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nickarmstrongfilm · 6 years

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OCTOBER 2018: AN EXERCISE IN EXCESS & A HORROR DIARY

Carrie (dir. Brian De Palma, 1976)*

The Rage: Carrie 2 (dir. Katt Shea, 1999)

Duel (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1971)

Pulse (dir. Jim Sonzero, 2006)* For all intents and purposes, I don’t think this movie was at all necessary — what Kurosawa pulled off with the original Pulse was nothing short of miraculous in its terror, melancholy and study of society… but I must admit that the idea of a group of people watching that film and translating it into a mid-2000s American tech-horror movie (aesthetic and all) is highly appealing to me. It’s fun! It’s dumb! Kiyoshi already mastered it so I can’t really get mad at this.

Daphne & Velma (dir. Suzi Yoonessi, 2018) Wholesome live-action Scooby-Doo spinoff with women at the helm, and is about as fun and nostalgic as anything I’ve seen related to Scooby-Doo. Lots of Halloween-y fun!

Captain Voyeur (dir. John Carpenter, 1969) Had been dying to get my hands on this for a long time, so it was lots of fun to finally see it (and complete Carpenter’s filmography!). It’s short and slight and very noticeably Carpenter. He improves on all aspects of this in his amazing career, but this is an inspiring artifact nonetheless.

The Crazies (dir. George A. Romero, 1973)

Something Evil (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1972)

Tales from the Hood (dir. Rusty Cundieff, 1995)*

Uncle Sam (dir. William Lustig, 1996) Anti-American slasher where the villain is a zombie soldier named Sam who dresses up as *the* Uncle Sam. I think that is praise enough.

Hell Fest (dir. Gregory Plotkin, 2018) This one has really grown on me over the month, especially as it inspired me to rewatch The Funhouse, which in turn inspired me the finally read the novelization of The Funhouse by Dean Koontz. As much as I was initially underwhelmed and annoyed by certain aspects of the film, the concept is terrific and it really plays into the uncertainty of the theme park’s dangers for impressively long stretches of time. Mostly dumb but also very fun.

Tales from the Hood 2 (dir. Rusty Cundieff & Darin Scott, 2018) Not even close to as impactful or consistent as the original, and my fear that this was co-directed by Cundieff and co-writer of the original Darin Scott actually turned out to be reasonable, because the two segments he directed are noticeably worse, but it remains passionate and blunt in its manipulation of genre tropes to suit the subject matter. Keith David murders it in the wraparound, and the closing short “The Sacrifice” is deeply powerful.

Stay Alive (dir. William Brent Bell, 2006)

Slice (dir. Austin Vesely, 2018)

Drag Me to Hell (dir. Sam Raimi, 2009)*

The Vagrant (dir. Chris Walas, 1992)

Venom (dir. Ruben Fleischer, 2018)

Dracula 3D (dir. Dario Argento, 2012) Argento’s rendition of the age-old Dracula tale is the umpteenth adaptation of the story, and while it doesn’t appear to make many changes to the narrative, I have to give credit to his formal experimentation — it strikes me as an admirable case of retrofuturism, as he uses the most modern digital filmmaking (I would love to see this in actual 3D) to tell one of the oldest tales imaginable. Lots to discover here, I think, but I really liked it!

Sleepwalkers (dir. Mick Garris, 1992)

The Black Cat (dir. Edward G. Ulmer, 1934)

Parasomnia (dir. William Malone, 2008) William Malone is one of the most underrated figures in horror, and while I can’t fully get behind this one — frankly, I’m unsure of whether it criticizes or endorses its imbecilic male character, who fetishizes a “sleeping beauty” — but his highly unique, Kiyoshi Kurosawa-esque aesthetic shines through in many moments, notably its dream sequences.

Hellraiser (dir. Clive Barker, 1987)*

Crazy As Hell (dir. Eriq La Salle, 2002) Kind of overlong, but cut down it could be a very serviceable series of predictable twists and turns that examine ethics in journalism and hospital institutions.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (dir. Tony Randel, 1988)

Sorority House Massacre (dir. Carol Frank, 1986) Understandable to be deemed a Halloween ripoff, but it places a deeper focus on friendships and beats the rest of the Halloween series to a sense of psychic kinship which pushes this above being a fairly standard slasher. This is fun!

Soft for Digging (dir. J.T. Petty, 2001) I often think about, from experience, how making your student film silent is a smart but played-out trick to make it feel less cheap… nothing about this really sticks with me, but its lead performance is compelling and the atmosphere is strong at times.

Ganja & Hess (dir. Bill Gunn, 1973)* Just one of the greatest American films of all time, such a layered and nuanced take on the vampire subgenre. I don’t know what else to write except that Bill Gunn was one of the great filmmakers of all time.

Scary Movie 5 (dir. Malcolm D. Lee, 2013) Inarguably the least offensive of the series (a flawed series that I happen to love) and a very pure, frequently funny parody that director Malcolm D. Lee brings a whole lot to — and is as quietly incisive about the genre as some of the best entries are. The best one since the Wayans left.

Bones (dir. Ernest R. Dickerson, 2001)*

J.D.’s Revenge (dir. Arthur Marks, 1976)

We’re Going to Eat You (dir. Tsui Hark, 1980)

Ghost in the Machine (dir. Rachel Talalay, 1993) Incredible technology-focused Nightmare on Elm Street/Shocker hybrid made by the woman responsible for one of the very best Elm Streets. The effects, both practical and digital, are stunning in their own ways, and it’s just so much fun!

Aftershock (dir. Nicolás López, 2012) This feels like exactly how people see Roth’s Hostel, which makes me wonder why he’d take part in this. It is essentially a dumb version of the very smart film he made — which people consistently said was dumb — and he plays one of the assholes in it. This movie is unbearable.

The Funhouse (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1981)* Such an incredible extension of what Hooper examines in his essential Texas Chain Saw Massacre, replacing stumbling into backwoods America with a travelling version of the same horrors. Watching this made me miss writing about Hooper, because each of his works perfects and furthers everything he’s once done. An incredible film that is perhaps the ultimate in self-reflexivity within horror, and one of Hooper’s absolute best.

My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (dir. Johnnie To & Wai Ka-Fai, 2002)

Cat People (dir. Paul Schrader, 1982)* To my mind, this and Tourneur’s original are hard to compare because they perfectly fill each other in — Schrader’s lurid remake dares to show all that Tourneur couldn’t and wouldn’t 40 years later, which makes this a pretty ideal remake!

The Ambulance (dir. Larry Cohen, 1990) Another excellent entry in Cohen’s endeavor to turn the familiar into the horrifying, which I always appreciate as an attempt to alter the public’s perception of basic institutions. Very fun and intelligent.

Gothika (dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 2003) Not unlike this year’s terrific Unsane in its examination of how all institutions are run by the amoral, and how innocent people are manipulated, victimized and gaslit. Has that ‘00s horror aesthetic I love (this comes from Dark Castle Entertainment, whose horror output I find thoroughly underrated) complete with Limp Bizkit’s cover of Behind Blue Eyes playing over the credits. Underrated and relevant.

Dark Angel: The Ascent (dir. Linda Hassani, 1994) At once a wholesome rom-com, righteous horror picture and an intelligent take on theology.

Love Massacre (dir. Patrick Tam, 1981) This is deliberately barren visually, making the splashes of blue and red all the more powerful when they come — its constant manipulation of genre and colour mesh perfectly with its narrative of violence and entitlement. The only cut that exists has hardcoded white subtitles — in an already very white movie — but for the time being, it actually tends to add to its mystery and minimalism. A masterpiece.

Urban Menace (dir. Albert Pyun, 1999) I’ve never ever ever seen a movie that looks like this — it starts with our narrator (Ice-T, of course) ranting about Urban Renewal and warning our viewers that if you’re easily offended, this movie is decidedly *not for you*. It is not a particularly offensive movie though I would not argue if someone called it a visual atrocity. For argument’s sake, it is not exactly a horror movie, but its intense exposure gives it a very dreamy quality that actually makes it a lot scarier to watch. This movie is probably not good but I fucking love Albert Pyun and I can’t say that I wasn’t in awe of how this was made. Plus it is 1 hour long!

The Card Player (dir. Dario Argento, 2004) Argento’s most blatant satire, this feels like a lampoon of both typical procedurals, as well as the desensitization of the internet age. There aren’t many images in Argento’s oeuvre I like more than a group of police officers cheering and laughing at a game of blackjack with a video of a woman being tortured superimposed over it.

Halloween (dir. David Gordon Green, 2018)* This didn’t work as well for me on a rewatch outside of my first experience at TIFF (full of excitement and yelling) but many of my favorite aspects remain: Laurie’s turn to the typical American defense against trauma (which also manifests in a cat-and-mouse chase in a slasher-proof booby-trapped housed), as well as its use of the sequel’s timing to explore multi-generational trauma, but all of its best ideas are explored with far more character in both Carpenter and Zombie’s iterations.

Lisa, Lisa (dir. Frederick R. Friedel, 1974)

Leprechaun 4: In Space (dir. Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1996) Just the most incredibly off-the-hinges horror franchise there is, especially because the antagonist is anything but scary. I think that the “in space” moniker is the quintessential jump-the-shark move for a franchise, so as stupid and offensive as this movie gets, it truly feels like it is just out of the viewer’s hands and the only responsible thing to do is enjoy the increasingly absurd nature of the films (though I can’t imagine it gets wilder than this).

Leprechaun in the Hood (dir. Rob Spera, 2000) Not only not wild enough to distract me from its horrid nature, but deeply offensive and unexpectedly transphobic (as a major plot point). Not even worth recommending for Ice-T or the Leprechaun smoking weed and rapping.

Hotel (dir. Jessica Hausner, 2004)

Spontaneous Combustion (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1990)* Both Tobe’s superhero movie and his Sirk picture, filled to the brim with bright colors and melodrama that also functions as both a parody and indictment of 50′s paranoia. Another masterpiece from Hooper.

The Return of Swamp Thing (dir. Jim Wynorski, 1989) I love Swamp Thing!! I don’t like this quite as much as Craven’s comic-book gothic romance, but it does lean further into comic-book stylings, and is filled with color and explosions and melodrama!

Chiller (dir. Wes Craven, 1985)

Kaun? (dir. Ram Gopal Varma, 1999) Varma’s use of setting here is so major, eliciting fear and obscurity almost exclusively through camera movements and narrative control. One of the spookiest, most subversive home invasion films I’ve seen (particularly in its exploration of power within the genre). I need to see more Varma.

Fright House (dir. Len Anthony, 1989) Makes absolutely no sense but Ernest Dickerson shoots the heck out of it and in terms of October vibes, it really does the trick.

Faust (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1926)

Reflections of Evil (dir. Damon Packard, 2002) One of the most disgusting and confounding films I’ve ever seen, but how Packard explores the political climates of several different decades, pop culture and capitalism almost exclusively through one man’s foul-mouthed adventures walking through L.A. selling watches is inspiring, especially in its dazzling final sequence. It also explores Spielberg’s immeasurable effect on culture in a way similar to house Spielberg does himself in Ready Player One.

Christine (dir. John Carpenter, 1983)*

Torso (dir. Sergio Martino, 1973)

Scream (dir. Wes Craven, 1996)*

Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)*

Nightmare Detective (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto, 2006)

Student Bodies (dir. Mickey Rose, 1981)

Giallo (dir. Dario Argento, 2009) I’m so consistently amazed with how self-reflexive horror auteurs get later on in their careers, as well as by how unwilling audiences who praise their early work are to buy into said work. To hyper-focus on this film’s aesthetic as generic and its violence gratuitous (and the same goes for 2004’s THE CARD PLAYER) is ignoring how painstakingly Argento wrestles with a genre he revolutionized. I mean, our antagonist here is a entitled man who sexualizes violence and whose skin has gone yellow in order to justify his namesake being that of said genre, how much more does he have to spell it out before he can be given credit (instead of using this as an opportunity to, say, jab at Argento for a negative review of the film by saying he is “yellowing with age”, Fangoria…….). Of course, I don’t mean to discredit the film by simplifying it in such a way but that Argento was this obvious in his attempt to self-reflect, it becomes especially evident that he, nor the genre, are taken seriously. I particularly think that this progresses the genre in its equal pathologizing of both parties of its cat-and-mouse game (both portrayed by Brody), ultimately sparing its victim in the end but leaving the originator of her trauma relatively ambiguous. At once, it is obvious that the character Giallo is to blame for his horrific violence, but it never takes the magnifying glass off of the detective character either, nor off of the giallo genre itself. I need to revisit some early Argento because I remember appreciating them for their craft and innovation, but that was much easier to do in the 70s (with regards to the subject matter of other films, at least). What he experiments with in his post-2000 work, however, is even more fascinating to me and will need to be examined.

#horror #october #2018

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