Halloween 2022: September 23rd

We're All Going to the World's Fair (2022)

Horror stories have always spread via word-of-mouth. This is how urban legends, like the Vanishing Hitchhiker or Bloody Mary, circulated through the youth culture and around the globe. Once the internet came into existence, this presented a new way for myths to grow. When streaming video became an every day part of our lives, the virus spread there too. Phrases like ARGs – alternate reality games – or “creepypasta” became a new way to interact with ghoulish and disturbing fiction. It's a sad element of human nature that some people take this fascination with the macabre too far, which is how we've gotten internet horror trends that actually hurt people. Most attempts by filmmakers to comment on these new variation on the urban legend have been trashy cash-ins. Late last year, a film began to build buzz on the festival circuit that took a more thoughtful approach. That would be “We're All Going to the World's Fair,” which got a general release earlier this year and is now available all over thanks to HBO Max.

A teenage girl named Casey spends her days, alone in her bedroom. With seemingly no friends, she instead devotes her free time to watching videos online. This is how she hears about The World's Fair Challenge, an internet urban legend and alternate reality game mostly “played” through video uploads. If someone say the words “I'm going to the world's fair” into their computer screen three times, before wiping blood on the screen, it invokes some sort of curse. Lonely and depressed, Casey becomes obsessed with the World's Fair mythology. She makes her own scary videos on the topic, posting them online. This attracts the attention of an older man, called JLB, who wants to play the game with her. Soon, Casey falls deeper into an invented reality.

“We're All Going to the World's Fair” has been sold as a horror film about creepypastas and ARGs. Yet this is not entirely the case. The “game” at the center of the narrative is kept intentionally vague. What exactly happens to those afflicted by the World's Fair curse seems to vary from person-to-person. The script is rich with ambiguity and whether Casey is cursed or simply playing along is up for the viewer to decide. Instead, Jane Schoenbrun's feature is better described as being about another word I've heard a lot lately: Dissociation. One of the supposed symptoms of the World's Fair curse is the body going numb, much the same way emotional numbness is a symptom of dissociative episodes. Casey never actually interacts with another person in-the-flesh, as her father is just a screaming voice off-screen. She watches a weird video about a woman turning into plastic and talks about her sleepwalking incidents, showing her disconnect from her own body. She's immobile for hours and is, of course, absorbed in a fantasy world. Whether the girl is loosing her grip on reality because she spends too much time online, or if she spends so much time online because she's lost her grip on reality, is up for debate. Yet the film still accurately captures the feeling of loosing yourself in an internet-choked fog.

“We're All Going to the World's Fair” is not a horror film in any tradition sense. Its chills are strictly low-key. Sometimes, the movie seems to be actively mocking traditional horror stories. Such as a peek we get at a goofy Youtube series based on the myth. Casey mutilating her favorite stuffed animal in a trance, and then discovering the gutted toy lemur once she's awake, is more upsetting because of the pain she feels than anything else. Yet Schoenbrun does generate an unnerving atmosphere. Much of “We're All Going to the World's Fair” is told through laptop screens. Often, we'll be presented with a video that auto-plays into something else. An ASMR video Casey watches to fall asleep segues, unannounced, into a video of her own distorted face. Maybe the most unsettling moment in is simply a lingering Youtube clip of a person sitting quietly and looking at the camera, their face seeming Deep-Faked onto their body. “We're All Going to the World's Fair” occupies that head-space, where you stumble upon something weird online, late at night, and it freaks you out simply because you don't know what the hell it is.

The suspense in “We're All Going to the World's Fair” is derived not so much from wondering if its creepy internet mythology is “real.” Even the most unsettling evidence we see of the World's Fair syndrome – a video of a guy scratching at his arm until he pulls a string of tickets out from under the skin – is clearly fake. Instead, the tension arises from Casey's shaky sanity. Anna Cobb's performance is totally unvarnished. She seems like a real, wide-eyed teenager sinking deeper into depression and isolation. Her ennui is all too convincing and unsettling, such as when she inserts a blood-curdling scream into the middle of a standard song-and-dance video. Once “JLB” starts communicating with her, you really start to worry. He's clearly an older man – his avatar is a ten-year old meme – and seems determined to convince Casey that he's someone she can rely on emotionally. While his true intentions are never shown, that he's always breathing heavy on their Skype calls and praising her seems to suggest the truth. After all, teenage girls online have a lot more to fear from creepy men trying to groom them than cursed Youtube videos.

Shcoenbron does cut away from Casey's bedroom, to show “JLB” in his daily life. His intentions with the girl are still left ambiguous, much like many of the film's themes. I think these scenes represents the film's biggest flaw, as any time spent outside of Casey's headspace breaks the story's spell. The more intimate “We're All Going to the World's Fair” feels, the more effective it is. There are multiple scenes simply devoted to the girl recording her small town – which is as unassuming as a small town can seem – as she wanders around, talking to herself. Most of the movie is set entirely inside her bedroom, shot with what seems to be web-cams. This gives “We're All Going to the World's Fair” an incredibly cheap appearance. I would not be surprised to find out that the creepy ambient score, by indie-pop musician Alex G., was the most expensive part of the film to produce. Yet this works in the movie's favor. Casey could be any girl, living in any town in America, and her videos are as rough as that implies. It all adds to the film's unnervingly plausible feeling of unreality.

As someone who counts “Serial Experiments Lain” among his all-time favorite TV shows, “We're All Going to the World's Fair” was obviously going to appeal to me. As someone who has also spent entirely too much of their life online, and grappled with occasional spells of disaffection, I relate to it as well. The film puts its viewer in a strange trance, leading to a frequently unsettling feeling. Extremely slow indie horror like this that keeps so much of its story – including the ending – vague isn't going to appeal to many people. Critics loved it and Shcoenbron already has their follow-up in the can. (Which also sounds like it's inspired by creepypasta, in this case the “lost episode” genre of story.) “We're All Going to the World's Fair” has to be one of the most observant films ever made about internet culture. If nothing else, it's ten times classier, and a hundred times better made, than every ARG-inspired horror movie past, present, and probably future too. [8/10]

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)

Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel

Christopher Lee is one of the greatest horror stars of all time. I’m not sure that’s a status he was comfortable with though. While Lee praised his roles in classics like “The Wicker Man” or “The Devil Rides Out,” he was often dismissive of his other genre work. Every fond recollection of Mario Bava would be followed by trash-talk for his “Dracula” movies. One can only speculate on what Lee thought of the many low-budget horror films he appeared in throughout the sixties, usually made in Italy or Germany. A typical example is a 1967 German production known in its native language as "Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel" – direct translation: "The Snake Pit and the Pendulum" – but given a dozen different titles over the years. Wikipedia calls it "The Blood Demon." Releases with names like "Blood-O-Rama," "Blood of the Virgins," or "Castle of the Walking Dead" are easily found. Severin went with "The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism" for their Blu-Ray edition, recently re-released in a box set of Lee's Euro-Horror offerings. That's the version I own, so let's go with that. 

In 18th century Germany, a wicked count named Regula murdered 12 virgin girls, believing their blood could make him immortal. Before completing the ritual, he was drawn and quartered for his horrid deeds. Three decades later, a lawyer named Roger and a Baroness named Lilian are lured to Count Regula's former residence – now a point of local legend, known as Blood Castle – with promises of an inheritance. Upon arriving at the castle, they discover Regula still lives as an undead ghoul. He needs the blood of Lilian and Roger, the descendants of his victims and executioners, to fully restore himself to life. Our heroes will have to face down evil if they hope to escape the torture chamber of Dr. Sadism Count Regula. 

Producer Erwin Gitt intentionally set out to emulate Mario Bava's gothic horror films with this “Torture Chamber.” Those Italian flicks were inspired by A.I.P.'s Poe Cycle, an American attempt to compete with Hammer's technicolor monster movies. You see all these influences in “Dr. Sadism.” Once we get to the castle, the film indulges in brightly colored gore. There's also Karin Dor in a low-cut gown and semi-naked babes strapped to tables. These lurid sights recall Hammer. The best stretch concerns the heroes riding a carriage into a fog-strewn forest. Surreal sights, like phantom bodies hanging in trees or human hands protruding from rocks, are featured. Regula also decorates his torture chamber with wall-sized Hieronymus Bosch mural. I bet Bava would've appreciate that. Meanwhile, the Poe influence is obvious once Roger is pinned under a swinging pendulum. (This was enough for a “Based on a story by Edgar Allen Poe” credit to be slapped on the poster, a ludicrous claim.) 

Sadly, certain factors keep me from enjoying “The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism” as much as I otherwise would. Primarily, the protagonist is a total bore. Roger has no personality beyond always being right. In the dub, Lex Barker is given a hilariously deep voice that is impossible to take seriously. He ends up saving the day thanks to the laziest type of plot device. Christopher Lee, obviously the real star of the show, doesn't show up until about forty minutes into the movie. Though Count Regula didn't give Lee much to work with, his commanding presence managed to make even a thinly written villain threatening. The film tries to compensate with a colorful supporting cast. Vladimir Medar steals the show as  a boisterous monk who isn't all he appears to be. I honestly wish he was the star of the movie. 

The long wait until Lee rises from his grave is another factor contributing to the film's slow first half. That it takes so long for the characters to get to the castle, while the script occupies itself with half-assed subplots about bandits, feels needlessly drawn out. Once we finally get to the titular torture chamber, the movie finally delivers on the luridness its title promises. There's iron gates slamming down in place, beds covered with protruding spikes, and wracks of varying sizes. Fulfilling the promise of the original German title, there is both a pit full of snakes and a giant swinging pendulum. While “Dr. Sadism” can't top Roger Corman's take on the same material, that pendulum sequence is tightly shot and effectively drawn out.

“The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism,” or whatever you choose to call it, certainly does not rise above its influences. The opening flashback is obviously beholden to “Black Sunday,” even featuring a steel mask being hammered onto a condemned aristocrat's head... Though the big smiley face on the mask makes it considerably less intimidating than “La maschera del demonio.” Yet, if you're in the mood for a certain breed of horror schlock, this one will probably satisfy. It's not as good as the Italian films it draws from. More of Christopher Lee being evil and a less stiff protagonist would've helped. Yet I still managed to mostly have a morbidly fun time with this one. [6/10]

Creepshow: Stranger Sings / Meter Reader

“Stranger Sings” begins with Barry, a recently divorced OBGYN, holding the door open for Sara at a coffee shop. The two hit it off and he walks her back home. A beautiful singing voice lures him inside. That's when Barry meets Miranda, Sara's best friend and a ten thousand year old siren. The women force Barry into performing surgery on them, swapping their voice boxes which will render Miranda human and turn Sara into a siren. In “Meter Reader,” a demonic plague has overtaken the globe. Vatican-approved “meter readers” travel the country, exorcising evil spirits and decapitating those who can't be saved. As Dalton, an experienced meter reader, returns to his home and his family have to question whether he's been possessed or not. 

Aside from a dumb title – a pun that will mean nothing once a certain Netflix show slips from public memory – I liked “Stranger Sings” well enough. The meet-cute between Barry and Sara is entertaining. A goofily charming Chris Mayers and Suehyla El-Attar Young have convincing chemistry. I like that the sirens are depicted closer to their mythological origins, as man-eating bird monsters. (Though they're also given lamia-like snake tails.) The premise is silly but the proceedings are kept darkly humorous enough for that to be accepted. It's interesting that a woman – “Tales of Halloween's” Axelle Carolyn – directed this. If a guy directed a story about evil women manipulating and killing guys, with a doofy guy as a hero who gets a happy ending, it would come off a lot differently. 

I suspect Joe Esposito originally intended “Meter Reader” to be a feature film or short story. Its apocalyptic premise feels seriously abbreviated when shoved into a twenty-minute TV episode. The opening sequences, told through “Creepshow's” trademark comic panels, is overloaded with exposition. The rubber heads and shitty CGI fire effects also make it clear that this story was hard to pull off on a TV budget. This is probably the reason why most of the episode is confined to a home. When it takes so much time to set-up a premise, that's heavy on specific terms and world-building, it's hard to get too invested in the characters.  

Director Joe Lynch uses the episode as an excuse to imitate Sam Raimi and “Evil Dead,” with crash-zooms, dutch angles, and energetic edits. Jonathan Schaech definitely strikes a Bruce Campbellian posture as Dalton. The possessed recall both the deadites and “The Exorcist,” especially in the use of some vomited pea soup. “Meter Reader” attempts some commentary on the pandemic, with Dalton's wife naively hoping life will return to normal soon and the nail salons will reopen. This never amounts to much though. The idea of blue collar exorcists traveling the world, fighting demons, has potential but “Meter Reader” isn't novel or well-defined enough to support its big ideas. [Stranger Sings: 7/10 / Meter Reader: 5/10]

Chucky: Just Let Go

“Chucky” wimps out on Lexy's fate, as she improbably survives a house fire without a scratch. Now she knows the doll is alive and a killer. She confronts Jake and the two form a rough alliance, to investigation the remains of her home. Smoke inhalation from the fire has put Junior and Caroline in the hospital, the little girl on a ventilator. Everyone's parents gather in the hospital, arguing among themselves. Detective Evans questions Jake. Devon reads up on the urban legends surrounding Charles Lee Ray and the Good Guy dolls. Chucky, now half melted from the fire, is carried back to the hospital and resumes his murderous hobby.

Every time I review a serialized TV show like this, I end up complaining about serialized storytelling. It's not my fault that so many modern TV shows have mediocre pacing! In “Just Let Go,” the mess of “Chucky's” subplots squish together. The tension between Junior and his dad, or the intrigue around Lexy's mom being the mayor: Seriously, who gives a shit? This is most evident when the teens' parents get into an argument/fist fight in the hospital waiting room. It's all such obvious filler. Even Detective Evans, who is at least connected to the plot points we care about, is hard to get invested in. Largely because Rachel Casseus is so boring.

“Just Let Go” remains more compelling when focused on the possessed doll and his immediate underlings. When Chucky tries to convince Jake to murder Lexy is a suspenseful scene, with the burned-up mansion making for a decent setting. (Though it remains to be seen if Lexy, a perpetually hateful bitch, can be made sympathetic.) The flashbacks to the seventies, following a teenage Charles Lee Ray in an orphanage, don't provide much insight into how his murderous urges grew. It's still neat backstory. Minor characters being introduced simply to keep the once-an-episode murder quota going is slightly sloppy. Here, a dumb-ass cop shows up is introduced just to drag Chucky to the hospital and then get killed. While I was hopeful “Chucky” could keep up with the film's production values, the seams are starting to show on the special effects here. Intermediate episodes like this are what drag shows like this down for me, even if the appearance from Chucky's trademark hand gesture got a big laugh out of me. [6/10]