Halloween 2025: September 5th

 

Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

In 1981, Fortean writer Loren Coleman coined the term “phantom clown.” This describe alleged sightings of weirdo clowns scaring kids, that have reoccurred with enough frequency that a specific term was needed to describe the phenomenon. In 2014, a trio of filmmakers in Northampton, England would start to dress up as a clown and lurk around town. They attracted enough attention that copycat clowns started to pop up around the world. By 2016, this escalated into a full-blown public panic, fueled largely by social media making it easy to spread videos and accusations. It got to the point that law enforcement was getting involved and corporations stop selling clown masks. All of this suggest that the idea of a clown that spreads fear, instead of laughter, that performs devious acts, instead of jolly pranks, is a premise deeply ingrained in our culture that isn't going away any time soon. No matter how overexposed and overdone the trope might be. In 2020, author Adam Cesare was inspired by these events to write the novel, “Clown in a Cornfield.” Not long ago, “Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil” director Eli Craig would helm a film adaptation of Cesare's book which saw release back in May. So let's see if Craig and Cesare brought anything new to the well-worn premise.  

Seventeen year old Quinn and her recently widowed dad move to the town of Kettle Springs, Missouri. For a hundred years, the Bayben Corn Syrup factory – and its mascot, Frendo the Clown – have been the centerpiece of the community. But the factory recently burned down and the town is starting to struggle. The group of kids Quinn falls in with have started using an evil version of Frendo as an unhinged serial killer in the internet horror shorts they make. After one such prank, Quinn spots an unknown individual dressed as Frendo in the background. Soon, a very real murderous version of Frendo begins to knock off the teenagers. It climaxes at the anniversary after-party the kids have in the cornfield every year. That's when multiple Frendos appear, wielding weapons and ready to dismember any young people they set their eyes on. 

Since at least 2018, film producers both big and small have been making repeated attempts to modernize the eighties slasher movie premise for today's batch of teenagers. “Clown in a Cornfield” represents another such example. It keeps the basics: Young people, who maybe drink too much and sneak off for hanky panky, are in an isolated area, being gorily murdered by a masked lunatic. Otherwise, most of the cliches are dispensed with. There is a focus on modern technology. Quinn is always looking at her cell phone, much to her father's dismay. The friends she makes are entrenched enough in online culture that making Youtube videos is their primary past time. Like most of these zoomer slashers – zlashers??? – there's also a passing attempt to acknowledge the progressive sexual identities a lot of young people have embraced these days. I don't think the film does an especially good job of capturing the modern zeitgeist – there's a reference to “cat videos,” already a decade old shout-out when Cesare wrote his book – but “Clown in a Cornfield” at least represents a good natured attempt by horror nerds in their thirties and forties to reach out and relate to the young'ins. 

At the same time, “Clown in a Cornfield” isn't truly for the teenagers of 2025. From earlier on, the film adopts a blatantly obvious theme: The older generation always resents and fears the younger ones. The teachers are assholes to the kids, giving Quinn detention for no reason. The sheriff is always giving the youths a hard time. The father of Cole, Quinn's apparent love interest, is the town leader. He clearly has little affection for his boy. This proceeds a narrative turn that is so heavily foreshadowed that it's difficult to call it a twist. “Clown in a Cornfield” is trying to make a statement about how generational gaps are universal. Previous Frendo the Clown massacres took place in the twenties, sixties, and nineties, the feared subculture of the day always been the target. However, the film never truly addresses why all these grown-ups think the kids are no good. Mayor Hill makes empty platitudes about how Kettle Falls is a beacon of old fashioned, American values. The function of nostalgia for an idealized time and displacing of blame onto an easily scapegoated demographic is not considered. The adults of Kettle Falls simply hate the youths because it serves the plot.

I'm not entirely convinced that Craig and Carter Blanchard's screenplay is as on the teenagers' side as it claims. There are easy jokes about young people not being able to operate a stick-shift drive or a turn-dial phone. The references to online culture are shallow and never truly inform any of the characters' personality. The queer element is thrown in almost as a punchline, an observation that appearances can be deceiving. It's not that the teens are all that annoying or badly portrayed. Katie Douglas makes Quinn into a likable, even-headed heroine that we can root for. (Though her traumatic backstory is as perfunctory as can be.) Ultimately, no attempt is made to elevate the rest of the kids above archetypes. They are still the dumb blonde, the jock, the teenage playboy, the black guy, if they get that much development. Half-assed measures are made to give the casts some individual quirks or depth but it never amounts to much. 

Which points to another element of “Clown in a Cornfield” that lets me down: Why a clown? Pop culture is awash with evil clowns these days. You can always tell which writers and filmmakers are actually engaging with the concept and which are simply trying to cash in on our wide-spread cultural coulophobia. The Joker tells jokes. Pennywise danced and performed pranks. The Killer Klowns incorporated a circus theme into every aspect of their operation. Stitches committed murder in the form of elaborate pranks and Art seems perpetually, impishly amused by the mayhem he causes. Frendo doesn't do any of that shit. He leaves a jack-in-the-box as a calling card and wears honking oversized shoes but that's about it, as far as antics go. You could replace the clown get-up in this movie with any other costume and the story would remain unchanged. For that matter, why is a clown a mascot of a corn syrup manufacturer anyway? Make it make sense!

Perhaps Cesare's source novel – which has resulted in two sequels – fleshes out the characters more, digs into the themes of generational conflict, and actually has the clown do clown shit. As for Craig's film adaptation, it only has so much going for it. Katie Douglas seems to be attempting to make a name for herself in the horror genre and she probably has the chops to achieve that. Brian Pearson's overcast cinematography is decent. Though it needed more of that isolated, Midwest, corn country atmosphere to truly sell me. There are refreshingly few jump scares and some okay gore, though nothing truly memorable. Ultimately, “Clown in a Cornfield” has little of the slapstick energy and cuddly warmth of Craig's “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,” representing a far more half-cocked attempt to fuse “It” and “Children of the Corn,” without the depth of the former or nearly enough of the trashy fun of the latter. [6/10]

 

 

The Uncanny (1977)
 

I've spent my entire life as a dog person, preferring the goofball charms and devoted loyalty of our canine friends. The woman who insists she wants to marry me, meanwhile, has a deep affection for cats. I don't dislike kitties but, admittedly, have found the ones I've previously cohabited with to be assholes. Being engaged to a cat person quickly makes you into a cat person too. As much as felines are fluffy, snuggly little cutie-pies that run the internet and get scared of cucumbers, they also have a distinctly different cultural legacy. The ancient Egyptians and Romans venerated cats as symbols of the gods. As pagan religions were demonized by the rise of Christianity, cats became associated with other, unholy deities. In medieval times, the old and unmarried women who lived on the edge of town and brewed concoctions kept cats to kill the mice that ate wheat and yeast. Thus, cats became the familiars of witches and warlocks, emissaries of the devil said to suckle from hidden third nipples or carry their masters to profane sabbats. Most of the devil-fearing hysteria has been forgotten but we still associate black cats with bad luck and cackling crones. Various cultures around the world have stories of demonic cat beasts, the Celts, the Japanese, the Quechua tribes of South America. Unlike the dogs who stick by their humans, cats are independent creatures who wander off on their own. Who knows what mysterious worlds precious pink toe-beans pitter-patter into? What sights do glowing, ever-watchful, slit eyes observe that we do not? All of which is to say that there is tradition of horror stories about our fuzzy feline friends, including a handful of movies. One such example is the 1977 omnibus feature, "The Uncanny."

Wilbur Gray, an author specializing in the paranormal, arrives at the home of his publisher to present his new manuscript. The book puts forth the theory that the common house cat is actually an otherworldly creature capable of great evil. He supports his case with three incidents: In 1912, London, wealthy governess Miss Malkin intended to leave her considerable fortune to her pet cats. Her maid, Janet, plots to steal Malkin's will and rewrite it so that her nephew – Janet's boyfriend – is the sole recipient. The scheme results in the elderly woman's death, which her cats seek to avenge. In 1975, Quebec, a strange girl named Lucy moved in with her aunt. She brings her black cat, Wellington, with her. Her cousin, Angela, resents the girl's presence. The bullying goes on until Wellington helps Lucy punish her abusers. In 1936, Hollywood, horror star Valentine De'ath engineers an on-set accident to kill his wife. He replaces her with a younger co-star, his mistress. Upon returning home, he discovers his late wife's cat has delivered kittens, which he also disposes of. The mama feline stalks the man to enact her own unfortunate “accidents.”

If there's any one boundary preventing felines from being a more potent horror trope, it is that cats are, it should go without saying, cute. Bird decimating predators though they may be, our kitty friends have big eyes and chubby bodies and fuzzy faces and they buzz when we hold them. All of "The Uncanny's" segments struggle with this dynamic and none more so than the first. The story features the grisly habit of postmortem predation, which is easily its nastiest shock. However, attempts to create chills from shots of floofy kitties jumping on someone's face do not have the same impact. Any cat owner can relate to their pets trying to trip them as they go down the stairs but that doesn't make for an especially creepy horror movie fate. The first segment is also undone by a largely uninteresting protagonist that is never developed much. Janet spends most of the episode hiding in the pantry from the houseful of killer cats, which does not make her seem like an especially wily or compelling antihero. Though I did sort of like the parallels of her being forced to live off rotting preserves and peanut butter, the same way the cats are forced to eat their former owner's corpse to survive. Regardless, this opening episode can't make cliches like the eccentric old millionaire leaving their fortune to their pets or a much-sought will driving the plot all that interesting.

The second segment at least gives us a main character we can root for, in theory anyway. Lucy is, after all, an orphaned child thrust into a situation where she's resented by someone meant to be her friend, merely because she's taking attention from the other girl and has something she does not. Unfortunately, the young actress playing Lucy – Katrina Holden Bronson, the daughter of Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland – seems to have been dubbed. I think Chloe Franks, as Angela, might have been dubbed too. Which would be weird, since Franks wasn't subjected to that in her other seventies horror movies, such as "Straw Dogs" or "Tales from the Crypt." The result is extremely distracting and constantly took me out of the story. Angela's torment of Lucy includes pelting her with remote control airplanes and bickering with her, which is more annoying than traumatizing. You'll notice the plot makes the spooky cat a secondary feature. The feline comes back into focus at the end, during a rather silly climax that features some less than convincing special effects.

I was ready to dismiss "The Uncanny" as a miscalculated production until the third story finally won me over. That's largely thanks to Donald Pleasence as the murderous movie star. Pleasence goes for full camp in the role, carrying the haughty actor type with an overly elevated sense of importance about himself. He seems to regard murder as more of an annoying inconvenience than a serious criminal act. Exactly the kind of cartoonish jerk we want to see get his comeuppance, in other words. Pleasence brings lots of bitchy charm, playing the guy as so ridiculously vile – he literally flushes kittens down the toilet! – that you can't help but be entertained by him. That silly air finally makes the slightly improbable premise of "The Uncanny" easier to accept. The farcical tone, the somewhat exaggerated gore and the blatantly goofy supporting characters, leads to a properly amusing climax that makes a literary cliche into a literal cliche. I bet that joke was the first thing writer Michel Parry thought of.

Peter Cushing appears in the framing device, also giving an entertainingly hammy performance as the author made nervous by all the cats lurking around. Horror regulars like Cushing, Pleasence, and Ray Milland going the tongue-in-cheek route suggests that each of "The Uncanny's" episodes needed a recognizable actor camping it up. (That was often the strategy of the Amicus anthologies this film is something of an unofficial follow-up to.) The concluding moment is an ironic joke – cats really do control the world, because they tell us what to do, something any cat owner can attest to – and that makes me think all of "The Uncanny" is meant to be taken as comedy. It does not truly work but the final story and the wraparound are worth seeing for Pleasence and Cushing. In the short canon of movies that attempt to make cats scary, "The Uncanny" is classier than "Uninvited" or "Strays" but can't overcome the fact that your common puss-puss invokes warm and fuzzy feelings and not chilling ones. [6/10]

 

 

The Twilight Zone: It's a Good Life
 

Continuing last September's strategy of watching and writing about the episodes of “The Twilight Zone” that are actually well known, here's maybe the second most widely parodied and referenced installment. “It's a Good Life” is set in the small town of Peaksville, Ohio wherein lives six year old Anthony Fremont. For reasons no one can decipher, Anthony is omnipotent and omnipresent, able to hear everyone's thoughts and alter any facet of reality whenever and however he pleases. The first thing he did was either teleport Peaksville to an alternate universe or cast the rest of the world into non-existence. Perhaps thinking it “into the cornfield,” the default and vague punishment Anthony reserves for those things that displease him. Either way, mister and missus Fermont, Aunt Alice, and everyone else have no other option than to constantly think happy thoughts and praise Anthony for every horrible thing he does. The isolation has made life more difficult, supplies dwindling, but still they go on, reassuring Anthony that all his actions are “good.” His parents attempt to throw a birthday party for their neighbor, Dan Hollis. Dan, well fed up with living under Anthony's reign of terror, gets drunk and starts verbally attacking the boy. This does not go well for him. 

In Jerome Bixby's original short story, Anthony is three years younger than he is here. It's specified in the text that the boy does not always act maliciously. In the past, he has attempted to make the world a better place too. However, he is a child, inexperienced and naive, and even his better-natured acts had unintended, horrific consequences. Rod Serling's adaptation removes any of his sympathetic qualities. However, the intent remains the same. Anthony Fremont is a monster, directly referred to as such in the episode. He casually turns animals into hideous creatures, ending life and warping reality without a second thought. Every adult lives in terror of him, constantly putting on a big, flashy, fake smile. That veneer of bliss is always on the verge of cracking, the absolute hysteria underneath always visible. However, through it all, Anthony remains a little boy. He acts selfishly because he's too young to know better, to know that other people have feelings different from his own or that whatever pleases him isn't necessarily what's best for everyone. Within “It's a Good Life,” the casual sociopathy of children who are still processing the world around them is exaggerated to a state of prolonged horror. It's not too difficult to see a moral in here about not raising your kids to be selfish brats, to inspire a sense of empathy for others inside them, least you get stuck with a little Anthony Fremont of your own.

Rod Serling, however, usually intended a political – or at least socially aware – subtext to his writing. Considering “It's a Good Life” aired in 1961, well into the Cold War and only a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, it's easy to assume that the townsfolk living in constant fear of an all-powerful figure is meant as a criticism of living under a dictatorship. That all the adults in town must live with the limited supplies of what's left over, while Anthony can get whatever he wants, certainly recalls the life of starving commoners in a country ruled by a selfish tyrant. Or perhaps forced smiles and repeated vocalizations of it all being good is a commentary on the crushing conformity of the Red Scare era. Whether it was Joseph Stalin or Joseph McCarthy that Rod was thinking of, comparing either totalitarianism force to the undisciplined whims of a child makes Rod's feelings about such men clear.

However, watching “It's a Good Life” tonight, another thought occurred to me. Anthony is essentially a god, knowing all and seeing all. The adults around him praise his actions, putting up with them no matter how awful they might be. They insist that the TV broadcast Anthony wills into being – footage of stop-motion dinosaurs fighting to the death – is better than any of the original options for entertainment. They do this because they fear displeasing him and the subsequent wrath. Thus, we have a population forced into a code of living that they do not agree with but follow because they'll be smited otherwise. Is Anthony Fremont the Old Testament God, demanding constant praise despite raining nothing but death and destruction on the world? What kind of “loving” God operates on a “love and praise me unconditionally and uncritically or else” philosophy? Through this lens, “It's a Good Life” becomes an indictment of the idea that people do good only because the moral codes of society instruct them to. In his drunken rage, Dan Hollis begs someone to smash Anthony's head in with a fire poker. Nobody does it. Perhaps because of the fear that, if Anthony dies, everything else will go with him. What kind of freedom is that, forced to appease a petty and vengeful God only because you would cease to be without him? I think I'd take the cornfield over that.

However you interpret it, “It's a Good Life” remains an effectively chilling half-hour of television. That Serling and his team dropped such a bomb of nightmare logic, most of the mechanics behind this scenario left unexplained, the ending distressingly open-ended, shows how cutting edge “The Twilight Zone” was at the time. Most of the truly horrible stuff Anthony does is kept off-screen. He creates a three-headed gopher and then wills it to die, the audience only seeing the facial reactions of the adults watching. Most infamously, grouchy Dan Hollis is transformed into a jack-in-the-box for his tirade. The implication sure seems to be that Anthony stuck Dan's decapitated head on a spring. Such vagueness makes these ideas a lot creepier than seeing the mutations could. The cast is what truly sells this one. John Larch and Cloris Leachman, as the parents, do an excellent job of plastering on smiles over the obvious state of panic and anxiety they live in. Billy Mumy – who later referenced this episode in a song by his weirdo comedy band Barnes & Barnes – balances being a typically smiling and freckle-faced kid with being a wide-eyed, unsettling force. The visuals, simple, shadowy, and stately, convey the feeling of the ordinary disrupted by the inexplicable. It's good, in other words. Real good. I'm real glad I watched this. [9/10]

 

The Addams Family: Morticia Meets Royalty

I don't know why Morticia gets high-lighted in this episode's title when the entire Addams Family meets royalty here. Maybe that sounded catchier? Nevertheless: Gomez's Aunt Millie comes to visit 0001 Cemetery Lane. Her late husband was a prince so, despite him blowing through his entire fortune (save some seemingly useless oil stocks), Millie still insists on being treated like a princess. She demands the entire family fall into line, Morticia assuming the role of lady-in-waiting, Gomez as caviler, Fester as the court jester, and Lurch as the loyal service. Millie also brings along Lady Fingers, her literal handmaiden. Thing is immediately smitten with her. When Millie is eventual offended by the Addams' inability to conform to her vision, she takes Lady Ringers with her. That leaves poor Thing devastated. Gomez and Morticia must think of some scheme to get Millie back to the house and get these hands reunited.

This is clearly an episode where the title came first and the rest of the script flowed from there. Someone – credited writer Leo Rifkin, I guess – figured the Addamses interacting with a snooty would-be princess would lead to some solid gags. And it does. Fester's attempts at playing court jester, telling some corny jokes, got a chuckle out of me. Lurch sewing an accordion into his pants becomes an amusing running gag. Princess Millie is too eccentric for even this famously eccentric brood and quickly gets fed up. That tracks, of course. The Addams Family has no use for monarchs, preferring to keep things individualistic and chaotic. The minute she's gone, Fester and Lurch celebrate in a one-sided fashion that also produced a sensible chortle. When the family must inevitably back-track on throwing Millie out, that leads to the one gag that spotlights Wednesday and Pugsley. Though it's a decent one. 

However, the Addams reacting to a stuffy old royal is a series of gags, not an actual narrative. It's only half-way through the episode that the plot of Thing's attachment to Lady Fingers takes precedence. This definitely struck me as a last minute attempt to flesh out an outline with not much else on its mind. Lady Fingers is shown to emerge from a detached, movable box that is also seemingly bottomless. Last season, I speculate that Thing was some sort of subterranean entity that traveled through a tunnel network in the mansion. This episode now leads me to believe that the boxes that contain Thing's species of disembodied hand-beasts are self-contained little pocket dimensions of their own or at least portals to someplace else. Which raises some very interesting questions about Thing's origins. Don't you love to try an apply logic to silly old sitcom? By the way, that's Carolyn Jones' hand subbing in as Lady Fingers, which looks absolutely dainty and child-like next to Ted Cassidy's giant mitts. Anyway, a handful of decent sight gags aside, this is a fairly middling episode. Elvia Allman as Millie surely ranks among the more irritating guest stars. However, the scene where Morticia inflames Gomez' passion by calling him “bubbe” suggests that Yiddish gets his motor running almost as much as French does. [6/10]

Halloween 2024: September 10th

Infested (2023)

Vermines

I've been in the online horror fandom long enough to see Bloody Disgusting survive a few controversies, maintaining its status as the biggest horror news site on the internet. I still check it a couple times a week. I recall, about a year ago, hearing about an upcoming French film that would derive its terror from using real spiders as much as possible. Immediately, I was intrigued. "Vermines" – good title – would win strong reviews in its native France, quickly getting picked up for U.S. distribution by Shudder. Retitled "Infested" – mediocre title – the film hit the streaming service back in April. Say what you will about the internet-based nature of companies like Bloody Disgusting or Shudder. At least they publicize and release films like these, which otherwise might go unnoticed in the U.S. 

The film follows Kaleb, a young man living in the slums of Paris. He resides in a rundown apartment, his sister attempting to repair it while Kaleb does his best to make a living selling sneakers. He also collects reptiles and exotic insects. Kaleb buys a rare spider and brings it back home, unaware that the species is extremely venomous. This species also burrows inside living flesh to lay its eggs, each rapidly born new generation of arachnids growing bigger in response to the threats around them. Soon, the eight-legged predators have taken over the entire building. The police respond by locking the doors, trapping the tenets inside. Now, Kaleb, his friends and family must fight to survive like never before. 

I don't know how much "Vermines'" early promise that it would use real spiders held true. A lot of the creepy crawlers looked CGI to me. Nevertheless, the film still has an acute understanding of why so many people are arachnophobes. A key moment in the film has a horde of web weavers exploding out of a shower drain, while an even bigger example dangles outside the glass door. Another notable moment pans inside a ventilation shaft, showing it absolutely filled with the bugs. I try not to squish spiders, usually scooping them up in a cup and setting them free. (A ritual characters in this film attempt several times.) But when one randomly scampers down on a thread into my face... It's a disquieting experience. "Vermines" manages to blow that anxiety up as big as possible, forcing its heroes to slip through a web-entombed hallway, the spindle-legged beasties near inches from their face. The fear of sticking your foot in a shoe, only to feel a painful sting and see a brown recluse or black widow crawl out, is apparently a universal fear. "Infested" truly didn't have to make its deadly arthropods Xenomorph-like parasites or have them grow to the size of a Dobermans to make them scary. The sensation of wandering into an undetected web face first, knowing a venomous creeper might be near-by, is uncomfortable enough. 

However, the choice to have the silk-spinning antagonists germinate in living tissue and continuously double in size does make sure "Infested" is always escalating the threat. (It also keeps the film from being merely a dark and gritty remake of "Arachnophobia.") Director Sébastien Vaniček and cinematographer Alexandre Jamin manage to create some tense scenarios. The camera often gets into the tight spaces with the characters, and the spiders, emphasizing how little space is between them. The apartment complex is uniformly dark and dusty, the spiders making an already unwelcoming location more hostile. A frenzied race down a staircase or a struggle over a door is well orchestrated, giving a fitting sense of chaos without ever becoming visually incoherent. The finale, set in the parking garage where the spiders have grown to their biggest size yet, recalls the close-quarters combat of "Aliens." The film also understands the eeriness of bodily invasion, mining chills out of calm shots of spiders creeping out of mouths or under the skin. 

"Infested" is not only a creature feature though. The film takes enough time to grow its characters before pushing them into this life-threatening situation. Theo Christine is really good as Kaleb. He's struggling to establish his independence, in a world that is stacked against him. He's having a hard time but he rarely lets it get him down. Christine manages to create a protagonist that is well aware of his challenging life but still projects a warm, good-natured quality. I also really like how much he genuinely cares for his bugs and lizards, and how much he knows about them, the film casually having its hero be a biology nerd without making it the whole of his personality. Christine also has strong chemistry with Sofia Lesaffre, as his sister Lila, and Jérôme Niel, as his brother Mathys. The film manages to get the viewer invested in whether these characters survive but also in their bond with each other. A key moment in the last third generated a surprising amount of emotion. 

There's a reason why I think the original French title is better than what was chosen for the U.S. release. "Vermines" doesn't refer exclusively to the spiders. The residents of this apartment complex are largely people of color. Kaleb and his family are a mixture of black and Caucasian. Many of their neighbors are immigrants from Africa. One of the first residents we meet is a quiet Chinese woman. This group is already on the outskirts of a society eager to discard and blame them before the spiders attack. They face racism from within, a resident accusing Kaleb of selling drugs or somehow being at fault for the spiders. When the police show up, they surely don't make things better. Their strategy is to quarantine the building and let the problem sort itself out, the low-status residents being treated as totally disposable. Society at large treats both the poor and spiders as vermin that must be stomped out. Like the families in the apartment, the arachnids simply want to survive. Repeated references are made to Darwin and evolution, to this idea that living things must fight to propagate. In the finale, when the spiders go nuts on the police force, it's cathartic as much as it is intense. The white upper-class don't want the poor, immigrants, or ethnic people living in this city. Yet they have a right to survive as much as any other living thing and will defend themselves from extermination, much the same way the spiders do. I'm not French so specific cultural references are lost on me – though the use of words like quarantine and people wearing masks brings the COVID pandemic to mind – but many of these themes are sadly universal. 

In that sense, "Infested" plays a lot like 2019's "Les Miserables," a social drama about racism and class conflict in modern Paris, but with a boatload of killer spiders added. (Lesaffre appeared in both.) Clearly, any Oscar-nominated indie drama can be improved with giant bugs. "Vermines" makes great use of its web-weaving monsters, causing the skin to crawl with more than one fantastically organized sequence. A strong ensemble of actors and a story with a noticeable emotional heart, alongside the grittiness of its setting, makes this a spider thriller of an especially high standard. Vaniček has been hand-picked to direct one of two upcoming new "Evil Dead" movies. While joining such a beloved franchise is a tall order for any young filmmakers, based on the strengths of "Vermines," I think the director has what it takes. [8/10]

Sundown: The Vampires in Retreat (1989)

Low-budget filmmakers have always been attracted to the idea of the vampire. The bloodsucking undead are among the most iconic of all folkloric monsters, well known in every culture and always ripe for reinvention and variation. In no doubt an amazing coincidence, vampires are also among the cheapest of the classic monster archetypes to bring to life. All you really need is some fangs to glue into your actor's mouths and you're ready to go. However, vampires are also generally nocturnal, which presents its own challenge for low budget filmmakers: Night shoots are a pain in the ass. In 1989, filmmaker Anthony Hickox would think of a novel solution to this persistent problem. His off-beat vampire western “Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat” features bloodsuckers in sunscreen, black-tint glasses, and wide-brim hats as they wander around the Utah desert. It is, if nothing else, an idea few other filmmakers have dared to try. 

“Sundown” is set in the desert community of Purgatory, a former mining town that has now become a refuge for vampires. Led by Count Mardulak, the town was founded with the goal of vampires peacefully co-existing alongside humanity. Dr. David Harrison and his family – wife Sarah, daughters Gwen and Juliet – are invited to Purgatory to help work on an artificial blood substitute. Living in the town is Sarah's college ex-boyfriend, Shane, who still harbors an obsession with her. He's also one of the vampires in town who are against Mardulak's goal of integration. Led by Jefferson, they plan to overthrow Mardulak and wage war on humanity. The arrival of Van Helsing's descendent, Robert, pushes the two factions towards an inevitable confrontation.

“Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat” – boy, that's an awkward title, isn't it? – was Anthony Hickox's second feature film. This follows “Waxwork,” a movie I like despite it being little more a loose collection of special effects set-pieces. That film gave the impression of a hyperactive teenager making a movie, throwing every idea he had in without worrying too much about narrative coherence. “Sundown” has a similar feeling, filling its time, not with a gallery of different monsters, but a confluence of subplots. An elderly vamp kills a coked-up passer-by, getting tossed into jail next to two young campers who happen to be there. Way more time than is necessary is devoted to David and Shane's rivalry over Sarah. Van Helsing has a Will-They?/Won't-They? with a blonde vampire waitress. There's more too, scenes making room for a Jamaican sheriff and a pair of German shop owners. Hickox barely bothers to connect most of these plot points, “Sundown” feeling like half a dozen different stories randomly shoved against each other. It's almost impressive how little Van Helsing's subplot, for one example, has to do with the Harrison family drama. Or when the film pauses to introduce two totally new characters, a pair of New Wave swingers, that never appear again. 

This is not to say that “Sundown's” chaotic plotting doesn't lead to some fun sequences. A sequence where Shane turns into a stop-motion bat and flies into Sarah's bedroom, attempting to seduce her, is fun. As is a sequence where some bloodsuckers in a cave transform into giant bat monsters. Any movie that ends with a whole horde of vampires exploding can't not be sort of fun. Much like Hickox's “Waxwork” movies, “Sundown” does end in a massive action sequence. The bad vampires arm themselves with wooden bullets, starting a full-blown revolt against the peaceful vampires. The shoot-outs and horse chases are fun at first but do start to go on a little too long before the end.

Ultimately, what really ends up saving “Sundown” is a colorful cast. Bruce Campbell plays Van Helsing as a constantly frustrated nerd, whose reactions get increasingly oversized as the movie goes on. In other words, it's the kind of hammy goofiness we expect from Bruce. David Carradine plays Mardulak, especially having fun gunslinging at the end or giving an impassionate speech to the village. M. Emmet Walsh steals a few scenes as Mort, the grouchy vampire who runs the gas station, while John Ireland makes for a decent villain as Jefferson. “Twin Peaks'” Dana Ashbrooke, George “Buck” Flower, and Sunshine Parker also appear. It's a good thing the supporting cast is so colorful, as the principal players are extremely bland. Maxwell Caulfield is totally unconvincing as an antagonist, playing Shane as a petulant bully. Jim Metzler isn't much better as David, his bruised masculine ego making him seem especially wimpy. 

Like Hickox's other movies, “Sundown” also feels like a weird fusion of kid-friendly nonsense and edgier material. One of the daughters is a budding monster kid and the two girls get into some mischievous adventures. This co-exists alongside dialogue about orgasms, an attempted sexual assault, cocaine jokes, and an on-screen decapitation. The result is a movie that probably could've been a lot of fun, in the hands of a director that could focus on one element for more than ten minutes. In the hands of hyperactive Hickox, “The Vampire in Retreat” has a handful of amusing moments packed inside an incredibly uneven mold. In the canon of late eighties/early nineties horror/comedies set in the desert, it ranks far below “Tremors” and “Highway to Hell.” Fans of Campbell and Carradine should, at the very least, watch their scenes. The movie's box office failure is what officially killed Vestron. It surely wasn't worth that but I don't regret watching the whole thing either. [6/10]

One Step Beyond: The Confession

By the second half of the third season of “One Step Beyond,” host/creator John Newland felt like the show was running out of supposedly true stories of the paranormal to dramatize. This prompted a move to England, where the program would recruit a number of faces familiar to genre fans. Such as in “The Confession.” It tells the story of former barrister Harvey Lawrence, who rants everyday in Hyde Park. On the eve of his appointment to judgehood, Lawrence presented evidence that condemned a man to the gallows. The night before, a woman claiming to be the supposedly murdered wife appeared to Lawrence and left her handwriting on a piece of paper. Eager to confirm his judge's robes, Harvey went ahead with the conviction anyway. That is when the paper proving he sentenced an innocent man to death begins to follow him everywhere.

Despite Newland's claim that every episode of “One Step Beyond” was thoroughly researched, the series depicted folk tales and urban legends more often than not. “The Confession” certainly feels like the kind of ghost story that has circulated over the years. A haughty man, in pursuit of advancing his professional standing, dooms an innocent to death. He is then punished for his crime by supernatural intervention, eventually robbed of his high status in life and his sanity. As if “The Confession” could be any more archetypal, it also features Harvey Lawrence's hair going white from the shock of these events. This is a classical structure, of otherworldly forces spreading out justice that the real world so often evades. Like all myths, it brings with it a moral message: Never put your own glory before the truth. 

This makes “The Confession” essentially another variation on “The Tell Tale Heart,” the inescapable letter clinging to the barrister being a manifestation of his own guilt. What really makes this episode worth seeking out is that it stars Donald Pleasence. In his early scenes, Pleasence plays the barrister as a totally reasonable man. When confronted with the facts, he logically burns the evidence. As the note drifts back to him each time, he slowly starts to loose his mind. This climaxes in a wonderfully entertaining scene, where Pleasence wanders the courtroom and is haunted by the echoes of the trial. Few actors were as gifted as depicting a seemingly stately authority figure cracking up into raving madness as well as Pleasence. This episode is as low budget and static as any “One Step Beyond.” By this point in the series' life, at least Newman had finally develop some panache as a host. His final line seals the deal. Still, I wonder if this show might have made a bigger impact on pop culture if something with a real flair for the dramatic, like Pleasence, had been its host... [7/10]

The Addams Family: The Addams Family Goes to School

Over the previous two Halloween marathons, I watched and reviewed the original run of “The Munsters.” Of course, Herman and Lily’s brood were not America’s First Family of Fright. The creators of “The Munsters” would eventually admit that the show was an imitator of “The Addams Family.” Charles Addams’ macabre, grotesque, yet strangely wholesome illustrations had been appearing in The New Yorker since the thirties. In the early sixties, NBC executive David Levy approached Addams about transforming his strips into a television series. Debuting in 1963, this program would give “The Addams Family” their names and further define their personalities. With its insanely catchy theme song, the series would make Gomez and the gang pop culture icons, resurrected in various forms over the decades. I’m very familiar with later iterations of the Addamses, growing up loving Barry Sonnenfeld’s two feature film adaptation. However, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve only seen a little bit of the original show. Well, after conquering the “Munsters,” I think it’s time I take a deep dive into the original morbid sitcom.

The debut episode, “The Addams Family Goes to School,” begins with truant officer Mr. Hiliard visiting the titular family’s home. He informs them that their children, Wednesday and Pugsley, have never attended a single day of school. Hiliard is introduced – and quickly horrified – by the family’s macabre habits. Nevertheless, the visit does encourage Gomez and Morticia to enroll their children at a local school. After her first day there, Wednesday returns home, crying. A story about a knight slaying a dragon upset her… Because the dragon died. Concerned about what their kids are being taught, Gomez and Morticia confront Mr. Hiliard back to their house, where he’s typically terrorized again.

“The Addams Family Goes to School” has a really smart structure for a first episode. By following a quote-unquote “normal” person into the Addams’ household, we get an introduction to every character and their world. Key characteristics for each member of the family are established right away. Gomez loves crashing his toy trains. Morticia is usually in her garden of headless roses and strangling plants. Wednesday carries her headless Marie Antoinette doll around and raises spiders, while Pugsley is fond of his pet octopus. Towering, droning Lurch is always summoned by ringing a thunderous gong. Uncle Fester and Grandmama pass the time by playing “darts” – tossing knives – and other games. Later, we see Fester’s light bulb trick. Upon entering the Addams home, Hiliard gasps at the unorthodox decorations, shown to the audience in quick succession. Basically, from the very first episode, “The Addams Family” had a keen idea of who these characters were. All the trademarks are in place, right from the beginning.

The primary jokes of “The Munsters” were the family of monsters loving spooky, creepy things usually loathed by average people and the normals reacting in shock to the family’s habit. “The Addams Family” has plenty of this too. Any time Gomez or Morticia mentioned something typically thought of as ghastly – spider and lizard cookies or a visit to the rack – it’s soon to be quickly followed by a positive rejoinder. Meanwhile, the episode concludes with a rapid-fire series of gags of Hiliard getting shocked by more morbid assumptions. However, the writing is a little sharper at times too. The trappings of the home are more surreal, such as a painting of a giraffe in a tux or a sweater with three arms. There’s a fantastic gag of Hiliard walking into a closet, when he meant to leave a room. Gomez’ enthusiastic conversation about torture methods with a school secretary shows normal people can relate to the Addams too. It’s not cutting edge humor but it’s a reliable source of comedy nevertheless.

“The Addams Family Goes to School” further establishes its iconic characters by showing off a cast born to play these roles. John Astin’s mischievous grins, unhinged eyes, and way with quick one-liners immediately shows what a manic, eccentric character this is. His wild energy is balanced out by Carolyn Jones as Morticia, whose soft sensuality and maternal warmth contrasts with the character’s gothic trappings. The two have such an immediate chemistry, the obvious love and passion the characters have for one another leaping off the screen. Ted Cassidy’s Lurch is a fabulously stiff straight man. Lisa Loring’s Wednesday is a bright-eyed, adorable little girl who also loves the macabre. It might take me a while to warm up to screechy voiced Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester, though I do like the scene of him with a pet lizard. In other words, “The Addams Family” gets off to a good start with an amusing debut that packs in the jokes. [7/10]

Halloween 2023: October 24th

It Lives Inside (2023)

I've been talking up A24 a lot this season, which is not surprising. They are, by far, the most talked-about and hotly debated studio and distributor among the Film Twitter/Letterboxd crowd. But they aren't the only game in town, as far as aggressively hip indie studios go. Neon, especially since “Parasite” won all those Oscars, has been gaining more and more heat. The studio has never backed down from horror releases either, having distributed “Titane,” “Possessor,” and “The Lodge.” Having become smart Oscar campaigners, Neon's reach has gotten wider, allowing them to put weird shit like “Infinity Pool” and “Crimes of the Future” in multiplexes. Probably the studio's most blatant attempt to court horror fans came this past September with “It Lives Inside.” 

Samidha is the teenage daughter of Poorna, who is a devout Hindi. She often braces against her mother's faith and traditions, working hard to become more Americanized. This includes discarding her former best friend, Tamira. Since they've been apart, Tamira has become more withdrawn and begun behaving strangely. She's obsessed with a strange jar she carries everywhere. One day at school, Tamira asks for Samidha's help. In response, Sam smashes the jar. This unleashes the spirit that lives inside, the sanity-destroying and flesh eating demon from Hindi lore known as the Pishach. Sam doesn't believe at first but, as the otherworldly entity targets her and her family more, she soon realizes she has to stand up to the spirit. 

In many ways, “It Lives Inside” has all the hallmark of a modern “elevated” horror movie. The film has the brooding sound design and overcast visuals we associate with the style. Moreover, it foregrounds its subtext, leaving the audience little doubt in what this movie is really about. Samidha rejects the traditional racial and religious identity of her parents. She barely speaks Hindi. She doesn't wear the clothes and dismisses the holidays and rituals. Even shortening her name to “Sam” is a sign of how much she wants to integrate with secular culture. By fighting off a demon from Hindu mythology, Sam will become closer to her mother, to Tamira, and to her own culture. This marks “It Lives Inside” as a clear motion picture about the question of assimilation that faces all immigrants coming to a new country. 

Yet this is hardly a maudlin drama that simply sneaks in a few scares. “It Lives Inside” is very committed to scaring the shit out of the audience. Writer/director Bishal Dutta tries multiple techniques to make us jump out of our seats. The sinister soundscape builds and builds, until someone is attacked by some horrible, unseen force. Clearly influenced by “The Babadook” and “Hereditary,” the film delights in yanking people violently through rooms, down stairs, or into glass display cases. There are intense nightmare sequences, where Sam's skin boils and pops, and a creaking, body contortionist ghoul. While its PG-13 rating keeps “It Lives Inside” from getting too gory, scenes where a swing set turns deadly or a body levitates through the air feature some surprisingly visceral violence. In its last act, “It Lives Inside” even becomes a a straight-up monster movie, the Pishach assuming a toothy and slimy physical form.

While many films come off as trite for following trends so closely, “It Lives Inside” manages to be consistently scary. Perhaps that's because the movie gets the most important thing right: We care about the characters. Megan Suri, as Samidha, and Neeru Bajwa, as Poorna, have a difficult path ahead of them. Both are characters that are, on the surface, unlikable. Sam is a testy teenager, who pushes her friends away. All the supernatural shit that happens is her fault, as one act of cruelty from her unleashes the demon. Poorna, meanwhile, is a stiff mother who argues a lot with her daughter. Yet both performances ground each character, so that you understand where they are coming from. We get invested in their relationship quickly, so watching Suri and Bajwa grow closer again is rewarding. 

In other words, I was surprised by how much “It Lives Inside” worked for me. Dutta lists “A Nightmare on Elm Street” as an influence, which you can clearly dictate here. Like that film, Dutta links his horror with generational divides but isn't pretentious about it. That makes this one quite a bit more likable and accessible than many films that have followed in Jennifer Kent, Jordan Peele, and Ari Aster's wake. This one seems to have received fairly divisive reviews, so maybe I'm the odd one out here. Still, I found a lot to like in this fusion of standard horror movie tactics and weightier issues. [7/10]

Circus of Horror (1960)

After being thoroughly impressed with “Night of the Eagle” earlier in the Halloween season, I decided to give one of director Sidney Hayes'  earlier horror films a look. Much like “Night of the Eagle,” “Circus of Horror” was made for Anglo-Amalgamated. The film was an attempt to replicate the box office success of their earlier hit, “Horrors of the Black Museum.” A circus setting was decided on early on, another example of contrasting the safe thrills and jolly entertainment of the big top with grislier terrors. Or maybe it's just because circuses are naturally, weird, creepy places. Either way, the result would be, much like “Black Museum,” another odd fusion of campier elements with harder edged, proto-slasher-like violence.

Shortly after the end of World War II, plastic surgeon Dr. Rossiter botches a surgery on a rich woman named Evelyn Morley, leaving her hideously deformed. Getting into a car wreck, Rossiter has his own face altered. He flees the country with his assistants, Angela and Martin, and arrives at Valet's Circus, a on-the-verge of failure circus in France. After performing reconstructive surgery on the circus owner's scarred face, Rossiter watches Valet get killed by a bear. Assuming the identity of Dr. Schuler, Rossiter takes control of the circus. He fills the performers with deformed criminals, whose faces he changes and he blackmails into working for him. Rossiter murders the beautiful women working in the circus after they reject him, blaming it on accidents in the circus. A crime reporter investigates. 

Anglo-Amalgamated's horror films always struck me as a blatant attempt to emulate the formula that made Hammer such a sensation. Instead of focusing on replicating the gothic settings, the way Tigon did, Anglo-Amalgamated went the more direct route: Pack their movies full of flesh and blood. A graphic neck stabbing, part of a knife-throwing performance being sabotaged, and a mauling from a lion show a surprisingly amount of blood for 1960. Even then, the main focus does seem to be parading as many scantily clad women around as possible. Erika Remberg appears as a scarred hooker who murders her johns, introduced with the camera focusing on her thighs and cleavage first. She later has a shower scene. Vanda Hudson, as the horse riding daredevil, gets a prominent scene where she's just wearing her undergarments. Yvonne Romain, of “Curse of the Werewolf,” is the last babe in little clothing that gets introduced. Yvonne Montaur, as the virginal heroine, also parades around in some tight, low-cut outfits. This really seems like a movie made to showcase beautiful women.

Aside from its focus on violent deaths, “Horrors of the Black Museum” was notable for its largely amoral tone. Michael Gough's scheming serial killer was more-or-less the film's protagonist. This trend also continues in “Circus of Horrors.” The film has a good guy, of sorts, in the form of the crime reporter who enters the story and romances Montaur. Yet most of the movie remains focused on Dr. Schuler. He torments Angela and Martin, blackmailing them into staying on. He does much the same to everyone else around him, constantly reminding Remberg of her troubled past. The mad surgeon's obsession with the various beauties that wander in and out of the circus is what actually motivates the plot. This isn't a mystery about stopping the bad guy, it's about watching the bad guy be a son-of-a-bitch to those around him. This creates a decidedly depraved atmosphere, centered around Anton Diffring's performance.

Ultimately, however, “Circus of Horrors” is not as focused as “Horrors of the Black Museum.” The larger cast means the film splits time between multiple characters, most of them never getting much time to be developed. Romain's character is especially notable for how she enters the plot in the second half and takes over a thread previously occupied by another character. It's strange to me that the mad plastic surgeon element of the plot never really connects with the circus setting. Why would a surgeon take over a circus? Why would his reformed patients suddenly develop talents they can perform in the three rings? It feels like two ideas – an “Eyes Without a Face” style story of a mad surgeon and a circus-set horror movie – where mashed together despite not having much to do with each other.

Desptie being heavily uneven, “Circus of Horror” does have its moments. Donald Pleasence appears in the first act, with a preposterous French accent and gets to dance with a bear. (Or, rather, an actor in an unconvincing bear suit.) Later, Differing is chased by a big goofy gorilla, a scene I was really hoping would build to a bigger moment. The make-up used to create the various facial deformities are all quite vivid and well-done. Still, this one was a bit of a disappointment. None of the atmospheric direction or psychological intrigue that made “Night of the Eagle” so good is present here. If you're in the mood for a proto-slasher set in a circus, you're probably better off with watching “Berserk!” Or a later Anglo-Amalgamated production, the similarly named krimi “Circus of Fear.” [6/10]

Room 104: Itchy

The Duplass Brothers' “Room 104” has to have one of the best, most versatile premises for an anthology show I've ever seen. I've especially enjoyed the horror centric episodes. I was attracted to “Itchy” because it revolves around a young man dealing with a nasty skin condition. As someone who has struggled with psoriasis since my teenage years, I was intrigued. The episode follows Craig, whose skin is covered with pulsating sores due to an unknown condition. On the advice of his dermatologist, Dr. Blake, he's staying in a hotel for a weekend, never wearing any clothes, removing the bedding, and taking frequent baths. Craig sends video messages to Dr. Blake, growing more desperate as the weekend goes on and his skin gets worst. In trying to get to the source of his condition, he discovers something shocking about his past. 

“Itchy” was directed by Patrick Brice, who also made the “Creep” films for the Duplass Brothers. Much like those films, this episode is presented in a found footage format, playing out as videos Craig sends to his doctor. Another thing “Itchy” has in common with the “Creep” duology is mining uneasiness from the question of how unstable exactly the protagonist is. Craig, at first glance, just seems to be sick, his long time skin issues taking a toll on his mental health. However, actor Arturo Castro has a squirrelly quality from the first scene that makes the viewer slightly uncomfortable. The fact that he's naked the whole episode contributes to this mood. His monologues grows increasingly nervous and shaky as the story progresses, really leaving the viewer to wonder how unwell this guy is. Especially once he starts talking about being abducted by aliens. 

That last point is a good example of how “Room 104” can repeatedly catch you off-guard. Since the format of the show are so loose – any story can happen in Room 104, as long as it stays in Room 104 – you're never entirely sure we're this is going. Yet “Itchy' is not so much about psychological horror. Instead, body horror is the focus here. The moment where Craig leaps into a bathtub he's filled with bleach, only to immediately leap out while shrieking in pain, is rather bracing. Especially as we see his sores growing and bubbling on-camera afterwards. The make-up here is excellent, seeming like a very realistic skin condition, just an especially bad one. The ending goes to even weirder, more visceral places. Which admittedly caught me off-guard, though some mediocre digital effects during the climax ends things on a bit of a sour note. Still, there is certainly some squirmy thrills to be had with “Itchy.” [7/10]

Voodoo (1999)

After Ke Huy Quan won his Oscar earlier this year, it emerged that the former Short Round also produced a short horror movie when he was in film school. That would be “Voodoo,” which was also the directorial debut of Gregg Bishop, who would go on to make “Dance of the Dead.” The black-and-white, nearly dialogue-free short follows a man who comes to a woman's house for a hot date. He likes what he sees and the woman seems into him too. Her young daughter has different plans though. She creates a voodoo doll and attaches a photo of the man's face to its head. She then proceeds to abuse the doll, causing the man to make a horrible mess of the date. He finds a way to get his revenge though.

“Voodoo” is a simple enough premise. It's devoted to a guy going through all sorts of exaggerated abuse, at the hands of a sadistic little girl. The resulting shenanigans show a creative mind at work here. The voodoo doll is stuck with pins and shoved in a microwave. The doll also causes the man to slap his date or fall flat on his face. Cory Rouse, as the man, has a really expressive face and a keen sense of physical timing. This makes him a good choice for a character who gets put through the physical wringer like this. “Voodoo” is essentially a live-action cartoon, its camera movements and angles working in a similar over-the-top fashion. That tone continues through to the final moment, which is a hilariously twisted note to end on. You can definitely see some of the same energy that Bishop would bring to his later films here. [7/10]