movie-reviews

Dawn of the Dead

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 06:39:53 +0100

Dawn of the Dead (also known as Zombi internationally) is a 1978 zombie film, written and directed by George A. Romero. It was the second film made in Romero's Living Dead series, but contains no characters or settings from Night of the Living Dead, and shows in larger scale a zombie epidemic's apocalyptic effects on society. In the film, a pandemic of unknown origin has caused the reanimation of the dead, who prey on human flesh, which subsequently causes mass hysteria. The cast features David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross as survivors of the outbreak who barricade themselves inside a suburban shopping mall.

Dawn of the Dead was shot over approximately four months, from late 1977 to early 1978, in the Pennsylvania cities of Pittsburgh and Monroeville.^[2] Its primary filming location was the Monroeville Mall. The film was made on a relatively modest budget estimated at $650,000 US, and was a significant box office success for its time, grossing an estimated $55 million worldwide.^[1] Since opening in theaters in 1978, and despite heavy gore content, reviews for the film have been nearly unanimously positive.^[3]

Cultural and film historians read significance into the film's plot, linking it to critiques of large corporations as well as American consumerism and of the social decadence and the social and commercial excess present in America during the late 1970s.

In 2008, Dawn of the Dead was chosen by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time,^[4] along with Night of the Living Dead.^[5]

In addition to four official sequels, the film has spawned numerous parodies and pop culture references. A remake of the movie premiered in the United States on March 19, 2004. It was labeled a "re-imagining" of the original film's concept.^[6] It retains several major themes of the original film along with the primary setting in a shopping mall.

Following the scenario set up in Night of the Living Dead, the United States (and possibly the entire world) has been devastated by a phenomenon which reanimates recently deceased human beings and turns them into flesh-eating zombies. The cause of this phenomenon is unknown. Despite desperate efforts by the US Government and local civil authorities to control the situation, society has effectively collapsed and the remaining survivors seek refuge. Some rural citizens and the military have been effective in fighting the zombies out in open country, but cities, with their high populations and close quarters, are essentially deathtraps. The chaos has apparently spread throughout the country, evident by infrequent television and radio broadcasts.

Confusion reigns at the WGON television studio in Philadelphia. Staff member Stephen, the pilot of the station's traffic helicopter, and his girlfriend Francine are planning to steal the helicopter to escape the zombie threat. Meanwhile, Roger and his SWAT team raid an apartment building where the residents are ignoring the martial law imposition of delivering the dead over to National Guardsmen. Some residents attack with rifles, and are slaughtered by the SWAT operatives, and by their own reanimated dead. During the raid, Roger meets Peter, part of another SWAT team. They find the basement is packed with zombies, placed there by the living residents, and kill them. Roger, who knows of Stephen's plan, suggests they desert their SWAT teams and flee the city.

Late that night, Roger and Peter escape Philadelphia with Francine and Stephen. Following some close calls while stopping for fuel, the group comes across a shopping mall, which becomes their private sanctuary. To make the mall safe for habitation, they kill the mall's zombie population and block the large glass doors with trucks to keep the undead gathered outside from entering. During the operation, the impulsive Roger becomes reckless and is bitten, dooming him to death. After clearing the mall of its zombie inhabitants, the four settle in, each indulging their every material desire.

Time passes as the undead paw at the mall entrances and civilization beyond those doors continues to collapse. As the novelty of their materialistic utopia wears thin, they begin to realize their refuge has become their prison. It is revealed that Francine is about four months pregnant. Roger eventually succumbs to his wounds, reanimates and is shot by Peter as his last dying request. All emergency broadcast transmissions have ceased, suggesting that most, if not all, of civilization around them has collapsed.

A gang of bikers break into the mall, which also allows hundreds of the zombies inside. Stephen foolishly initiates a gun battle with the bikers; he is shot in the arm and then attacked by zombies in an elevator. The ravenous zombies feast upon many of the bikers, and the surviving bikers make a hasty retreat from the mall, having paid a hefty price for what little loot they managed to gain from it. Stephen dies from his wounds and reanimates as a zombie, leading a group of the creatures to Francine and Peter's hideout. Peter terminates the reanimated Stephen while Francine escapes to the roof. Peter decides to stay and contemplates suicide before heading to the roof to join Francine, and the two fly away in the partially fueled helicopter to an uncertain future.

[edit] Alternate ending

The ending in the final cut of the film was not what Romero had originally planned. According to the original screenplay, Peter was to shoot himself in the head instead of making a heroic escape and Fran would commit suicide by thrusting her head into the helicopter's propeller blades. The end credits would run over a shot of the helicopter's blades turning until the engine winds down, showing that Fran and Peter would not have had enough fuel to escape.^[7] During production it was decided to change the ending of the film.

Much of the lead-up to the two suicides was left in the film. Fran stands by the running helicopter waiting for Peter as zombies approach, and Peter puts a gun to his head, ready to shoot himself. However, he suddenly decides to escape with Fran. Romero has stated that the original ending was scrapped before being shot, although behind the scenes photos show the original version was at least tested. The head appliance made for Fran's suicide was used in the film as the head blown off during the SWAT raid on the apartment building. It was made-up to resemble a bearded African American male.^[8]

Day of the Dead (1985)

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 06:37:19 +0100

Some time after the events of Dawn of the Dead, zombies have overrun the world. A woman named Sara sits in a white room, featureless save for a calendar on the opposite wall. As she approaches it, hundreds of undead hands burst out and lunge for her before she wakes up in the seat of a helicopter, revealing the event as a nightmare. She and three other survivors, John, Bill and Miguel, land the chopper in deserted streets of Fort Myers, Florida to search for other possible survivors. They try to call people with a megaphone, but only attract hordes of undead. The group returns to their base, an underground army missile bunker near the Everglades. The group is revealed to be part of a military-supported scientific team assigned by the remnants of the government to study the zombie phenomenon in the hopes of finding a way of stopping or reversing the zombification process. Their leader Major Cooper died while they were on the trip, leaving Captain Rhodes in charge.

Dwindling supplies, loss of communication with other survivor enclaves, and an apparent lack of progress in the experiments have already caused tension and loss of cohesion among the scientists and soldiers. Miguel, one of the soldiers and Sarah's lover, is on the verge of a mental breakdown due to stress and fatigue. He is attacked by fellow soldier Pvt. Steel after Pvt. Rickles is nearly killed during a specimen-wrangling mission at the base's underground zombie corral due to his inability to focus. Rhodes denies the team both equipment and duty leave, reacting to the desperation of the situation.

In the underground laboratory, Dr. Logan, the lead scientist on the project, has been secretly using the recently deceased soldiers in his experiments, much to Sarah's horror when she sees that the latest specimen is Major Cooper. Sarah warns Logan that Rhodes will kill them all if he finds out. Logan dismisses the idea and demonstrates that the zombies operate on primitive instinct alone, gaining no nutrition from the flesh they consume, and explains his theory that the zombies can eventually be domesticated. Both Rhodes and Sarah disagree with his theory, but thanks to Logan's clever explanation and confidence, he is permitted to continue.

The next day, Dr. Logan shows Sarah and Fisher his prize specimen—"Bub", an apparently docile zombie who seems to possess limited memories of his past existence, recognizing household items. During the demonstration, Bub's actions with an unloaded pistol anger Rhodes further, convincing him of the futility of the project.

During another specimen-wrangling mission, one of the zombies breaks free of its restraints and attacks Pvt. Miller, biting his neck and causing him to accidentally shoot and kill Pvt. Johnson. Miguel tries in a rage to kill it, but is bitten on the arm as a result. While Steel reluctantly executes Miller, Sarah quickly amputates Miguel's arm and cauterizes the wound in an effort to stop zombification. She, Bill, and John fend off the soldiers who arrive to kill him. Rhodes angrily declares that he is shutting the science operation down, and that all the zombie specimens are to be destroyed the next day.

After the soldiers depart, Bill and Sarah decide to get more painkillers for Miguel. They search Logan's private office for medication, and discover a tape recorder. As they listen to Logan's increasingly incoherent and disturbing recording, they find the severed, zombified head of Pvt. Johnson, gawking at them with wires plunged into his skull, proving that Logan has gone completely insane.

Convinced that both Logan and Rhodes have lost their minds, Sarah, Bill, Miguel and John decide to leave in the helicopter before someone else does. They stop by Logan's lab to see him feeding human flesh to Bub and, while it is made clear that they knew nothing about it, Rhodes chances upon them and opens the freezer. Finding the remains of his soldiers he summarily executes Logan and takes Sarah, Bill and another scientist, Dr. Fisher, hostage. Making their way to the corral, Rhodes orders John, the only one in the group who knows how to fly the helicopter, to take him and his soldiers out of the base, leaving everyone else behind. John refuses, so Rhodes shoots Fisher and forces Sarah and Bill into the specimen corral. Suddenly the elevator klaxon sounds, and as Steel and Rickles run to investigate, John knocks out Pvt. Torrez and Rhodes, takes their guns and makes off after Sarah and Bill, leaving the corral gate open. Steel finds that Miguel has taken the elevator to the surface, ripping out the controls and leaving them stranded inside, with the platform hand box now the only means of lowering the elevator again. As Rhodes and Torrez arrive, Miguel opens the perimeter gate to let in the zombies and lays down on the elevator platform while they devour him alive, lowering the zombie-covered elevator back down into the base as he dies. With zombies pouring into the bunker from both the elevator and the open corral, Rhodes abandons his men and retreats deeper into the complex. Rickles and Torrez are caught and torn apart, and Steel shoots himself in the head after being bitten by a zombie.

Meanwhile, Bub accidentally frees himself from his restraints and goes looking for Dr. Logan, only to find his dead body lying in the open freezer near the labs. Enraged, he picks up a discarded handgun and begins wandering the halls, where he eventually encounters Rhodes. Bub manages to shoot Rhodes several times, badly wounding him. As Rhodes tries to escape, he accidentally runs into a crowd of zombies and is eaten alive, while Bub mocks the dying Captain with an ersatz salute.

After fighting their way through the zombie-infested cave system, Sarah, John and Bill manage to climb up through the missile silo to the helipad, but as soon as they reach the vehicle, they are attacked by zombies inside the helicopter. Sarah suddenly awakens on a pristine stretch of beach near the helicopter, revealing the final attack was just another nightmare, and the three of them managed to escape after all. As John and Bill fish in the surf nearby, she takes out a homemade calendar and crosses off another day.

Human Experiments

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 06:01:21 +0100

The Film

Human Experiments is immediately noteworthy for two reasons. First, it stars Linda Haynes of Rolling Thunder fame in one of her last roles before she seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth. Secondly, the second lead is played by Geoffery Lewis, whose name you’ll never remember but whose good-natured face will be immediately recognizable to anyone who saw a movie in the 1970s.

The casting of an extremely talented leading lady and one of the most underrated character actors of all time (”He always used to play Clint Eastwood’s best friend, billed after the ape” Terror Tuesday programmer and host Zack Carlson said) lend Human Experiments just enough class to compensate for its various shortcomings — i.e., it’s total lack of budget. Haynes stars as a traveling musician who finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets convicted for a series of murders she didn’t commit and finds herself in prison. Lewis is the sociopathic prison psychiatrist who psychologically torments his patients as part of theoretical (ahem, sick and twisted) recovery program.

Let’s just say that our heroine’s time in prison will leave her with a handful of incredibly traumatic scars on her psyche.

There are long stretches of Human Experiments where you almost forget you’re watching a horror movie; much of the film is spent observing the daily routine of living in a shitty prison facility. However, the film is a noteworthy (if not particularly outstanding) watch for any horror fan for two sequences in particular. The first involves Haynes stumbling into a home only to find the bodies of an entire family on the floor and young boy holding the smoking weapon. It’s a slow burning sequence that builds dread to a truly painful breaking point. It’s a true shame that most of the film can’t live up to the promise of this moment, only ten minutes into the movie.

The second scene of note follows Haynes as she enters the final phase of Lewis’ “program.” It’s an incredibly implausible scenario, one that places the character of Dr. Kline on the same ridiculous pedestal of the Saw series’ Jigsaw when it comes to having a grand plan that must be followed with ludicrous specificity in order to work. Ridiculous as it is, it’s chilling, sold by Haynes’ raw, unrestrained performance.

In fact, so much of Human Experiments is just enjoyable schlock that it’s kind of shocking just how strong the two leads are. Haynes gives the kind of brave and fearless performance that would win an Oscar if Oscars mattered in the slightest. Unafraid to be humiliated, unafraid to let to look like shit on the camera and unafraid to bare uncomfortable and painful emotions, Haynes makes you wonder why she had to vanish into an early retirement.

On the other hand, Lewis provides the yin to her yang. Cool, quiet and soft spoken, the real horror of Lewis’ villain is how professional he is. Behind that friendly face and those kind eyes lies a monster just waiting to escape. The closest comparison would be the casting of Dylan Baker is Todd Solondz’s Happiness: there’s nothing scarier than an everyman, a character actor, one of those reliable “that guys” of the movies turning out to be a the boogeyman.

The Reaction

As is occasionally the case when a film that asks to be taken seriously, the Terror Tuesday crowd was divided in their reaction to the film. Some found Haynes’ performance hokey, breaking into laughter during some of her more extreme moments. Others felt it was too slow and not enough of a horror film. Those people were wrong, but no one’s perfect.

Kung Fu Zombie (1982)

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 03:14:42 +0100

A nearly-invincible martial arts expert faces an unusual adversary when he must take on the living dead in this bizarre action comedy. Kung Fu warrior Pang (Billy Chong) finds himself in deep danger when an assassin comes to town; it seems Pang had wronged the killer in the past, and he is intent upon revenge. Rather than rely on his own fighting skills, the assassin hires a wizard to raise warriors from the dead to take down Pang, but the killer becomes the victim of his own plot. The furious villain's spirit comes back to haunt the wizard, demanding a new body so he can kill Pang once and for all; meanwhile, supernatural martial arts warriors have taken possession of Pang's father, forcing the Kung Fu star to do battle with his own dad. Kung Fu Zombie was shorn of twenty minutes of footage for its dubbed release in the United States. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Faust (1926)

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:36:58 +0100

Before Regan MacNeil, Damien Thorn, and Louis Cyphre, there was Mephisto, short for Mephistopheles, Satan’s most notorious alter ego. Satan and his sentinels have captivated creative souls’ imaginations for centuries, but few artists have manifested those visions as powerfully as F.W. Murnau did in 1926. After a staggering six months of production and two million marks, Murnau’s Faust is one of horror’s most visually stunning cinematic nightmares, an archetypal tale of love, power, morality, temptation, and redemption that sizzles with passion hotter and redder than the Devil himself.

Few horror classics have relied upon such lofty source materials. Murnau’s Faust draws upon an amalgam of high-brow sources: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust; Christopher Marlowe’s play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; Pietr Brueghel’s 16th Century painting “An Alchemist at work”; Rembrandt’s “Faust”; and other German folklore and myths. Some scholars, most notably the famous German film historian Siegfried Kracauer, have argued that Faust thoroughly distorted the archetype’s subject matter and stripped the story of its most important themes; others have hailed Murnau’s version as a refreshing new treatment of this ubiquitous narrative.

The success of The Last Laugh, Murnau’s previous film, offered him opportunities to creatively explore. Combined with the enormous success of Eric Pommer’s German movie machine, the Ufa, Murnau and other German directorial stalwarts such as Fritz Lang were afforded a unique opening (Lang capitalized on these opportunities with the classic Metropolis, also released in 1926). As Michael Koller writes in Senses of Cinema,

“Both Faust and Metropolis were the apotheosis of Eric Pommer's and Ufa's overreaching ambition to create an international market for German cinema. Completed within four months of each other, these prestigious productions were at huge cost, featured internationally recognized casts, and were made to demonstrate the technical sophistication of German crews. The large budgets allowed Ufa to purchase innovative equipment and the completed films premiered in Ufa's newest cinemas allowing them to showcase these new venues.”

However, Faust was Murnau’s last German film: after its release, he was lured to America and seduced by the Fox Film Corporation’s founder, William Fox, to direct another classic, Sunrise. Ironically, Murnau died in a car accident in the California sunshine after Sunrise’s release.

Faust begins with a confrontation between Mephisto and an angel that prompts this bet: Mephisto wagers he can ruin the elderly alchemist Faust. When the angel agrees, Mephisto summons a plague to wreak havoc on Faust’s village. The benevolent alchemist wants to cure his neighbors but cannot; his failures force him to question religion, so Faust turns to blacker magic and asks Mephisto for help. For his assistance, however, Faust must with Mephisto sign a contract. When villagers learn Faust collaborated with the Devil, they stone and ostracize him. Disenchanted, Faust accepts another contract: sell Mephisto his soul, and Faust will earn eternal youth. Mephisto lures an Italian duchess to fall in love with the youthful, virile Faust, and the alchemist extends his contract over his lifetime. He’s now Mephisto’s forever! Returning home, Faust falls in love with another woman, Gretchen, but Mephisto turns her brother against Faust and dupes Faust into appearing as his murderer during a sword fight. Gretchen later has Faust’s baby, but the baby meets a cruel fate, and she is accused of the crime; Gretchen is sentenced to death, and Faust makes a difficult decision about his own fate. When Mephisto returns to the angel to claim his winnings, the angel delivers bad news.

Faust’s narrative mesmerizes viewers with its binary themes, tragic irony, and epic scenes. Laced with contradictory motifs that convulse one’s intellect, Faust pits bodily pleasure vs. intellectual obligation, the visual vs. the literary, health vs. disease, light vs. darkness, heaven vs. hell, and good vs. evil. Paced with dramatic crescendos that tighten one’s nerves, Faust resolves its histrionics with bleak existential ponderings. Overwhelmed by the sheer audacity of its visuals and disoriented by its philosophical contradictions, Faust’s oppositions paradoxically provide viewers a haunting clarity: no space, visual or intellectual, is left for middle ground, and no relative morality breathes; you’re either with Mephisto or you’re with Faust, each a stark allegorical figure representing evil and good.

Notwithstanding its complex philosophical themes, something primitive lurks within the film’s soul. Occasionally, it resonates like a bad dream returning us to primitive, child-like impressions, stark authority figures, simplistic either/or realities, instant gratifications, and the alluring charms of temptation. Faust reminds us that some dreams and desires please too eagerly. It prods us with simple, grandmotherly clichés such as “be careful what you ask for” or “the devil made me do it” but within a multi-textured and layered context that resembles a parable. Experiencing the film is like embracing a painful contradiction.

Underlining these tensions is the tragic irony that the society Faust saves punishes him for his satanic collaborations. We share the luxury of knowing Mephisto’s plans, but Faust tragically doesn’t, and this reality undermines Mephisto’s antiheroic qualities. When paired with Faust, Mephisto appears the practical, seasoned negotiator, the ultimate salesman willing to deal; however, when alone, his evil bubbles to the surface, disclosing his Machiavellian intentions. Because we know what Faust doesn’t, we simultaneously shutter at and sympathize with his temptations. When Mephisto’s anti-antiheroic personality is cast within the film’s epic scenes – his appearance, his flight over the city, and later, the ride on his cloak with Faust into a fantasyland of strange birds and surreal music – a hypnotic movie is at your knees.

The film’s international cast was a deliberate marketing tool designed to appeal to international audiences, and its casting history brews with peculiar twists. The legendary Mary Pickford was slated for an earlier American version, but her mother refused to have the silent film icon cast as a mother who strangled her baby. Also, Lilian Gish, another silent film vixen, was initially slated to play Gretchen, but her popularity instigated unusual on-set demands such as using her own photographer, so Murnau refused to accommodate the prima donna.

Among the many stellar performances, Emil Jannings’s depiction of Mephisto excels. His serpentine tongue, wide eyes, and geometric eyebrows constantly lure us into his face, and his facial expressions are an inferno of acting acumen: from haunting to humorous, devilish to debonair, and cunning to contrite, he IS the Devil, always looming in the background like evil itself. His performance reminds us that the clarity of evil has never appeared so convincing, especially since he appears to Faust as human and not some supernatural demon.

Murnau may not have been the first to employ elaborate set designs, expressionist lighting techniques, meticulous costume designs, or moving and subjective cameras, but he was one of the first to master each and weave them together into a cinematic tapestry unrivaled in early, or for that matter contemporary, film. As a celebration of the visual over the literary, the film seduces us with its images, and its visual design is palpable. Murnau used two cameras for most scenes, and the special effects such as pyrotechnics and use of miniature models were sophisticated for 1926, making the film as much a fantasy as horror masterpiece. The symbolism of the film reminds us that what we see is as powerful and communicative as what we do, say, feel, and think. The four horsemen, the moon, the hourglass, the eyes, the Virgin Mary iconography, and the skulls and skeletons remind us of the film’s universality.

So much of Faust burns with bravado and daring. The film can easily be interpreted as a critique of capitalism with its financial jargon (pacts, contracts, free trials, etc.) and message that covenants with unethical figures ultimately produce personal and communal ruin. That such a subtext was percolating in a global culture that was beginning its love affair with capitalism is impressive. The film also boasts a nude scene that must have shocked some viewers, and another sexually charged episode depicting Mephisto groping a woman’s breasts. In fact, a weird eroticism complicates the relationship between young Faust and Mephisto: Faust says he is Gretchen’s forever, which means, unknown to Faust, that she is also vicariously playing the role of Mephisto. He willingly succumbs to her while unknowingly must surrender to Mephisto. Additionally, its brazen depiction of Satan, his defiance of conventional morality, and his celebration of atheism are unnerving even for today’s standards; for 1926, such ideas were revolutionary, particularly during a time when much of Europe, notably Germany, was experiencing social, cultural, and political revolutions. Talk about adding fuel to the fire!

Faust is like a map outlining the geometry and topography of our soul’s darkest states. Legendary director Fritz Lang reportedly said during his eulogy at Murnau’s funeral, “It is clear that the gods, so often jealous, wished it to be thus.” Murnau may have upset those gods with this hauntingly seductive portrayal of the war between good and evil waging within us all. If you’ve ever battled with that chorus of discordant voices screaming in your ear before Temptation reared its sexy body, Faust is a must-see cinematic experience. Whether you or Temptation ultimately claimed victory, like Faust (and Mephisto himself), remains to be seen.

Frankenstein (1910)

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:23:53 +0100

It's amazing the difference 50 years makes. In 1950, Edison's Frankenstein was on the "Films Lost Forever" list. In 2003, it became available for the first time on DVD. I had the opportunity to view it on the big screen at Monsterbash 2003, and I can say from the very bottom of my dark, scabied heart, it is a must have for any monster or silent film fan.

The film stars Charles Ogle (Monster) and Augustus Phillips (Doctor). Yeah, I don't know who they are either. However, they were incredibly convincing in their roles. The Monster somewhat resembles a love child of Quasimodo and Hammer's Monster from Hell. It's quite disturbing really. But, I believe that is the point.

As far as the technical aspects, the cinematography ranks right up there with Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. There is simply a level of eeriness that only a silent movie can emit. The main difference between this film and other Frankenstein films, was the fact that the monster was not created from the dead's body parts. Instead, he was created in a gigantic witch's cauldron through some sort of primordial ooze. This was the very first "creation" film. At the time, the religious zealots thought the film was making a mockery of God, so the film was banned very shortly after its release. After that, it was condemned to obscurity, until a man named Alois Dettlaff resurrected it.

I had the opportunity to hear Alois speak at the 2003 Monsterbash. Apparently, he had quite a collection of silent films, and did not realize that his copy of Frankenstein (1910) was so valuable until he noticed it on a list of "Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Films" in 1950. His version was missing the opening frame (which displays the title of the picture -- this was commonly done when a theater was done showing a film to prevent the next owner from showing it publicly), but the rest of the film was completely intact. His print of the film is the only known theatrical print to survive. What a loss it would have been to monster fans if this little gem was never found. We could only hope London After Midnight might have the same glorious recovery.

Less than five minutes after observing this little film, I bought the DVD immediately. The opening screen and the title cards have been modernized, but the actual story is complete. Alois released Frankenstein (1910) on DVD with Nosferatu, so the first Dracula and the first Frankenstein are now together on one DVD This is the first time ever that Frankenstein 1910 has been released on video to the public. If you are an "old school" monster fan much like myself, this little film is a must own. It is currently available online via Google Video.

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:20:57 +0100

When Abbott and Costello don’t give you snickers, Boris Karloff doesn’t give you chills, and Universal doesn’t give you a good monster movie you know you’re in for trouble. After the greatness of Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, the “Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters” series took a nosedive. Not only that, but with Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), it slipped on a rotten banana peel while on roller skates and belly flopped into a pool full of elephant poo.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play Slim and Tubby (creative names aren’t they?) who are two American cops stationed in Victorian London so they can learn a thing or two from Scotland Yard. A monster that is killing prominent members of society is stalking London. The monster is none other than the nefarious Mr. Hyde, the alter ego of the well-known Dr. Jekyll (Boris Karloff). Jekyll is infatuated with his young ward Vicky (Helen Westcott). You know, sort of like Batman and Robin. To the dismay of the good doctor, Vicky is really in love with annoying reporter Bruce Adams (Craig Stevens). Of, course Jekyll vows revenge and transforms into his lesser half to kill all those who stand in his way. Along the way Slim and Tubby get caught up in all this silliness and get on the track of Jekyll and Hyde. The film’s ending is actually kind of funny, but it’s too little too late.

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ranks alongside The Mummy’s Curse and The Creature Walks Among Us as one of Universal’s worst monster movies. The ending is funny and there are one or two good fright scenes, but the rest is garbage. None of the inventive visual humor from the first two Abbott and Costello Meet… is present. There is a scene involving a secret passage (a pale retread of the scene from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein) and a moronic attempt at comedy involving Costello transforming into a giant mouse. None of those are funny. Abbott and Costello’s verbal humor is nearly nonexistent in this film. 95% of the humor consists of a) character(s) seeing something frightening and b) the same character(s) running away in a zany manner.

Boris Karloff was one of the greatest actors of all time. He has starred in many of the world’s true motion picture classics. He also made many less than stellar films. This guy knew when he was in a piece of crap. He also knew that he could be paid well for doing nothing but what came naturally to him after over twenty years in the horror business. Boris Karloff knew that Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll was a real potboiler of film, so he gave a real potboiler of a performance. It had nothing to do with his talent waning; he still had The Raven (1963), Comedy of Terrors, and Targets ahead of him. Karloff was a true professional and a true genius and he knew which films he could save his strength in.

Karloff, of course did not play Mr. Hyde. The part was way to physical for the 66-year-old actor. Stuntman Eddie Parker stepped into the role. Parker also stood in for Bela Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and Lon Chaney Jr. in many of the “Kharis the Mummy” films. Bud Westmore made Parker’s Hyde make-up and it is as uninspired as the rest of the film. A pale imitation of the make-up his brother made for Fredric March in MGM’s classic 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like Abbott, Costello, and Karloff, Westmore’s talent was ill-used. He is one of the greatest make-up men of all time responsible for such great monsters as the Gillman from Creature from the Black Lagoon and the mutant from This Island Earth.

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has the distinction of being the only “Jekyll & Hyde” film that Universal ever made. Jekyll & Hyde was(were) the only classic monster(s) that the studio never filmed during the classic period in the 30’s and 40’s. It’s a shame that when the studio did decide to film the story they made such a stinker. To add insult to injury, they hired two great comics and the greatest horror star of all time. If I could choose one word to sum up Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it would be waste. It is a waste of two great comics, a waste of one of the screen’s greatest legends, a waste of one of history’s greatest monsters, and a waste of everyone’s time.

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:11:36 +0100

The central thread of Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story Murders in the Rue Morgue is one of mystery. Two bodies are found, so degraded that investigators can only imagine a killer with a "grotesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity". Poe's novel is cerebral, focusing on analytical observation and the calculating power of the mind. It laid the groundwork for Arthur Conan Doyle's great detective and moved police work into the 20^th century. Robert Florey's film adaptation however, holds no such aspirations. Here acumen is replaced by something more visceral and focus shifts to themes of desire, rage and revenge. This is after all the cinema, and here emotion is king.

In 1845, under the big top of a travelling sideshow, Parisian onlookers curiously examine the oddities. Chief amongst the attractions is Erik ("le Gorille au Cerveau Humain!") and his keeper Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi) a scientist keen to expose the evolutionary link between man and ape, despite cries of sacrilege from the onlookers. "Do they still burn men for heresy?" he asks. "Then burn me, monsieur." Upon spying the beautiful Camille (Sidney Fox), Mirakle (and Erik) becomes obsessed and determines to use her in an experiment that has already left two girls dead. When the body of another victim is dredged up from the Seine, Camille's betrothed Dupin (Leon Waycoff) uses his position as medical student to join the investigation, an investigation that will lead him straight to the murders in the Rue Morgue...

The portrayal of Mirakle as a bloodthirsty Darwinist (more interested in the pursuit of knowledge than human life) may seem like an animadversion against science, but this is not the film's agenda. The heroic Dupin is also a man of learning and uses, in a nod to Poe, forensic examination to prove his adversary's guilt (his loft dwelling is full of test tubes, beakers and microscopes, "making a morgue out of our home" as his flatmate bemoans). These erudite leanings are secondary to the films main preoccupations and Florey and his screenwriters (including an uncredited John Huston) merely use this as a lynchpin upon which to hang the narrative. The head here is merely a plot device; the heart is where the real blood flows from.

In the sideshow opening, it is desire that most engages our characters. Both Dupin and his roommate lust after the Arabian snake dancer ("come, we must continue our studies of anatomy") and it is here that Mirakle first lays eyes on Camille. For 1932 the film is surprisingly sexualized, with Camille later seen laying prostrate, breathing excitedly in her lover's arms. This being a horror film however, this soon becomes dystopic. In a scene that disturbed censors of the time, Lugosi - those penetrating eyes moving out of the fog - uses a sadomasochistic rack to chain up a prostitute and administer the needle. To Mirakle's dismay her "blood is rotten, black as your sins!" and his rage leaves her dead, her body dumped in the river where only the city's disposed lament her passing.

Indeed, this vehemence runs rampant throughout the city. Sailors jealously fight over a girl (knifing each other in the process) and Mirakle is finally undone by Erik's fervent protection of Camille and his revenge for her mistreatment. For all his scientific posturing Dupin revels in this. "Think of what these walls are hiding," he muses. "Broken hopes, bodies and hearts...crimes of the street and tragedies of the river. Paris -- my city". This is spoken with a kind of pride and Florey's characters, even the most learned, all delight in this madness. The film ends with another broken body sent to the morgue, to which the coroner can't help but give a little chuckle.

In Florey's world death is always the final resting place for emotion and both Charles Hall's production design and Karl Freund's cinematography reflect this jagged hysteria. Borrowing heavily from European Expressionism (particularly Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, from which Rue Morgue also borrows characters and a rooftop finale) we see buildings lean out over long dirty streets, agitated roofs and chimneys, distorted black shadows that hack up the frame. The morgue itself is a composition of wooden beams and a huge cross looking down in judgment. Like all expressionist art this world is a deep reflection of its inhabitant's inner state - and here that state is despair.

This then, is not the clinical examination of Poe's original story. Florey's Murders in the Rue Morgue is hot blooded and filled with psychosis and fits of rage. Lugosi (then still on everyone's minds as Dracula) again brings with him that perverse sexuality, and it is here better suited than before. And while the film veers far away from its source, in the process it becomes a new beast, equally as dangerous, but far more enticing.

One Man & His Power Tool: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:33:40 +0100

From the very first seconds of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), where we are exposed to flashed images of decomposing flesh, to the subsequent news report detailing grave-robbing in rural Texas, followed by the oozing red sunspots of the title sequence, and the opening narrative shot of armadillo roadkill, the viewer is transported to a nightmare zone where usual moral parameters are null and void. That's just the first five minutes. The rest of the movie involves a slow, measured descent into the madness of the Sawyer family, and culminates in a final ten minutes of torture and terror, largely round the dinner table. Domestic violence gets extreme.

The premise is simple. A Scooby Doo-esque van of longhairs (Jerry, Kirk, wheelchair bound Franklin, his sister Sally and bare-backed, micro-shorted Pam) goes to investigate the aforementioned graverobbings to see if Grandfather has been affected. He hasn't. On the way home they start to ignore some dire warnings in the astrology magazines that Pam is set on believing. Franklin's horoscope predicts "a difficult and disturbing day" whilst Sally's reveals that "There are moments when we cannot believe what is happening is really true. Pinch yourself and you may find out that it is". Other warnings come from the more traditional horror genre source of a mad old drunk in the cemetery ("Things happen hereabout they'll tell about") and the gas station attendant ("You boys don't wanna go messing round no old house. Those things is dangerous, you're liable to get hurt.") but all are ignored. When the gas station is out of gas, the hapless hippies fill up on barbecue instead and decide to hang out at the old house until the fuel truck arrives to make a delivery. A fatal choice.

They are trespassers, and, since the slaughterhouse down the road upgraded to more humane methods of killing, there are four rightfully resident Sawyers itching to smash their sledgehammers on the skulls of fresh meat. This sequestered clan are truly grotesque - the gibbering Hitchhiker, the half-decayed Grandfather, the slobbering Cook and of course, Leatherface - and they represent that stubborn, isolationist streak in American backwoodsmen who simply like to live the way they live, and don't want to be answerable to anyone. They'll defend their lifestyle to the death, even if it involves decorating neighbouring homes with chicken bones, and despatching nosey strangers, hence the number of abandoned cars discovered by Pam and Kirk as they explore the farmyard.

For a movie that was banned outright for 20 years in the UK, there is remarkably little gore. Almost halfway through the taut 84 minutes run time, all the blood we have really seen has been oozing from the palm of the Hitchhiker. When Kirk runs foul of Leatherface his despatch is famously speedy, two quick blows with a sledgehammer. Pam's demise is more drawn out, but bloodless - Hooper was aiming for a PG rating and was careful not to show the meathook entering her skin. The audience's over-wrought imaginations have to do the work, here and with the deaths of Jerry and Franklin, which both occur offscreen.

The terror resides in the towering figure of Leatherface, otherwise known as Bubba Sawyer, played by 6'4" Icelander Gunnar Hansen. Bubba never speaks, never reveals his motives, just flails his hammer or cranks up his chainsaw, his face hidden behind one of three masks stitched from the skin of previous victims. His menace is evocative through its simplicity; he lacks the complex motivation of Norman Bates or Michael Myers, he simply is what he is, as his final joyous dance with the chainsaw attests.

Sally Hardesty is the sole survivor of his blade, an early Final Girl. Her torture at the hands of each one of the Sawyer family is the movie's only real nod to excess. She appears to be experiencing punishment for some ambiguous travesty (a sibling spat with crippled Franklin? implied sex with Jerry upstairs in the old Franklin house?), as she is first chased through the woods by Leatherface (her long hair gets tangled in thorn bushes and nearly leads to her capture, perhaps her sin is vanity?), then stuffed in a sack by the Cook, shackled to a skeleton-chair by the Hitch-hiker, and finally served up as Grandpa's hors d'oeuvres. For much of this she screams, relentlessly, is covered in blood, and appears to act without much forethought, leaping through an upstairs (and closed) window. In terms of spectatorship, the audience cannot empathise for long with this extreme and unrelenting state. Instead they distance themselves from her demented semi-nakedness, and begin to view her with the killer's impassivity. Her eventual escape is not a represented as a looked-for triumph, far from it. She does not overcome the monster as her Final Sisters would increasingly manage to do in the 1980s and 1990s, but loses her essential self to him. There is only one character dancing with joy in the sunrise at the end of this movie.

Hooper's initial envisioning of the film required plenty of handheld shots, cinema verité style, but he couldn't rent a lightweight enough 35mm camera - hence the decision to shoot in 16mm. The resultant low budget aesthetic - grain, inconsistent colours, a fly-blown feeling to every frame - adds to the backwoods ethos. There is nothing glossy or civilised about this narrative, it all happens on the fringes of the known world, but the tone is emphatically realistic, from the movie poster declaration that it is "inspired by a true story" to the opening title which refers to "one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history" and gives a specific date to events, 18th August 1973. The documentary feel extends the work done by Romero in Night of The Living Dead, and was much copied by subsequent low budget entries to the genre.

Even today, TCM seems brutally realistic, in a way that none of its sequels or imitators have been able to emulate. For the 1986 sequel, Hooper went for a comedy horror feel, playing to all Leatherface's strengths as an icon to rival Freddy Krueger. TCM III also camps it up, with one of the funniest film trailers of all time (the Lady in the Lake one - if anyone can find it online please let me know), and TCM IV:The Next Generation has the unholy pairing of Matthew McConaghey and Renee Zellweger. Yes, really.

The rather pointless 2003 remake is a hollow attempt to introduce the franchise to a new audience. Ignore it - the original is still very much worth seeing. Equally, the 2006 prequel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) is a wasted opportunity to add anything to the myth, despite an intriguing opening.

Austin Chronicle interview with Tobe Hooper
UK Censorship - Juicy DVD.com

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:03:49 +0100

Selected in 2001 to be included in the National Film Registry, Charles Barton’s Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein is a rare breed of horror comedy: Unlike latter-day movies of the same ilk, the filmmakers pay their due respects in that they abstain from ridiculing the monsters, permitting them to retain their image while issuing the pratfalls to the comedic duo, thus accounting for much of the film’s success. Not that the monsters necessarily had the capacity to frighten after a combined outing of sixteen feature-length films (the Invisible Man included), but by keeping the straight men straight, Barton highlights the lunacy of Lou Costello’s less-than-fortunate dilemma. What results in a fitting farewell to the most famous monsters in horror history.

Baggage clerks Wilber Grey (Lou Costello) and Chick Young (Bud Abbott) receive the packages of Mister McDougal (Frank Ferguson), the proprietor of McDougal’s Shop of Horrors, from Europe, which contain the bodies of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange). After dismissing an apprehensive warning from Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) not to deliver and--under no circumstances--open the crates, the clerks do just that. The monsters are thereby awakened and the Count, realizing that Frankenstein’s creation is in a weakened state and must be given a new brain, abducts Wilber as the unwilling volunteer as Chick and Talbot attempt to thwart the Count’s evil plans.

Of course, with Abbott and Costello in tow, the filmmakers’ priority is comedy, the former serving as the set-up guy and the latter being the fall guy. As such, screenwriters Robert Lees, Fredric Rinaldo, and John Grant give Costello’s character of Wilber apt opportunity to sardonically comment upon his supernatural situation. The actor’s trademark quips, punchy one-liners, and linguistic juggling are in high form here as the screenwriters seize every moment to wittily posit several self-referential in-jokes, taking their materials from all of the Universal Monster films as liberally as Mel Brooks lifts from the Frankenstein Series in Young Frankenstein. For example, when all involved come together during a masquerade ball, the following wink-and-a-nod concerning the often debated scenario upon whether or not Talbot is insane or if lycanthropy is more than a psychological disorder ensues:

Talbot: So! We meet again, Count Dracula.

Dracula: Dracula?

Wilber: Yes. That’s who he says you are.

Dracula: Oh. My costume perhaps?

Chick: No. Talbot here thinks you’re the real thing!

Wilber: Uh-huh. Right out of McDougal’s House of Horrors.

Dracula: What an odd hallucination. But, the human mind is often inflamed with strange complexes. I suggest you consult your physician, Mr. Talbot.

The writers do double-time when Doctor Sandra Mornay (Lénore Aubert), a character reference to Gloria Holden’s role as Countess Marya Zaleska in Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter, stares longingly at Wilber’s pricked finger as he utters that there’s only enough (blood) for one before kissing his wound. One of the more poignant, however predictable, moments in the film is when the Frankenstein monster first sees Wilber and wrenches back in revulsion. Then Erle Kenton’s The Ghost of Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein are sardonically alluded to when the Count ambiguously makes note that the brain to be inserted into the Monster must be a stable mind in order to avoid a potential fiasco (the quip is even funnier considering it was Lugosi’s character of Ygor in the former who was responsible for said historical mishap). However, for all the vocal humor, Costello’s comedy, at least at times, is a bit too imitative of Curly Howard’s signature style.

The other joy of Barton’s work is the vast amounts of allusions and references which are not restricted to the comedic duo’s routines. For example, McDougal’s House of Horrors refers us back to House of Frankenstein and Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors while the opening scene depicting Talbot after a full moon is directly lifted from Roy William Neill’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

However, in some sad respects, Barton’s monster mash is more effective at times in creating tension and presenting antagonism between the creatures than the serious dramatic works which preceded him, as when Wilber, having taken a piece of fruit from Talbot’s room, deliberates upon whether or not to return the purloined article during a night encompassed by a full moon. The clash between the Wolf Man and Dracula appears, in all places--a comedy--whereas it never appeared where it belonged: the aforementioned Universal monster collectives (to say nothing of the fact that in the three films housing the creatures, only once do we have a literal battle between the famed horrors, i.e. Neill’s aforementioned film, thus leaving Kenton’s previously mentioned works paling in miserable comparison.) Even a greater blemish, more to the writers of the Universal dramas, is the fact that in Barton’s production the creatures are given almost equal screen time (Frankenstein’s creation less than his companions), thus producing a more balanced work which successfully, thus to the audience’s belated satisfaction, issues the famed villains in proportionate doses.

After seventeen years of the most iconographic monsters of horror set to the screen, Charles Barton’s Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein permits us to pay our parting respects to Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. Thankfully, Bela Lugosi was permitted to have the final say in the role which he single-handedly made famous while Lon Chaney Jr. once more gave us his concerted caricature of our favorite lycanthrope. Unfortunately, for fear that the character would be mocked, Boris Karloff turned down the role of Frankenstein’s creation but, after seeing how honorably the director had handled the character, he did publicity for the film. The only regret which may be justifiably voiced is the fact that the studio opted for the time-saving makeup efforts of Bud Westmore, the protégé of the man who made most of the famed villains, Jack Pierce.

Trivia tidbit: As he was slated to do in Roy William Neill’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Lon Chaney Jr. was finally permitted, albeit only briefly, to play the Frankenstein monster onscreen due to Glenn Strange breaking his ankle during filming (apparently there is a stigma to the character considering Karloff did the same in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein). Thus, to his credit, Chaney--at the last moment mind you--was permitted to go down in cinematic history as the only actor to play all three of Universal’s big monsters.

-Egregious Gurnow