Halloween 2022: October 31st - HALLOWEEN

I had plans for Halloween tonight. I was going to assist my buddy, JD, in operating the haunted trail type get-up he assembled in his yard. This was something of a last minute plan, which is why my costume was totally thrown together with things I had laying around the house. I still think I managed to be a pretty decent looking hardboiled detective. Unfortunately, trick-or-treating got totally rained out this year. On top of that, I've had a bit of a cold all day. Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let these things ruin my mood. If I can't have a proper Halloween in the outside world, I'm at least going to consume as many horror movies before dawn as I can. That's what we're all here for anyway, right? 

Werewolf by Night (2022)

Monster movies got me into superhero comics. Yeah, I liked Batman and Spider-Man as a kid. Yet it was the discovery, in my early teens, that Marvel published a whole slew of monster comics in the seventies that really got me into collecting what is collectively known as cape shit. Watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe overtake popular culture has filled me with many mixed feelings. Yet the announcement last year that Marvel would be producing a “Werewolf By Night” adaptation blew my minds. Even after the explosion of superhero media in the last decade, I always thought Jack Russell and the gang making it to the big screen was a long shot... Which, I guess, it was. Because Marvel/Disney and composer-turned-director Michael Giacchino have made “Werewolf by Night” into an hour-long Halloween special, not a feature film. Nevertheless, this is the most hyped I've been for a Marvel project in a long time.

The death of legendary monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone has left his most powerful artifact, the Bloodstone, up for grabs. All the most powerful hunters in the world – plus Elsa, Ulysses' apathetic daughter – gather to compete for who will next wield the Bloodstone. Among the assembled is Jack Russell, who is seemingly far more soft-spoken than the others. Jack is actually there to free the monster – a man-thing named Ted – from the maze he's been put into. When the other hunters discover his deception, Jack and Elsa are imprisoned. This is not Jack's only secret though. He is cursed to become a werewolf by night. 

Aside from adapting some of my favorite Marvel characters, “Werewolf by Night” is obviously tailor-made to appeal to me for another reason. From the black-and-white cinematography to the gothic title card, “Werewolf by Night” is an attempt to pay homage to the Universal Monster movies. Now, the homage doesn't go much deeper than digitally adding cigarette burns to the frame. The cinematography doesn't really capture the look or feel of forties monster movies. But Giacchino and his team still created an amusingly moody looking hour here. There's some nice fog in several screams, such as in a cool pan up a twisted open cage.  More than anything else, “Werewolf by Night” delights in its monstrous characters. Once Jack transforms half-way through – his make-up largely practical, by the way – he's growling at the camera and ripping off ears. When Man-Thing (my all time favorite Marvel character) stomps on-screen, he's depicted as a lovable straight man. There's even a talking, puppet-like corpse thrown in, simply for the hell of it.

The film is focused on its feral heroes in another way too. “Werewolf by Night's” acrobatic action scenes are surprisingly gory, with blood even splattering right on the camera at one point. Those who feel fear burn at the Man-Thing's touch in spectacular fashion, reduced to ashes in seconds. The elaborate sword fights include a decapitation and multiple dismemberments. There's still the CGI flash-and-bang we've come to expect. The werewolf being tossed around by a big blast of red energy is the special's low point. Yet there's an almost martial arts movie like fluidity to the majority of the combat here. Watching the colorful monster hunters fall, one by one, is loads of fun.

The whole enterprise, no matter how bloody it may get, is kept pretty light-hearted. Those who hate the Marvel house style, of sarcastic one-liners being peppered among the action scenes, will not have their minds changed by “Werewolf by Night's” script. Yet the cast is mostly on the right page. Gael García Bernal is largely soft-spoken as Jack, bringing a relaxed quality without sacrificing the unease he surely feels. He really shines when conversing with a giant pile of CGI moss or Laura Donnelly, as Elsa. Donnelly has an action heroine attitude, with the right level of sarcasm and a handle on the action scenes. 

I have no idea what future plans Marvel has for this motley crew of monsters and misfits. Should “Moon Knight” get a second season, one imagines Jack Russell will appear. It's also easy to assume that Elsa Bloodstone could crop up in that incoming “Blade” movie. I can also see Disney trying to turn Man-Thing into their next Groot. (Which would be a frankly amazing reality to live in.) There's no post-credit scene to tease out sequel strategy. Even if “Werewolf by Night' remains a one-off, I had a great time for it. As far as Disney's big budget productions go, I can't imagine one being more in my wheelhouse. “Werewolf by Night” is a fleet-footed bit of monster-filled mayhem and I loved it. [8/10]

The Lodger (1944)

Alfred Hitchcock's breakthrough as a filmmaker was his 1927 film “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog,” an adaptation of a popular novel and stage play inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders. Even though Hitchcock is unquestionably the master of the cinematic thrillers, his “Lodger” is not the most highly regarded version of this often told story. Marie Belloc Lowndes' novel would be adapted again, seventeen years later. This time, “The Undying Monster's” John Brahm was in the director's chair. Though Brahm's name has never become an adjective synonymous with suspense, his “Lodger” seems to be the most famous and critically lauded version of this story.

The time is 1888 and the place is the Whitechapel district of London. A mysterious killer known as Jack the Ripper holds the city in the grips of terror, murdering and mutilating actresses on the foggy streets. Meanwhile, Robert and Ellen Bonting have rooms for rent in their tenet building. A strange man calling himself Mr. Slade rents out the attic room. He stays out most of the night, carries a leather bag, often burns his clothes, and speaks vividly about the beauty and evil in women. He seems especially fascinated with Kitty, Ellen's niece and an up-and-coming cabaret singer. An inspector from Scotland Yard, also enamored with Kitty, begins to suspect Slade may be the Ripper.

While Hitchcock's adaptation is subtitled “A Story of the London Fog,” Brahm's version is the one loaded with shadowy, foggy atmosphere. The streets of London are often thick with fog, darkness straining against the white of the mist. This is not the only way “The Lodger” is a visually rich experience. Early on, there's an extraordinary tracking shot of a woman walking down the street and disappearing behind a wall. We hear her scream, before a red liquid – wine from a shattered bottle standing in for blood – rolls into frame. During an attack in a lowly flat, the camera trembles as we focus in on a screaming victim's face. While Ellen attempts to grab a fingerprint from Mr. Slade, as he discusses his master plan, his face is bathed in shadows. “The Lodger” is filled with little touches like that, sinister glances from around a corner or light casting strange shadows on the wall.

There's no attempt to align the story with the facts of the Ripper case, obviously. This is most evident in the censorship standards of the time preventing the film from even acknowledging prostitution. Instead, the killer targets actresses, dancers, and singers. Especially those that show a lot of leg, like Kitty. Despite these limitations, “The Lodger” still finds a way to delve into the psycho-sexual hang-ups of its murderer. Laird Cregar as Slade, shot from low-angles or his eyes lit like Dracula, speaks at lengths about his motivations. His twin loathing and fascination with women is discussed in terms of love and hate, of cutting the evil out of beauty. The trigger for this, we discover, was his brother – whom Slade has an almost homoerotic longing for – being driven to suicide after such a woman broke his heart. The film can't verbalize the killer's Madonna/Whore complex in explicit terms but it still finds a way to explore it. To dig into the idea of a man who resents women for the desires they awaken in him.

Hitchocock's “Lodger” derived suspense from the ambiguity over whether the Lodger was the murderer or not. There's never much doubt in Brahm's film that Slade is the Ripper. Cregar's laconically rambles on, about the cleansing power of water, or burns bloody clothes. That it takes so long for Ellen and Inspector Warwick to begin to suspect him frankly strains plausibility. Now, the tension becomes a question of when and if Slade will strike. The last act, when he finally confronts Kitty in her dressing room and slowly freaks the fuck out, is bristling with suspense. As is the chase scene that follows, which concludes in explosive fashion. “The Lodger” is never lacking in tenseness, even though we know who the killer is from the minute he appears. 

The cast is likable too. Cregar is a creditable, compelling creep. Merle Oberon is lovely as Kitty and has strong chemistry with George Sanders, as the inspector. A romantic scene, where they flirt while looking at Scotland Yard's black museum, even manages to be kind of charming. While her song-and-dance sequences might go on for a little too long, I actually kind of like those too. I guess my tolerance for musical theater is increasing as I age. And it doesn't distract from the film's positive attributes any. Visually stunning, suspenseful, and full of depth, Brahm's “The Lodger” is one of the few times when Hitchcock was truly outclassed. [9/10]

The Gamma People (1956)

When I think of the great Hammer horror directors, my mind immediately goes to Terrence Fisher and Freddie Francis. Maybe I'll think of Roy Ward Baker, Don Sharp, or Val Guest if I go a little deeper. An overlooked talent for the studio was John Gilling. Gilling would direct several hidden gems for Hammer, such as “The Shadow of the Cat,” “The Plague of the Zombies,” and “The Reptile.” (As well as the regrettable “The Mummy's Shroud.”) Before working with England's most iconic horror studio, he'd work on the fantastic gothic horror picture, “The Flesh and the Fiends.” Gilling also dabbled in the science-fiction genre. Before making the luridly entitled “Night of the Blood Beast,” he'd handle an obscure bit of atomic panic horror called “The Gamma People” in 1956. 

American reporter Mike Wilson and his English photographer, Howard, are traveling via train through Eastern Europe. Their car is diverted in the obscure nation of Gudavia. The tiny village seems inviting enough at first, though Wilson is annoyed by how cut off it is from the rest of the world. Yet the outsiders soon start to notice that the locals act strangely. A little boy named Hugo is a weirdly self-assured genius, bossing others around. At night, zombie-like minions patrol the streets. Soon, the two visitors uncover a conspiracy by a mad scientist to create a race of gamma radiation infused slaves.

I guess the biggest difference between American science fiction of the 1950s and British sci-fi of the same period is the age of the protagonists. The heroes in U.S. sci-fi flicks were usually handsome, stout-chinned scientist, if not teenagers. In the U.K., the heroes were almost always stuffy old men. “The Gamma People” is a great example of this. Heavyset character actor Paul Douglas plays Wilson. He's a grumpy blowhard who is perpetually annoyed with everything that comes his way. He spends nearly the entire movie bitching about how inconvenienced he is by this whole adventure. Leslie Phillips plays his sidekick, Howard, and he's absurdly British. His posh accent sounds like a parody of Britishness, his prissy attitude constantly being a source of humor. These two are about as unlikely a pair of sci-fi heroes as you could get. It's pretty funny.

Most sci-fi of the fifties reflected the anxieties of the Cold War era. “The Gamma People” definitely does as well, to a certain degree. After all, radiation is what the mad scientist used to further his evil goals. Yet “The Gamma People” strikes me as a World War II throwback in many ways. The exact location of Gudavia is never given but it strikes me as highly Germanic. The native speak German, for one. The fashion on-display is a mixture of Austrian, Swiss, and German traditions. It's interesting that one of the main villains in the film is a strict little boy, whose constantly trumpeting his own brilliance. There's a definite shade of the Hitler Youth to the haughty kids. The villain of “The Gamma People” is identified directly as a tyrant, another way the threat reflects fears of Nazi Germany than Cold War anxieties. It's not like WWII was a distant memory by 1956. Filmmakers were still regurgitating the fears of the past. 

As long as it's focused on these two goofballs stumbling into a weird, sci-fi conspiracy, “The Gamma People” is pretty amusing. The film does pick up some memorably bizarre circumstances. Such as the heroes waltzing through an Octoberfest style parade. Or Howard harassing, and then getting beaten up, by a group of school children. The monsters on the poster, the mindless goons created by the gamma rays, only are in a few scenes. Yet they are a memorable presence nevertheless, atomic zombies that attack in packs while starring ahead blankly. The movie also ends with an exploding castle, which is always neat. 

“The Gamma People” definitely drags in-between these more outrageous moments though. The appeal of watching the two squarest heroes imaginable fumbling through an oddball mystery wears thin before the end. The black-and-white cinematography is mostly pretty flat. Though I enjoy seeing “Blood and Black Lace's” Eva Bartok again, her role – as a subservient Fraulein who immediately falls for Wallace – isn't the best. Still, there's laughs to be had here, along with some interesting insight into post-war reflections on Nazi Germany. That makes “The Gamma People” worth a look. [6/10] 

The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

After watching “The Oily Maniac” the other day, I find myself in the mood for another drippy monster movie. And what horror menace is drippier than “The Incredible Melting Man?” This is a movie I've been hearing about my entire life. I think, to monster kids in the seventies, it's a ridiculous title that stuck in their brains for years to come. I mean, seriously, who hasn't wonder what a melting man would look like? (This is why, I think, Tim Burton made the melting man one of the residents of Halloween Town.) At the same time, “The Incredible Melting Man” has long been considered an all-time turkey. So which is it? Is the Melting Man a minor horror icon or one of the worst movies ever made? 

Steve West is an astronaut, part of the first manned flight to Saturn. While in orbit around the great ringed planet, Steve is blasted with a mega-dose of cosmic radiation. It kills the other astronauts but leaves him in a horrible near-death state. Upon awakening, his flesh starts to slowly melt off his bones. He is irrevocably drawn to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the living, in order to stay alive. General Michael Perry, of the Air Force, is dispatched to hunt this melting man down, tracking the mildly radioactive melting man with a Geiger counter.

Trivia insists that writer/director William Sachs wrote “The Incredible Melting Man” as a parody of fifties horror movies, before producers insisted it be filmed straight. This is evident in more ways than one. Premise wise, “Melting Man” is very much a throwback to B movies of the past. By the standards of 1977, the story is old fashion. During a time when the genre was leaning towards slasher flicks and exploitation fare,  the premise of an astronaut mutated by his experience in space, turning into a monster upon returning home, definitely feels more akin to a fifties movie. The lurid title, purposely fantastical, also feels like an intentional throwback as well. 

As much as “Incredible Melting Man” may sound like a fifties flick, its content is very much of the seventies. A young Rick Baker created the titular monster and it's a truly gruesome make-up. Steve's constantly dripping appearance, leaving bits of himself everywhere he goes, is gross as can be. We see his eyeball, ear, and an arm plop off as the movie goes along. The constantly wet creature is only the film's most memorable special effects. The movie is quite gory. Steve devours a nurse's head, tears a fisherman's head off, eats another guy's face, and drops a victim on a live wire. Sachs frequently emphasize the gory attack sequences with some truly questionable slow-motion. The nurse running in slow-mo from Steve, or the fisherman's head cracking open after careening over a waterfall, are truly misguided choices. 

Another way Sachs' script recalls fifties B-movies is that there's very little to it, outside of the monster-on-the-loose premise. In order to pad the movie to feature length, it frequently cuts away to the most random bullshit. A very silly scene, so silly the score gets knowingly comical, involves an elderly couple driving along and debating whether they should steal some lemons from an orchid. The script seems unusually concerned with General Perry's wife, often cutting away to the married couple having mundane conversations about what's for dinner or other such everyday topics. Lengthy digressions include a little girl being frightened by the Melting Man and – just so you know this is a seventies exploitation film – a sleazy photographer trying to convince a model to go topless. 

Baker's effects are unforgettably gross. The movie is well aware that its putrefying monster is the star of the show. It even allows the creature a mildly tragic death, continuing past the story's logical end point just so we can see poor Steve melt all the way. Distributor AIP was aware of this too and built the entire advertising campaign around the reeking make-up. Sadly, the film doesn't have much else going for it. Occasionally, there's a moment of campy distraction here that makes this a little more than just a display for sensational special effects. I wouldn't call this one of the worst movie of all time, like Trace Beaulieu of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” did. Yet it doesn't deserved to be remembered much, outside of some stand-out work from a rising make-up superstar. [5/10]

Humongous (1982)

Back when I was knee-deep in my eighties slasher phase, I tried to design a table top card game based on the subgenre. I quickly abandoned the idea, upon realizing how bad I am at designing game rules. Before that point, part of the game would've involved different killer cards based on the archetypal categories of killers. Alongside unseen murderers, supernatural entities, and wise-cracking murderers was what I called the Brute. Those would be hideously deformed monster-men, usually the result of backwoods incest or some other such malignity. While Jason Voorhees is the iconic Brute, another pitch-perfect example of this type of slasher is 1982's “Humongous.” Director Paul Lynch's other contribution to the slasher movement, after “Prom Night,” it was forgotten for years before inevitably being restored for a spiffy Blu-Ray release. 

At a Labor Day party in 1945, the daughter of a millionaire is assaulted by a man at the party. He's then mauled by dogs before she kills him herself. Forty years later, a group of teens – led by brothers Erik and Nick, their sister Karla, and their respective girlfriends – go out on a yacht for a weekend of partying. While attempting to rescue a shipwrecked sailor, the yacht crashes on the shores of isolated Dog Island. They find the island totally devoid of life, a crumbling mansion and the skeletons of dogs being the only signs of civilization. But the group isn't alone. The hideously deformed son of millionaire heir Ida Parson is still alive on this island. And he is hungry.

“Humongous” begins with a graphic and disturbing rape scene. The camera lingers on the woman's body as she's forcibly disrobed and then focuses on the man's face as he assaults her, shouting misogynistic phrases at her the whole time. This disturbing moment is then followed by a cathartic burst of violence, as he's immediately violently killed. Such a brutal opening establishes a theme of bodily discomfort and disrupted sexuality. Sandy and Donna, Erik and Nick's girlfriends, are constantly sniping at each other's bodies. Even though both couples have healthy sex lives, nobody seems satisfied. Everyone's relationship with their bodies and their desires in “Humongous” are dysfunctional.

These are not the only interesting ideas in “Humongous.” Lots of slasher movies are set out in the woods. Yet placing these teens on a deserted island, where just about all animal life has died, makes the characters seem even more isolated. Paul Lynch knows how to make the most of the setting, making the cast look truly lost among those trees. Once the gang make it to the abandoned home, there's relics of a past life all around. It's effectively spooky stuff but, unfortunately, “Humongous” straddles that unsteady line between creating a sense of eerie isolation and featuring lots of scenes of people just wandering around the forest. None of “Humongous'” characters are all that defined and the film has a few too many dull stretches, just watching them explore the island.

It doesn't help that the film uses its murderous monster sparingly. The deformed offspring puts in limited appearances until the last act. Even when he does appear on-screen, Lynch's direction keeps the creature bathed in shadows. While this will disappoint anyone who is looking for some monster action, “Humongous” does make its killer an intimidating force. We only see it raging in the basement, throwing bones around. He bursts through walls, leaps from the water, and relentlessly pursues his victims. The climatic scuffle with the final girl proves especially intense, as the Humongous crushes a head. “Humongous” nicely finds the balance between making its monster a mysteriously threatening force and a pathetic beast that has been left unloved and abused. 

“Humongous” ultimately proves a bit frustrating. There's enough moments that work well, such as that horrifying opening and the intense final chase, to suggest that Lynch and his team knew what they were doing. Yet “Humongous” is also a bit too slow, the build-up to the murderous finale feeling a little tedious at times. There's some intriguing idea within the standard slasher set-up and a degree of spooky atmosphere. Yet I can see why this one sipped through the slasher fanatic cracks. I like the movie alright, as I have a higher tolerance for this kind of stuff than most, but “Humongous” never quite reaches its full potential. Those posters are great though, there's no denying that. [6/10]

Out There Halloween Mega Tape (2022)

One of my favorite discoveries in recent years was “WNUF Halloween Special.” I went in expecting a typical found footage thriller and instead got a pitch-perfect recreation of a nostalgic TV broadcast, including delightful fake commercials. I've dug into director Chris LaMartina's work a little but what I really wanted was a “WNUF Halloween Sequel.” I wasn't the only one, as the “WNUF” cult following has increased in the near decade since the film's release. LaMartina must've heard the demand as this year finally saw a proper follow-up. “Out There Halloween Mega Tape” attempts to do for nineties television what the original did for eighties nonsense. Sounds like a perfect note to end Halloween on.

Presented as a bootleg VHS from “Trader Tony's Tape Dungeon,” the “Mega Tape” collects two mid-nineties television presentations: The first is a Halloween installment of 1995 daytime talk show, “The Ivy Sparks Show.” The second half picks up with Sparks a year later, as she's now the co-host of paranormal program, “Out There.” Specifically, it's a live broadcast of an episode that interviewed a UFO cult on October 31st, the night the mother ship was suppose to take them home. The night would grow increasingly strange as it went on. Through it all, we see vintage commercials and learn the fate of reporter Frank Stewart and spiritualists the Bergers. 

As in the first “WNUF,” LaMartina and his team show an uncanny ability to replicate the look and feel of nineties junk television. Some of the fake commercials presented here – such as spots for a denim store, a clothing brand, atheletic shoes, a new age music CD, a PSA about HIV, and utterly convincing network bumpers – are indistinguishable from the real thing. The “Ivy Sparks Show” segment does a good job of replicating the pacing of talk shows from hosts like Ricki Lake and Sally Jesse Raphael. This is especially evident in the theme song and dramatic reenactments bits. The “Out There” scenes, meanwhile, clearly draw inspiration from “Sightings” and the “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?” special. I remember the 90s' hunger for all-things UFO related and LaMartina brilliantly captures that feeling.

While “WNUF Halloween Special” played things mostly straight, its humor arising from the awkwardness of live television, “Out There Halloween Mega Tape” is more blatantly comedic. The “Ivy Sparks Show” segments are blatantly ridiculous. They detail a wannabe goth vampire getting a preppy makeover and a woman describing her affair with a ghost. Sparks being demoted to co-hosting “Out There,” often taunted with her old catchphrase, is a running joke. There's some naughty gags hidden in the extraterrestrial evidence “Out There” presents. A clearly stoned B-movie star drops obviously farcical trivia throughout the special. Many of the commercials are intentionally silly, such as a loan business dressed as the Lone Ranger or a toilet paper starring a mummy. They are funny but it breaks the immersion a little bit, when these throwback scenes are played for laughs. 

LaMartina makes his movies for tiny budgets and that's evident throughout “Out There Mega Tape.” Sometimes, the lack of funds runs into the movie's desire for realism. A briefly glimpsed cartoon looks limited, even by the standards of nineties animation. A commercial for a chocolate bar also features some shitty animation. (It's also an obvious shout-out to “Ernest Scared Stupid,” one of countless homages throughout.) A throwback to the Beanie Babies craze feature very cheap looking toys. There's some ugly green screen effects in ads for fake movies – would-be blockbusters, covering kaiju and disaster flicks – that do not impress. The other fake-movies-within-the-movie include a judge themed slasher flick and a mini-golf set “Gremlins” rip-off, neither of which are very convincing. I'm willing to forgive this stuff, considering the clearly limited budget, but it's another element that makes “Out There” less realistic than “WNUF” was.

While the original “WNUF” clearly took target at religious fanaticism, “Out There Halloween Mega Tape” is more about media accountability. A “Ivy Sparks” bumper about violence in the media then cuts to a commercial for a  Super Soaker-style water gun, emphasizing that it's a gun. Sparks' catchphrases, of “Be Nice!,” obviously comes off as hypocritically in comparison to the trashiness of her program. The finale, which the film marches towards with surprising grimness, suggests that maybe it wasn't a good idea that nineties pulp TV encouraged lunatics so much. Not quite as biting an observation as the original's but appreciated nevertheless.

It's clear that Chris LaMartina has put a lot of thought into this. There's countless connections to the original, minor faces reappearing throughout. Some of the shout-outs are incredibly subtle, such as WNUF being bought-out by a bigger cable company between 1995 and 1996. This lore extends to the DVD case – which goes into more details about "Trader Tony" – and even into the extra features, which includes an in-universe episode of the Purple Stuff Podcast. All of LaMartina's films are a labor of love and this is clearly true of “Out There Halloween Mega Tape.” I enjoyed the sequel so much, the movie scratching a certain itch that nostaglist like myself feel all the time. It's a bit a step down in quality from the original “WNUF” but I still enjoyed this a ton. [7/10]

Well, guys, I did my best. I'm not going to lie to you. 2022's Halloween season was disappointing for me. I didn't get to do any of the neat October rituals. Bad weather or bad planning saw to that. I tried to pack in as much horror movie madness as possible and I can't say I didn't meet my goal. But I'm heading out of October and into November feeling more exhausted than exhilarated. 

Better luck next year? I guess that's how it goes sometimes. The spirits giveth and they taketh away. Let's hope the next time I visit the October Country, it's full of more whimsy than mischief. The pumpkins will rot in their field and the scarecrows will wander back home to their post but Halloween lives in the heart always. Until next time, fellow travelers. The crypt doors are closed.

Halloween 2022: October 30th

You Are Not My Mother (2022)

Sometimes, all a horror movie has to do to get me really excited for it is set its story around the Halloween season. There’s two breeds of Halloween movies. Those that simply use the spooky season for set dressing and those that actually build the mythology and meaning behind the day into its story. Late last year, an exciting sounding Halloween-set horror picture started to play on festivals. “You Are Not My Mother” comes to us from Ireland, the land where this holiday has its roots. That alone was enough to pique my interest but when I learned that Kate Dolan’s debut feature had a tasty layer of folk horror to it as well, that was got it to crack my list of most anticipated titles for 2022. I’ve been waiting until nearly the day to watch the film to and now it is time.

Char is a schoolgirl in North Dublin, who is often bullied by her schoolmates. She lives with her grandmother, Rita, and mother, Angela. Angela has severe depression and frequently finds it difficult to get out of bed. After driving Char to school one morning, Angela disappears. When she reappears, a few days later, she acts differently. At first, more lively, Angela soon begins to display wild, violent mood swings. As the end of October approaches, and the locals gather to celebrate Halloween, Char must face the truth: That her mother has been replaced by a changeling. 

“You Are Not My Mother” fits in comfortably with the modern school of horror movies, what some would call “elevated horror,” that foreground the story’s subtext. “You Are Not My Mother” is, rather clearly, a movie about living with a bipolar parent. At the beginning, Angela is so distraught that she can’t get up and live her life. Char has happy memories of her childhood with her mom, of dancing and playing together. She seems like a different person now, twisted by the chemical imbalance inside her brain. Once she returns from her disappearance, Angela acts even more erratically. She slam-dances around the house, yelling and screaming and crawling on the floor. For a minute, I was wondering if the film even needed to introduce an element of supernatural horror. Growing up with a mentally ill parent is scary enough. 

While “You Are Not My Mother” is never exactly subtle about its horror metaphor, it does try its damnedest to be a scary movie too. Dolan creates a dreary atmosphere throughout, supported by the overcast Irish weather. The sinister, droning musical score increases this feeling, effecting a story filled with intense stares and a disquieted home. As the film progresses, it introduces freakier touches. Char spots her mother, late at night, cracking her neck at impossible angles and shoving her entire hand down her throat. Later, the mother-thing twists her ankle in a horribly uncomfortable manner. It all precedes an intense chase scene in the last act, as Char is pursued by the monster inhabiting her mother’s body and the two have a confrontation around a bonfire.

Those bonfires play a major role. All throughout “You Are Not My Mother,” it references the traditional rites of Samhain. The teenage delinquents that bully Char talk regularly about setting bonfires on Halloween night. Jack O’ Lanterns and pumpkins make prominent appearances throughout. There’s some great October 31st ambiance in the final act. Moreover, there’s heavy implication that the reason the changelings are being active now is because the wall between the world of the living and the other side are thin this time of year. That’s evident during a trip to a (ridiculously cool) museum, where a projected video talks all about the history of Samhain. Dolan’s film cooks the lore of Halloween into its story of mental illness and parental alienation. Not to mention a little bit of folk magik sprinkled throughout. 

A strong set of performances seal the deal on a film that’s handsome, tense, and with a well researched backstory. Hazel Doupe is a young heroine we can root for as Angela while Carolyn Bracken is suitably unsettling as the mother. Could the script been a little more fleshed out? Probably. A bit too much of “You Are Not My Mother” is composed of pregnant pauses, the story putting the character development more into the quiet performances. Ya know, there is a part of me that’s a bit tired of horror like this, that relies a lot on creating a dread-filled feeling and less on forward momentum. But, if horror like this must proliferate, “You Are Not My Mother’ is a good example of it. Any movie that digs into the Hallo’ween spirit as much as this one gets a thumbs-up from me. [7/10]

Night of the Demon (1980)

To what do we owe the cultural fascination with Bigfoot? This is not strictly an American phenomenon. Stories of hairy anthropoids, not quite human but more than apes, have been heard from all over the world. Maybe it’s a cultural memory of hairy hominids that we might’ve co-existed with hundreds of thousands of years ago. Maybe, once people got a look at monkeys, we just couldn’t avoid the conclusion that we share a common ancestor with them. Regardless of the reason why, Bigfoot is big business. Filmmakers have long tried to cash-in on the global curiosity with these elusive man-apes. Perhaps the grisliest, or maybe just the trashiest, example of Squatch-sploitation is 1980’s “Night of the Demon.” This skunk ape slasher was gruesome enough to get banned during the U.K.’s Video Nasty hysteria. 

Nugent, a professor in anthropology, has been left horribly mangled following a class trip into the woods. To the doctors and police, he explains his story. A die-hard believer in Bigfoot, he set out with his students to discover definitive proof of the creature. A young woman named Carla believes that Sasquatch murdered her father, as a distinctive footprint was found near his dismembered body. Similar beastly deaths have been occurring throughout the woods. The group soon uncovers a backwoods cult of grassman worshipers and Wanda, a mute woman living in a cabin who had a traumatic up-close encounter with the beast. It’s only a matter of time before Nugent and his students meet up with the bloody Bigfoot.  

 “Night of the Demon” is largely a delivery system for schlocky gore scenes. This is one pissed-off Momo and ripping people apart seems to be his favorite hobby. He tears an arm off before the opening title. He disrupts a couple in a shaggin’ wagon, slices throats on broken glass, rips guts out, and bashes faces in. This wildman is even a tool-using species, as he utilizes an axe, a pitchfork, and a hot stove in his murder spree. These death scenes are often ridiculously conveyed. The blood is syrupy looking. The ripped throats and dangling stumps look like raw meat. Chuckles of disbelief seem the likelier reaction to the carnage here. When Bigfoot swings a sleeping bag overhead, before impaling the man inside on a tree branch, is silly. A moment where the man-ape shoves two knife-wielding Girl Scouts into each other, awkwardly slicing them both up, is hysterical. The only moment more outrageous than that is when the hairy biped tears a roadside urinator’s dick off… Well, what can you even say in response to that? 

To say “Night of the Demon” is a crude production is an understatement. The film craft and narrative construction on display suggests an amateur crew. Whenever Professor Nugent recounts and anecdote of bloody sasquatch murder – this makes up about half the movie – the film fades to black. The camera movie is often shaky and unprofessional. The use of slow-motion in the climatic cascade of murder is gratuitous. The soundtrack is composed of warbling synth, when prosaic instrumentation isn’t playing. The sound mixing is echo-y. Bigfoot is brought to life by a body builder in a goofy mask with a shag carpet on his back. The performances are suitably ridiculous, with a woman’s mediocre attempt at a shocked face being the funniest bit of bad acting. On any sort of technical level, “Night of the Demon” is utter trash.

And therein lies the appeal. “Night of the Demon” is a hysterically bat-shit bit of sasquatch depravity. The attempts to expand the story beyond a mere collection of death scenes – there aren’t many – only makes the movie trashier. The discovery of a group of redneck Bigfoot worshipers sets up a lengthy flashback sequence, detailing Crazy Wanda’s backstory. That’s when maybe “Night of the Demon’s” sleaziest moment occurs, a bit of forced interspecies breeding between woman and sasquatch. Yes, we do see Bigfoot in the throes of passion. Yes, we see the result of this pairing too. There’s a focus on flesh here throughout, as we see lots of bare man-ass during the multiple sex scenes. To discover that this is the sole non-gay porn credit of director James C. Wasson is unsurprising. The lack of professionalism, stilted acting, and narrative incompetence recalls porn more than a traditional slasher film. It just cuts to murder, instead of fucking.

“Night of the Demon” – which, obviously, has nothing to do with Jacques Tourneur’s “Night of the Demon” or the “Night of the Demons” movies – will appeal to a limited group of trash horror fans. It doesn’t reach the dream-like heights of hilarious slasher incoherence as “The Prey” or “The Forest,” though it’s a little sturdier than similar murderdrone classic “Don’t Go in the Woods.” The mixture of do-it-yourself production values, writing that slides between tedium and insanity, and hilarious gore makes it a disreputable midnight movie classic or slasher heads.  Available for years as only an overly dark VHS rip, Severin’s Blu-Ray looks gorgeous and is packed with extras that tell the interesting story behind this weird-ass motion picture. Truly, Bigfoot’s O-face deserves to be seen in high-def! [7/10] 

Just Beyond: My Monster

Compared to Netflix and Hulu's strategy of just dropping something onto streaming with no advertisement, Disney+ does a better job of promoting its exclusive series. I actually saw a commercial for “Just Beyond,” a kid-friendly horror anthology series based on R.L. Stine penned comics, before deciding to watch it. “My Monster” is about fourteen year old Olivia. Following her parents' divorce, her and her little brother are moving into her mom's childhood home. Shortly afterwards arriving, Olivia begins to see a tall monster in a suit, wearing an expressionless mask. The creature follows her even to school, disrupting her attempts to make friends. Olivia soon learns that her mother saw the same beast when she was a girl.

I'm impressed to say that “Just Beyond” packs in the kid-friendly scares. The creature's appearance is also preceded by creepy music playing, which adds just the right amount of eeriness. Olivia encounters the spectre in the basement of the school and the darkened hallways of her home at night, in surprisingly spooky sequence. There's even a legitimate jump scare, when the creature appears suddenly next to her. Compared to Stine's own “Goosebumps,” which was so hokey that it was impossible to take seriously, “Just Beyond” has the skills and production values to produce just the right shivering feeling, especially for the young ones. The monster, who is obviously inspired by Slender Man, looks eerie and intimidating. 

The script is also a little more sophisticated than I expected. The eventual origins for the monster, as a manifestation for Olivia's anxiety, is clever. The conclusion is nuanced, even touching, as she learns the best way to cope with the creature. The premise of her parent's divorce is nodded to, without being lingered on to a distracting degree. There's some comic relief – in the form of a sarcastic friend and a dotting old babysitter – but it never supplants the scares. Newcomer Megan Stott is appealing as Olivia. “My Monster” is good and bodes well for the rest of “Just Beyond.” [7/10]

DyE: Fantasy (2011)

Earlier in the month, I watched a silent horror short that is arguably a music video. And so it seemed fitting to make the last short I reviewed this season also a horrific music video. Since I've already talked about “Thriller,” I knew “Fantasy” by DyE was my second choice. The animated music video depicts four teenagers sneaking into an in-door swimming pool for some drinking and hanky-panky. While one couple get closer, the shy girl notices that something isn't right. It seems the bottom of the pool contains a portal to another dimension. The young lovers then begin to mutate into hideous monsters. 

“Fantasy's” animesque movement and character designs, from French animator Jérémie Périn, is quite lovely to look at... Which makes the music video's surprising depravity all the more vivid. There's a clear air of sexual longing to “Fantasy.” One of the first images is a look up the redhead's skirt. Her ass, briefly exposed as she puts on her swimsuit, is on the title screen. Once the horror begins, it continues this sexual angle. The redhead's boyfriend manually stimulating her is turned into a hideous fusion once he becomes a worm-like monster. The other guy is attacked crotch-first. The first sign that something is wrong is the shy girl feeling something slither up the bottom of her swimsuit as she's in the pool. “Fantasy” seems to delight in vulgar displays of hentai-like sexual violation. 

Yet I don't think “Fantasy” is simply a work of shock value, combining cartoons and monstrous sex acts for the hell of it. The music video's protagonist is clearly uncomfortable with intimate acts. She rejects the guy she's been set-up with. The body horror shows the other couple becoming one, their sexual act bonding them together forever. This is what the final girl is attempting to escape. She's afraid of that final moment of maturity that sex signals, the idea of your life no longer being your own. “Fantasy” shows its teenage character being consumed by their sexual passions, an act full of bodily fluids that requires loosing total control. And that's exactly what its heroine fears most.

All of this is set to DyE's dreamy electro-pop. The thumping beats draw the ear. The lyrics, meanwhile, are a melancholy ode of giving up on your dreams. This seems to tie into the video's theme of one chapter of your life ending and another beginning... And did I mention there's a layer of Lovecraftian cosmic horror to all of this too? The final image of the music video is one of the best encapsulation of Lovecraft's themes that I've ever seen. “Fantasy” packs all of this into three and a half minutes. It's one of my favorite music video, telling a whole story and saying so much while including some seriously intense animated gross-outs. [9/10]

Halloween 2022: October 29th

Barbarian (2022)

What is the horror event of 2022's Halloweens season? “Halloween Ends” was suppose to be and has certainly generated a fair share of conversation, albeit mostly of the negative variety. “Terrifer 2” has become an indie success story, far outstripping expectations. Yet an extreme gore flick like that mostly appeals to a niche, die-hard audiences and continues to divide writers. For my money, the surprise hit of the year has been “Barbarian.” Released in September with little hype or expectation, the movie attracted rave reviews and built up a well-spring of positive hype. This is the movie people have been telling me to watch all season. Now that we're all but done, and the film is available on streaming, it's time for me to weigh in on “Barbarian.”

Tess arrives in Detroit for a job interview. As she pulls into her AirBnB in a particular rundown neighborhood, she's surprised to see someone else – a man named Keith – has already rented it. With few other options, she decides to stay the night. The next day, she accidentally locks herself in the basement and then makes a disturbing discovery. Meanwhile, Hollywood actor A.J. Gilbride has his career destroyed overnight by sexual assault allegations. Suddenly strapped for cash, he heads back to Detroit to sell homes he owns... Which includes the house of nightmares Tess is currently trapped in.

All throughout the hype train for “Barbarian,” I've been repeatedly told to go in as blind as possible. Amazingly, I managed to avoid having the movie spoiled for me in all the time it's been out. And I have to agree that this is absolutely a film you should see knowing as little as possible. “Barbarian's” script delights in continuously surprising the viewer. It begins with an uncomfortable situation – what if an AirBnB was double-booked? – and extrapolates to increasingly wild situations from there. When you have an inkling of where things might be going, the script swerves again. The nonlinear structure further disorientates the audience, leaving us unprepared for the next shock. Even after the last act kicks in, when the film has settled into a more traditional horror structure, it manages to surprise us with who is killed and in what manner. 

The film is the solo directorial debut of Zach Cregger, former member of the Whitest Kid U Know sketch comedy show. Cregger shows some surprisingly strong chops as a horror director. The earliest scenes have a stillness to them, establishing the distance between the characters and a feeling of discomfort. Once Tess descends into the spaces under the home, “Barbarian” gets increasingly frantic. When wandering through darkened tunnels, usually only lit by a small light, the camerawork and editing is fast-paced. This conveys the raw panic the characters are feeling in that moment, while also contributing to the cramped environment. As the “Barbarian” goes to increasingly wild places, getting gorier, Cregger's direction increases in creativity. A random flashback to the eighties also features a tighter aspect ratio and brighter colors, which is a clever choice.

Cregger has said “Barbarian” was inspired by a book about how women ignore their intuition around unsafe men. How they'll discard mental red flags and reassure themselves that a clearly dangerous situation is okay. This is definitely part of “Barbarian's” DNA. Tess repeatedly stays when she should've gotten the hell out of there. Yet “Barbarian's” most interesting touch, to me, is its Detroit setting. The crumbling infrastructure of the city contributes to the dreary mood. Tess is surrounded on all side by dilapidated buildings, making this area feel hopeless. There's the feeling that this whole city has been abandoned by those in power, allowing the depravity that follows to unfold. It's not just economical boundaries that keep the rotting city in disrepair. The useless cops leave Tess here after picking her up. It's notable how part of the cast is black and others are white. “Barbarian” gets a lot of mileage out of Detroit's sullied legacy, in smart and subtle ways.

That “Barbarian” repeatedly kept me guessing impressed me. The script randomly including a Hollywood scumbag, and then making him a major character, is maybe its biggest surprise. Justin Long plays A.J., an entitled Hollywood dude-bro who repeatedly shows his true colors. He says some not-so-nice things about the woman who has accused him. When asked to explain what happened, he does so in terms that make the reality of the situation clear. Yet there's something undeniably charming about Long. He's an idiot and a jerk, motivated by selfish needs. Being through this nightmarish situation threatens to make him grow as a person. Long has a surprisingly effective monologue. Yet the movie kicks that in the ass near the end, in another unexpectedly funny manner. “Barbarian” gets laughs and gasps out of the audience in equal measure. 

“Barbarian” is a hell of a ride. It keeps you guessing, even leaving a few things about its story unexplained. There are moments that will make you squirm, both because of how uneasy the situations are and because of the nasty gore on display. It has an impressive cast, Georgina Campbell and Long doing great work. Cregger is smart enough to know that just having Richard Brake and Bill Skarsgaard appear on screen creates certain expectations in the viewer, which are embraced and subverted in equal measure. I had a blast with this one. Is this the horror event of Halloween 2022? Sure, what the hell, why not? I declare it to be so! [8/10]

Eyes of Fire (1983)

“Eyes of Fire” is one of those movies that have gone from being entirely obscure to something of a cult classic in just the last few years. You can attribute this to two main factors. Avery Crounse's film been noted as likely influence on Robert Eggers' “The Witch,” as both movies explore the Thirteen Colonies era of America. “Eyes of Fire” also falls right into the folk horror subgenre, which has burst in popularity lately. The film's importance to the folk horror movement has been acknowledge by its inclusion in Severin's “All the Haunts Be Ours” box set. This is also the often overlooked film's first DVD/Blu-Ray release. I've never seen it before and was hoping I could sneak it in before October wrapped up.

In 1750, a group of French soldiers rescue a pair of orphans from the woods. They relate the bizarre story of what happened: After being accused of polygamy, religious leader Will Smythe is exiled from his community. He takes his followers and head into the wilderness. He is unaware that Leah, an Irish settler, is a white witch and has been using her powers to protect the group from Indian attacks. They soon arrive in a valley that the Shawnee dare not go into. Quickly, the settler discover why the valley has been abandoned. Increasingly strange things go on around them, as restless spirits arise from the forest floor and an evil entity grows out of the trees themselves. 

In “Eyes of Fire,” we see nature itself revolting against white settlers. Smythe and his followers come into the valley on a mission of colonization. Shortly after arriving, a native child wanders into the group. Smythe enthusiastically adopts her, with plans to baptize her as soon as possible. He never once considers that the native population are on to something when they abandoned this area. The land itself comes to life to reject them. The spirits of the dead, shown as nude bodies covered in mud, emerge from the ground. Faces appear in trees, before a witch-like entity emerges from the wood itself to attack. The white men don't belong in this place and have overstep the natural boundaries by coming here. 

To tell this tale of ancient forces lashing out at the colonizer, Crounse creates a very odd, eerie atmosphere. Despite the film's period setting, “Eyes of Fire” has an electronic score. In fact, the film's soundscape frequently uses electronic tones to signal when the otherworldly forces are at play. This is especially done anytime Leah uses her powers. These is examples of the off-beat creative choices the filmmakers make, to create “Eyes of Fire's” unusual ambiance. Weird editing is used to make figures appear and disappear. Inverted colors are added to some scenes. There's random explosions. The make-up effects are crude, often muddy substances caked on actors, but it make the characters seem genuinely out-of-the-Earth. “Eyes of Fire” really does capture an otherworldly feeling, which is reflected in every choice the production made. 

As compelling as the weirdo atmosphere “Eyes of Fire” creates, there's a big issue with the film. There's a large cast, with a whole group of people heading out into the woods. Very few of the characters are developed beyond general ideas. In fact, a lot of them are intentionally inscrutable. What is motivating the witchy Leah? The script switches between the two girls that narrate the movie at random, making it hard to get a bead on either one. The script doesn't really seem to have a protagonist at times, leaping between a handful of characters that aren't given distinct personalities. As “Eyes of Fire's” story grows more mystical and obscure, the people involve fade into the background even more. 

It's unsurprising to read that distributors didn't know what to do with a movie as aggressively weird as “Eyes of Fire.” It sat on a shelf for two years, not seeing theater screens until 1985. It would be another two years before a VHS release would follow. That was where the story ended for “Eyes of Fires'” for years, the movie existed in limbo as only fuzzy rips of used tapes. In was during this time that the film's reputation has grown and, now that a Blu-Ray is readily available, it's widely considered a hidden gem or a lost classic. I wouldn't go that far. I think “Eyes of Fire” puts its artistic ambitions ahead of brass-tacks narrative needs. Yet I can't deny that the film has an odd power all its own. [6/10]

50 States of Fright: 13 Steps to Hell

Regardless of what you think of the Quibi clusterfuck, I think “50 States of Fright” was a great premise for a horror anthology series. Each state has a rich vein of folklore all its own worth exploring. Taking from those stories and building a series around it is such a cool set-up. Yet the episode I watched last year left me wondering if the entire show was good or if “The Golden Arm” was good only because Sam Raimi directed it. So I decided to give “13 Steps to Hell,” Washington state's representation, a look. Aiden wants to bury his beloved pet hamster next to his deceased mother. His siblings, Mallory and Liam, accompany him. While digging the grave, Aiden drops his beloved stuffed toy – a gift form his late mother – into a grave. Mallory steps in to retrieve it, unaware that she's now on the legendary steps to Hell.

Before Raimi handed the latest “Evil Dead” movie to him, Lee Cronin directed this installment of “50 States.” He brings the same dreary direction – not to mention fixation on holes in the ground – that he did to “A Hole in the Ground.” Yet “13 Steps to Hell” is creepier than that movie. It gets a lot of mileage out of the spooky cemetery setting. The visuals inside the tunnel, the lights flicking overhead while slime oozes from the rocks, are nicely skin-crawling. The sickly mother makes for a ghastly image, adding a personal layer to the story here.

Yes, “13 Steps to Hell” is about grief. Mallory, played by up-and-coming scream queen Lulu Wilson, is haunted by her mother's death. By the specifics of that grief are interesting to me. She rubs her hand off after giving her dying mom one final hug, a gesture that deeply hurt Aiden's feelings. She climbs into the grave to retrieve the meaningful toy as a way to atone to her little brother for this action. It helps that Wilson's big blue eyes are so vulnerable, that she really sells the feelings the character is going through. Like “The Golden Arm,” the plotting here is weirdly contrived. However, the episode does make the smart decision to frame itself as a story being told by Rory Culkin, which fits the urban legend format. I think the two separate twist endings are probably unnecessary. Still a pretty decent, creepy quick bite of horror. [7/10]

No Through Road (2009)

2009 was, somehow, a lifetime ago. The internet, and Youtube specifically, has changed in so many ways. 13 years ago, it really was possible for a random short film, totally self-produced by nobodies, to go viral. Such was the case with “No Through Road,” a clever bit of found footage horror out of the U.K. The film is presented as the last known footage of a quarter of teen boys, driving through the English country side at night. After passing through a creepy tunnel, a “No through road” sign outside, they notice that they can't seem to escape the same stretch of road. Caught in this temporal loop, they soon discover something equally frightening: They aren't alone either.

“No Through Road” capitalizes on a fear I think anyone can relate to. We've all probably driven through some weird area, late at night, unsure exactly of where it'll lead. Even in the age of cellphones and GPS, it's still possible to get lost or turned around in the countryside. Director Steve Chamberlain takes this to its most extreme conclusion, having one wrong turn lead to a nightmarish scenario that's not seemingly impossible to escape from. It escalates nicely, with a disturbing sound loop on the radio. The final scene, where a masked figure appears to threaten the teens, sends us out on a disturbingly graphic note.

The found footage angle is also well utilized, albeit with an asterisk. The early scenes, of the boys goofing around and bantering among themselves, are effectively realistic. It's refreshing to see their panic moods escalate as they realize how in trouble they are, hiding their fears behind in-jokes and conversation. The film frequently cuts away to previously recorded footage on the tape, which was probably unnecessary. This leads to numerous moments of visual distortion, which wasn't needed to make this already effective horror short any creepier. Yet I still have to applaud Chamberlain for pulling this off with so little money. He'd spin “No Through Road” off into a whole series of Youtube videos. Even though that risks ruining the ambiguity of this sweet little slice of creepiness, I'll probably check them out anyway. [7/10]