29 – A Puzzling Development (Hellraiser)

The man stares at you for a long time, his eyes piercing in their intensity. Then, turning his attention once more to the prone figure before him he lowers his head. A loud, sucking, squelching noise fills your ears and you see rivulets of gore flowing up and onto the man’s body, reforming sinew and tendon, muscle and fat.

The sight is appalling, a hideous un-melting of a human body but you cannot look away, transfixed like the deer in the headlights.

A bell tolls. The reforming man looks up. An eerie blue light flickers through the trees.

No! Not yet, I cannot go back. His rasping voice cries through his still lipless mouth.

Staggering to his feet the cadaver of a man looks once more in your direction before loping off into the trees away from the pulsing blue light. The bell tolls again, this time in the direction the man left, the light too shifts in pursuit.

You don’t know how much time has passed but eventually you can no longer hear the bell, or see the light. All about you those who can are standing, helping those who cannot and weeping over those who never will. You turn to Donald and find him flat on his back, eyes closed. Fearing the worst you grasp him by the shoulder and shake him. A rattling cough emerges from his dust caked mouth and rubbing his eyes he looks up at you.

What happened?

You describe to him what you saw, the explosion, the reformed man, the blue light, none of it draws any flicker of recognition from the physician.

A puzzle indeed…

Looks like I get to review another of my all time favourites, spoiler alert. A film from acclaimed British Author and Director Clive Barker, the man whom Stephen King called the future of horror. If you are aware of Barker’s work it tends to be strong on the body horror with a generous amount of perversion. His Books of Blood series of short stories are a favourite of mine, today’s film being based on one of Barker’s slightly longer tales, the novella The Hellbound Heart.

Jesus wept. It’s Clive Barker’s 1987 directorial debut, Hellraiser.

This is one of those films that’s mentioned in the same breath as…well ok maybe a couple of breaths after…the likes of Halloween, Friday the 13^th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s a household name, though probably more so if we return to the 80s and 90s, and certainly here in Britain.

The plot of Hellraiser is fairly unique. A man, Frank, acquires a mysterious puzzle box. An ornately patterned cube which gives access to a hellish realm of pleasure and pain. Sometime later Frank’s brother and his family move into Frank’s now deserted house, only it isn’t really deserted and soon Frank is vying to return from his torment at the hands of those unleashed by the box, by any means necessary.

The late 80’s was a time when many of the big horror franchises were becoming a little tired or at the very least had reached their peak. A Nightmare on Elm Street had just had it’s 3^rd entry and arguably it’s last great one, the entries would become sillier and sillier from here, at least until Mr Craven re-took the helm with The New Nightmare. Friday the 13^th had pumped out 6 films. Halloween had taken a hiatus but was about to embark on the, unofficially named, ‘Thorn’ trilogy and it would be tough to call any of those classics, well ok, 4 maybe…maybe.

Another trend at this point was for horror films to lose a bit of that grit that we saw in the late 70s to mid 80s. Studios were trying to appeal to the widest audience possible and we had to look to new projects rather than sequels to find films which put the horror back. Hellraiser is one such film.

In a world of wisecracks and one liners Hellraiser wasn’t afraid to tear our souls apart…ok fine so that IS a one liner, but it’s badass ok!

The violence and gore, though pretty over the top at times, also feels visceral and mean. Whether it’s Rats nailed to a wall, a beating with a hammer or hooks tearing into flesh. Hellraiser does not pull any punches in this regard.

On a sidenote, I do tend to feel that British horror in general tends towards a darker, grittier tone, even when it’s being a bit sillier, it always has an edge to it. I wonder though if this is just, being British myself, that I can relate more, especially when the settings and characters are also British. Anyway I’ve typed the word British too many times now and it feels like I’m going to accidentally summon Winston Churchill or something. Back to Hellraiser.

Is Hellraiser a scary film? Disturbing, grotesque, ominous, gritty but probably not scary. The circumstances behind the situation are too specific for you to feel you’d ever be in the same boat, though to be fair that’s the case in a lot of horror films. I don’t personally find that I have any issue watching this alone at night, perhaps I’m desensitised but there’s certainly films out there that do scare me, though this isn’t one of them. You may feel differently.

The real standouts in this film for me are the creature designs. The Cenobites, the aforementioned beings unleashed by the box, are iconic. Show anybody a picture of the unofficially named ‘Pinhead’ and they will likely recognise him, but his cohorts are equally fascinating and repulsive to look at. Each is unique and each is terrifying in their own way. Unsettling is the word, much of what we see in this film is unsettling. A sticky gloss of perversion coats everything we see from this other realm and seeps onto everything it touches.

The box itself, the Lament Configuration is a masterpiece of design. The intricately embellished cube moves and reconfigures itself at the user’s touch, forming itself into different shapes in a beautifully mechanical, practical way. I even have a replica proudly displayed in my living room. It’s a beautiful piece, elegant and subtle…and hopefully inert.

The only ‘pure’ aspect of this film is Frank’s niece Kirsty, the heroine of the movie who fights against both Frank and the Cenobites. Played by Ashley Laurence she does a fine job but doesn’t stand out as overall the acting in the film is…believable I would say. If anybody is going above and beyond it’s Clare Higgins as Julia, Frank’s Sister-in-Law, one time lover and now accomplice. She switches between cold and detached to passionate yet terrified, she always seems to have an undercurrent of fear about her which puts you on edge whenever she is on screen.

Also shout out to Doug Bradley as the Lead Cenobite or Pinhead as he’s often known. A true icon of the horror scene. He doesn’t really have a lot to do in this film but what he does do is delivered with gravitas. It would have been easy for the Cenobites to come across as cheesy villains but the calm, ominous tones employed imbue them with a cold intelligence which makes them truly threatening.

If I do have anything bad to say about the film it’s probably that it all gets a but rushed and weird at the very end. A lot happens and I feel that a simpler ending, specifically cutting out the very end scene, though cool, would have suited the film better. It’s only a minor gripe though.

So as usual I’ve found myself furiously debating between 2 scores. Is it a perfect film? Well no, not perfect, but there are very few films I would describe as that. A 5 for me doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to stand out, to be that film which I point to and say “Love that film!” so with that in mind I’m giving Hellraiser 5 exposed nails out of 5. Maybe ask me on a different day and I’d give it a 4…maybe. This film was a breath of fresh yet perverse air to a genre well on it’s way to a period of toned down mass produced horror fare.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

I have to mention, and this is often the case for me, a part of the film which most stood out to me was something relatively minor, but oh so much more relatable. You probably know what this is already from my scoring system, but there’s a scene where Frank’s brother Larry, and some tradesmen, are moving some furniture up some stairs. We see that there’s an exposed nail sticking out of the banister, we see Larry’s hand unknowingly getting closer and closer till the nail gouges a bloody furrow into the back of his hand. It makes me wince every time! I struggle far more with something like that than hooks tearing someone to pieces.

I discussed the Cenobites earlier in the review when talking about creature design but who can forget the absolute horror that chases Kirsty down the corridor which opens in her hospital room. According to sources it’s known as The Engineer but in the film we have no idea what it is, only that we need to get the fuck away from it. It’s hard to describe but it almost looks like a dangling phallus with a creepy face, arms and a stinger like tail. I just love how disturbing it looks.

Another fantastic bit of effects work is where Frank is reforming having been revived by his brother’s blood dripping on the attic floorboards. The use of reverse photography and puppetry here is The Thing levels of practical effects, it’s an absolute masterpiece. It savours the scene as well as we slowly see Frank’s brain and bones emerge from a gooey mess to form the beginnings of a man.

Anyway, look at me chattering away, goodbye for now…

28 – Resurrection (The Mummy)

As the woman begins to speak, a wind begins to whip about the crowd. There are a few murmurs and the narrator’s voice falters slightly, but she continues.

The last word of the sentence is spoken, the wind dies, the murmurs cease…

The stage explodes. Splinters of wood whip past your face and those nearest the front are thrown to the floor, the narrator lays slumped at the foot of a tree several feet from the remains of the stage.

As the dust kicked up by the detonation begins to clear, an arm reaches up out of the pile of blasted wood. The arm is ragged, all sinew and bone. Tatters of cloth are wrapped about it in places and you feel your heart begin to race.

Could it be? Is this the creature from the cinema? No…it’s different…similar yes…but different.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the figure of a man pulls himself out of the wreckage. The head is more skull than anything else, the empty eye sockets, horrid pits.

Groping about, the man…the thing…finds the still breathing body of one of the unfortunate people who had stood in the front row. The grasping fingers find what they seek, there is a terrible scream.

The thing looks up. The sockets are no longer empty.

So here we are, my third review of a mummy film, perhaps the random number generator likes the mummy sub genre…or maybe it’s just that about 20 of the 300 or so candidates are mummy films…OK it’s me, I like mummies! The question is, do I like this mummy film?

Let’s find out, this time I’m reviewing what is probably the most watched film featuring the classic monster, it’s Stephen Sommer’s 1999 epic, The Mummy.

Let’s get something out of the way. Is this actually a horror film? Well, it’s primarily an action adventure, but the fact it contains a mummy and is essentially a reboot of Universal’s mummy franchise means that I’m quite happy including it. Also, it has some pretty horrific things which happen in it, this is not quite child friendly. From a certificate point of view this was an odd one as it was cut slightly to get a 12 in the cinema then the uncut home version was a 15.

So the premise of the film concerns various adventurers, treasure hunters and archaeologists searching for a lost city in the deserts of Egypt and encountering an ancient malevolent mummy. I referred to the film as an epic, and that’s just how it feels, it’s honestly more like an Indiana Jones film than anything else, the soaring music, the action, the quippy dialogue, the genuine creepy moments, it’s all there.

Our main trio of characters are Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), American, former member of the French Foreign Legion. Evelyn Carnahan, a British Egyptologist (Rachel Weisz), and her brother Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah)…who seems to be a bit of a playboy more than anything else.

The Chemistry between Brendan Fraser and and Rachel Weisz’s characters is fantastic. I know I mentioned it already but this is like the true 4^th Indy film, more so than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever was. Arnold Vosloo plays the titular creature with gravitas, as with Universal’s original 1932 film, this mummy is no simple shambling brute but a powerful, intelligent being more akin to a sorcerer. Whilst we’re talking actors I can’t forget that this film has it’s moments of hilarity, most notably when Kevin J. O’Connor or Omid Djalili are on screen. Honestly the whole cast is fantastic.

The locations are equally good. Sweeping desert vistas, dark foreboding tombs, opulent villas and all set in 1920’s colonial Egypt. This is all enhanced further by Jerry Goldsmith’s grand musical score which puts you in mind of the epics of earlier decades, totally suited to scale of this film.

Even the CGI effects manage to stand the test of time and mostly hold up, even by today’s standards, at the time they looked incredible. If I had to be nit picky I’d say the lighting looks a little off when we are seeing the animated mummy for the first time, but honestly for 1999 I should just shut the hell up, especially if we look at the Scorpion King from this film’s sequel which reeeeeallly doesn’t hold up…maybe we’ll get to that sometime.

From a horror point of view, what’s here to justify that label? Well as I mentioned this is part of Universal’s horror legacy, with The Mummy being one of the original ‘Universal Monsters’. There are plenty of creepy parts to this film, far more than in the 1932 original. We see animated corpses, flesh eating bugs, and one poor character has parts of his body removed. Under the action and romance, this film doesn’t forget its horror roots.

Having said this the film can get pretty goofy at times. This can somewhat take the sense of danger away at times, we don’t really feel that any of our main group are going to die. Plenty of characters do die in the film, but it’s certainly not going to be a surprise. If the film lacks anything it’s subtlety. It’s grand, it’s dramatic, but it’s not clever.

So is it any good? The truth is, I’ve watched this film more times than most in my collection, it’s a film that I can watch over and over without getting bored, it’s a special film to me and is a big reason why I have a love for Mummies. Universal knew what they were doing with this reboot, but I’m giving The Mummy 4 scarabs out of 5. I did debate giving this a 5, my enjoyment of the film ultimately carries the most weight here, I absolutely love it…but it really isn’t a 5. You could argue that if it had that subtlety and a greater sense of true danger then maybe it would ultimately be less enjoyable. Perhaps…perhaps it’s difficult for a film like this to attain such heights, is it trying to be too many things? This is still a very good film and one I’ll no doubt watch again and again in the future.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

So I mentioned that the film has its creepy moments. For me the best of these is after the group we are following has survived their initial encounter with the resurrected mummy. They have returned to Cairo and one of the American trio who had his eyes and tongue removed by the mummy, which is already pretty nasty, is sat in a room with a mysterious masked figure and Beni. Beni tells him that Prince Imhotep thanks him for his hospitality…and his eyes…and his tongue… It’s a deliciously macabre way of revealing to the poor man that the figure before him, who he cannot even see, is the same mummy who took his body parts from him…and now more is needed. It’s the scenes like this which remind you of the film’s horror roots.

I could really pick any of the moments that O’Connell and Beni (Yes I know I used a surname and a first name but that’s how they’re generally referred to) are on screen together. The one me and my friend Josh seem to quote occasionally is just after the boat they are all travelling on has sunk and they wade to opposite shores of the river. The two of them are in a race to reach Hamunaptra, the hidden city of the dead, first. Beni looks across at O’Connell and shouts “Hey O’Connell, it looks to me like I’ve got all the horses!” and O’Connell quips back, “Hey Beni, looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the river!” hey it doesn’t sound like much but once you’ve experienced the relationship these two have this scene is absolute gold.

Time to put this review to rest.

27 – Storytime (The Evil Dead)

Standing beside Donald on the village green you cast your eye about at the fantastical costumes people are wearing. The event feels similar to Halloween back home but only if everyone put 110% into their costumes and took things very seriously.

Mentioning this to Donald he smiles and explains.

The Festival of The Dead is a local tradition going back centuries, though it shares the costumes with Halloween we’ve kept our own festivities strictly traditional. Some of those costumes you see are passed down through the generations, you won’t find any shop bought examples here.

Every year we don these ancient outfits and this year’s narrator reads from The Book of The Dead. Every year a single sentence is read, no more, no less. Then we proceed through the woods in a great procession, each villager with a lantern and we sing to the dead so they know we haven’t forgotten them.

Ah see, this year’s narrator is stepping up.

A small wooden stage has been set up and you see a young woman open an ancient looking book. She runs a finger down the page, pauses briefly and then begins to speak.

Wow, we’re 3 for 3 with big names, though today’s is not as known outside of the horror scene as Halloween is and is not as historically significant as Nosferatu it did however spawn its own franchise and helped launch the career of a director probably best known by ‘the man on the street’ for directing the Tobey Maguire Spiderman films, Sam Raimi.

You know what it is, today we review 1981’s The Evil Dead.

The Evil Dead follows five friends who are visiting a remote cabin in the woods of Tennessee. The place is fairly run down looking and full of hunting trophies and the usual old fashioned country style furniture. Later they find the cabin has a basement full of unusual items, including a disturbing book and accompanying audio notes by an archaeologist who had been studying it. Soon all Hell breaks loose and they’re fighting for their lives.

My own experience with The Evil Dead was watching it on DVD while at University. At the time I was picking up films which I’d heard (According to the blurb on the boxes at least) were controversial or extreme, at least by the standards of the day. This one I’d even heard of already so it was an easy choice.

Slight spoiler for my overall feelings but I was not disappointed. The Evil Dead really has everything you could be looking for from a film like this…well almost everything.

Firstly let’s get my negative feelings out of the way because I really do want to mostly be praising this film. The acting and characterisation is where the film suffers I feel. Perhaps it’s because of watching the later two films of the original trilogy but the mighty Bruce Campbell, who plays Ash, in particular feels very odd, like he’s just woken up and needs his morning coffee, he barely reacts to a lot of the crazy stuff that’s happening around him, at least until the finale where he does get more involved. Maybe he’s just a quiet guy and to be fair this is pretty early in his acting career.

The other acting varies from decent to over the top, I hope you like screaming because there’s lots of it. The characters are pretty forgettable, in fact it wasn’t that long ago I watched it and other than Ash the only name I remember is Linda as I seem to recall Ash always has a Linda as a girlfriend.

So on to more positive things. The general look of the film is fantastic. It is the archetypal cabin in the woods movie with a spooky dilapidated cabin, foggy woods, a dank basement and all in a remote location.

The camera work is excellent, with Raimi making certain shots his own, particularly the camera as a character, moving through the woods like the eyes of a creature we never see. This more than anything I feel makes the film stand apart from its peers, something you can point to today and say ‘That’s an Evil Dead thing’.

Is this a scary film? As with most things that’s fairly subjective, for me I wouldn’t say it’s scary, it’s a special effects film, and though it has plenty of atmosphere it soon becomes more of a fight for survival than something that has you peeking through your fingers. Something I personally feel is that this film has a good level of threat to it, you do feel that the characters are in danger and though like I say it isn’t scary, it does take itself quite seriously most of the time. The sequels are often lauded over the original but for me this is preferable. The first two sequels are straight up comedy horror, the third one in particular, but I like my horror less silly…mostly.

The effects work is fantastic (for the most part) and varied, we have some great gore effects, some brilliant make-up, and then to top it all off we have stop motion effects towards the end of the film.

Speaking of gore, this film is loaded with it, and it’s pretty graphic for 1981, in fact, it’s time for an ‘Emma talks about film certificates’ section, or in this case ratings, because for a change I’m going to talk about the US rating. Normally I don’t take much notice of this, being UK based, but this is an unusual case. Most films like this get an ‘R’ rating in the US, but The Evil Dead actually received, and still has, an NC-17 rating. This is pretty unusual as these are normally saved for films with a very adult theme, be that sexual, or drug use or very extreme violence. There is one scene I’ll mention in the spoiler section which may have contributed to this but I’m pretty sure it’s a case of an over-reaction at the time that has never been adjusted. It IS a violent film but by today’s standards, not really. The sort of sequel sort of reboot from 2013 is significantly more graphic and that has an ‘R’ rating.

So what about my personal rating? Well I really debated on this, to the point where this is me re-writing this section. I would give it a 4 ½ if I was doing halves, but honestly, I absolutely love this film. It may not be as polished as something like Alien but it’s one of the titans of the genre and another example of a low budget film defying the odds. It deserves to be up there with Halloween in that regard and for my money this is more fun, so I’m giving The Evil Dead 5 pencils out of 5.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

OK so the part of the film which may have garnered the NC-17 rating, at least from how I look at it would be the part where Cheryl is assaulted and raped by the tree branches. Though it’s not overly graphic, the content is perhaps the sort of thing the MPAA would come down harder on, and that combined with the general level of gore and violence is maybe what pushed it over the edge. These sort of scenes always up the discomfort level of films for me. I can watch extreme violence (To a degree, I struggle when it gets too realistic like in something like Hostel) but as soon as there’s sexual violence I find it a lot more uncomfortable to watch.

I alluded earlier that not all of the effects are great and the scene which stood out to me was when Cheryl has turned to a Deadite and Scott is hitting her in the face as she tries to escape from the basement. She goes from mostly looking like Cheryl to clearly fake model in an instant. It was abrupt enough that I found it a bit jarring and considering how good most of the rest of the effects look it was a bit strange to see.

What is great though is the whole last 10-15 minutes or so of the film where Ash actually wakes up and starts dealing with the rest of the cast. This part is loaded with fantastic effects, camera work, stop motion and physical acting. Faces melt, blood spurts, skulls shatter and another Raimi staple of gore and bodily fluids going all over somebody’s face. Ash comes into his own in this over the top bloodbath and we start to see him show glimpses of the character he will become in later incarnations.

Right, I’m going to go read a book.

26 – That Time of Year (Halloween)

It seems an age since that day in the clearing. The day the darkness tried to take you. The day you were saved.

The good people of Carpenter’s Meadow pulled you away from the creature and chased it into the trees. They brought you back to their sleepy forest town and nursed your body and mind back to health.

The experiences over the days preceding…was it even days? How long had it been since you left the town of Solstice and your bed at the Green Man. The whole thing has felt like a dream, or more likely a nightmare.

I must say you’re looking a good 20 years younger than the day I first saw you in that clearing.

The voice belongs to Donald, the town physician and the man who truly brought you back to yourself again.

The island is a dangerous place. Most people stick to the towns and villages and rarely travel alone, and that goes for island folk. Being an outsider I’m frankly amazed you made it this far, you’re something special it seems, or lucky…

Come. I think it’s time you joined the land of the living again. Ironic really, you’re just in time for the festival of the dead.

Ok so it’s definitely throwing some big names at me recently. I’d say it’s because my collection is so full of classics but really there’s a lot of crap, I just seem to have lucked out so far. Technically this film is the most likely one to come up because it has the most sequels, but still, we’re due something more obscure.

In the meantime I’ll be reviewing John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween.

So where do I start with a film that’s often credited with being the first Slasher film. I mean probably by pointing out that Black Christmas and about a billion Giallo films came before it. You could even say the 40s Mummy films from Universal fit the bill, but honestly you could get away with saying that Halloween popularised the sub genre.

To summarise, Halloween follows Laurie Strode and her high school friends on Halloween night in the town of Haddonfield, as they are stalked by escaped killer Michael Myers. Alongside this, Michael’s doctor from the Asylum, Dr Loomis, tries to convince the police of the danger his escaped patient poses.

Chances are if you think about Slasher films then it’s all about the crazy kills, gore, and dumb teenagers. Well Halloween has one of those, it certainly has dumb teenagers, or should that be it ‘totally’ does, one of the girls is endlessly saying that word. So yes, dumb teenagers, check, but crazy kills and gore, no. It surprises me a bit that this film is an 18 if I’m honest, it’s probably more a case of them not updating the rating to reflect modern sensibilities. The kills, though effective, are pretty gore free, it wasn’t until Friday the 13^th came along a couple of years later that gore became the norm for slashers.

From an acting point of view I wouldn’t say that anybody in the film is amazing. Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis put in the best performances but I wouldn’t say that either are Oscar worthy. I do very much enjoy how intense Donald Pleasence’s Dr Loomis is though, he puts me in mind of Robert Shaw’s Quint in Jaws. It’s especially amusing because he’s often talking to people who you can tell think he’s exaggerating about the threat of Michael Myers.

If the acting isn’t stand out then the directing certainly is, Halloween has some truly great choices when it comes to visuals. We see first person views fairly regularly, putting us in the Killer’s shoes as we stalk our victims. Then at the other end of the scale we’re made to feel like we have no idea where the killer is, or to feel like he can disappear into thin air. John Carpenter does a great job of creating suspense and a feeling of unease. We know it’s coming, we know he’s coming, but we don’t know when.

A big part of the atmosphere the film provokes is thanks to the score. Again we have John Carpenter to thank for this. His iconic main theme is one of the most recognisable film pieces out there today, so in a way it’s difficult to judge it on it’s own merits outside of “Oh shit, it’s the Halloween theme!” but the fact that it is so recognised speaks volumes. It’s a simple series of piano notes but it elicits a sense that something is coming, and that’s all you need. If you hear that theme song, you’d better get out!

The use of a masked killer, though not unique, goes a long way to give this film a creep factor. The scariest threats are ones where you cannot reason with them, cannot appeal to their humanity. Michael’s mask with its blank expression and black eye sockets takes away any hope that this is a person to be reasoned with, he is a blank, soulless killer. In the credits he is referred to only as, ‘The Shape’, which feels very appropriate.

It’s hard to ignore how much of a big deal this film was when it comes to low budget films making it in the industry. The film made over 70 million dollars with a budget of significantly less than half a million. It opened the floodgates to small independent films coming out of the shadows and becoming household names. Of course this often resulted in them spawning endless increasingly diluted sequels, but the fact that Hollywood gave a shit about them at all was a win for Horror as whole.

Rating time, and this wasn’t as cut and dry as you might think. A bit like with the last film, Nosferatu, despite this being hailed as one of the horror masterpieces I also have to take into account how much I like the film personally. Now this isn’t my favourite Halloween film, it’s not even my 2^nd favourite Halloween film. A 5 for me is a film which I think is both well made, which this undoubtedly is, and one which really pushes all the right buttons for me, and ultimately it’s not one of the films that I will choose to watch that often. Therefore I’m going to give Halloween 4 bedsheets out of 5. I’d tell you that you should watch it, but chances are if you’re on a horror review site, you already have. If you asked a random person on the street to name a horror film, there’s a high chance this would be their answer.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

A part of the film which never made much sense to me was in the opening sequence when Michael’s sister and her boyfriend go upstairs together. Michael watches them go through the window, then, in the amount of time it takes Michael to go round the back of the house and get the knife from the kitchen, the boyfriend is already leaving. Wow. I feel bad for her, not only does she get stabbed to death by her little brother, but it lasts longer than her boyfriend.

Actually I don’t feel too bad for her, I mentioned before about the acting not being particularly stand out. Well, hers does because it’s pretty lacklustre, I don’t get much of an impression that she’s being stabbed, more that she’s mildly irritated by the knife.

Something else which stood out to me was a scene where Michael is following Tommy Doyle outside the school and for whatever reason we’re not viewing it from Michale’s perspective, instead we’re viewing it from the back seat of the car. At first I thought this was a mistake and it’s supposed to be from the front, but then we see Michael sitting in the front, so maybe it’s more like we, the viewer, are a passenger, along for the ride. I’m pretty sure everything visually in this film is done that way for a reason.

I referenced it earlier but something which you can never unhear is the amount of times the character Lynda uses the word ‘Totally’. She says it all…the…time, 11 times in…total, at least according to the Halloween wiki.

As a last point I should talk about Michael’s seemingly unlimited stamina and resilience. He’s stabbed in the neck, the eye, the chest and then shot 6 times and still manages to get away. Now, as far as we know Michel is just a regular guy. You could put some of it down to adrenaline, particularly the stabbings, but being shot 6 times in the chest and falling from an upstairs window you think would incapacitate him at least longer than the few seconds it takes Dr Loomis to look out of the window. This raises the question, is he really just a man? It’s often theorised that he’s the walking embodiment of evil and so cannot truly be killed, or that he won’t rest until he’s fulfilled some agenda. Personally I like the idea that he represents evil itself, evil that has to steal a car…but still evil…

Odd, I thought I saw somebody staring at me from across the street. It’s probably nothing.

25 – Seen and Not Heard (Nosferatu)

As you approach the injured child you find yourself distracted by the glowing object. The boy is saying something to you but his voice seems to fade away the closer you get, the colour bleaches from the clearing and your hand reaches out, not to the boy, but to the object.

The boy appears to be shouting now, though his voice is barely audible, a faint whisper in the monochrome shroud. Your fingers brush the object.

A grip like iron fastens itself around your wrist…the boy. You turn, the world is silent now and the child has changed. Beneath a smooth bald scalp his face seems to have elongated, rat-like, his teeth likewise longer now.

You cry out, a silent cry and the boy creature bores into you with a beady intense stare, it draws you in, soothing and terrifying all at once.

Suddenly the rat thing jerks it’s head to the side, it releases it’s grip and you find yourself pulled backwards by strong hands, pulled back into a world of sound, and shouting, and colour.

Wow. OK. This is one of the true milestones of Horror cinema. It’s certainly not the first horror film, not even the first feature length horror film, but it’s probably the one that the most people will have heard of if you mention the silent era of horror. It’s going to be quite a different film to review as well, many of the things we associate with film are either not present here or are in their infancy and I’m going to take all of that into account as I review Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, the 1922 original.

First, since there are a bunch of different prints of this, the version I watched was the Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray featuring the 2006 restoration. Essentially this just means the colour tints for various parts are a certain way and the musical score is the Berndt Heller re-imagining. For a more in depth look I urge you to read this article by Brent Reid.

So what’s it about? Well, if you’ve read Dracula then…its kind of like that…sort of. It’s an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel though it’s certainly not that true to the book. There was in fact a legal dispute at the time with Stoker’s widow who was very much still alive at the time and hadn’t given permission for the material to be used. She won that battle and all copies of the film were ordered to be handed over to be destroyed. Thankfully some copies survived allowing us to view this piece of cinema history over 100 years later. So yeah…it’s Dracula.

Alright, that’s a bit flippant of me. The story is about a young man, Thomas Hutter, who is sent to Transylvania to meet a client of the company he works for. This client, Count Orlok is looking to move to Hutter’s own town of Wisborg in Germany. Hutter soon discovers that the count hides a terrible secret. So yeah…it’s Dracula.

How does one judge the acting in a piece like this? The age of silent cinema is very different, it’s almost a different medium entirely. The actors use exaggerated facial expressions and body movements to portray emotion and action and the results are far more effective than you might think. When combined with the title cards I never found myself lost as to what was happening or how a character was feeling. There is of course the caveat that I have read the book and have seen at least 3 other sound adaptations of the story, but still, the experience did not feel as far removed from a regular sound film as you might expect.

This film is beautiful. The locations we visit, be it rural countryside, gothic castle or industrial town work together is way which feels believable. Interestingly it is set in the early 19^th century and not the late 19^th almost turn of the century period of the book itself, a period which would have been only about 25 years before this film was made. Perhaps this was done to give it more of an old world mysterious feel, a bit like setting a film made today in the 1930s rather than 1999, both would technically be a period piece but a lot more people remember the later date.

OK I went a bit off track there, but yes, everything looks great, the use of shadow in particular is fantastic, the shot which sticks out in my mind is the iconic shadow of Count Orlok on the stairs where we see only his shadow ascending, clawed hands reaching out, it’s effectively creepy and probably had audiences in 1922 peeking through their fingers. Though not actually scary, certainly not for modern audiences, the film has a fantastic gothic atmosphere and could certainly be described as spooky at the very least. The count himself does vary somewhat though. At times he looks positively goofy whilst at others he appears a true and ominous threat.

The film uses at least a couple of fun special effects that you wouldn’t expect in a film from this era. Firstly we have a scene of Count Orlok rising straight backed from a coffin, an effect apparently combining both mechanical manipulation with a back board and stage hands, and an element of stop motion. The other interesting effect was a character fading out of existence, a fairly simple effect, even at the time but not necessarily one that a filmmaker would think to use. Horror as genre, like sci-fi, really gives great scope for experimentation, for example why would a character fade out in a drama, it’s one of the reasons I find older horror so fascinating to watch.

Rating time, no pressure or anything. So…this is quite difficult. As a piece of cinema history Nosferatu is undoubtedly a 5, however these ratings aren’t really about that though, they’re more about how much I enjoyed them as well as how ‘good’ they are. With that in mind I’m going to give Nosferatu 4 unfortunate scarecrows out of 5. It’s difficult to really judge this film in the same way that sound films are judged, it’s almost a different medium. It’s a beautiful piece of art, but as a movie I found myself at times engaged more due to the necessity of reading the cards or by the novelty of watching something more than a century old, rather than the film’s merits. Having given it that rating though, everybody should see this film at least once. It’s probably not a film you’ll come back to again and again, but it’s a true piece of cinema history.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

There were some stand out scenes in the film, for various reasons.

I already mentioned the scene of count Orlok’s shadow ascending the stairs. This is the one that’s often shown in stills of the film, but actually it’s the shots after that which really stood out to me. Count Orlok extends his arm and his hand and fingers appear to elongate and stretch through the doorway. Then as Thomas’s wife Ellen backs away onto the bed the shadow of Orlok’s hand slides onto her body and grasps her heart, it’s a fantastic sequence.

Something else I enjoyed, for entirely different reasons was when an angry crowd, upset by the deaths of so many townsfolk since the Count’s arrival in town, are chasing the madman ‘Knock’, Thomas’s former employer. They are searching for him when one of them sees a scarecrow in a field and they run up to it, cast it down and then proceed to fling it about all over the place. It’s a fun and somewhat unexpected bit of comedy and it made me smile.

Another fun sequence is when Count Orlok disguised as a coach drive picks up Hutter to transport him to the castle. The scenes of the coach driving through the countryside are sped up to give a sense of speed. A common enough effect, often used to make car chases seem more dramatic but for whatever reason I wasn’t expecting to see it here. What it actually did was put me in mind of the fact that old film footage often appears sped up due to the different frame rate, though this isn’t the case here, the film having been adjusted so it appears at amore natural speed.

The other interesting part of the coach scene is that one shot is a negative, though that’s not the whole story. In the shot the coach is travelling through the forest which appears to be glowing white with a black smoke or fog in the foreground. The thing is the coach should appear white here as the ‘colours’ are inverted, but in fact it’s still black, so the shot must have been adjusted somehow to retain the black of the coach. There really are lots of interesting techniques being used.

I’ve talked long enough, darkness draws in, the shadows lengthen, it’s time to go…

24 – Distress Call (Supernova)

Wandering through the woods, moving towards this new town of Llort, you begin to wonder what you’ve got yourself into on this island of horrors. As soon as you make it back to your room you’re packing your bags and getting the hell out of here.

“Help me!”

You stop in your tracks, a voice, asking for help…ordinarily you’d call back, try to find them, but your experiences so far have taught you to be…cautious…

Fuck it they’ve taught you to stay as far away as possible from, well, anything.

“Please…”

Telling yourself that you’re making a big mistake you creep cautiously towards the voice. You see a faint glow through the trees and eventually make out a clearing. A young boy is laying prone, a small tree lays fallen across his legs, beside him is brightly glowing object, an eerie, yet enticing aura surrounds it.

“Is somebody there? Please…my leg…”

Never taking your eyes off the object, you step from the trees.

A pleasant surprise this time, I get to review a film which I haven’t seen for so long it felt almost new…almost. One of the films I owned before I started collecting films for this project and one which, as far as I’m aware, is fairly unknown, or at the very least forgotten.

It’s a Sci-fi horror where a ship responds to a distress call, it’s not Alien, it’s not Event Horizon, it’s 2000’s Supernova, directed by Walter Hill…or is that Thomas Lee? Either way, it’s time to review it.

The film follows the crew of the Nightingale, a medical ship with a complement of 6. After a brief introduction to the ship and crew they receive a distress call from a distant star system and go to investigate. As you would expect things don’t go well and the crew find themselves fighting for their lives. So yeah, sounds a bit like Event Horizon…

I should point out now that the pleasant surprise was for seeing a film that felt new, not at the quality of the film. This film was handled very badly. The director himself, Walter Hill, didn’t even want to put his name to it so the pseudonym Thomas Lee was used. Hill’s work was screened to test audiences without special effects, which Hill said would go very badly, and it was badly received. MGM got a second director in to change things, this also didn’t go well and ultimately they asked Francis Ford Coppola of all people to edit the film. So yeah it was all a bit of a shit show. Apparently Hill wanted to do something that sounded more akin to Event Horizon with grim effects and creature makeup whilst MGM wanted it to be sexy and fun. I’d love to have seen Hill’s original vision for the film but instead we got this mishmash.

Talking of sexy and fun it’s certainly quite a horny film. Most of the cast get it on at some point, in fact everyone except for the captain and the Navigator and he’s constantly flirting with the ship’s computer called ‘Sweetie’. It’s not super graphic but it’s prominent enough that it feels a bit Red Shoe Diaries. It’s very of its time and something that would probably have been less of a focus 10 years earlier or later.

The story, as we’ve already noted, is fairly generic, the space mission gone wrong, mysterious alien artefacts, explosions and time limits. There’s very little to make this stand out from a myriad of other films of this sub-genre. I didn’t find myself being too invested in what was going on with the plot, its sort of a film of two halves, the first half being a pure science fiction film, albeit a fairly grim one, whilst the second half it becomes a slasher film…wait…isn’t that Alien? You see?

I have to say, with how badly this film did and how much it seemingly disappeared into the ether, I had some fun with it. I think maybe something is wired in me where a sci fi horror is always enjoyable to me on some level even if it’s not that great. Just the fact that I’m taken to another place, and in this other place is also a horror film. I love films that take me out of my own reality and this film does do that.

Something else I love in my Sci fi is James Spader, ever since watching Stargate at the cinema back in 1994 and more recently hearing him as Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He’s good in this film and so is everyone else, as far as the actors go they did a good job, they just got put into a sub-par film.

The effects in the film are pretty good, you can tell that they had a decent budget, we are unfortunately at a CGI heavy era but at DVD quality at least they hold up pretty well having been done by Digital Domain, a company responsible for the special effects in an enormous number of films including many of the recent Marvel films. In terms of more contemporary films they handled the effects in Titanic, Armageddon and Lake Placid.

As is often the case I’ve really found myself torn between a couple of scores for this on. Let’s start by saying I easily took a 4 or 5 out of the equation, it’s also not a 1 so that leaves a 2 or a 3. It’s very middle of the road, but it should have been more than that, there’s a better film in here, it was…disappointing and disappointing films get 2 Pears out of 5. If this happens to be on TV sometime, or pops up on your streaming service, it’s got some entertainment value, but I wouldn’t go out of your way to see it.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

As I watched this film there was at least one scene where I was like “Oh yeah, I remember this scene” so the film obviously had some stand out moments, but only stand out enough to bury themselves in my subconscious. The one where I really got that sudden recollection was when the crew wake up from their naked warp sleep thing, they had to be naked, it was very important to the plot…but yes they wake up and the captain’s pod has malfunctioned. This was one of the cooler scenes in the film, the captain has become fused to his pod, like the warp jump tried to combine the two of them. The effects and the tension in this scene are great and it really shows how much potential the film had, we really needed more of this. Body horror and sci-fi go so well together and we really don’t get any more of it in the rest of the film unless you count the character Karl Larson’s ‘Vampire from an episode of Buffy’ face later in the film.

Another scene which stood out, and again one that I remembered once I’d seen it again was when Ben, the aforementioned Navigator, is trapped in a room, dying, whilst a mutated Karl tries to break his way in. Ben tries to get Sweetie to remove all of the oxygen from the room, his override code being “I Love You”, to which Sweetie responds “I’ve always known that Benjamin” and her subsequent tone of loss when Ben dies and she can no longer hear him. It’s a surprisingly moving moment between Man and Computer.

Honestly this is a struggle, there is VERY little that really stood out to me in this film or worth talking about in any great detail. These two examples make me sad more than anything, sad at what this could have been.

In the words of Dr Evers…it’s a bomb.

23 – On The Menu (Troll 2)

The wolves are real, you turn and fling open the door behind you which presents you with a long and dimly lit corridor.

As you rush down it’s length you see a stairwell on your right, but the bandaged foot you see descending from the floor above eliminates that option and you sprint straight ahead. The corridor seems endless and the sound of the wolves is still there, the echoing making the distance impossible to judge, waiting any second for claws on your back or teeth at your ankles.

Another door! Hoping that it opens outward, heedless of what is on the other side…hoping that it isn’t locked…you push down on the handle as you slam against it.

It opens, you fly through and crash painfully into a metal railing, almost tumbling over it. Winded you manage to turn and slam the door closed, wolves can’t open doors right? Mummies can though…

Looking around you it seems this door has come out away from the town of Ubiquity, a path leads into some nearby woods, a sign reads ‘Llort – 2 Miles’.

You plunge onwards.

Another sequel! This time it’s probably one of the most famous sequels in horror, or is that infamous? This is one of those rare occasions where the second film is more well known than the first.

Wait…this isn’t a sequel, it’s an imposter, a film posing as the sequel to…a fairly average predecessor, what a strange decision, but it’s not the only thing that’s strange here.

You’ve all seen the clip.

Oh my Gooooooood! It’s Troll 2.

What’s with all these well known films, I definitely have more obscure stuff in the collection! OK so this is one of those films that comes up on lists of films that are so bad that they’re good, in fact it has a whole documentary about it called Best Worst Movie. Is it though? I really think that whole so bad it’s good only works in a couple of ways. Either, it’s not actually bad, it just designed to come across ridiculous but there’s actually a lot of interesting stuff happening, I point you to films like The Toxic Avenger or Hobo with a Shotgun, OR it is actually bad but you’re watching it with friends so you can laugh about it. I can tell you right now, that first part need not apply, there is no saving grace to this film, but it is…entertaining, just more so with friends.

Before I get to the plot the thing I’m not entirely sure about, and neither is the internet it seems, is how seriously it was being made. There’s a statement that it was “always intended to be a comic film” and I get that, it’s certainly a comedy at times, but for example was the acting intentionally bad? Or just bad? Either way I’m going to judge it on what I see, if you intentionally make a film bad, it still needs those special bits to make it work, Films like Naked Gun for example are funny because it’s ridiculous but well done.

Anyway, the plot follows the Waits family as they go on some strange holiday where they swap homes with another family, like an exchange program of sorts. Our main character of sorts is Joshua Waits who seems to be haunted by the ghost of his dead grandfather, though in a benevolent sort of way, well kind of, he’s pretty intense and creepy. They head to the town of Nilbog where everyone is acting very strangely and soon they’ll learn the townsfolk aren’t quite as they first seem and it’s up to Joshua to keep his family safe.

OK let’s get it out of the way, the acting is abysmal, especially the minor parts who sound like they’ve never spoken words before let alone acted. Honestly though, the grandfather is probably the best of the bunch, he actually seems like he might be hamming it up rather than just being bad. Intentional or not, the bad acting is amusing to watch but it takes away from any suspense or intrigue that the plot may be trying to convey.

My review watch of Troll 2 was the 2^nd time I’ve seen it, and I watched it on my own. The first time I watched it was with a couple of friends and that’s definitely the way to go with a film like this. If you watch it on your own, you won’t be bored by it but you also won’t get to shout incredulities at other people about how terrible X is or what Y is doing. It really is missing something if you watch it alone…well it’s missing a lot of things, like a plot.

The plot. I’ve done my little plot synopsis above but honestly this plot goes all over the place. I probably made it sound almost intriguing above but that’s because I kept it vague, In both manages to telegraph things which might have been intriguing had they been better hidden and also throw in completely unexpected stuff which makes very little sense, like they were bolted on. Again, I know it’s not taking itself completely seriously, well hopefully anyway, but even comedies need something to follow. There are some truly bizarre scenes which I’ll definitely go into in the spoiler free section but here I’ll just say, plot is all over the place.

Surely it has some good effect right? Nope, but then this is a low budget film and honestly, it’s not terrible, well except for some of the costumes, but I guess that’s separate. The effects are just, there, they’re practical at least, it’s not low budget AND attempting to use CGI, that’s where things can really get bad.

Going back to the costumes, the regular people in the film, that’s all fine, but the antagonists, oh boy, we’re talking burlap sack onesies and Halloween masks, Troll this is not when it comes to creatures.

Is there anything redeeming about the film? Well, I hate to say it but the ‘So bad it’s good’ thing does have some merit, but I wouldn’t go that far, rather it’s ‘So bad it’s not dull’ there’s always something happening for you to find ridiculous and that really is it’s only saving grace. Being bad can only ever bring a film up from total mediocrity, it cannot make it good.

So…the score. You would think that with all the bad stuff I’ve been saying about the film that it would be my first to score a 1, but the thing is, it’s entertaining. It may be badly made, have a weak plot, and have terrible acting, but it isn’t boring. For a film to get the lowest possible score it needs to be a film I forget 5 minutes later, and this film isn’t that. It is still bad though, I’m giving Troll 2, 2 Corn on the Cobs out of 5. This isn’t a film that you should definitely watch, but if you do then my recommendation is to get a group of friends together, have a few drinks or whatever, and do a group watch.

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

Ok what to talk about…there’s so much but I’ll keep it fairly brief.

Regarding what I said earlier about the plot being telegraphed. At the beginning of the film Joshua’s grandfather, in ghost form it turns out, is reading him a story about goblins. It’s fairly standard fairy-tale stuff but in it we learn that the goblins are vegetarian, can change their appearance and feed people a substance to turn them into plant matter they can digest. I mean sure, tease the goblins but don’t tell us everything about them. As soon as we get to Nilbog we’re sure that the townsfolk are just goblins in disguise, there’s no ambiguity about whether it’s all of them, or some of them. I guess we’re supposed to know but a bit of intrigue would have given this some much needed depth.

I think the part which I always remember the most is when Joshua decides the only way to stop his family from eating the food that will turn them into Goblins. He pisses over it. Honestly I didn’t see it coming and it had me laughing, then straight after this Joshua’s dad utters the great line “You can’t piss on hospitality, I won’t allow it!” See bits like this were great fun, there’s a few stand out scenes that are truly funny, but the way they’re acted and the mediocrity of the surrounding parts of the film, many of which are just bad, rather than amusing and bad stops scenes like this from lifting this any higher than the 2 it received.

The best character in the film is probably Creedence Leonore Gielgud, the Queen of the goblins who is outrageously over the top and throughout the course of the film, turns a boy into a tree, chops him up with a chainsaw, gets her hand chopped off with an axe and seduces another character with a corn on the cob. She’s absolutely ridiculous.

Talking about these specific scenes and characters I realise I’m making it sound fun, and it is, it is fun, its just also very bad.

Won rof eyb.