released.

Jessica and her husband, Duncan, move to the picturesque countryside. Jessica recently has been released from a mental hospital and Duncan hopes the peaceful setting will sooth her nerves. Jessica, meanwhile, is plagued by fears that she is still loosing her mind. Along with their friend Woody, they discover a woman living in the house. Named Emily, she's young and vivacious, both men immediately attracted to her. Jessica also uncovers that Emily bares an uncanny resemblance to the children of the people who lived in this house, and supposedly drowned, a hundred years ago. This is just the first of many strange things Jessica notices, that makes her fear she is going crazy again. Yet something even more horrifying is happening here.

The film's title, selected by Paramount against director John Hancock's wishes, is flippant. But “Let's Scare Jessica to Death” really is about a woman on the verge of dying of fright. Jessica is scared of loosing her mind. She's scared of letting people know she's scared. All throughout the film, we are privy to Jessica's thoughts. She's constantly harassed by troubling ideas, that her husband is attracted to another woman. That she's going mad again. These thoughts, played in quick bursts of echoing voice-over, are paired with Jessica's concerns anyone will notice her nervous state. Zohra Lampert's performance, from her stiff but jittery body language on down to her sad smile, conveys this unsteady mental state. 

When it becomes impossible for Jessica to disguise her fragile mental state, we learn why she's so eager to keep this information a secret. Jessica is surrounded by men totally unprepared to help her. Duncan seems disgusted by his wife's mental illness. When he suggests sending her back to New York, back to her doctors, he seems inconvenienced. When Jessica's pet mole is discovered killed, and she's understandably distressed about it, Freddy looks at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. But not sympathy. Both men seems totally preoccupied with the sexually available Emily. Jennifer desperately needs help. She needs someone who will listen to her, who will take her pain seriously. Instead, she's around men who are too selfish to even consider how Jessica is feeling. When Duncan inevitably becomes a monster that pursues Jessica violently, it's simply the film literalizing the cruel indifference he already feels towards his wife. 

The possibility that Jessica is going insane does seem very real. As a horror movie, “Let's Scare Jessica to Death” has an eerie quality. Since so much of the movie takes place inside Jessica's head space, it's hard to say how much of the weird things she sees are actually happening. A common psychological symptom is paranoia. Is this why Jessica sees the townsfolk as so hostile to her? Or are the particular scars that each of them carry a clue that something strange is happening? By the last end, the film has engulfed us totally in Jessica's unsteady perspective. This allows it to get increasingly horrific. Dream-like images, of dead bodies emerging from the water, or knife-wielding vampires stepping into a room while she sleeps, become more common. “Let's Scare Jessica to Death” ends on a totally inconclusive note, leaving us lingering in that unsettling mental space. 

Bizarrely enough, “Let's Scare Jessica to Death” was originally conceived as a horror/comedy about how much hippies suck. Director Hancock would completely rewrite the project. Some people still see it as a commentary of the death of the hippy movement, which was happening in real time in 1972. Others see similarities to Sheridan Le Fanu's “Carmilla,” in the idea of a vampiric young woman infiltrating a household. (Though “Jessica” noticeably lacks the lesbian content that would make “Carmilla” notorious.) Unsurprisingly, most modern readings discuss it as a movie about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It still has a spooky power to it, with Lampert's fragile performance at the center of it. [7/10]

Silent Madness (1984)

As I discussed some last night, the last decade has been an amazing time for formally obscure horror movies to be rediscovered. I've seen a lot of the one-off eighties oddities I discovered during my college slasher binge reappraised. Thanks to slick new Blu-Ray presentations, overlooked films like “The Slayer” and “The Burning” are slowly becoming beloved. “Silent Madness” is one I figured would never receive such a treatment. For years, rumors circulated in the retro-slasher fandom that the movie's rights were wrapped up in complicated legal issues. Or that its owners owed money to the mob. But anything is possible here in the future and Vinegar Syndrome recently gave “Silent Madness” the prestige treatment, even releasing the long flat movie in 3-D.

Dr. Joan Gilmore works for a Californian mental hospital. The staff is hopelessly corrupt and, due to budget cuts, they've begun releasing unwell patients that have been deemed no threat to society. They intended to release the harmless John Howard... Instead, they set violent psychopath Howard Johns free. Johns immediately begins to murder people, on his way back to the sorority house where he went on his first rampage twenty years ago. Joan teams up with a record keeper named Mark, in hopes of finding Johns and stopping him before he kills again. Yet the hospital dispatches a pair of sleazy orderlies to cover up the mistakes and make sure Joan's story never reaches the press.

In many ways, “Silent Madness” is a paint-by-numbers slasher flick. It's blatantly emulative of “Halloween.” It follows a killer who committed a crime years ago, escapes a mental hospital, and returns to the scene of the crime to kill again. He also likes to leave dead bodies in surprising places. Howard Johns doesn't even wear a cool mask. He's just a pasty-faced dude in work pants. Yet there's something reliably entertaining about “Silent Madness'” commitment to formula. About its blooping, synth-farts soundtrack. The way Johns' killing spree was spurned by a sexual humiliation, the way the twist ending has someone chastises women for being “slutty,” feels like the movie acknowledging the psycho-sexual undertones of the subgenre. The murder scenes are clever, especially a moment involving a barbell being tossed through a window. The stalking scenes are tense, such as Johns' face appearing reflected in an arcade game's screen. Or the extended chase through the air vents of the college. 

There's a lot of colorful elements to “Silent Madness,” both literally and figuratively. Director Simon Nuchtern paints extended sequences in bright reds or electric blues. The 3-D element comes off as pure camp now. A spinning claw, a sledge hammer, a nail gun, and spurting blood from a tightened vice all fly towards the camera. Sometimes, the 3-D effects are even rendered in primitive animation. To match the colorful visuals are a cast of memorably bizarre characters. The fat town sheriff speaks with an effeminate lisp as he spits creatively profane dialogue. The sorority girls play “Dragon's Lair,” do inverted aerobics,  and pose for erotic photography for each other. Joan and Mark's romance is even kind of cute. 

What truly cements “Silent Madness'” status as a minor slasher classic – a slashic, if you will – is its subversive social commentary. The reason Howard Johns' hospital has to release so many patients is do to government budget cuts. This, of course, was a very real problem facing the mental health facilities in the eighties. Instead of the hospital's operators admitting they made a horrible mistake, they deploy the two sleaziest orderlies in the world to cover it up. And by “cover it up,” I mean murder Dr. Gilmore. These guys might just be included to boost the body count. When they get a pneumatic drill to the head, it's satisfying. Yet it fits the film's commentary on how those in power inevitably abuse it. It's even implied that the inhumane treatment he received in the hospital made Howard Johns more dangerous than he was already.

I've only previously seen “Silent Madness” as a blurry, grainy VHS rip. Vinegar Syndrome did a great job of restoring the movie. Even if the edges of the frames still appear distorted, which I think might be a side effect of the movie being in 3-D. “Silent Madness” is often dismissed as a generic slasher flick, which is not entirely unfair. You might only be able to appreciate movies like this after you've seen another fifty movies just like it. The things “Silent Madness” does well become readily apparent when you see how many similar do these same things poorly. I'm happy I can retire my bootleg of this one. I maintain that it's a gem. [7/10]

Titane (2021)

Films that deal with the macabre, the extreme, the gothic, and the horrific still struggle to gain critical respect. This is true even in 2021. Genre bias is a hard thing to overcome. And yet maybe we are making progress. Because, this past year, a horror movie that contains quite a lot of extreme images won the Palme d'Or, the highest prize at that most prestigious of film festival, Cannes. Julia Ducournau's “Raw” certainly made an impression but her follow-up, “Titane,” has received an even more rapturous reception. If a body-horror filled, future cult movie experience like this going all the way to the top isn't a sign that maybe horror can be awards bait now, I'm not sure what is. 

When Alexia was a little girl, her father wrecked the family car. The following surgery has a titanium plate placed into her skull. She's left with a nasty scar and a fixation on automobiles. She grows into a disturbed adult who works as an exotic dancer at auto-shows, where she can indulge her sexual fetish for hot rods. She's also a serial killer, who has left a trail of dead bodies across France. When it looks like the police are close to identifying her, she disguises herself as a long-since missing boy. The boy's father, a firefighter captain named Vincent, accepts “Adrian” as his son. Alexia's attempt to carry off this deception are compounded by one very unusual factor: Her latest mechanophiliac tryst has left her pregnant. 

“Titane” is a movie that defies all expectations. I intentionally read as little about it as possible before seeing it, as I was told going in blind is the best measure. This is absolutely true. At no point in the film's 108 minute run time did I have any idea what was going to happen next. Well, that's not entirely true. I knew this was the movie where someone fucked a car. Yet even that scene unfolded in a far more bizarre fashion than I anticipated. “Titane” consistently surprises you by mixing extreme violence and sexual deviancy with sentimentality and raw emotion. The story takes multiple wild swerves, the premise seemingly changing several times. Elements of what you'd call “magic realism,” though peppered with far more horrific body horror than that term usually implies, weave in and out. It is the most unpredictable, and most satisfyingly baffling, motion picture experience I've had all year.

It's fitting that “Titane” is constantly shifting gears and surprising its audience, as this is a movie all about transformation. The inciting incident of the auto accident totally changes Alexia's life. It changes a car from an mundane object into something sexually desirable. Her decision to go undercover and assume a new identity has her changing her body. She binds her breasts and pregnant belly, shaves her head, and breaks her nose. Yet Vincent accepting her as his son causes her perspective on life to change too. A normal pregnancy is a drastic physical change too, which the film accurately recreates... And then takes even further, because this lady got impregnated by a car. The film's touches of “Tetsuo”-like body horror, motor oil and shining chrome appearing in places where those things definitely should not be, is only the most obvious type of transformation in the story. 

Paradoxically, as much as “Titane” is a movie about bodies changing, it's also a story about people who only know how to be one type of thing. Vincent, played with heart-rending sincerity by Vincent Lindon, is obsessed with masculinity. He injects steroids to maintain a youthful, muscular physique. He bonds with his “son” by slam-dancing and picking fights. Alexia, meanwhile, is totally baffled by her new lifestyle at first. As Adrian, she's usually silent and blank. During a key moment, she performs her strip tease while in her masculine persona. Both of these characters are striving to be something else but are held back by preconceived notions. Vincent is vulnerable and desperate to love, yet still fixated on a macho image. Alexia wants to be accepted but still only knows how to express herself with sex or violence. Both of these characters will have their perceptions challenged before too long.

Through all its twists and turns, “Titane” is nothing less than utterly compelling. Ducournau's direction is extremely fierce. An extended sequence depicting Alexia's violent hobby is punishing and graphic. The violence in this movie hurts. That includes the skin-crawling body horror. While comparison to Cronenberg's “Crash” are inevitable, Cronenberg is cool and lifeless as polished steel. “Titane” is hot and warm like exposed flesh, bursting with emotion. Its final images are of acceptance and compassion. Both Lindon and Agathe Rousselle, as Alexia, expose themselves physically and emotionally. This is a film where the stabs to the head and the soft kisses on the cheek hit with equal intensity. 

We already know that “Titane” is France's submission for Best International Feature at next year's Academy Award. A decade ago, it would've seemed impossible that a movie this transgressive, this graphic and wild, could get a Oscar nomination in any category. Yet consider this: “Parasite” won the Palme d'Or and would then go on to win the Best Picture Oscar, defying all previously held expectations. Using this same very scientific formula, I can now declare that this movie where someone fucks a car is going to win Best Picture next year. In all seriousness, “Titane” is an absolutely spellbinding movie. I was totally absorbed and blown away by every minute of it. By no means a traditional horror film but nevertheless an amazing one to conclude my Halloween season with. [9/10]

In many ways, it feels like this Halloween has been an especially low-key one. Not just for me but the whole world. I guess we are still easing back into the normal flow of things after 2020. No haunted attraction or corn mazes were visited. Fewer pumpkins were carved than usual. Yet I still did everything I could to make the Six Weeks of Halloween special. Lord knows, I packed in as many movies and TV shows as I think I possibly could. Feelings of burn-out and "why the hell am I doing this?" did occasionally drift into my head. 

Yet a moment occurred earlier tonight. (Or last night, more accurately.) I was standing out in the cold, in my Frankenstein mask. I saw the flashlights of trick-or-treaters approaching the house, from further up the road. The wind kick up and the fog machine blasted another round of mist into the air. I was surrounded by pumpkins and giant novelty skeletons. "I love this time of year," I found myself thinking with a massive smile on my masked face. Thank you for that gift, Halloween. Thank you for reminding me why this time of year is special. I'll miss you, Halloween. And, as always, I look forward to meeting you again in another eleven months. 

And to anybody alive out there in Internet Land, thank you for reading. Thank you for going on this journey with me. The Autumn Country closes its gates for another year, except it never really goes away either. Good night and safe travels. 

Halloween 2021: October 30th

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

To people of a certain age, Alvin Schwartz' “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” books are notorious. Not necessarily because the stories contained within, all of which were variations on well-known urban legends and folk stories, were especially intense. Instead, it was Stephen Gammell's absolutely nightmarish illustrations that made those books so disturbing. Gammell's artwork was actually too freaky for me as a kid and I didn't grow to appreciate it until I was an adult. (And that artwork is so iconic that, when later editions of the books replaced his drawings with tamer images, people protested.)  Making a film out of material as thin as this – most of the stories are only a page or two long – but one was announced anyway in 2013. I was skeptical but, once Guillermo del Toro and André Øvredal signed onto the project, I knew it was in good hands.

Øvredal and del Toro forego making an anthology film out of “Scary Stories.” Instead, they weave the tales into a single narrative. The time is 1968 and the place is Mill Valley, Pennsylvania. The town has the legend of Sarah Bellows, a local witch who supposedly told scary stories in exchange for the lives of children. On Halloween night, four friends – Stella, Chuck, Augie, and Tommy – enter the Bellows mansion. Stella uncovers Bellows' book and notices that the stories inside write themselves. Her friends are soon being caught up in the tales contained in Bellows' book. The young heroes must attempt to unravel this mystery before some of Bellows' stories come to claim them.

The folk tales Schwartz collected were too short to build anthology segments around but they're just long enough to become memorable set pieces. The film makes the most out of each of these horrific episodes, fusing strong filmmaking with terrifying creature effects. “The Big Toe” successfully builds suspense, as that ghastly corpse comes after a hiding Augie. The limits of the PG-13 rating are pushed when Harold the scarecrow impales his victim with a pitchfork, straw growing from his wounds and mouth. This is far from the only example of intense body horror in the film. The Jangly Man is a contorting and disassembling corpse that is made from less CGI than you'd think. That scene goes for full bore thrills but “Scary Stories'” scariest story is more subtle. It involves Chuck fleeing through a nightmarish red room while the silent, grinning Pale Woman pursues him from every angle. Gammell's horrifying art is faithfully recreated, which makes these some of the freakiest cinematic monsters that have appeared in recent memory. The make-up is so good that, when the movie relies more on CGI, as it does in the “Red Spot” sequence, it's not as effective. 

The other reason why these moments are so effective is because “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” takes the time to get you invested in each kid. The fears of each child are built into their “stories.” Tommy is fleeing the Draft, following his brother returning home in a body bag. So his story involves a dismembered corpse. Stella is afraid of being abandoned, because her mom left her dad, which is why her story is based in isolation. Even the asshole bullies long-standing distrust of Harold is established before the scarecrow comes to life. It's clever writing that's supported by a really strong cast. Zoe Colleti as Stella is absolutely charming, while Austin Zajur and Gabriel Rush are way funnier as Chcuk and Augie than they needed to be. These kids are all heroes you can root for, smart and resourceful but thoroughly vulnerable. 

By setting the film in a specific point in American history, “Scary Stories” is surprisingly insightful too. The film takes place before the embattled election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, with the threat of the Vietnam War raging in the background. It's a time of racial persecution, as Latino Tommy faces all degrees of casual racism. Bully authority figures, whether they be jock douchbags or asshole cops, go unchallenged. Misfits are ostracized and persecuted. We discover that Sarah Bellows' story is one entwined in racism – her family's Haitian maid was blamed for teaching the girl witchcraft – and the greed of the rich seeking to protect their own power. Considering 2019 had more in common with 1968 than most would care to admit, “Scary Stories” ends up saying some things about the present as much as it does the past.

By the way, the movie looks and sounds gorgeous too. The greenish-black nights are lovely. All the spooky sets are fittingly cobweb strewn. The Halloween sequences are aglow with autumnal warmth. Marc Beltrami and Anna Drubich's score includes some subtle melodies among the typical screeching strings. I fully expect “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” to become a cult fave, especially as the kids watching this one start to grow up. (Though I hope really young kids aren't watching, since the content here is closer to “IT” than “Goosebumps.”)  The film ends by setting up further adventures, which I personally wouldn't have done, but it sounds like “More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is getting made anyway, so it's all good. [8/10]

The Child (1977)

The common prevailing theory is that physical media for movies and television is dying a slow and drawn-out death. And it certainly seems like a majority of people are in love with a plethora of streaming services. Yet, in other ways, boutique DVD labels are flourishing, especially in the sphere of cult/horror titles. In particular, companies like Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, and Arrow almost specialize in digging up obscure titles, polishing them up, and re-presenting them to an appreciative new audience. This seems to be the goal behind Arrow's continuing American Horror Project series. That's how 1977's “The Child” went from a movie I had barely heard of to a new cult favorite everyone can't stop talking about.

Alicianne has been hired as a nanny for the Nordon family, out in the Californian countryside. Her car breaks down outside the home of Mrs. Whitfield, an eccentric old woman who warns her that pets have been disappearing in the woods. When Alicianne arrives at the Nordon home, she meets her ward: Rosalie, a very strong-willed little girl. The longer Alicianne stays at the Nordon home, the more strange things she's notices about Rosalie. How the little girl disappears for long stretches at night. How she seems to spend a lot of time in the local cemetery. And how the people who displeases Rosalie tend to end up dead.

From the opening minutes of “The Child,” it's apparent that this movie doesn't quite take place in the same world you and I inhabit. Yes, this is another one of those horror movies I've been watching a lot of this season, that have a very off-beat energy to them. Every time the characters speak, their words are stilted. The dialogue has an unsteady cadence to it. Characters cracks joke around the dinner table about people poisoning themselves with flowers. I think all the dialogue might've been dubbed, as the voices frequently do not match the faces. The acting is pretty stiff, adding to the unearthly vibes of everything. The movie is supposedly set in the thirties, though I don't see any specific evidence of this. As weird as the whole movie is, none of this is played for humor. “The Child” just seems genuinely strange, in a way that's hard to describe.

The main reason I felt the need to check “The Child” out is because one review described the movie as having incredible atmosphere. This is certainly true. There are numerous scenes set in spooky graveyards, with huge billowing clouds of fog behind the characters. An especially notable scene has Alicianne dancing with a scarecrow, that she has mistaken for Rosaline's older brother. The specific reason I'm watching this movie on October 30th is because a long scene in the middle happens to be set on Halloween. During this sequence, Alicianne is stalked through the darkened Nordon house by a Jack O' Lantern. It's a pretty great moment, making great use of the flickering light inside the pumpkin, making the carved face look especially ominous. Definitely among the creepier Halloween set scenes I've seen, that don't feature Michael Myers.

“The Child” might sound like a kid-friendly horror movie. For its first half, the spookiness here is definitely more ambiance driven than anything else. That's before the movie reveals its surprisingly gory streak. An old lady is yanked under her basement stairs by an unseen assailant, before we see she's had half her face ripped off. Rosaline's teddy bear appears to be weeping blood, before we see that one of her victim's is dripping the red stuff on it from his now empty eye sockets. In its last act, “The Child” becomes a full-blown zombie movie. Alicianne and Rosalie's brother wall themselves up in a shed, as white-headed ghouls try to break in. This is actually kind of a disappointing ending, as “The Child” was creepier and more interesting when it kept its threats off-screen. Yet the amount of head-splitting and hand-chopping the movie sneaks in during this climax is unexpected. 

The more I think about it, I'm not sure I actually had heard of “The Child” before recently. I might have been confusing it with “The Children” or “Beware! Children at Play!” Either way, I am glad I gave this one a shot. The filmmaking on display is pretty rough at times, with more than a few shaky pans or zooms. Even on the cleaned-up, Arrow release, the film is pretty dark and grainy at times. The final third gets a bit repetitive, once this fully transforms into a zombie flick. Yet “The Child” still has a weird power to it. This is one of those cult oddities that feels like a transmission from another world sometimes. It was director Robert Voskanian's sole credit, which does little to dissuade the notion that pure weirdos made this. If you can get on its off-beat wavelength, you'll probably enjoy “The Child” too. [7/10]

The Midnight Hour (1985)

One of the few upsides of having a steel-trap memory and spending entirely too much of your adult life thinking about movies is that you rarely forget a title. Sometimes I mix up names and faces but I almost never forget a title once I hear it. In the early days of my horror fandom, I can recall people mentioning some flick called “The Midnight Hour.” Apparently, it was made-for-TV and starred a young LeVarr Burton. It's not a movie critics had much to say about but, to kids who were young enough to catch it on TV in 1985, it's well regarded. Since I'm reviewing Halloween-set movies tonight, this seemed like the right time to judge “The Midnight Hour” for myself. 

Our setting is a spooky New England town called Pitchford Cove. Like every spooky New England town in a movie like this, Pitchford Cove has a curse on it. Two hundred years ago, witch Lucinda Cavender was hanged but not before promising to return some day, with the forces of Hell behind her. Nerdy teen Phil knows all this and tells his friends – jock Mitch, blondie Mary, token black guy Vinnie and Melissa, Lucinda's modern descendent – all about it too. They still think it's a good idea to break into the town museum and steal artifacts from Cavender's trial. After Melissa reads a spell from Cavender's scroll, it unleashes a legion of monsters on the town. The vampires and ghouls converge at a Halloween party in town. Phil and Sandy, the ghost of a 1950s cheerleader, have to stop the madness before Pitchford Cove is consumed by it.

For a TV movie from 1985, “The Midnight Hour” looks surprisingly good. The film was directed by Jack Bender, who primarily directed TV but would go on to make “Child's Play 3.” Despite its TV roots and obviously modest budget, Bender creates a shockingly atmospheric movie. The scene of the ghouls rising from their graves, the cemetery awash in fog, is awfully damn good. There's multiple dolly-shots, of the camera swooping through the town as various spooky or nostalgic things happen. This is exactly the kind of movie I'm an easy mark for. Not just because “The Midnight Hour” is a Halloween movie but also because it's a monster mash. Zombies descend on the town, Lucinda comes back as a vampire, and a werewolf attacks Phil and Sandy while they park at Lovers' Lane. 

No matter how slick it may look, “The Midnight House” is still a TV movie. It's creature effects are pretty damn good. The zombies are slimy, the werewolf is fearsome, and the vampires draw a little bit of blood. Yet the creatures are still more amusing than frightening. The zombies spend most of the movie making out on a couch. The town is wrecked but the violence largely takes place off-screen. The movie maintains a light-hearted, Halloween party vibe throughout. This is also obvious in its excellent soundtrack. A vampire attack in a wine cellar, where bottles shatter and vino splatters everywhere, is set to “How Soon is Now?” C.C.R., Wilson Pickett, the Guess Who, and other notable needle drops appear. Melissa gets the whole party dancing to an original number called “Get Dead,” which is pretty catchy. Also, the party's chaperon dresses up as “Let's Dance” era Bowie. Which I definitely appreciated. 

The reason Melissa gets a musical number to herself is probably because she's played by Shari Belafonte, Harry Belafonte's daughter. The Belafontes are far from the only pop culture dynasty on display here. Dedee Pfeiffer plays Mary, looking awesome in her punk rocker costume. Peter DeLuise is cast very much to type as meathead jock Mitch. (LeVar Burton is kind of wasted in his thin role though.) “The Midnight Hour” is also filled with colorful character actors. Kevin McCarthy is Mitch's asshole dad, who memorably gets zombified. Dick Van Patten shows up as a goofy dentist and Kurtwood Smith is the gruff police captain. I also found myself surprisingly invested in Phil and Sandy's romance. Maybe it's just the wish fulfillment factor of the nerdy guy getting with the cute cheerleader but this subplot is really cute and charming. Largely thanks to the chemistry between lee Montgomery and Jonna Lee.

Oh, and did I mention that Wolfman Jack is our narrator? “The Midnight Hour” originally aired on ABC, on the day right after Halloween of 1985. It re-aired a few times over the years but mostly slipped into obscurity. Anchor Bay put out a DVD but that quickly went out-of-print and now fetches high prices on eBay. If you want to see this one in 2021, you're going to have to pirate it. The movie is goofy and campy stuff, full of antiqued eighties fashion and blatant appeals to boomer nostalgia. Yet it also has surprisingly slick production values for a television film. The cast is likable and full of familiar faces. The soundtrack is a lot of fun and there's more than enough monster action to please this horror fan. This one gets a thumbs-up from me. [7/10]

The October Garden (1983)

Sometimes a title is all that's necessary to catch your attention. While looking through a list of horror shorts to watch this month, I saw “The October Garden” and immediately decided I needed to see it. This black-and-white, dialogue-free short follows a pair of little boys who are building their own haunted house in the forest. While looking for supplies, they wander into the cornfield of a defensive farmer. He blindly fires a gun into the field, killing both boys. Upon seeing that he's murdered two children, he's overcome with guilt and buries both boys in his garden. A pumpkin patch sprouts there over night. When the man tries to cut the vine, it bleeds. Soon, it becomes clear that this garden is how the boys will have their revenge. 

What “The October Garden” does best is is atmosphere. The black-and-white photography occasionally has moments of intense moodiness. The second half of the short, devoted to strange going-ons in a field at night, is rich with foggy ambiance. The music and sound design – I suspect the entire short was shot silent, with all the sound dubbed in during post – is also solid. The music ranges from sinister to nostalgic, while plenty of Halloween style sounds appear on the soundtrack. The narrative forces you to accept some unlikely behavior. What kind of person just randomly shoots into his field, once much less twice? Why isn't the farmer more freaked out when this pumpkin patch magically appears and especially when it starts bleeding and crying? Yet, since this is an E.C. Comics-style stories of revenge from beyond the grave, you kind of just have to roll with it. The way the revenge is delivered is clever, if nothing else. I always appreciate a pumpkin monster. 

There's not a lot of information about “The October Garden” online, with all of what I've been able to find coming from director Thomas Tosi's personal website. He says the film won several awards and played at international festivals. The comments on the Youtube upload informs me that it also aired on USA Network's “Night Flight,” which sounds about right. It's a well-done short, with a fable-like narrative that I can appreciate that packs in a decent amount of Halloween atmosphere in a short runtime. By the way, the film opens with a quote from Ray Bradbury. The title also sounds like something Bradbury would've written, which is probably why it attracted me so much. [7/10]

Halloween 2021: October 29th

Absentia (2011)

Mike Flanagan has carved out a successful niche for himself. “Oculus” and “Hush” slowly built positive attention. He supposedly turned a routine project, the prequel to “Ouija,” into something better than expected. “Gerald's Game” was the real turning point, which saw him partnering with Netflix. Flanagan would next direct a row of event series for the streaming giant. The “Haunting” series and “Midnight Mass” have dominated discussion on social media. This has allowed Flanagan the chance to make a big budget Stephen King project. Yet, perhaps because I'm me, I can't help but be skeptical of Flangan. I haven't seen all of his movies but have rarely loved the ones I have. Does he really deserve the respect he's earned? The best way for me to determine this is to go back to his proper debut. That would be low-budget chiller “Absentia.” 

Callie, a recovering addict, moves in with her estranged sister, Tricia. Tricia is very pregnant, despite her husband, Daniel, disappearing mysteriously seven years ago. As there has been no sign of him in all that time, Tricia prepares the paperwork to declare her husband deceased in absentia. Tricia is haunted by nightmares of her late husband. Meanwhile, Callie is seeing and feeling strange things about the overpass bridge and tunnel near Tricia's house. After getting the paper work all squared away, and preparing to move on with her life with the father of her baby, Daniel returns. And so begins an even stranger series of events, with the unnerving tunnel at the center of it all.

The thing that bugs me the most about “Absentia” is how it pretends to have some deeper lore around its supernatural threat, while actually keeping things as vague as possible. It seems the overpass tunnel is home to an otherworldly entity. Or an entrance to another dimension. Or a nexus point between realities. People are pulled into it by an unseen creature, randomly disappearing and returning when an oblique trade of some sort is made. Callie catches sight of a man – played by Doug Jones, presumably because he looks naturally emaciated – who disappeared years earlier. When Daniel reappears, he references being “underground” for all this time. Why this happens, or what motivation the creature has, is never explained. There are references throughout to “Billy Goats Gruff,” so presumably it's a troll under the bridge... Yet this is not elaborated upon. I have no problem with a movie, a horror film least of all, being mysterious. Yet “Absentia” skirts pass this into being obscure for its own sake. At a certain point, “mysterious” just becomes underwritten. 

With the supernatural element of the film being so intentionally hazy, the audience is left to focus on the relationships between the sisters. Katie Parker plays Callie, while Courtney Bell plays Tricia. Both actresses give decent performances, with Parker doing especially well when depicting the character's growing sense of panic. The two have strong chemistry together and the scenes of them chatting idly, and subtly sniping at one another, are interesting enough. Yet the film's dramatic scenes soon become repetitive. Callie inevitably relapses. Tricia feels uncertain about declaring Daniel dead, while considering pursuing a relationship with the father of her child. (The officer investigating Daniel's disappearance.) “Absentia” really feels like a film where the dramatic relationships and the horror elements exist just to set each other off, the two never integrating.

But the reason Mike Flanagan's career as a horror director really took off is he's good at engineering scares. Tricia has reoccurring nightmares of Daniel, appearing as a pale faced ghoul in her bedrooms. This spectre starts to appear even when she's awake, always lurking unmoving in the background. There's no dramatic music or crazy camera movements in these scenes. The ghostly vision is just allowed to be there. Which is a nice subtle type of creepiness. When the unseen antagonist begins to abduct people, we only see them dragged them off by something off-screen. That's an effectively spooky visual too. Despite everything else I dislike about “Absentia,” it doesn't “cheat' for any of its scares. It's honestly attempting to create an unsettling atmosphere.

“Absentia” was an extremely low-budget production, most of the movie's 70,000 dollar budget being raised on Kickstarter. The lack of money is apparent in the washed-out, digital cinematography. Though I suspect that was as much a creative choice as a practical one. (The paranormal threat being kept off-screen was probably one of those as well.) The film was obviously designed to be a calling card for its director, to show what he could do with limited funds. It obviously succeeded in that goal, since Flanagan became one of the genre's fastest rising stars. I'm still no closer to figuring out why his movies rub me the wrong way. All my viewing of “Absentia” did was provide to be another example. [5/10]

Razorback (1984)

If you grew up watching a lot of VH1 Classics, you are very familiar with the work of Russell Mulcahy. Mulcahy is responsible for some of the most iconic music videos of the eighties, from “Video Killed the Radio Star” to “Turning Japanese.” He directed unforgettable clips for Elton John, Duran Duran, Billy Joel, Bonnie Tyler, Berlin, Talk Talk, and Fleetwood Mac. His beloved music video work would get Mulcahy feature gigs quickly enough. After making a brief documentary about Australian stand-up comics, Mulcahy would make his proper debut with “Razorback.” Mulcahy's films remains probably the most prominent entry in the admittedly small subset of films about enormous killer pigs.

Jake Cullen, a hunter living in the Australian outback, looses his grandson when a ferocious wild boar tears through his home. He becomes obsessed with killing the animal. Meanwhile, American animal rights reporter Beth Winters arrives in the area to film an expose on a dog food factory. She's attacked by the workers and, shortly afterwards, eaten by the pig. Her husband, Carl, follows his missing wife's trail to the same small town. He encounters the same degenerate factory workers that hassled Beth, getting stranded in the outback by them... And it's not long before he's running from the giant pig himself. Upon meeting Jake Cullen, the hunt is truly on.

The first thing you're going to noticed about “Razorback” is that it looks amazing. Mulcahey and cinematographer Dean Semler, formally of “The Road Warrior,” did everything they could to create as eye-striking a series of images as possible. The opening sequence, where clothes on a line or a weather vane spinning under an orange sky, immediately establishes the visual ingenuity here. When setting out on a light night kangaroo hunt, the beams of light form the truck's spotlight frequently cuts through the dense, black-blue night. Mulcahy is fond of that trick, of rays of lights penetrating darkness or smoke. Probably because it always looks cool. Whenever we are inside the canning factory, it's always lit and angled to look like Hell on Earth. Such as when we get a inside view of a meat grinding, the blade spinning through a red light. Simply put, “Razorback” is a visually stunning motion picture.

The rampaging swine gets top-billing but “Razorback” is not just a “when animals attack” thriller. In fact, the villains for most of its run time are all too human. It's at Jake's trial that we first meet a pair of assholes named Benny and Dicko. With their obnoxious laughs and Johnny Rotten haircuts, these two are immediately abrasive. They lead Carl on a hellish journey through the outback, that's more than a little reminiscent of “Wake in Fright.” The two guys live in an underground tunnel – another brilliantly lit and designed set – and drag Carl into the middle of nowhere for a nightmarish kangaroo hunt. The film truly embraces surrealism at times, as Carl wanders an endless desert, full of skeletal animals that have died upright. A massive crack in the ground and towering rock formations are brought to life with obvious mat paintings, furthering the unearthly feeling. As depicted in “Razorback,” the Australian outback seems truly post-apocalyptic at times.

Of course, this is a horror movie about a vicious hog too. And a pretty good one too. “Jaws” was an obvious influence, as there are multiple shots from the boar's perspective. (As well as a large, mechanic prop that doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.) Yet Mulcahy's film embraces a gonzo spirit more than Spielberg's classic. There's comedic sequences, such as when the pig tears off the side of a man's house and goes running with it. It's harsher too, such as Beth's death at the swine's jaws being framed similarly to the near sexual assault she just escaped. By the time the pig bursts through the wall of the factory for the big climax, the camera shaking around it, “Razorback” has become a full-on assault on the senses. The colors ramp up and the encounters get more intense, as our hero goes toe-to-tusk with the murderous pig. 

“Razorback” was not that successful upon release in 1984, neither in Australia nor abroad. Eventually, however, the movie would gather a well deserved cult following. Mucalhy managed to take a horror premise that seemed standard on the surface and created a frequently surreal, strangely funny, and occasionally very intense experience out of it. The film paved the way for the future commercial success and cult popularity of Mucalhy's next movie, the immortal “Highlander.” It would also be emulated by a series of inferior big pig thrillers, like “Boar” and “Hogzilla.” Yet “Razorback's” oddball mixture of monster mayhem and music video style visuals has made sure it remains a one-of-a-kind classic of Ozploitation. [8/10]

Messiah of Evil (1978)

Sometimes, you see a title so many times over the years, that you just stop thinking about it. "Messiah of Evil" is at least partially in the public domain and has cropped up on countless cheap DVD sets over the years. Even though this also describes classics like "Night of the Living Dead" or "Carnival of Souls," I always slotted this one in with "The Screaming Skull" or "Horrors of Spider Island." Ya know, movies that nobody actually cares about, that have only proliferated across home video so much because literally anyone can release them. That's before I started to actually read the reviews for "Messiah of Evil" and realize this one is considered a hidden gem of seventies horror by a lot of smart people. Time to put bias aside and give this one a watch.

Arletty pulls into the town of Point Dume, California, looking for her missing father. His house is empty, with his diary being the only trace of him. All the people in town, who act very strangely, deny knowing him. Arletty soon meets up with Thom, a visiting Portuguese aristocrat, who is also interested in the town's history. They soon uncover a strange prophecy within Point Dume, about a forthcoming "blood moon" that will signal the reappearance of a dark lord. As Thom's groupies disappear, the two realize all of Point Dume is wrapped up in this disturbing cult.

"Messiah of Evil" is another seventies horror that captures a strange, dream-like atmosphere, which I seem to be watching a lot this October. Arletty narrates parts of the film, while excerpts from her father’s diary are also read in voice-over. This makes the entire movie seem like a hazy memory, like a half recalled dream. The directorial team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz match this with a number of surreal images. Arletty's father was a painter and he decorated his house with huge murals of roads disappearing into the horizons. Or faceless people in black-and-white suits. The house also has a frosted glass moon-roof, which shadowy figures often press their faces against. "Messiah of Evil" is full of all sorts of unusual sights like this. Such as a man with a face entirely painted blue, a bug appearing on the tongue, or a woman weeping tears of blood. 

Something that makes "Messiah of Evil" especially effective as a horror film is its extremely creepy villains. Various plot synopses have described the townsfolks as vampires or zombies but neither description quite fits. Unlike your traditional zombies, they can talk and operate machinery. They can't feel pain and appear to be rotting, but some maintain their human souls. They can also walk around in the sun, discarding the vampire theory. Instead, they are just really weird. One of Thom's girlfriends gets picked up by one while hitchhiking, who munches a rat in front of her. She then enters a grocery store and spies the people munching on raw meat right out of the butchery. This disturbing sight proceeds a tense chase through the building. Later, they slowly fill a movie theater while Thom's other girlfriend watches a Sammy Davis Jr. western. This leads to another unnerving attack scene. "Messiah of Evil's" villains are just very uncanny creations, hard-to-define ghouls designed to make you uncomfortable.

"Messiah of Evil's" oddball tone and narrative rises a number of interesting connotations. Eventually, it's revealed that the town's demonic messiah — who appeared as an old-time preacher, dressed in black — emerged from the sea and is prophesized to re-emerge from the same location. When combined with uncanny townsfolks performing arcane rituals on the beach, and the insane asylum-set framing device, this gives the movie a Lovecraftian vibe. Yet Thom, a long-haired free love type, being persecuted by the stiff townsfolks also makes this a story of changing social values in the seventies. More than anything else, Arletty being increasingly surrounded by people who can't feel, left alone with her knowledge of doom-laden prophecies, makes "Messiah of Evil" a powerful story of social isolation. 

How much you like "Messiah of Evil" seems to depend on the quality of the print you watch. Many of the public domain releases are overly dark and blurry. Luckily, a pristine HD copy is streaming on Shudder. (With optional Elvira host segments, if you're into that kind of thing.) Huyck and Katz were friends with George Lucas, with writing credits on "American Graffiti," "Temple of Doom," and "Radioland Murders." This presumably has more to do with them going on to direct pricy flops like "Best Defense" and "Howard the Duck" than whatever success "Messiah of Evil" had. Yet their directorial debut stands alone as a distinctly spooky slice of seventies surrealism. [8/10]

Frankenweenie (1984)

Before he became a blockbuster director, and long before he became whatever he is today, Tim Burton was just a lowly Disney animator, toiling away on projects like “The Fox and the Hound” and “Tron.” In 1984, he somehow tricked Disney into giving him a million dollars to make “Frankenweenie.” The twenty-nine minute short follows ten year old Victor Frankenstein, a kid living in the suburbs. His best friend – and frequent star of his home-made monster movies – is his beloved Bull Terrier, Sparky. A day of enthusiastic ball throwing ends with Sparky being struck by a car. A heart-broken Victor puts together a lab in his attic, digs up Sparky, and uses lightning to bring the stitched-together pup back to life. Victor is overjoyed, his parents are shocked, and the neighborhood is fearful of the undead doggo.

Even though he was only starting out, Tim Burton's aesthetic was already entirely obvious in this early short. In fact, “Frankenweenie” would practically be remade as “Edward Scissorhand.” Both take place in a sunny suburban community, which could just as easily be 1964 as it could 1984. This “Leave It to Beaver” simplicity is in contrast with the moody, black-and-white photography. Images of Sparky's distinctively shaped head, turned into massive shadow inside garages and through windows shades, invokes the kind of 1930s horror movies Burton was inspired by. As in “Scissorhands,” the totally innocent titular character – so innocent that he's just a playful dog – is feared by the normies around him simply because his different. 

Of course, Burton's trademark visual style is recognizable here too, even if it's not as exaggerated as in “Beetlejuice.” The pet cemetery Sparky is buried in features large, cartoonish tombstones. The dog is buried atop a rounded hill that wouldn't look out of place in Halloween Town. The fiery conclusion takes place in an abandoned miniature golf course, where a rickety windmill obstacle provides our Frankenstein-ian climax. It's not just the visuals that are cartoonish, as the characters are similarly exaggerated. The comically oblong neighbor lady shrieks at every little sound. The nosy neighbors substitute torches and pitchforks for flashlights. The parents are loving and understanding on a perfect level. 

Maybe the real reason both this “Frankenweenie,” and the incredibly faithful feature length expansion Burton would make in 2012, works is because the story is rooted in loss and love. The death of a pet is usually the first taste kids get of mortality. And Victor loves his pet so much that he defies the laws of nature to bring him back. I guess those themes were too heavy for Disney, who were so mad at Burton for “wasting” their money on this project that they fired him. This did not stop them from re-releasing the movie after the director became a household name. As for the original “Frankenweenie,” it's still a charming, adorable, and beautifully well-produced parody of classic horror. [7/10]