31 Days Of Horror. Day #11: Frailty

When Jesus Camp came out the trendy ad line was “ It’s the scariest horror film of the year.” But if you really want some horror in the fundamentalist vein, then check out this little doozy; a film guaranteed to have you looking sideways at those nice Baptist’s across the street for a month.

Frailty follows the story of two little boys. Their mother’s dead but they have a kind and loving father, and as the movie opens their biggest concern is whether to go see Big Trouble In Little China or The Warriors over at the Bijou that weekend. Then suddenly out of the blue their father wakes them up in the middle of the night to tell them that God has come to him in a vision and given him a list of demons. The end of days is coming at it’s his duty to kill them before the war begins. Only problem is the demons look and act just like real people. Daddy’s never been crazy before. What do you do?

Frailty is powered by the one two punch of Bill Paxton's convincing lead performance, and his stylish yet subtle direction (who knew). The way he plays his character is a wonder, never taking the easy way out, showing moments of compassion and doubt in creating a very human monster, one who never for a moment considers he's doing wrong. Also worth noting, this is probably the last film before Matthew McConaughy just gave right the fuck up on the whole "acting" thing and started doing 500 crunches a day.

Frailty doesn’t lay on the gore and guts, but it is one of the most disturbing films I’ve ever seen. It gets inside your head and does some damage there. The mental thumbscrews keep twisting as you are put directly in the place of these two boys. It does its job with a Hitchcockian level of skill. And in a time when Religious fanatism (I’m a practicing Catholic so no pissed of emails please) seems like it's about to swallow up all remnants of rationality, it’s truly frightening.

31 Days Of Horror. Day #10: The Descent

While the whole torture porn fad that has swept horror has created a decent horror movie or two, its nice to see a movie that goes about giving you the screaming mimis the old fashioned way. The Descent is such a movie. While it seems odd to call a movie that features blood, guts, and cannabilism charmingly old fashioned, this is indeed the point we’ve reached in our society. Yadayadayada kids these days have no morals, no where is my sour mash. Sorry about that. Back to the Descent. The Descent follows a group of weekend warriors whose annual grrrl power trip takes an unexcpected turn when they find themselves in an uncharted cave where they are menaced by, something or a whole lot of somethings. The film is almost a catalogue of things you might be afraid of. The Dark? Check. Claustephobia? Check. Heights? Check. Madness? Betrayl? Death? A Bunch of inbred cannibals who want to eat you? Check. Check. Check. And one big ol’ Giant check on the last one. The film never lets up its pressure and it will make you squirm in no uncertain terms. To quote Dudly Moore, See The Decent and it won’t just scare you, It’ll fuck you up for life!

31 Days Of Horror. Day #9: Piranha

As is well documented I love Joe Dante. Dante is something of a cinematic anarchist, someone whose films often play as a loving Mad Magazine parody of themselves. Someone who makes horror movies with a style that suggests that he’d like nothing more then to have a bunch of monsters running around terrorizing the populace (or given the last couple of compromised movies he’s had to make, perhaps he’d rather have them terrorizing the studio system). Piranha is Joe Dante’s first movie as a solo director (he had previously co directed Hollywood Blvd with Rock N’ Roll Highschool’s Alan Arkush) and aside from Matinee and Gremlins 2 (We’ll talk about why that one’s genius some other time) probably his purist. You can practically hear Dante giggling through the run time barely able to believe what he’s getting away with. Made for Roger Corman during AIP’s heydey Piranha plays like one of the old William Castle cheapies that has gone completely nuts. Er... More so.

When a school of mutant Piranha’s designed by Uncle Sam to hunt Charlie are unceremoniously dumped in mountain river things get nasty quick. And before you know it tastelessness becomes an art form. Our intrepid heroes try to stop the nasty little beasties but without much success. Piranha is the type of movie where a gang of Mutant Piranhas and a children’s summer camp get VERY well acquainted with each other. The movie almost plays like a dare, with Dante uping the ante on how far he's going until you're SURE he won't go through with it. You keep expecting Joe Dante to pull his punches, and the glorious bastard never even seems tempted. By the time of the climatic feeding frenzy things have gone from bad to downright apocalyptic, with a solution to the problem that probably made The EPA feel like they were watching “Spingtime For Hitler.” This movie clucks “how dreadful” with a big ol’ smile on it’s face.

Cough

31 Days Of Horror. Day #8: The Strangers

Horror movies are all about pressure points. The best tap into primal areas of unease, hitting us in our animal instinct, distant echoes of the feeling of beening hunted, lost, and in the dark. Some even create new ones. For example, before I saw The Strangers I had no idea that I feared a group of people in creepy masks coming to my house at four in the morning and killing me for fun. Yet since I’ve seen The Strangers, the thought has occurred to me several times at three in the morning when in the grips of Insomnia I go out for a cigarette and am forced to stare down the long deserted suburban roads surrounding my apartment. Thanks a lot movies!

I make no qualms about the fact that as far as I’m concerned The Strangers is the straight up most terrifying movie of the new decade. The idea is simplicity itself, a couple on the verge of breaking up after a failed marriage proposal drives to the rural family home of the man. If you walked into the film blind, you might think you where watching a simple Richard Linklater character study for the first fifteen minutes or so, then comes a knock on the door, a woman asks for a man that neither of the couple has ever heard of.

Things start to go awry very quickly. Starting with simple harassment, and ending with… well best to discover for yourself. The Strangers is so great because so much of it flies into direct opposition of horror today. Rather then scaring the audience with cheap editing tricks and loud noises The Strangers is a very quite film, shot in long takes, that draw most of their terror from negative space. Every shot contains a place where one of The Strangers could fill, and even if nothing horrifying is happening, you’re on the edge of your seat wating to see if they’ll show up or not, such as in what has quickly become the film's most famous shot, fifty two seconds into the trailer.



While it’s not exactly a gore free film, The Strangers body count is almost absurdly low next to the overkill of torture porn, even the most intense and terrifying scenes are such because of what their implications are, rather then what they show. It's telling that the films biggest scare comes not from a bit of violence, but the simple indifference of a line reading.

When watching Modern movies it’s always a bit of a crap shoot as far as what will last and what will fade. Instant classics fade from memory in half a decade, and the most maligned films often stay with audiences for a long long while. This year I’ve so far seen three films, that I think will be with film fans for decades. The Strangers is one of them, it’ll be scaring people for a very long time.

31 Days Of Horror. Day #7: Zombie

You have to love that tagline “We Are Going To Eat You.” Doesn’t really leave any room for interpretation does it?

Out of the three Godfathers of Italian horror Fulci is my least favorite. While Bava and Argento are true artists twisting the grotesque into some truly singular work, Fulci has always been more like a smart ass five year old who asks if you like “See Food”. Now don’t get me wrong, he’s really really good at it and I really dig some of his films. The Beyond is groovy and The Psychic is fun, but for my money his best is City Of The Living Dead whose alternative title could have been “HOLY SHIT CRAZY STUFF IS HAPPENING!” It’s not that Fulci’s not funny, it’s that all he has is balls, and sometimes you need a bit more.

To be fair they are some huge balls, Zombie’s real title is Zombie 2. The reason? Dawn Of The Dead was a huge hit in Italy, only over there, it was known as Zombie, as a result Fulci titled his film Zombie 2, in order to trick people into thinking it was a sequel. Like I said, fairly huge balls. On a related note I’m proud to announce that I plan to begin shooting Batman 3 within the week, it’ll be awesome.

Zombie starts off well with an abandoned boat pulling into New York harbor, the coast guard investigates and is promptly eaten by a ravenous ambassador of the undead. An intrepid reporter and the daughter of the guy who owned the zombie boat, track it to a small forgotten island in the Caribbean where apparently (it’s a bit fuzzy here) a pissed off Voodoo priest is resurrecting hordes of the undead. But yeah who cares about what’s going on when Fulci keeps throwing Crazy Shit on the screen. Look it’s a Zombie fighting a Shark! And Over there Conquistador Zombies! Hey death by giant splinter in the eye! And if all else fails, Exploding Heads, Exploding Heads, Exploding Heads.

Zombie actually passed out barf bags in the theaters on it’s American run, and while it’s giddy ultra violence is tame in comparison to today’s “REAL PEOPLE IN REAL PAIN” style of horror, it’s still good grue soaked fun. Zombie might not be anything particularly special, but it’s got a good thing going and it sticks with it. Plus as previously mentioned there a zombie conquistadors and a Zombie Vs. Shark Battle Royale. You’ve got to respect that.

31 Days Of Horror. Day #6: Black Sabbath

Mario Bava is the best filmmaker you probably haven’t heard of. A small listing of his accomplishments would include inspiring the invention of Heavy Metal, Giallo, the careers of Tim Burton and Joe Dante, and the fact that Boris Karloff died with dignity. Not a bad career by any stretch. Like the best Italian Careers Bava’s contains a staggering amount of films that cover hardboiled crime, spaghetti westerns, monster movies, sex comedies, and Viking Films. But he’s best known for his horror films, with good reason. He’s fucking great at making them.

Going over Bava’s career is like reading a list of milestones, he’s the first to show the dead physically rising from there graves, the first to show blood coming from a wound, the first to make a giallo, the first to do horror in space, the first to make a modern slasher movie. Hell if there never was such a thing as film, Bava would probably have gone ahead and invented it.

Black Sabbath is an anthology film but it breaks ties with the genre by actually being good. It’s made up of three tales each done in a different style. It’s a cool little movie because as much as any could, it really showcases the multiple modes of Bava, showcasing his skills at giallo, supernatural horror, and the balls to the wall nutso gothic extravaganzas that he’s best known for.

Bookended by two funky little sequences shot with an incongruously dubbed Boris Karloff, (The former in which the great man gives an introduction that can be charitably described as long winded, and the latter in which he helpfully informs you that what you have been watching is infact a movie) Black Sabbath gets off with a great little slow burning Giallo where a nubile young woman is terrorized by terrifying phone calls and calls her gilted ex lesbian lover for protection. It’s nothing spectacular but it’s a real solid piece of moviemaking that ratchets up the tension before a final twist worthy of EC Comics.

In the second sequence we get the crazy ass Bava we know and love. Karloff plays a man who has just returned home after slaying a vampire who can only prey on the blood of those he loved in life. Guess what happens next. This is some prime Bava driven by the gaudy sense of style, a dark sense of humor, and extreme lack of sentimentality that powers his best work. It also features what is arguably Karloff’s best performance. While he is dubbed, very very badly, it really works. Karloff’s physicality was always unparelled, and in a weird way despite the fact that the role is somewhat dialogue heavy, it’s something of a return to the purely physical style that made him great. Without a word Karloff simotanously invests his character with a great sense of sorrow, weariness, and a truly threatening presence.

But true to form Bava saved the best for last. I don’t even want to say anything about the final segement, best to let you discover things for yourself. All I can say is if you can make it through without curling into a fetal postion you’re one cold fish.

Anyway long story short, Bava’s the man check him out.

31 Days Of Horror. Day #5: Deep Red

You’ve gotta love The Italians. Be it Westerns, Epics, or Horror movies, Italian filmmakers always seem to have a way of saying “You’re doing it wrong!” by making their films ten times as crazy as anyone else. A film like Deep Red has more truly crazy shit in it’s first five minutes then most American films have in their runtimes. Opening with a guy getting knifed to death infront of a Christmas tree and kid, then moving on to a protagonist switcheroo worthy of Hitchcock, before a fetishtic murder preperation, that would make David Lynch swoon, all climaxing a spectacularly bloody murder via meat clever and window. Then the credits roll.


Blow Up’s David Hemmings plays an American Jazz Pianist who witnesses the death of Swedish psychic in Italy. Instead of lounging about Mod culture and drowning in ennui, he instead tries to solve the case with the help of an intrepid Lois Lane type.

Argento’s detractors say he’s a hack whose movies don’t pay attention to little things like character, plot, sense, or common human decency. And while it’s true that Argento has largely devolved into Self Parody, anything he’s done post 1987 is pretty much a wash (though I do have a bizarre affection for his batshit loony Masters Of Horror episode Pelts). But at his best Argento’s films couple a crazed sensuality with an unparelled knack to make the utterly ludicrous completely believable and the grotesque strangely beautiful. When someone gets decapitated in Argento film you may flinch but at the same time you’re oddly impressed.

The trick that Argento pulls here is he makes each of the killings relatable. Let’s face it most of us can’t relate to the feeling of being cut up with a bucksaw by a gibbering madman, we simply have no frame of reference. But most of us do know what it’s like to scald ourselves, or bark or shin on the coffee table, or get caught on something. What Argento does is he simply takes these common accidents and raises them to the ultimate degree. Each of the killings draws on a common sense memory, the result is that half seeing Deep Red in a large theater, as I was lucky enough to do is watching your fellow 200 or so patrons positively writhe as shit gets worse then they could possibly imagine.

All the work of the Argento touch, before the movies done you’ll see an Evil doll that makes the one from Saw look about as terrifying as Elmo, a haunted mansion, a sadistic little girl, entombed bodies, novelty decapitations, and even a little time for discussion of Jazz theory and gender roles. A Good Time Will Be Had By All.