The urge to make a capital-E event of Halloween is an almost overpowering annual occurrence for me. It starts once the leaves turn and the skies go gray (and is tied to an irrational desire for the chill and the dampness that Nature procrastinates on more and more every year.) It’s also inevitably a set up for disappointment. The parties get old quick, and only the Internet appreciates whatever budget cosplay I pull together. But one thing I can largely control: ingesting a balanced diet of psychopathic cinema, with none of the stomachache inherent in candy-cramming or booze-swigging.
This year was my most ambitious yet: 31 days, 31 films. It wasn’t easy to fill the slate: I can be boxed-in by my specific tastes (How many times can I watch a story about 2 women merging personalities, as the formal framework of the film itself twists and distorts, and still expect a new take?*) I’m also not interested in revisiting the multi-chapter slasher franchises, so no luck there. Luckily, just by following the whims of each day, I soon had a calendar full.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads Sutter Kane.
Army of Darkness (1992)
Supremely silly. Never noticed before how bloodless this is for an Evil Dead (apparently they were aiming for PG-13). But I saw it on cable as a kid, way before the others, and spent my first viewings of 1 and 2 waiting impatiently for Ash to origin story himself into a wise-cracking badass. Now I rightly recognize Dead By Dawn as the classic of the bunch, and have yet to catch up with the final 2 seasons of the TV show that put the jokes & Deadite-dismemberment front-and-center.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Android Assistant: “Can I ask a practical question at this point? Are we gonna do Stonehenge tomorrow night?”
Cochran: “OF COURSE WE’RE GOING TO DO FUCKING STONEHENGE TOMORROW NIGHT!”
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
This is becoming the closest thing to a perennial for me. The level of crazy visual invention doesn’t come along very often anymore (or even in ’92). Also, shocker! My newly purchased 4K remastered Blu-Ray looks better than the 20-year-old DVD I’ve had until now? Plus the behind the scenes tidbits are indispensable if you have even an inkling of affection for this one.
Shutter Island (2010)
The Ted Levine Rule
If a mustache ye see, a swell Cop he be!
If his upper lip’s bare, Hero beware!
Raising Cain (1992)
If you were to make a High Anxiety-esque parody of De Palma’s tropes, you’d probably get something like this nutso mess.
I watched the director-stanned “Recut” fan edit without being familiar with the theatrical cut, so the new flashback structure, living alongside dreams-within-dreams and hallucinatory fantasies, was frustratingly confusing at every turn. Except when it had actors delivering pages of exposition (to the point of seeming self-aware at how droning and shameless it was).
Take Shelter (2011)
A film about how dismantling macho stoicism will go a long way toward destigmatizing men’s mental illness.
The ending is too cute, though. The one I wrote in my head had Shannon and family coming out of the storm shelter to find the world at large intact, but their house destroyed by a twister.
DOUBLE FEATURE: The Exorcist (1973) / The Exorcist III (1990)
A bummer that the theatrical cut is only available on Blu-Ray in the $30 set. I grabbed the single-disc “Version You’ve Never Seen” for cheap, and as good as the transfer looks, the added scenes, superimposed demon faces, and digitally-recorded sound effects feel too revisionist. Followed it up by revisiting III (adapted by Blatty from his novel Legion), which has gained the kind of cult following that only flicks with weirdo touches and narratives that don’t totally track get. It’s supernatural serial killer stuff with somewhat tenuous connections to the original. George C. Scott is great, and Brad Dourif does some of his best scenery chewing. Nice creeping dread and slick cinematography. There’s one jump scare that shouldn’t work as well as it does.
Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019)
Tales of the Brothers Quay (1987)
Bought a Roku recently, and while I was hoping to find Halloween III in the correct aspect ratio by signing up for a free week of Shudder (no luck), what I DID find were gems like this original doc and the nightmarish stop motion of the Brothers Quay.
Se7en (1995)
One of those things where I haven’t updated from DVD to Blu-Ray because the packaging on the standard def set is SO much nicer than a plastic box. This one has 4! different! commentaries, but despite my best efforts, it was impossible not to just switch to the film audio halfway through and soak in the nihilistic grime all over again.
The Witch (2015)
I’m so pleased to see that there’s still an audience out there for an uplifting coming-of-age drama.
The Love Witch (2016)
I don’t consider myself a Camp aficionado or a Grindhouse devotee, but I can appreciate a note-perfect pastiche. I actually found the self-aware softcore Aesthetic weirdly comforting. I wasn’t sure if it would sustain my attention for 2 hours, but only the nature circle wedding scene really dragged for me.
A Field in England (2013)
It’s a horticultural double feature! Hallucinatory spell-craft abounds again, but where Love Witch gets off on pastel Giallo, Ben Wheatley does sharp B&W tableau. And then throttles up the editing to “Motion Sickness.” Speaking of…
Vertigo (1958)
Detective Ferguson can’t save Madeleine, but he finds her brunette doppelgänger, Judy. He just doesn’t realize he’s already met her. Twin Peaks references, ya see???
New Nightmare (1994)
Poses the question: What if Pazuzu was the world’s most committed Freddy cosplayer?
Also asks, without providing a definitive answer: Which has aged worse, the morphing FX or the dance remix of the Nightmare theme that plays over the credits?
The Cell (2000)
Simultaneously derivative (Matrix, every 90’s Morgan Freeman thriller) and prophetic (begat Inception and, uh, True Detective season 2). Serves no greater purpose than to be your home theater demo disc, but a bunch of creepy cool visuals for my eyeballs is what I wanted in the middle of my October suspense film marathon!
The Blob (1958)
This was a good one to grow up with before I could stomach the Freddies and the Lecterses. The villain is still interesting and icky to look at, but nothing else is!
Sunshine (2007)
Alex Garland’s screenplays tend to be about the danger of losing your sense of self when confronted by new truths about the universe– the horror of being consumed by the uncanny. Where Ex Machina played expertly with my expectations, and Annihilation fell just short of excellence, Danny Boyle’s style assault doesn’t really let this be anything but a slasher in space.
Also: The ravenous, multi-tentacled mass of comic book moviemaking, with its never-sated hunger for English-speaking actors, has ensured that nearly every single crew member of each Icarus mission has been absorbed into a franchise. Resistance is futile.
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Millenials Are Killing The Ritual Sacrifice Industry
Ravenous (1999)
“It’s lonely being a cannibal. Tough making friends.”
The grimy, frontiersman’s man flip side of Hannibal the TV series’ erudite classicism, but sharing the prolonged seduction and the deadly lover’s embrace. Much less expected from this subject matter: the whip-whoosh title cards in the opening credit sequence and the Damon Albarn score contributions, serving up some Wacky Late-90’s Indie vibes.
Get Out (2017)
Still the best episode of Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot.
Always Shine (2016)
The Persona influence is front-and-center, and the Hollywood dreams/anxieties give it a shade of Mulholland Dr. (especially in the “running lines gets a little too real” scene). But I was most reminded of Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth, another indie character drama in thriller clothing, that likewise had the cumulative psychological effect of a shrug. Worth watching as the rare example of a horror film divorced from the male gaze.
Scream (1996)
This series’ greatest legacy is a killer who is constantly getting tripped, kicked in the balls, or knocked unconscious, because Ghostface is always just a person in Halloween costume. I mean that sincerely. It’s distinctive.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
I grew up with this and the TV series, and while I was always vaguely aware that Whedon disowned this first take, I still reflected on it fondly.
But whewww boy, this is the first time in a number of years that I’ve revisited it, and the direction and staging are supremely inept. The editing feels like a series of desperate attempts to salvage mistakes (e.g. playing the hot-dog-phallus slicing on Hilary Swank’s coverage while layering in off-screen “Hong Kong Phooey” SFX).
It’s embarrassing to realize (on the film’s behalf, not mine) that Merrick is written as explicitly English (“sconehead,” and the like) and Sutherland just… doesn’t… try? To do an accent? Luke Perry actually pulls off the Whedon-speak with the most aplomb, while Paul Reubens and Stephen Root are wisely allowed to improvise all over the place.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Cat People (1942)
I love when two randomly selected films reveal tonal parallels. The dreamy black and white atmosphere is a clear commonality, but there’s also the conceptually rare female-stalking-female sequence in each. In the 40’s film, the shape-shifting Irena follows her prey out of sexual jealousy (the tough-as-nails Alice appears to be honing in on Irena’s endlessly patient but charismatically wooden beau), while the vampiric Girl turns out to be motivated more by the reflection she sees of her own numb loneliness in Atti’s fellow “lady of the evening.”
Black Swan (2010)
*Apparently, at least twice a month.
The Hunger (1983)
An opening fade up on Bauhaus lip-syncing to the camera, elliptical editing, key sound effects slathered in ringing reverb, neon as set dressing / accent lighting: the film immediately marks its place on the pop cultural timeline. This is the ’80s, baybee. When film scholars explain that MTV changed the way cinema was edited (images flashed on the screen for mere frames, cross-cutting scenes to establish thematic connection as synthesizers bubble and pulse), they may well refer to this movie. It’s Patient Zero.
But unlike director Tony Scott’s later role in the development of Seizure Cinema, its most striking moments are when the frame holds steady and luxuriates in the European arthouse meets Hammer horror aesthetics of Bowie and Deneuve’s chilly sensuality peering out from pools of shadow.
Though its clear narrative association between sexual bloodplay and sudden disease and decrepitude marks it as an AIDS parable, it’s all but impossible not to draw real life associations from the scenes where Bowie’s character comes to terms with his unnaturally accelerated decline. Appropriately enough, his work in this film, appearing at the height of his youthful beauty in the early scenes, immortalizes him.
The Dead Zone (1983)
hahahahaha the THOUGHT of a single scandal ending a sociopath’s hopes for the presidency
Donnie Darko (2001)
An actual Halloween night-set flick, with a Bunny Suit instead of a blank white Shatner Shape. Same amount of butcher knife, though. I even dressed in Donnie’s pre-Slacker low effort costume back in my high school days, when Richard Kelly’s only good movie was king. Dreaming of a fan-edit that inserts the improved VFX shots from the Director’s Cut into the theatrical version, but uses nothing else from that misbegotten exercise. Also thinking of buying this damn movie for the 4th time via the Arrow remastered release.
