Ghostwatch

I still haven’t seen many of the found footage/mocumentary movies other than  The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, but I’ve almost actively avoided the Paranormal Activity series, for… who knows why. I think perhaps the hype scared me away.

(Scared me.  Heh.)

So I decided to go back to one of the best examples of the genre, Ghostwatch, from the BBC in 1992.

A single mother and her two daughters are being bothered by a ghost in their suburban London house.  A paranormal researcher has joined with the BBC, broadcasting from the studio while a team of reporters is on the scene on Halloween night.

It’s amazingly effective.  It’s slow and quiet, aside from the shreiking of two little girls, until the end as things accelerate til things go very, very wrong.

Apparently the effect Ghostwatch had on the viewers was quite unsettling, including, tragically, a suicide. It reminded me of 1983's Special Bulletin, about an atomic bomb threat in Charleston, and 1938's The War of the Worlds., except there are time gaps in those pieces while Ghostwatch takes place in real time.

I have to say it’s one of the creepiest pieces I’ve seen, at one in the morning, chilling, raising goosebumps.

Normally, I wouldn't link to youtube for something like this, but it's just too good not to share.

Terror in the Aisles

I couldn't decide what to watch tonight, so I compromised- I watched Terror in the Aisles, a 1984 compilation movie of  scenes from over seventy-five horror movies, linked by commentary from Donald Pleasence from Halloween and Nancy Allen from Dressed to Kill.

It's like That's Entertainment, but with a body count.

Most of the clips are from Universal Studios movies, with extra attention paid to Halloween, Psycho, and, for some unknowable reason, the thrillers Vice Squad and Sylvester Stallone's Nighthawks.

It's great background noise for a mindless evening, since it's a lot of screaming and running, with the occasional montage of doors slamming or killers stabbing.

There's lots of "thoughtful" commentary that just serves to set up a new sequence of clips, but Pleasence does ask a good question- why do people like horror films?- and offers the beginning of an answer: "Perhaps we create artificial horrors to help us to cope with the real ones."

Looking at the recent news and that sounds as good a theory as any.

The House on Sorority Row

Tonight’s movie is The House on Sorority Row.  I’ve been watching the tv show “Scream Queens” and it’s more than inspired by the 1983 movie.

So if I’m going to properly appreciate the derivative work, I should be familiar with the original.  

Just after graduation, a group of sorority girls kills their housemother in a prank gone wrong.  Because they’re horrible people, they’re throwing a graduation for themselves while her corpse sits weighted at the bottom of their dirty, algae filled swimming pool.  When they’re killed off, one by one, the killer using the woman’s spike tipped walking stick, it’s not really a surprise.

They do a pretty good job obscuring the killer, several kills from the killers point of view, almost giallo style, while some of the deaths take place with a cut-away, one of the earlier ones is even done in silhouette, but there’s no shortage of red paint.

Because I’m doing this usually around 2 am, I miss some ideas until late in the game- like how this movie was influenced by the original 1974 Black Christmas,  with the sorority house setting and the attic based killer.  Which would mean Black Christmas would be an influence on Scream Queens as well.

I’m going to give Scream Queens a couple of more episodes to convince me, but I think the Glee + Slasher film mashup isn’t really working.  In the concept of humorous slasher stories, the genre savvy cast of Scream- both cinematic and television- is a better mix versus Mean Girls with a bodycount. 

Of course, both Scream Queens and Scream (the Series) don’t quite measure up when compared to Harper’s Island, a much more effective presentation of the slasher genre on television.  While all three have the structure of ensemble cast and kill of the week, Harper’s Island ups the ante by containing the cast in a limited range, an island(!), while honestly, someone from the other shows always has the option to leave town (yes, I know that NEVER works out, but they’ve got the option, still).

I may give the remake a try, just to see how badly they butcher it- I looked on IMDB and didn’t recognize any of the cast.  On the other hand, I’m probably going to give the remake of Black Christmas a view on the strength of the cast, including Kristen Cloke, Michelle Trachtenberg, Andrea Martin, and Oliver Hudson (who has a role on Scream Queens, so that brings this full circle for me.  Time for bed.)

Satan's School for Girls

Earlier this year, I was doing reasearch for something I was writing and it involved watching lots and lots of seventies movies, theatrical and televised.  Somehow I missed Satan's School for Girls (1973).

I'd seen it... or at least thought I'd seen it years ago.  Honestly, even while watching it, I'm not sure.  I dimly recall watching something girls school and occulty on RealPlayer back in the nineties or so (I vaguely remember watching Suspiria, which kind of pairs nicely with this, as well as this).

Elizabeth (Pamela Franklin) Sayer's sister kills herself and she goes to her sister's school to find out why.  Her classmates at the Salem Academy for Women are the future Charlie's Angels Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd.

Soon her classmates start dying, and she has her suspicions regarding the professor responsible.

This is a great example of the early seventies fascination with the occult, actually pre-The Exorcist talk of Satan- but that's the seventies for you, when even McMillan and Wife go up against a Satanic cult a month later on NBC.

The Church

The nice thing about Shudder, it's allowed me to rewatch films I haven't seen in a long time, like tonight's movie La Chiesa- The Church.

During the Middle Ages, the Teutonic Knights massacre a village of people accused of witchcraft, and after the slaughter, a cathedral is built on the site to contain the evil.  This lasts until the eighties when an art restorer and a archivist accidentally break the seal.  The chance of this was expected by the alchemist architect, who designed the building to lock down in case of Demons.  And as these movies go, there's a diverse group of people in the church when it closes up- a school group, models and photographers for a photo shoot, tourists and parishioners.

They will, of course, die horribly.

The Church is the un-numbered third movie in the series started by Lamberto Bava, this instalment directed by Michele Soavi, who also directed the slasher movie Stage Fright as well as the Rupert Everett zombie movie, Cemetery Man.

It's a stylishly shot movie that balances contemporary Euro-ness of the late eighties with the timeless gothic atmosphere of the old cathedral that's the setting for more than three-quarters of the movie.

I think, so far, finding The Church, has been the highlight of my Shudder experience.

Monsterfest Memories...

 One of the best light conventions for horror fans I've been to is Monsterfest in Chesapeake, Virginia.  I've not been in a while, but as there's one today, October 3rd, I decided to go to my old blog and s̶t̶r̶i̶p̶m̶i̶n̶e̶   walk down memory lane.

2006

 Seven am trip to Chesapeake on the bus. Got some reading in, the bus dropped me off right by the library where MonsterFest was being held, with about twenty minutes to spare before the day began.

A selection of Universal Era horror trailers started things off setting the tone for the day.

Michael Joyner hosted as discussion of the sixties boom in monster fandom.

There was a panel discussion about Horror Hosts, wonderful interplay between the characters, some of whom I'd never heard of (like Penny Dreadful) or just knew of by reputation (like Count Gore De Vol)... but of course, I was there for Doctor Madblood.

Those were the only events I took in, most of the day spent checking out the dealers tables- finding some great deals- and chatting with the other attendees, including some who recognized me from MySpace.


First batch of pictures is up on Flickr, and I've posted a video of Bowman Body, one of the hosts, on YouTube


There was a break when I went up to Great Bridge for dinner... still amazed at how much the area has changed in the last few years.

Saturday night it was movies, so many movies.
Frankenstein - The Edison version that I commented on in Bookworm Friday.
Preview for The House Between- John Kenneth Muir's independent video program... I'd seen it at FantaSci last summer and I'm just as eager to see it now as I was last summer.
Fankenstein - The Universal classic.
Curse of the Werewolf - The Hammer classic. Lurid colours. Great sets, great costumes. Spanish peasants who say things like "'ere now, wot's this?".
Rob, one of the gentlemen running the show, said that the last two movies would be group choice... I shouted out "Ilsa," knowing how completely impossible it was.
Rob's reply was a yeah-right.
Phantasm II- I saw this at Lynhaven Mall when it came out. Man, that was a long time ago.
Nightmare on Elm Street- When discussing trivia about NoES, a girl in the back piped up that it was Johnny Depp's "first premeire". I was restrained from smacking her.
Trailers from Hell- I got my Ilsa. The actual theater trailer for Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Shocked the hell out of me, that's for sure.
Freddie Vs Jason- Mindless fun.Didn't totally suck. Same reaction I had when I saw it at the theater.


I won one of the door prizes, a bag o' VHS, which totally rocked- I'd been eyeing Squirm for a while and it was one of the videos included. There were a couple of Universals, Invisible Man and Bride, since I had those two, I gave them to a couple of ladies there who knew how to appreciate the classics- one of whom actually was a big Invisible Man fan, and the original Chaney Phantom.


I've had my Halloween. Much fun. The 31st? That'll be ok. But MonsterFest rocked.

2007


The opening bit today dealt with cartoons, freaky black and white public domain cartoons.  There's something about those cartoons... Betty Boop and her dogboyfriend hiding in a cave while a walrus ghost is singing with the voice of Cab Calloway , backed by skeletons.  
Or Walt Disney's dancing skeletons in a Silly Symphonies cartoon, playing xylophone on another's spine.
Or two keystone style policemen investigating the theft of a mummy by the phantom of the opera looking baddie, who then brings the mummy to life- she looks like Cleopatra and sings like Betty Boop.
All of it made me thing of Grant Morrison's "manic pop thrill" theory of comic books... all the crazy stuff from the fifties that made comics fun, but illogical.


The second thing on the schedule was "Further Than Man Should Go: Transgression and Censorship in 1930's Horror Films"--presented by Tony Mercer.  He talked about the Hayes Code and pre-code horror films, how movies during the golden era pushed the moral envelope, with examples from Dracula, Frankenstein, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde- which I now realize I've never seen- were some of the highlights.
Actually, since I was sort of fixated on him earlier this month, the introduction to the Whale Frankenstein was the highpoint, Edward Van Sloan and his "How do you do?" speech.
Mercer Knows his stuff.  His presentation was brilliant and- most awesomely- he's got a hc of David Skal's Monster Show, the one with the Edward Gorey cover.


I skipped the next piece of programming- a showing of Back to the Black Lagoon- since I've got the Creature Legacy set.  I went shopping instead.  I picked up a Burger King Frankenstein promo figure, a collection of short stories by Matthew Warner- autographed, since he was here- and copy of a Brian Keene chapbook, autographed by Deena Warner, the cover artist, House of Secrets #140, featuring DC's own Frankenstein Monster, The Patchwork Man, and most sweetest was a hc of Skal's Hollywood Gothic, with pictures, the deluxe edition, cover price $39.95.  I got it for $9.  Who can say 'no' to that?


The Bowman Body returned to Chesapeake this year, getting an hours time of interview with Mike Joyner and just telling great stories.  I got a kick out of Joyner asking the audience if they'd seen the Bowman Body footage on youtube... 'cause the first on on the search is mine.


Mercer was back for the next panel, joined by Chris Johnson and Lee Hansen, Mercer's castmate from The House Between, a discussion of eighties horror.  It was an hour and a half was of sweet sweet nerdspeak.


We're on dinner break right now, and I'm in the parking lot eating up wi-fi bandwidth, playing music and praying the raccoons won't get me before they get back.


Seriously.  Raccoons.  I still get shivers thinking about it.  Sometime after midnight last year, after Phantasm 2 and Nightmare on Elm Street, I step outside to have a smoke... and I see a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark from inside a stormdrain.  Rationally, I know it was a raccoon, but the monkeybrain fear/flight/fight part just saw "EYES" and well, that was totally eek.
Special effects I can handle.   Creepy, probably rabid, night animals- not so much.

Creature From the Black Lagoon
Brides of Dracula
From Beyond (Director’s Cut)
Pumpkinhead
The Burning

2008


I'm there now.  The day is over, and I'm outside using the library's wifi.
The first discussion at 10 was Partners in Crime: The Coupling of Horror Art & Fiction by Couples in the Biz – Presented by: Elizabeth Massie/Cortney Skinner & Matt/Deena Warner.
11-  I caught Doctor Madblood talking about one of his "classic" episodes - The Umpire Strikes Back- from 1980.
I got a couple of Ms Massie's book, including A Little Magenta Book of Mean Stories from Borderlands Press.  Much sweetness, and Mr Warner's latest book Horror Isn't A 4-Letter Word
Elizabeth Blue and Pamela Kinney talked about Female Voices In Horror Literature at noon, which for the most part was the two of them and me.
I had to skip Justin's discussion on Writing Your First Horror Novel (but I did buy his first four chapters chapbook), because there was a discussion about Frankenstein In Film, which I had to disagree with one of the moderators opinion on Bride of, which he didn't hold in the same regard I held it.  Heresy.
Tony Mercer, of The House Between, gave a talk about Euro Horror, which I left after the clip of Suspiria, to catch the panel retrospective of the Friday The Thirteenth movies, the panel made up of The House Between's Jim Blanton, also one of Monsterfest's organizers, and Lee Hansen with Chris Johnson.
--
Tonight's movies:

Lost Skeleton of Cadavra – Rated PG - Hosted by: Cortney Skinner
Ghost of Frankenstein – Not Rated
The Mummy (1959) – Not Rated
Halloween 2 – Rated R
Nightbreed – Rated R
Diary of the Dead – Rated R

Discopath

One of my favorite non-genre movies is Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco.  I probably saw it at least five times- at a movie theater.  

Obviously, I love horror movies, so when I discovered the existence of Discopath, I knew it had to go to the top of my list.  I thought it would be like a cinematic Reese's Cup.  Right.

Duane is a young man who reacts badly to the percussive beat of disco music.  After killing someone in New York City in 1976, he escapes to a new life in Montreal under an assumed name.  That works out until he's exposed to music and goes on a killing spree.

There's an over the top scene of naked Duane dancing around to a disco version of The Flight of the Bumble-Bee with two decapitated heads.  You've been warned.

Well.... as I was writing this piece, I had my notes:

Investigation montage 

Cardboard characters

Devolves quickly into an exercise in cruelty bookended by weakly humorous bits regarding the schools administrators or the police investigating the case

Almost as if the filmmakers didn't know what direction they wanted to take the movie in.

Technically, it's pretty good.  It's stylishly shot, and the eras of 1976 and 1980 were recreated well enough.

I wasn't really sure how I felt about the film; partially based on my expectations- Shudder describes it as "tongue in cheek", which I imagined it to mean humorous or light hearted. when I was looking for an poster or dvd cover image, I came across a another piece about this movie (on AnythingHorror.com) and they point out that it's a homage to Italian giallo movies- stylish, glossy thrillers usually about serial killers.  It clicked.  SURE.  That's exactly what it was.  And it succeeded.

The graphic excesses of the movie, too much for a horror comedy, aren't out of place in an Argento film like Tenebrae or Profondo Rosso.  I'm not sure if I'd recommend Discopath,  I guess you could give it a watch after you've seen all the movies it's trying to emulate.

Shock Waves

Who knew there was actually a specific sub genre called Nazi Zombie movies?  Makes sense, of course  Apparently Shock Waves, from 1977. started it off.

It's kind of like Gilligan's Island gone worse.   The crew and passengers of a Caribbean tour boat are marooned on an island after hitting an uncharted wreck.  The island is occupied by a former SS commander played by Peter Cushing... and his aquatic Nazi Zombies, uncontrollable weapons left over from World War II.  The castaways soon become hunted, hilarity ensues.

The zombies are different from the standard flesh eaters as they just kill, rather than feed upon the living.

The castaways are by the book victims- nice guy, pretty girl, jerk, jerks wife, jock.  The boat captain was played by John Carridine.

I'm not sure why I skipped this one for so long- I remember the box from when I worked at a video store in the late eighties, but had a tendency to get this mixed up with Zombie Lake and Oasis of the Zombies, because, well... Nazi Zombies.

(Here's why you should watch the credits- the zombie makeup designer was Alan Ormsby, writer and lead in the (ahem) "classic" Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.  He has other credits but that's the one that'll go on his grave- that and the fact that he created the Hugo: The Man of a Thousand Faces doll.)