Before the Wayans brothers ripped off the Zucker-Abrahams (Airplane!, Top Secret!, Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad) formula to poorly riff on horror movies, there was Wacko. This wildly uneven comedy never got a U.S. DVD release and probably won’t get one any time soon. The “lawnmower killer” is on the loose terrorizing one small town’s lone teen virgin, played by a pre-Newhart Julia Duffy. Joe Don Baker is the hard-boiled, over-caffeinated cop, George Kennedy is Duffy’s pervy, pedo, doctor dad, and Andrew (hadn’t added the “Dice” yet) Clay is Tony Schlongini, an Italian-stereotype/big-walking-dick-joke combo. To give you an indication of Wacko’s subtley; one character’s name is- straight-up- Norman Bates. Early-80s slasher films are the main target for Wacko’s quivver of blunt pokes and everything from Friday the 13th to Prom Night is referenced. This kind of dumbed-down tastelessness ran rampant in the 80s and, if nothing else, Wacko serves as a nostalgic reminder of the type of low-brow VHS rentals that entertained basements full of middle-schoolers at summer sleep-overs.
*1/2
If you’ve lost hope in horror movies, and you lament the genre’s seemingly unquenchable obsession for remakes, franchise reboots, torture porn, 3D-gimmickery, and US remakes of superior foriegn fare…well, you had a right to bitch about that. That’s right: HAD. Past tense. I’m not saying that the glut of what’s most widely available to you in theaters isn’t crap. It mostly is. But lucky for us, we don’t have to go to the cineplex –like our forefathers– to get our movie fix. We have access to just about anything we could conceive of, and if it’s not on one of your 800 cable channels, or within two nights worth of waiting from Netflix, chances are, if you’re moderately unscrupulous about such things, you can get your hands on it in some downloadable form, legally or otherwise. Point is – if you don’t like what’s been passing for horror at the mall movies these days, stop going to the mall and broaden your horizons, chum! There’s plenty of good horror to be had if you’re willing to take a chance or at the very least make some educated decisions based on the advice of reliable sources (ahem).
Last October, Paranormal Activity was heralded by(too) many as the scariest movie in years. It wasn’t. LIES! Lies, I tell you! In addition to a plethora of other problems, it was saddled with bad performances by unconvincing actors as unlikable characters. It derived it’s chills from suspicious foley clanking and spontaneously combusting Ouija boards. And no matter which version you saw, the final act was an unimaginative cop-out. But it turns out, the greatest crime perpetrated by PA has only recently become evident: it’s probably the singular reason few will end up seeing the vastly superior, similarly-themed Lake Mungo.
Both PA and LM beg comparison to the decade-old (really? already?) Blair Witch Project. Both are presented as “documented evidence,” like BWP. Both chronicle the effects of a paranormal disturbance’s toll on the lives of “regular people.” And both attempt to spin horror gold from amazingly low budgets. But where PA felt improvised and free-wheeling, LM squeezes an artfully constructed narrative from the implications of a true-life haunting.
Part of what was widely considered PA’s appeal was that it was shot on video, giving it the authentic look of a home movie. Well, yeah- I guess. BWP did the same thing but far more effectively. BWP doesn’t get much respect these days. I’m not sure why but I could guess that few people are able to view it with the fresh, unspoiled eyes required to buy in to it’s concept. People complain about the unscripted bitching, the meandering storyline, and the fact that most of its literal shock moments can be attributed to cracking twigs and the voices of giggling children. That’s fair – but not the whole story. It’s all but forgotten that the movie’s low-tech scares are hung from a richly-detailed myth that it’s filmmakers only reach out and tag a few times in the first reel. But it’s that mythos that holds all the shaky-cam hysterics together, and brings the story full-circle in its final chilling moments.
PA is a lot like what BWP would have been if you stripped out all the story and were left with two hours of Heather Donahue screaming from just out of frame. LM goes the other way, by favoring a high-gloss professional documentary look over the homemade “it’s ugly so it must be real” aesthetic of BWP and PA. And it has story to spare…A great story that develops slowly and delicately, with well-developed characters, authentic family drama, and utterly believable performances from all involved.
For starters, LM is about as aunthentic looking as any fake documentary I’ve ever seen. I can easily imagine stumbling upon it late at night and being entirely convinced that I’m watching a serious investigative special. One thing it has going for it, stateside anyway, is that the entire production is Australian and us yanks are less likely to be skeptical of unfamiliar actors with foreign accents. What’s more, unlike PA, LM has a tightly-written script. Though their deliveries are completely natural and feel unstaged, there’s little of PA’s awkward overlapping improvisation from LM’s performers. Characters are often slowly revealed through a first-person interview format and unscripted, observational footage is employed judiciously. This allows for a deliberate, suspenseful unpacking of the movie’s narrative. And what a narrative it is:
The Palmer family is suffering the loss of only-daughter, Alice (Talia Zucker), who disappeared while swimming during a family picnic. Within days of burying her, the rest of her family–Mom, Dad, and teen brother, Matthew–begin experiencing strange phenomena in their house. The disturbances quickly become spooky and more personal and the grieving family is forced to seek help from a local, marginally well-known radio psychic who quickly insinuates himself into their home and lives.
As the Palmers search for answers to the mysterious goings-ons in their home, they begin to uncover secrets that they didn’t know Alice had been keeping in life. Disturbing secrets that point to a well-gaurded second life and an intimate portrait of a beloved daughter who sensed her days were numbered.
When Alice’s secrets start to swirl in the movie’s second half, that’s about the time David Lynch fans will sit up in their seats and squeal that it’s no happy accident Alice shares her last name with the equally-doomed, fatally-flawed tragic teen at the center of Lynch’s Twin Peaks mythos.
What makes LM’s supernatural chills effective is their relative subtlety. Rather than jolting us with unexplained sound effects, LM indulges in the eerie effectiveness of ghost photography; whether it’s mysterious figures in the background of snapshots, or unexplained human forms moving in the shadows of birthday party video footage. It’s a simple, effective, (and for the filmmakers, CHEAP!) strategy for delivering spooks on a budget.
LM is also exceptional for it’s low-key approach to it’s own horror dynamic. Rather than dealing in shocks, jolts and turn-on-the-lights terror, it takes a heartbreaking family drama about grief and sprinkles an identifiable sense of dread and uneasiness in the margins. This is not to say that LM doesn’t deliver on a few “what-the-hell-was-that?!” moments–it does. But they’re incidental to the story being told, and they resonate because we really do sympathize and relate to the (figuratively and then some) haunted and shell-shocked primaries.
LM is a rewarding viewing experience because it offers no easy answers to the questions it poses, but still draws to a satisfying, well-earned finale. The story twists and turns along the way and almost seems in danger of letting a few, unreliable-narrator tricks undercut its mysterious supernatural aura. But LM knows what it’s doing and still manages to put all (…well, most) of it’s pieces back together so that questions you’re left with as the credits roll don’t nag like plot loopholes, but instead shine like masterful brushstrokes.
On top of all of that, LM shows you just how beautiful a low-budget movie can be. Cinematographer, John Brawley, knows how to capture the lonely emptiness of lost loved one’s bedroom and the menacing chill even familiar places like our homes can take on when grief and sadness seem to hang tangibly in the air.
The bad news is that Lake Mungo is slated for a U.S. remake featuring the same story told as a traditional non-doc narrative. The good news is that the original’s writer-director, Joel Anderson, has been signed to direct the American version. After watching what he’s capable of on a low budget, how could I possibly avoid taking a chance on whatever becomes of that?
***1/2
Watch the trailer for Lake Mungo:
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)
A pretty young Canadian nurse travels to the West Indies to take a job as personal caretaker to the catatonic bride of a well-to-do plantation owner. There she becomes ensnared in a tragic love triangle with the husband of her patient and his jealous drunken brother while inadvertently opening a Pandora’s box of ugly family secrets. Don’t be fooled by the title into mistaking IWwaZ for a traditional zombie movie. It’s far more esoteric and moody with an emphasis on broody drama over undead scares. There is a legit zombie on-hand however: the memorable Darby Jones in a silent performance as the icy-eyed guardian of the locals’ voodoo-haunted stomping grounds makes an impression that won the legitimately startling-looking actor similar roles in lesser zombie flicks. Like most of the other genre-bending chillers produced by the great Val Lewton, IWwaZ is more poetry and painting than it is horror movie and with a scant 77-minute running time, it never bogs down under the weight of its dazzling atmospherics or soulful melodrama. The combination of dark romance, voodoo and tragedy make for a supremely unique movie-watching experience that should be savored with repeat viewings. Director, Jacques Tourneur, more famously directed (the equally great) Cat People (1942) for Lewton, but it’s IWwaZ that sticks in your head like the echo of a vivid, well-remembered nightmare. ***1/2
(2009)
It’s hard not to like Robert Downey Jr., but it’s also impossible to deny that he plays Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most celebrated creation as a slightly subdued, hung-over Tony Stark. Try to imagine Basil Rathbone delivering some of the same dialogue written by five (!) credited writers and you get an idea of where this reimagining of the Sherlock Holmes character goes wrong. The limp central mystery, which involves ritual killings and a risen-from-the-grave villain is fun enough and director Guy Ritchie clings to what he does best – fist fights and over-the-top action set pieces, but almost everything about the story is instantly forgettable and disposable. Long-in-the-tooth pretty boy, Jude Law, plays Dr. Watson as a put-upon priss and Rachel McBride is given next to nothing to do as Holmes’ would-be femme fatale love interest. The homoerotic co-dependent bend of the Holmes/Watson pairing is overplayed for laughs. SH works best when it’s indulging in Richie’s gimmicky camera tricks and wallowing in the cruddy 19th century atmospherics. An intriguing epilogue leaves the door wide open for an inevitable sequel with a tantalizing revelation that points to the sinister handiwork of Holmes’ arch nemesis, Professor Moriarity. I expected the scales to be tilted in favor of style over substance, but Ritchie has definitely directed far more viceral and exciting flicks. This one sent me home with a smile, shrug and higher expectations for a sharper forthcoming follow-up. ** 1/2
Thanks for showing up for the fun. I couldn’t think of any great grand finale so instead I’m copping out a bit and reposting all of this month’s shares in one list for your browsing convenience.
It turns out I saved these Boris Karloff shares for the best day possible. If you’re happening upon this post on the day it’s posted, you may want to step away from your computer for a moment and set your DVR to pick up Turner Classic Movie’s entire line-up today: All Karloff, all day long! …and not the titles you’ve seen countless times.
Here are some great shares that seem to pop up every Halloween. If you haven’t discovered them before, take advantage of this opportunity. Included in the zip file you’ll find two complete LPs-worth of Karloff spinning Twilight Zone-style yarns of suspense — the made-for-kids Tales of the Frightened volumes 1 and 2. Additionally, I’ve included An Evening with Boris Karloff and His Friends which features Karloff describing, discussing, and introducing clips from Universal’s most popular golden-age horror movies.
I can’t take credit for ripping these titles (so, credit where it’s due) but that shouldn’t stop you from getting your hands on them.
You do NOT want to make fun of the kids on THIS short bus.
TRICK ‘R TREAT (2007) Reviewed
In some ways, Trick ‘r Treat is the Halloween movie I’ve always hoped for. You might have noticed that with the exception of the obvious John Carpenter classic, the holiday doesn’t get as much play as one might expect in horror movies. I can only think of a handful of horror flicks that make Halloween their narrative centerpiece. (Incidentally, you’ll not want to confuse Trick ‘r Treat with the silly “metal”-themed horror flick Trick or Treat.) And of the movies that do play with Halloween, so few of them do much to capture the actual FEEL of the holiday. (This, to me, was one of the biggest downfalls of Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake–it felt like it could be happening on any night of the year.)
Trick ‘r Treat DOES tap into everything that makes Halloween great, from seasonal tradition, to scary costumes, to urban legends. Its four anthology-style, darkly-comic horror stories easily find that beautiful elusive balance between good scares and sharp wit. Though it’s doubtful there’s much in TrT to give you nightmares, the “horror” element remains intact with fresh-feeling takes on traditional Halloween iconography. Witches, werewolves, serial killers, zombies, demons and vampires are all woven into the interconnected stories and not one of them leaves you with a “been there, done that” aftertaste.
The individual plot threads hinge on Twilight-Zone-style surprise twists, which prevents me from revealing too much in the way of story details. SO briefly: One tale, features Dylan Baker as a sinister science teacher who has strong feelings about upholding Halloween’s traditions and is up to no good at all on this particular night. Another tale (my favorite), revolves around a group of suburban trick or treaters who spend Halloween night learning the truth about a local urban legend referred to as “The Halloween School Bus Massacre.” Anna Paquin stars in the third story, as a virginal Red Riding Hood with a big surprise for any would-be wolves. The fourth and final story revolves around Trick ‘r Treat’s poster boy, Sam, who appeared here in an earlier October post. The less I reveal about Sam, the better.
I’ve read TrT referred to as feeling a little like Pulp Fiction crossed with Creepshow –and it’s not an easy comparison to dismiss. It has a lot in common with Creepshow, particularly its tone, gross-out gags and sense of humor. Like PF, the separate tales do cross paths with one another several times, and writer/director Michael Dougherty seems to have lots of fun by jerking us back and forth across the narrative timeline. It all works pretty seamlessly, and makes repeat viewings rewarding.
TrT is one of those rare movies that makes me wonder “how could anyone NOT like this?” After Warner Brothers yanked its plans for a theatrical release (tragedy, really), it’s been quick to win a gushing cult following with people like me on board to sing its praises to anyone who stands still long enough to listen. Forget Paranormal Activity as the official Halloween movie of 2009. This is the movie you SHOULD be buzzing about…and watching TONIGHT!
*** 1/2
Watch the trailer now: (Don’t worry — it doesn’t give too much away.)
Speaking of Creepshow, you can watch it on YouTube:
The "little ghost boy" photo from "The Amityville Horror." (Note the face peeking through the door at the far left.)
One more day of true-life-inspired thrills and chills. Yesterday was for spooky audio, and today I offer freaky phantasmic photography.
Is there anything creepier than the long-dormant tradition of Victorian death photography? Probably not. It’s a phenomenon I first remember learning about via one of my favorite Hollywood haunted house movies: The Others. If you’ve not seen The Others — why the hell not? There are very few effective haunted house movies out there (Poltergeist, (the original) The Haunting, and Burnt Offerings are the only ones that readily come to mind. I’ll save discussion of ultra-hyped now-playing Paranormal Activity for another time).
Without delving into a full on review, suffice to say that The Others is a bloodless, atmospheric, classic haunted house movie in the grand tradition of the best of Hammer horror (but without the cleavage and orange blood). One particular spooky scene revolves around the discovery of a locked room full of antique photography. Closer examination of the photography reveals that it’s a collection of photos of…dead people.
Watch the trailer for The Others:
At the turn of the century, death photography was all the rage and while it’s considered wildly morbid today, back then, it was viewed as a fitting way to honor dead loved ones. Some collectors have made it their job to track down and compile a photographic history of this tradition and what they’ve found walks the line between poignant and hard to look at. Wanna give yourself a guaranteed case of the heebeejeebees? Browse through these two collections I dug up. For compounded spookiness, flip through these pictures while playing some of yesterday’s number station recordings in the background. It’s guaranteed to make you at least consider leaving the lights on when you go to bed tonight. Victorian Death Photography on Flickr A web collection dedicated to Victorian Death Photography at Thanatos.net
Less legitimate, but always good for a few generic scares, is spirit photography. You don’t have to believe in ghosts to be creeped out by some of the examples of crude manufactured ghost pics from the earliest years of commercial photography. Many a charlatan medium made it their business to offer spirit portraiture for those in mourning; “magic” photography, in which your dead loved one reveals themselves in photos taken of the bereaved living. Even though they’re obviously fake, there’s something about antiquated photography that is just inherently frightening. I’ve compiled a gallery of some of my favorite examples and included a handful of “modern” ghost pictures from a variety of sources. Any kid that scoured their local public library’s shelves for anything related to the paranormal, will probably see a few familiar images here. Some are silly, some are artistic, some are just odd — but all feature their own brand of unnerving morbidity.
Ghost stories don’t scare me much anymore, mostly because I just don’t believe in ghosts or any grand afterlife options other than your basic “ashes to ashes” endgame. But OH BOY was I ever a believer as a kid. And any kid that grew up a child of the 80s probably has at least ONE repressed memory related to The Amityville Horror. Whether you snuck a read of Mom’s dog-eared paperback, caught it on the (let’s be honest: REALLY bad) movie adaptation, or just had enough peripheral exposure to activate your easily kindertraumatized imagination, The Amityville Horror forced you to wonder how you’d react if say, you noticed that your happy home’s walls had begun to bleed or there were disembodied pig heads floating outside your window. For me, one episode of the early 80’s, primetime TV magazine That’s Incredible!was enough to stir my young noggin’s toxic cauldron of nightmares.
Convinced, once again, that if it exists at all, it can be found online, I was able to dig up the actual That’s Incredible! segment that scarred my youth with images of red rooms, demonic voices, unexplained fly swarms and James Brolin’s unkempt facial hair. Imagine my surprise to find that the segment’s premise was to debunk the whole hoaxy Amityville affair with interviews of the (then current) residents of the haunted house in question. If anything, it should have helped me sleep BETTER at night. But perhaps I was too preoccupied with the tenor of the report; the eerie background music, the short clips from the film shown, and the entire “but what if they’re wrong!?” possibilities. John Davidson and Cathy Lee Crosby weren’t exactly crack investigative journalists, after all.
Watch the TI! segment that scared a young Gill Man silly, and then, for contrast, watch the far more naive, and therefore, far more frightening segment from Leonard Nimoy’s In Search of…TV show which aired at the height of The Amityville Horror’s popularity, before rumors of a hoax had begun to gain traction in the press.
The That’s Incredible! gang investigate The Amityville Horror:
In Search of…The Amityville Horror, narrated by Leonard Nimoy:
Today we’ll veer just slightly off the pop culture path in search of true-life Halloween scares. If you find yourself disappointed that the horror genre has sacrificed scares, suspense and fear for gore, shock and violence, you might find it worth your while to seek thrills from less conventional sources. One eerie based-in-reality source of chills I discovered comes to us in the form of shortwave radio broadcasts, commonly referred to as “number stations.”
Imagine you’re an amateur short-wave HAM radiophile, up late one night scanning the dial for any signs of life and suddenly out of the static and darkness you hear something odd: a child’s music box melody plays for a while before coming to an abrupt stop only to be followed by a child’s voice, speaking in monotone, reciting a coded message. What language is that? What is she saying? Is she counting? Is she speaking in code? What’s it all about? A shiver runs down your spine as you realize you’re hearing a broadcast not meant for public consumption. This is something else. Something mysterious…maybe sinister. But what?
That’s the cool creepy thing about the number stations phenomenon. No one knows exactly what they are, why they exist, or where their broadcasts originate from. There are some probable explanations, but no hard facts and no authorities willing to cop to their existence. Just a long string of non-denial denials and cryptic warnings that they are best left ignored and none of your damn business. Intrigued? Take it away Wikipedia!:
Numbers stations (or number stations) are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast artificially generated voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters (sometimes using a spelling alphabet), tunes or Morse code. They are in a wide variety of languages and the voices are usually female, though sometimes male or children’s voices are used.
It has been reported that the United States uses numbers stations to communicate encoded information to persons in other countries.
Numbers stations appear and disappear over time (although some follow regular schedules), and their overall activity has increased slightly since the early 1990s. This increase suggests that, as spy-related phenomena, they were not unique to the Cold War.
According to the notes of The Conet Project, numbers stations have been reported since World War I. If accurate, this would make numbers stations among the earliest radio broadcasts. It has long been speculated, and was argued in court in one case, that these stations operate as a simple and foolproof method for government agencies to communicate with spies working undercover.
…that’s the elementary overview, but there is so much to discover about this barely reported phenomenon that has existed in some form or another for ages. The true explanation is certainly not supernatural or extraterrestrial in nature, but it’s the air of mystery that surrounds number stations and the authorities refusal to acknowledge most of them that really tempts conspiracy theorists and basement-dwelling short-wave geeks. Some people, like the obsessive detectives at the Conet Project, treat these broadcasts as found art and that makes sense to me. You can buy a four-disc collection of the oddest and most intriguing examples of number station recordings put out by the Conet Project and it’s worth a listen if you can get your hands on a copy.
My introduction to the concept of number stations occurred when I stumbled upon a blog review of the Conet Project’s collection. The writer had first been exposed to the bizarre recording while driving around at night listening to a college radio station that played all four discs uninterrupted without explanation. The writer, who was chilled to the core by his discovery, thought he’d stumbled upon alien transmissions, and after you give them a listen, you’ll understand why.
While I won’t offer the Conet Project’s full collection, I have put together a “favorite cuts” collection of my own which features a few unlabeled tracks from the CDs mixed in with miscellaneous number station files I’ve dug up from other obscure sources. I dare you to download them, turn out the lights, and settle in for a listen. I drove the girlfriend crazy with these recordings when I first started getting into them a few months ago. I guess what’s thrilling to one person is unnerving to another. But there’s a devious side of me that has a barely-restrainable urge to wake someone in the dead of night with one of these recordings playing at full volume from somewhere in their home. Does that make me evil?
Here are a few video clips put together by amateur videographers, who’ve put number station recordings to their own artistic use in moody, atmospheric videos. There’s nothing too remarkable here, but whenever you put these sounds to any visuals, the visuals are sure to be tainted with a kind of dread normally triggered by half-remembered nightmares.
Is it in bad taste to resurrect the image of dead child star, Heather O’Rourke (and Craig T. Nelson’s hair) to sell DirecTV? Probably. But I love this ad anyway:
