HALLOWEEN 1,2,4

As a filmmaker, it's not hard to trace my influences. John Carpenter (along with John Hughes and other. But thats a conversation for a different day) ranks high among them for reasons explored in this blog. But nothing, in my mind, tops his Halloween film (and the sequels they inspired). It stands as, in my mind, the best of the horror franchise that never deviated from what it was trying to do: scare people.

HALLOWEEN: After killing his sister 15 years ago, this is the night he came home. This is my number one, go to horror film. It holds up and never gets old. I love everything about the film: the unexplained nature of Michael's evil, the POV shots, Jamie Lee Curtis and of course, Donald Pleasance. The body count is surprisingly low and a lot of the blood is missing from what we would imagine would come from a slasher film. And still the film is scary.

It works on many levels: it plays on the idea that the middle class isn't safe, that evil can just exist within the fabrics of society. It plays to a post modern audience that understand the tenets of “Horror films” as films like THE THING (later to be remade by Carpenter) play in the backdrop of the film. The film works largely do to Carpenter. It's an independent film in a true sense and his fingerprints are all over the movie, from the film itself to the score that is iconic. At times, in fact, he played Michael Myers. The film pushed a genre to the forefront: the idea of the serialized slasher film with an anti hero at the forefront. If you've not seen it, punch yourself. Then see it.

HALLOWEEN II: Many call the first sequel unnecessary. While that might be true, it's a cool film for a lot of reasons. It begins on the same Halloween night with the final 5 minutes of the original serving as a preface and picks up with Michael at large, then finding Laurie at the hospital. The set up works because we don't need to waste time explaining how a new group of kids have lined up for the slaughter. We can get down to business of deepening the mythology. An introducing the thread that will allow the story to continue: that Laurie Strode is Michael's sister.

An increase (by a lot) of blood and gore and some great performances added to the Pleasance and Curtis characters, this film is a worthy successor to the original. And the hot tub scene is killer.

HALLOWEEN IV – THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS: The best of the Halloween sequels that truly builds on the familial theme that runs through Halloween. The film gives us Danielle Harris, a child actress with amazing chops, as Michael's niece, Rachel (she would late return and do an amazing job as Annie Bracket in the Zombie remake). The film follows Michael on his quest to eliminate his family. The spirit of the first movie is still here, down to the clown costume that Jamie wears.

The film combines an increase in the gore factor with a more complicated storyline than most of the other horror “franchises.” It focuses on family, on being an outcast and never once does Michael make a joke or end up in space.  I love the final scene and the image of Jamie with the scissors.  It was great lead in to the 5th installment.

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GENIUS OF JOHN CARPENTER: THE FOG & THE THING

John Carpenter, as much as (if not more than) Wes Craven has been a horror cinema pioneer and mainstay with a career that has spanned generations.  I'm not even going to mention the holy grail of horror films in this entry.  Carpenter's genius extends to THE FOG and the THE THING as much as it does Halloween.

The Fog is a creepy ghost story about beings in a fog that kill the inhabitants of a small town.  The subject of a remake in 2005, the film combines ghost story elements with enough blood and a great score by Carpenter himself to create some very real scares and palpable suspense.  It's smattered with Halloween alums including Annie Bracket and Sheriff Bracket.  Jamie Lee Curtis stars as well in a role that many have suspected (and few have dismissed) is actually a renamed Laurie Strode on the run after her runin with her brother who mentions her "badluck".  Even actors from Halloween 3 show up. Adrienne Barbeau stars and well, is the kind of woman who led me to Rule 34 her.  All in all a great flick!

A movie I knew was great, but I had to re see was Carpenter's THE THING.  Carpenter's love of the original is evident in Halloween as the movie plays on Tommy Doyle's TV.  Reuniting with Snake Pliskin himself, Kurt Russell, Carpenter weaves a gory, scary tale of an alien invader.  What makes this movie so great is the characterization as the morale and trust of the team unravels as each suspects the other of being the alien.  That Carpenter is able to move from slasher to supernatural to alien and crafts excellent story lines give evidence to his skill as a story teller.


The Fog Trailer

The Thing Trailer

EXORCIST III & POLTERGEIST & SCARLET WATERS!!!

First, I apologize for not keeping this up!  SCARLET WATERS prep time took alot out of me.  I love that event.  In the fourth year, the event just gets bigger and better.  I can't say enough about our cast and crew who really pitched in and helped make the event special.  I'm also so thankful to all of the filmmakers who made it out and sent their films.  I'm extremely proud of the Twitchy folks who made the short films!  They make it all worth while!

Now, THE EXORCIST III.  If you've not seen it, see it.  It's a very different kind of sequel.  Part mystery, part traditional horror flick, the film combines these elements expertly to create a very different feel than the original (although superior original).  George C Scott leads an excellent cast in this very creepy film.

Speaking of CREEPY, I'd never seen POLTERGEIST till recently.  I loved the film.  It was so Spielberg:  the references, the sense of wonder and the characters!  Excellent.

TUCKER & DALE VS EVIL

One of the funniest horror comedies, well, ever, TUCKER & DALE VS EVIL succeeds where many other films of the genre fail. By actually working to make a GOOD movie with a clever script, excellent production values and a great cast.

The storyline involves two hapless rednecks who rescue a drowning college girl. Her friends, however, mistake the rescue for a kidnapping and seek to save her from the “deranged killers.” Through a series of misunderstandings, the college kids slowly work themselves through one gruesome death scene after another.

All of the set ups work on so many levels. First, the jokes are just funny as written. They borrow from all the tropes of these horror films, but set them up in such a way that they all depend on the point of view of the other characters. Second, Tucker and Dale are just nice guys. And thirdly, the film is shot and scored in the same manner as the films they're spoofing so, for just a second, you forge you're in a comedy.

I'm cutting the review off there to avoid spoilers. All I can say is it was badass!

Trailer.

TRICK R TREAT

As I've grown into my film career, I've been accused at becoming something of a douchey cinema snob.  Perhaps this is true.  And the last two blogs I've posted might provide some evidence to that fact.

Perhaps it is out of my snobby love for classic films and television:  Creepshow or Tales From The Crypt or Twilight Zone or that it's just plain bad ass, I love TRICK R TREAT.  I couldn't recommend this flick anymore to you unless I drove to your house, tied you in a chair and made you watch it.  (Was that creepy?  Yes.  But that's the depths I'm willing to go.)

TRICK R TREAT tells four interlocking stories all taking place on Halloween night.  It features an all star cast  including Anna Paquin and combines the best elements of the Halloween holiday itself.  It's scary, it's violent, but there is a sense of fun and mischief behind it.  So the humor comes not from poking fun at the horror aspects at all, but by honoring the legacy of the holiday and hearkening back to the days of the old late night vignettes.  Many believe Halloween is the night where the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest.  The film captures that idea with playful aplomb.

So, I've spoken to people who hated this movie.  That it wasn't gory enough, scary enough, violent enough.  To them I would say that they don't get it.  A few folks I know, including my home boy Benjamin Jabe are also  devotees to the film.  He used it as inspiration for the LEGEND OF OLD MAN McGREGOR that will premiere at Scarlet Waters year.  I guess that makes he and I some "snobby film hipster douche bags."  There are worse things.

Trailer

BACKWOODS

You see, horror movies suffer under the weight of certain cliches.  We all know them:  "don't do drugs," "don't have sex," "don't play paint ball in the woods with a bunch of inbred rednecks."

It is this last one that comes to us in the form of BACKWOODS a straight to DVD horror film about a clan of rednecks that kidnap women and force them to become the mothers of the next generation, the lord's handmaidens as they're called.  The men are met with arrows in the head.

For the longest time, rednecks have scared horror audiences.  The idea of people who, through isolation, lose a certain sense of humanity is a common theme most famously explored in films like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.  The problem with BACKWOODS is, its an attempt to carbon copy that film with out the same affect, right down to a deranged family with a cop/patriarch.

The film isn't bad.  It's pretty well acted, featuring Hillary Duffs older sister Haylie and a crazy matriarch give excellent performances.  There is a nice use of imagery and the tension in the movie is real.  The tone is dark and they aren't trying to wink at you through he movie.  It's well done and well put together if not a little...soulless.

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Far be it for me to diss a "classic" or to rundown a visionary filmmaker, but, well, I am.  Wes Craven is a hero of mine.  Two of the greatest franchises in horror history come from his imagination.  It was hard to see any evidence of that vision or creativity in THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.  Obviously, some slack will be cut since it was his first film.

The film suffers from a total lack of subtlety.  The girl proclaims that now she's "17 and a woman."  Her dad points out that you can see her nipples in her shirt (what dad says nipple to his daughter?) and we learn, through a radio broadcast (worst device ever), that the convicts have:  killed a dog, killed a cop, raped a woman and KILLED NUNS!  So, you see, they're bad guys.

Nothing about this film appealed to me.  It's pretty vile at times with girls gang raped and a girl is forced to pee on herself.  Sometimes, in a film, depraved moments can work to make a compelling statement. These scenes, including when the two girls are forced to have sex, play as if Wes was trying to see chicks naked and he was lucky enough to have one of the most powerful tools available - a camera.  If you can't throw a football or play a guitar, tell them you'll put them in a movie.  (I used to think being funny worked to get the ladies.  I was mostly wrong.  But that's a blog for another day.)

I did laugh at parts of the end, wondering if John Hughes got his HOME ALONE idea from this flick.

These issues of story are then magnified because it's Wes' first film:  so its poorly acted, poorly shot and poorly lit. All forgivable scenes if the story connects you.  In this case, it doesn't.

I was at a festival in 2009 and I saw a film that I can only describe as vile.  And I thought to myself "just because you CAN do anything as an indie filmmaker, doesn't mean you SHOULD."

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