"sometimes it feels like i've got a war in my mind
i want to get off, but i keep riding the ride
i never really noticed that i had to decide
to play someone's game, or live my own life"
"i don't belong in the world, that's what it is
something separates me from other people
everywhere i turn, there's something blocking my escape"
"it's not easy for me to talk about
i have heavy heart strings
and not simple, it's trigonometry
it's hard to express
i can't explain
ever since my baby went away
it's been the blackest day"
lana del rey - get free, 13 beaches, blackest day
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Horror Movies I watched: September 2023
Final bunch until I start my real big annual marathon! Here we go!
Night of the Demon (1957) So this is where the plots we've seen popularized in ones the Wicker Man and Drag Me to Hell came from. Personally, I prefer those, but probably because they were made in a time audiences could handle the leading man losing. Most of this movie is this smug know-it-all jackass mocking people for their religious beliefs pretty much. I'll admit, his final gambit to switch the curse back onto the main villain was a maneuver that would make Columbo proud. Though I still don't know what Karswell's whole plan outside of his demon hitman was.
Speaking of which, as iconic as that design is, it hasn't aged too well. The far away shot is the stiffest puppet ever seen, and even the closeup shot is...honestly, adorable. The most effective shot of it is near the end when it's tearing apart it's last victim. The claws not withstanding, it's head is in darkness with it's eyes glowing and you actually see the tearing even from a distance.
Though that was probably the key to it being one of the more effective horror films of the decade. Most times, the monster has to die or reveal to be secretly good. This is a demon, with no good bone in it's body, and it "gets away". Sure, the only real punishment it could've gotten is being chased away by a priest or an angel or such, but even that doesn't happen here. The devil is real. Demons are real. We might've escaped them this time. But by our own wit, not God's. If He is even real.
Side note, if I knew there was a Halloween party in this, I would've waited. Eh, close enough.
Christine (1983) It's surreal watching this after Halloween Ends. Sure, I think I've seen reviews saying that movie felt more like a remake of this movie plotwise. But now I see what they mean. Granted, the themes were handled with a bit more nuance in that film. I don't know; it's weird seeing a sequel to John Carpenter's most famous movie is used as a "backdoor remake" for one of his lesser known ones. It's at least a more interesting idea to handle a Halloween movie then a lot of the previous ones.
As for this movie; I never liked the 1950s. Even before and without knowing the awful political, racist, sexist shite that happened during it, I thought the aesthetics associated with it (cars, fashion, music, attitude, etc.) were the ugliest of any decade in the 20th century. Good ole days, my ass! The amount of similarities and homages to it in the 1980s were strikes against that decade too for me, in a weird guilt-by-association way. So it's oddly comforting that during a time where people, all the way up to the white house, were thinking "boy, don't you wish we could go back to such a time?", Both Carpenter and Stephen King made works that were responses in the fashion of "No! What are you, crazy?!"
But yeah, this does feel to me one of Carpenter's lesser efforts, not surprising since he practically saw it as a work for hire. It's a pretty typical King story, given a Carpenter coat of paint. I wonder if King gave him shit for being the second director of one of his adaptations that didn't redeem it's main character at the end. You wouldn't think the directors of book adaptations would make them more cynical then the produced-for-less-people source material.
Relic (2020) This film needs to be studied. by film scholars and then by students in film schools. It established a threat, a horror, that is unique to this movie, but you can follow what it's supposed to symbolize, and get a good handle on what it's doing in-universe to the grandmother. All without a single line of dialogue of exposition!
I really am so tired of films expecting to explain every weird thing in it, that I'm starting to love it whenever one just trusts you enough to get it and not raise arms about the small details that don't actually make or break a story. This is why the past few years have been seen as a golden age of the genre. It trusts us.
Another sidebar. Houses that turn into a magical maze that keeps you trapped might be one of my new fascinations. Simple, but super effective. I've seen it before in Grave Encounters, I heard it's in House of Leaves, which is on my reading list. It doesn't scare me, but I find oddly captivating. Got to try and figure out why.
Crawl (2019) If I covered Alligator, I'm going to have to cover this one. Though there's not much to say. A half hour of building mystery and tension, then once the gators literally explode onto screen, it's about surviving them and surviving them only and then credits. Not sure those many regular gators would have that strong a hankering for human flesh but whatever. Credit where credit's due, this movie made me jump the most out of any in recent memory. So it pretty much succeeded in it's main mission. Also, happy the dog made it, but it must've been miserable being wet for like 90% of the shoot.
Swallow (2019) Well this is new; body horror being the lesser of two evils. Hell of a pro choice message; "I'd literally feel safer putting anything else in my body". Many uncomfortable moments throughout, not all of them involving what she put in her mouth (though that freaking push pin!). Honestly, it's great to see a movie commits to that even the most egregious of supposed attention-seeking self harm is a symptom of a much larger problem. And that a film can be feminist and violent while actually looking pretty feminine. Though you probably all know that. We've all seen Barbie at this point.
I'm also watching Hot Fuzz. I'm not going to count it but I am watching Shaun of the Dead next month so I might mention it there.
Next month is the big one. Wish me luck and stay safe!
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