Tag Archives: Halloween

Happy Halloween! My favorite scary flicks

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It’s that time of year again. My favorite holiday is here, and while I won’t be partaking in any costumed revelry this year (I’ll be working late at the office, ho hum), I still manage to get excited by All Hallows Eve. Well, maybe not as excited as I used to get as a child, but I’m definitely more into the whole Halloween thing than a certain French cat.

To honor this spookiest of days, here are my top five scary movies. What are some of yours?

1. Psycho (1960)

While it might be 52 years old, Alfred Hitchcock’s horror masterwork stands the test of time as one of the most elegantly constructed films in the genre. From killing the leading lady less than halfway through the film during that infamous shower scene, to Bernard Herrmann’s oft-imitated score, to Anthony Perkins’ not-so-nice All-American boy next door with a major Oedipal complex, the film never ceases to keep me at the edge of my seat. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen the film. It’s a true original (please, oh please forget Gus Van Sant’s shot-by-shot remake), and will certainly remain on the minds of moviegoers and cinephiles for years to come. And it keeps spawning new iterations, just check out Anthony Hopkins playing the Master of Suspense in the upcoming Hitchcock.

2. Don’t Look Now (1973)

Right from its first scene, Nicolas Roeg’s beautiful fever-dream of a film is an unsettling, sensual fantasia to parental guilt, love, and primal fear. It features two honest and searing performances by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as a couple coming to terms with an unspeakable loss and unknown threat that at first seems based in the supernatural, but turns out to be very much rooted in the darker regions of a reality neither character wants to fully address.

3. The Exorcist (1973)

There’s not much I can add about this film that hasn’t been written about countless times. It’s one of the closest things one can get to a perfect horror film. It mixes the shock of Psycho with the psychological dread of Don’t Look Now, and seems to get only more unsettling upon each successive viewing. The performances are excellent, William Friedkin directs with complete command of all his cinematic tools, and cinematographer Owen Roizman lights the film in cool, moody blues. In many ways, much of the film’s success can be attributed to its screenwriter, William Peter Blatty, who adapted his own novel for the screen and added new emotional dimensions to his characters. Beyond the projectile vomit, and head-spinning scares, Blatty infuses the story with the kinds of tensions that make for the best, and most unsettling, domestic dramas.

4. Alien (1979)

Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film remains the best in the Alien franchise. While James Cameron’s sequel provided a fun escapist adventure film, and Scott’s own prequel, Prometheus, attempted to broaden out the franchise’s cinematic universe, it is this film that remains the most effective. While many say the movie is a haunted house story in space, Alien is more than that. H.R. Giger’s sexualized creature designs and set constructions make the film something of a Freudian nightmare, as the crew of the space tanker, the Nostromo, is picked off one-by-one by the mysterious phallic creature. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is the only one left, vanquishing the monster, but left all alone in the black void of space, with just her cat as a companion. The titular monster is one of the most horrific ever depicted on screen, and Scott’s sure-handed direction makes it more than just quick thrills –– it’s a film that stays with you long after it’s done.

5. The Shining (1980)

Stephen King famously declared that he was unhappy with Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic take on his novel. While it is different from the book and seems to function mostly as a showcase for Jack Nicholson’s manic performance, the film is a fascinating examination into the breakdown of one man’s sanity, and what that does to the wife and son who suffer from his drift away from reality. Kubrick does a great job of making the Overlook Hotel a character in and of itself, as its dark and narrow halls open as passageways for the literal ghosts of its past who drive Jack to madness.

Almost made the cut:

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Misery (1990)
The Others (2001)
The Wicker Man (1973), not the Nicolas Cage remake…even though that was kind of horrifying for different reasons.

Halloweekend Review: Misery, a chilling adaptation of a Stephen King classic

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Here’s my second Halloweekend review! I’ve been kind of slow posting these, but Happy Halloween!!

Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates in her Oscar-winning role) tells romance author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) “I’m your number one fan” often throughout Rob Reiner’s 1990 film version of Stephen King’s Misery. She utters the phrase with a certain exaggerated gleefulness, with her smile broadly creasing her face, eyebrows raised just slightly too high. Each detail is just a little bit off to give the viewer (and Sheldon) pause even early on before the film delves deeply into its horror/thriller roots. It is a testament to Bates’ talent that Wilkes comes across as entirely believable, even in moments that could have easily devolved into camp. Her Wilkes has something of a Jeckyll and Hyde persona –– she suppresses her inner darkness underneath the guise of a quiet and unassuming woman of faith and simplicity. A retired nurse, she lives alone on the Colorado farm she helped run with her former husband. It is a life of solitude and late nights watching T.V. game shows and reading Sheldon’s popular Misery novels. The novels are the kinds of escapist period romantic thrillers that one finds in grocery store aisles emblazoned with the face of Fabio on their covers.

The books are an escape for both Wilkes and Sheldon, but in completely opposite ways. While Wilkes follows the travails of her favorite literary heroine in order to escape her mundane life, Sheldon has used the books as a way to achieve fame and financial success at the expense of his own artistic passions. He is a writer who aspires to create something beyond pop confections for the masses, and the film opens with him telling literary agent, Marcia Sindell (Hollywood great, Lauren Bacall) that his latest Misery is his last. He killed off the heroine, and hopes to head off to his favorite Colorado retreat to work on his magnum opus.

It is obvious that Reiner takes his directorial cues from Stanley Kubrick’s own King adaptation, The Shining, as the camera follows Sheldon’s car through winding wintry roads a la that earlier film’s opening. Like that of Kubrick’s film, the tone Reiner chooses for Misery is ice cold. The wintry setting, ominous score, and tight, jarring closeups of Bates and Caan all owe a lot to the visual aesthetic of Kubrick’s work. What differentiates the two films is the audience’s ability to empathize with Sheldon’s torments. He is painted as sympathetic right from the beginning. As soon as his car veers off the road, and he is rescued by Wilkes and bandaged up, he is quickly established as a character to be pitied. While Jack Nicholson’s unhinged writer in The Shining is a character nearly impossible to root for, Sheldon is a man who immediately gains our sympathy.

The film is rather simplistic and claustrophobic in its staging. Much of the action is confined to Wilkes’ guest room, where Sheldon remains bedridden for the majority of the film, with his legs propped up and arm in a sling. Like watching two great actors go head-to-head in a stage play, it is fascinating to watch Bates and Caan interact while in the room. As Wilkes gradually shifts from helpful nurse, to overeager fan, to raging tyrant, to horrific monster, the camera often zooms in on Sheldon, with Caan’s facial responses to the woman’s erratic behavior doubling for the audience’s reactions to what is going on before their very eyes. A subplot involving Richard Farnsworth as a local sheriff bent on finding Sheldon, adds some much-needed heart to the film, but it is the main conflict happening at Wilke’s farmhouse that holds the viewer’s attention.

The film really shifts gears once Wilkes gets to the end of Sheldon’s latest book and realizes her beloved literary heroine is no more. Admiration turns to anger, and anger feeds into a desire for revenge, as Wilkes goes from willing caretaker to unforgiving tormentor. Sheldon faces unexpected torments, both physical and psychological (one of the worst for him: being forced to set fire to the manuscript of his latest novel) at the hands of Wilkes. During the scenes of torture, Bates is absolutely riveting, as Reiner’s unforgiving camera zooms in harshly on her face, revealing an emotionless void. Since the novels offered her only escape from an uninteresting world, she views Misery’s death as a fatal blow, and Sheldon must pay at all costs. In many of these scenes, Bates is funny, sometimes-touching, but consistently terrifying, chewing the scenery with screenwriter William Goldman’s darkly funny lines.

When not inflicting physical pain upon him, Wilkes forces Sheldon to continue writing Misery’s story. Soon, the film becomes something of a Frankenstein tale, as Sheldon resurrects Misery from a literary corpse, returning to the genre he thought he had long-since departed. At this point, the film becomes something of a cautionary tale for artists who allow their audiences to dictate too clearly what narratives they are supposed to tell. For Sheldon, once he allows Wilkes to influence his stories, he loses a bit of his soul. By the end of the film, it becomes a fight not for his own physical survival, but for his survival as an artist.

But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. The film might have higher artistic intentions, but at the end of the day it is a completely satisfying thriller in the vein of Hitchcock’s venerable Psycho. But instead of Norman Bates in a dress, we get Kathy Bates wielding a sledge hammer…which is definitely scarier.
My rating: ***

“I’m your number one fan!”

Halloweekend Review: 1981 werewolf flick is Howlingly campy

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Occasionally on this blog, I hope to return to my first journalistic love: writing film reviews. As a high school student, film criticism is what first attracted me to a career in writing and journalism, and once-in-awhile I hope to channel my inner Roger Ebert as I share What’s on My Mind. In the spirit of Halloween, I plan on sifting through my Netflix queue and watching and writing about both horror classics and frighteningly-bad flicks this weekend leading up to All Hallow’s Eve. So after reading my reviews, let me know if you agree with me, or if you think I’m way off base…

As Karen White (E.T. mom Dee Wallace) enters the lobby of a seedy adult film theater, some of the men waiting to head in quickly filter out. They look at her wide-eyed, quickly racing out of the building. It is an interesting moment early on in Joe Dante’s very-dated, yet iresistably-campy ’80s werewolf flick, The Howling. For the men in the theater, the pretty blond is a figure of horror more so than any member of the undead seen in most horror films –– she is a representative of the quiet, all-American homes the men are leaving behind as they enter the theater. Faintly lit by cinematographer John Hora, Karen is too delicate and pure to be soiled by the pornographic images featured in the entrance to the theater.

Karen looks around nervously, sweat beading on her forehead. She is equally as troubled about being in the theater as the men are, but in a different way. She is not embarrassed to be seen, but is instead terrified by the prospect of her imminent encounter with a very real monster. A successful television journalist, Karen is wired up and on a mission –– heading into the theater to expose Eddie, a serial killer who has been in contact with her. Connected to the police and her newsroom via radio transmission, Karen hopes to take down a murderer while at the same time boost her investigative journalist bona fides. But, as you can guess, something goes terribly wrong. As Karen enters the darkened theater, a deep voice growls her name. Instructing her not to turn around, Eddie can only be seen in shadow, his faint outline obscured against the glare of the film projector in the back of the room. Soon, Karen hears a strange noise behind her and turns around to see….well, the audience actually doesn’t get to see anything. Before too long, police officers are storming the theater, firing gun shots in Eddie’s direction. Blood spatters, something is heard scurrying away, and Karen slumps to the floor shaking.

The opening scene of The Howling is genuinely unsettling. From uncomfortable close-ups on Karen’s nervous face, images of a porn film depicting what could be construed as a rape flashing on the movie theater’s screen, and the sound of Eddie’s dark whisper of a voice, Dante establishes what promises to be an atmospheric urban horror film. Unfortunately, this does not last. Soon, Karen blanks out while on air, unable to recount exactly what she had seen in the theater. Frightening, disconnected images flood her dreams, and she seeks out the comfort of Dr. George Waggner, who suggests she visit his woodland retreat in the country to come to terms with her ordeal.

Once Karen and her husband Bill (Christopher Stone) head to Waggner’s retreat, the film veers in a different direction. The tightly-shot, moody imagery of the film’s first few moments is replaced by bright greens and picturesque images of nature as the couple head off to what looks like a cousin of Camp Crystal Lake. And like those of the teenage camp counselors who die off one by one in that woodland getaway from 1980′s Friday the 13th, Karen’s hopes of finding escape in the bucolic beauty of the woods are quickly replaced by fears of death.

During her first night there, Karen meets an assorted group of bizarre characters at a nighttime mixer. One is stranger than the next, and even after one old man threatens to throw himself into the bonfire at the event, Karen and her husband decide to stay on for the remainder of the week. Instead of improving, Karen’s mental state worsens, as her disturbing dreams become more frequent and she becomes troubled by the sound of wolves howling off in the distance. It shouldn’t be much of a spoiler to reveal that the people residing at Waggner’s woodland hideaway are not who they initially appear to be –– they are more of the fangs-and-claws variety of guests than what one might normally find at a countryside retreat. It isn’t long before Bill joins their number, and Karen finds herself quite alone and helpless. A side plot of the film finds Karen’s journalist friends, Chris and Terry, trying to solve the mystery of who Eddie was. Before too long, Eddie’s roots are traced back to the retreat, leading to a showdown between man and wolfman.

For a horror film, The Howling is not really that scary. The genuine sense of unease established at the beginning is lost once the characters head to the woods, and many of the “scares” can be predicted long before they happen, lessening their impact. At times, the tone of the film is completely off. In some scenes, it wants to be a shocking horror film, while during others, it veers into satire. It doesn’t really work on either level, leaving for a very uneven and ultimately unsatisfying film. However, if nothing else, it is enjoyable as a piece of ’80s camp. From an unintentionally-hilarious werewolf sex scene, to an over-the-top romantic score by Pino Donaggio, Dante’s film is entertaining, if not necessarily for the reasons it was intended to be. What does hold up are the CGI-free transformation scenes, where characters turn into werwolves through still-impressive special effects.

While certainly not a great horror film at all, The Howling is still a fun –– and oftentimes funny –– Halloween-appropriate flick. Maybe the pics from the final, ridiculous transformation sequence should deter me from a career in broadcast journalism? Spoiler alert: Karen might have to howl the news the next time she looks into a teleprompter.
My rating: **

Just a day-in-the-life of an average journalist:

then… and finally…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year….oh wait…it’s still October, right?

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I wake up earlier than usual. It’s cold outside and I really don’t want to get out of bed, so I burrow deep down into my covers like some sort of small rodent hiding from a deep freeze. Before too long, I look at the clock and realize that it’s time to stop being lazy and start my day. I wrap my blanket around me and head out to grab some food and start my day. I stop and look out the window and stare at the faint white specs falling quickly to the ground before dissolving into the grass. I must still be dreaming, I tell myself, so I blink several times and look out again. Nope, still there. Snow. Soon, I see strings of red, green, white lights flood before me, snaking around large fir trees, their iridescent glow illuminating brightly-wrapped packages. Cheerful music sung by abnormally red-cheeked children fill my ears. Ahh nooo! It can’t be!

I stop and calm down. No, I am not stuck in a lost Twin Peaks episode…and no, it’s not really Christmas. Just a figment of my imagination. It’s actually October 27th, the eve of my birthday, and almost Halloween. Why is it snowing so early? The only explanation is one familiar to many of us who live in The Berkshires and the surrounding area. It is a place where weather seems to play a constant cat-and-mouse game with us. A wonderful sunny day is soon followed up by three days straight of torrential rain and gloomy skies. Similarly, a nice Fall day is succeeded by Winter-ready snowfall. According to a report from Boston.com, in Berkshire County, up to four inches are expected to fall at elevations higher than 1,000 feet, and while Friday will be sunny, Western, MA residents can expect a chilly 40-degree day. Happy Birthday to me.

As reported in The Berkshire Eagle, the unusually-early snowfall is a “piece of fast-moving storm that dumped up to a foot (of snow) on Colorado.” While those of us who live in this part of New England are certainly used to strange weather, this kind of storm is obviously rare around All Hollow’s Eve. According to The Eagle, there are only two October snowfalls above two inches that have ever been recorded during the past 75 years in the region. Should I just dress for winter on Halloween?

view from my window