GhoulieJoe

William Friedkin’s ‘The Guardian’: It’s Worth at Least a Perfunc-tree Glance

Camilla (Jenny Seagrove) is the world’s best nanny. She’s sweet, knowledgeable, and works weekends. Too bad she’s also a Druid priestess (it’s quite the ma-tree-archy) who tends to sacrifice her young charges to a baby-eating tree. Up-and-coming couple Phil (Dwier Brown) and Kate (Carey Lowell) hire her, feeling blessed that all she asks in return for her hard work is Tuesday nights off. Meanwhile she’s getting baby Jake ready to make like a tree and leaf. Phil and Kate figure out the situation, and they have to stop Camilla from going out on a limb.

guard5 — “Don’t you think your baby should take a nap?” “Why?” “For rest.” “That’s a-corny joke!” “Well, I think that tree puns never ar-boring.”

It’s directed by William Friedkin, who did The Exorcist, but it’s nowhere near as scary; it’s not even creepy, for the most part. However, what it lacks in scares, it tries to make up for in literary allusions that give it a little depth, making it tolerable even with dialogue like “Get your hands off my baby!”. It begins with a reference to “Hansel and Gretel.” Young Scott Sheridan (Jacob Gelman), Camilla’s last client before Jake, is reading his baby sister the pop-up book version of the story, which includes a big spooky tree—nice foreshadowing, both with the tree and the evil woman initially trusted by the children, who turns out to be murderous. It’s the only really eerie scene. Later, there’s a nod to Roman mythology. Camilla (also known as Diana to the Sheridans) is bathing in the woods. Phil’s (creepy) friend Ned (Brad Hall), who’s infatuated with her, has been following her and catches a glimpse of her naked. She sends coyotes to chase and eat him. This is a neat retelling of the story of the goddess Diana, who when seen taking a bath by a hunter, turns him into a deer so his own dogs kill him.

guard4 — No, no, no, fuck you, movie! I can’t even! That’s a *baby!* *Starts bawling.*

Such moments are undermined by less great scenes, for example when Camilla is chased by three muggers/would-be rapists. They’re walking clichés, from their leather jackets and switchblades to their utterances like “Cut the bitch.” I was eagerly waiting for Camilla to smite them with her womyn powers, but instead she just runs to her tree and lets it do her work for her. But there is a nifty shot of her lounging serenely on a branch while the baddies are getting chomped and pummeled.

guard3 — “You’ll pay for this tree-chery.”

I came away from the film ambivalent; I can’t decide whether its good points outweigh the bad. I watched it a time or two with childhood horror movie buddy Hope, so it has the nostalgia factor for me. Watching the film as a new parent, I expected to be horrified, especially when the Sheridan baby gets it. Instead, I mainly felt indignant, thinking how I would never let a stranger come into my house and handle my baby. I worked myself up into a pretty good lather close to the end of the movie, when Jake has to go to the hospital. Camilla, having been fired, shows up anyway and begins unhooking Jake from his medical equipment so she can take him. Phil is momentarily away, and Kate is just standing there saying, “Camilla, stop it!” Hells no. In the end, it’s worth a watch; give it a look if you’re in the mood for something silly but kinda smart.

guard2 — “It’d be totally rad if you’d, like, not take our baby.”

‘Gothika’: Slick High-Budget Horror with Actors You’ve Heard Of

Halle Berry is Dr. Miranda, a prison psychiatrist. Among her many tasks is counseling Chloe (Penelope Cruz), who’s convinced the devil is raping her. Miranda’s smug sureness of who’s crazy and who’s not is challenged when after an encounter with a ghostly girl, she wakes up in a cell at her work, suspected of murdering her husband (Charles S. Dutton). She gets firsthand experience of what it’s like to be insane, as she keeps having visions of the girl. Miranda has to figure out what the ghost wants (does it have anything to do with Chloe’s rapist?) and who really killed her husband.

I read a negative review of this movie on Campblood.org, and though its editor Buzz is my hero (soooo much funnier and more insightful than me), I disagree with him in regards to how terrible he says it is. It has its good points. It has fine acting, a plot that makes sense, and a decent score by John Ottman. While it’s not scary, it is creepy in that Miranda’s well-ordered world is falling apart around her and she begins acting like her patients.

goth3 — Look, it’s John Carroll Lynch! Back then, he was best known for playing Drew Carey’s brother on TV.

My own complaints about the movie stem from disbelieving that Miranda would be incarcerated in her own workplace and that her colleague Pete (Robert Downey Jr.) would be her doctor. I remember from my former psych major days that it’s unethical to receive treatment from someone you know. It ruined the movie for me the first time I saw it, but I like it a little better every time I see it. I also think it’s brave of Berry to spend most of the movie looking like a mess. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for something Hollywood with big production values.

goth2 — Of course Berry’s version of “mess” is still superhumanly hot

Bill Condon’s ‘Gods and Monsters’ is Beautiful and Bittersweet

Fictionalized version of the last days of James Whale, director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. It’s the 1950s, and Jimmy (Ian McKellen) is an old man now, having long been booted out of Hollywood for being openly gay. His mind is starting to go, leaving him with two options: not take medication, be overcome by memories and occasionally pass out, or take the medication and have trouble thinking coherently. His troubles are lessened by a friendship with his hunky gardener Clay (Brendan Fraser), but the past keeps coming back to haunt him.

The film is nowhere near classifiable as horror, but given that it’s about James Whale, that monsters are a continuous image system, and that Clive Barker is an executive producer, I feel good about including it here. Fans of Universal monster movies will enjoy a scene when a pesky acquaintance of Jimmy’s (Jack Plotnik) reunites him with Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester—the actors playing them look close to the real thing.

Jimmy is often equated with Frankenstein’s monster in the movie (for example a dream sequence when he’s the monster and Clay is the mad scientist), symbolizing his status as an outcast and his loneliness. He has a sort of boyfriend, but David (David Dukes) is very closeted and tends to scold Jimmy for not playing the game of acting heterosexual for the masses. Clay has a bond with him, but Clay’s grossed out and skittish about Jimmy’s sexuality. Which leaves his kooky live-in maid Hannah (Lynn Redgrave), who loves him, but thinks he’s going to hell.

It’s a sad movie, but there’s still quite a bit of humor, keeping it from being too depressing. Which is appropriate, since Jimmy (at least movie Jimmy) always meant his horror movies to be kinda funny. Check it out if you’re in the mood for monsters but not gore, or if you’d like to see a movie about a gay dude played by a gay dude and made by gay filmmakers for once.

‘Dead Friend’: A Nifty Korean Ghost Story

Korean movie, AKA The Ghost, AKA Ryeong. Ji-won (Ha-neul Kim) is a college student with amnesia. She starts having visions of an angry spirit coming to get her, but doesn’t remember what she did to cause it. She’s approached by Yu-jung (Hie-ju Jeon), one of her old friends from high school, who helps her gradually recall that she, Yu-jung, and their two friends Mi-kyung (Yi Shin) and Eun-seo (Hye-bin Jeon) were stuck-up and mean back then, particularly to a poor girl named Su-in (Sang-mi Nam), who mysteriously disappeared. As her friends start dying, Ji-won needs to uncover the rest of her past if she doesn’t want to join them.

I’m used to a higher level of quality from Eastern horror films than Western, so the occasional bouts of overacting in the film are disappointing, but forgivable. As per usual, there’s no romantic subplot; unlike in an American movie, Ji-won’s male platonic friend stays that way. (Though I’m still unsure why he’s there in the first place—he doesn’t do much of anything.)

There are some creepy moments, like when Eun-seo discovers her sink is clogged with a large mass of hair—ew! There are also some funny moments, like when Eun-seo’s teenage sister Eun-jung (not to be confused with Yu-jung) (Lee Yun-ji) and her friends play with a Ouija board: “Ask what’ll be on the finals.” “How will the ghost know that?” “Because it’s the ghost!” Check it out if you’re in the mood for something eerie, well-written, and with a neat twist.

‘From Within’ is Pretty Not Terrible

Lindsay (Elizabeth Rice) is a Christian teen in Small Town, USA. Suddenly, apparently because of a curse, teenagers are killing themselves faster than fashion dictates change. It seems that evil apparitions that look like the victims are killing them. The town points its collective finger at Lindsay’s schoolmate Aiden (Thomas Dekker), the son of a woman who was supposedly a witch. Lindsay and Aiden (to the displeasure of Lindsay’s staunchly right-wing boyfriend Dylan, played by Kelly Blatz) team up to solve the mystery.

From Within was recommended to me by my sister Leslie, who was interested in my take on it. My verdict is: annoying. I didn’t look kindly on the unlikable characters such as Lindsay’s drunken mother (or big sister, whatever she is) or the sanctimonious Dylan or even Lindsay—she struck me as whiny and helpless. Naturally I should like Aiden, who reminds me of the company I kept as a teenager—goth outsiders. Alas, I didn’t like him much either; maybe because he looks too much like Garth Brooks’s alter ego Chris Gaines. See?

In addition, there are plot issues like the question of how Aiden and his younger brother were supporting themselves after their only parent died, and why a witch would want to move to such a close-minded locale. Though the portrayal of witchcraft in the movie is inoffensive, it’s still hokey, and it’s clear no one did any research on actual witches.

from7 — Sybil Leek: awesome, but not theatrical enough, I guess

Gripes aside, I have to admit I liked it better the second time I saw it. It has a few creepy moments, for example when Lindsay’s friend Claire (Britt Robertson) is standing in the bathroom, gazing at herself in the mirror. Suddenly, Claire emerges from a stall, revealing that we had actually been looking at her doppelgänger. I like the disturbing twist ending; it concludes the movie with a bang. I also enjoy the irony that Aiden tries to protect Christian Lindsay with a magic spell.

fw7 — “The power of bullets compels you!”

The motif of the victims seeing look-alikes and reflections of themselves doing ghastly things is quite similar to Mirrors; I’m not sure whose idea was first, but I have to give credit to From Within for being released about four months earlier–though technically Mirrors is a remake of a Korean movie. Check it out if you’re in the mood for reflections and Jesus (and reflections about Jesus).

‘From a Whisper to a Scream’ is a Seedy Gorefest with a Little Social Upheaval–Love it!

Mid-’80s Vincent Price movie, AKA The Offspring; it’s told in four segments with a wraparound story. Having just witnessed the execution of a serial killer, reporter Beth (Susan Tyrrell) pays the dead woman’s uncle Julian (Price) a visit. He sits her down and explains how his town of Oldfield, Tennessee poisoned his niece’s mind by demonstrating with four case studies. The first is about Stanley (Clu Gulager), a man dangerously obsessed with his comely but disinterested co-worker Grace (Megan McFarland). The second concerns Jesse (Terry Kiser), a man running from debt who meets a powerful practitioner of voodoo (Harry Caesar). The third shows Steven (Ron Brooks), a carnival glass eater who falls in love with the wrong woman. The fourth takes place just after the end of the Civil War, with a corrupt Union captain (Cameron Mitchell) meeting the remnants of a war-torn Oldfield.

fam3 — “One thing I’ve learned, my dear, is that one is never too old for nightmares.”–actual quote

I give the film high marks for originality, as well as excellent acting and (for the most part—there is an animatronic puppet) good special effects. It gets quite gruesome; I was actually shocked several times, for example in the fourth segment when a group of children capture a man and stab him in the crotch (later they play a game with his dismembered body parts).

What I find most interesting about the movie is the lack of hegemonic (I got me a fancy college edu-ma-cation!) white male authority. Stanley is helpless before Grace, Jesse longs for the abilities of the Black voodoo master, Steven is not just controlled but literally owned by the carnival proprietor Snakewoman (Rosalind Cash), and the Oldfield children rebuild the town on the blood of adults. Many of the murder victims are men as well, and most of the typical crawling and groveling that is usually reserved for women is left to the men.

I watched this first with my sister Leslie, horror movie buddy extraordinaire, so it has the nostalgia factor for me. But I also genuinely appreciate it for what it is. Give it a look if you like good acting, realistic-looking fake blood, and social justice issues with your horror.

1985’s ‘Fright Night’: Sassy, Fabulous Vampires!

Not to be confused with the 2011 remake. Charley (William Ragsdale) is a normal teenage boy who likes to do teenage boy stuff, like try to score with his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) while watching Fright Night, a TV show devoted to classic horror movies. His good times are disrupted by new neighbors Jerry (Chris Sarandon) and his boyfriend—er, buddy, Billy (Jonathan Stark). Charley discovers that Jerry is a vampire, but has difficulty convincing anyone else. Amy hires Fright Night host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) to prove Charley wrong, but Peter soon realizes Charley’s right. When Jerry kidnaps Amy, the two team up to stop him.

I suppose the most striking thing about the film is that it’s (intentionally or not) gay, gay, gay. Starting with the cast, we have Chris Sarandon, whose most memorable roles include playing Al Pacino’s husband in Dog Day Afternoon. Roddy McDowall was rumored to have been at least bisexual. Stephen Geoffreys, who plays Charley’s sorta friend Evil Ed, if not gay, has made a lot of gay porn. Amanda Bearse is gay. Then there are the characters. Ed is seduced (ahem, into being a vampire) by Jerry.

fn1 — “All you have to do is take my hand.” –actual quote

Amy is constantly telling Charlie to stop it when he tries to go all the way with her. She doesn’t seem scared, just disinterested. She’s later attracted to Jerry, but only because he’s using his vampire wiles. Jerry and Billy are at least partners in the sense of a symbiotic relationship: Jerry supplies him with power, while Billy protects him during the day. But they do seem to love each other, particularly in a scene when Billy comes up behind Jerry and embraces him, with one arm over Jerry’s shoulder and one arm across his chest. IMDB claims that writer/director Tom Holland wrote Jerry and Billy as subtextually gay, but not Ed. Too bad the remake shied away from the Billy idea entirely (but it’s not not gay).

If you want to indulge in the stereotype that gay men are good at doing hair and picking clothes, then consider that Amy’s transformation into a vampire includes shedding her ugly I-don’t-want-to-have-sex-with-my-boyfriend-duds (overalls! the girl wears overalls!) and wearing a sexy dress. She’s completely out of it, so presumably either Jerry or Billy dressed her. Her hair is also longer, for some reason. I picture the two guys off-camera, one fretting over hair and the other dashing off to find something that doesn’t make her look like a farmer. See the before and after:

Moving along, it’s pretty original, for a vampire movie. It’s funny and even a little creepy—when Amy becomes a vampire, she has a crazy warthog/shark face—see the movie poster. The makeup and special effects are pretty good for the mid-‘80s. The performances are decent aside from a bit of overacting (mostly on Sarandon’s part). Check it out if you’re in the mood for something retro and fun.

Tim Burton’s ‘Frankenweenie’: Wholesome Undead Canine Shenanigans

Not to be confused with the (godawful, hate it!) remake; this is one of Tim Burton’s early works. 10-year-old Victor (Barret Oliver) loses his dog Sparky when he’s hit by a car. Unbeknownst to his parents (Shelley Duvall and Daniel Stern), he brings Sparky back to life a la Frankenstein. Unfortunately Sparky gets loose and the neighbors think he’s a monster. Before long, there’s an angry mob wanting to put Sparky back in his grave.

fw2 — It’s the neverending Spaaaaarky, ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah…

There are obvious homages to James Whales’s Frankenstein movies, both in plot and appearance. It’s shot in black and white, and at one point Sparky hides from the mob in a windmill (on a miniature golf course—too cute!). Though in terms of theme, I’m not sure what the moral lesson is (unlike with Frankenstein, it‘s not that reviving the dead is wrong—this works out pretty well here), though I suppose it involves not being judgmental and jumping to conclusions.

My only gripe about the movie (besides that it’s short—only 29 minutes) is that since it’s made by Walt Disney Productions, there’s a lot of shameless product placement crammed in. Otherwise, the actors are great, Sparky’s makeup is amazing, and it’s funny without being sappy. For example, my favorite quote: “I guess we can’t punish Victor for bringing Sparky back from the dead.” I just don’t understand why it’s called Frankenweenie, since Sparky is a bull terrier.

I don’t have many precautions for animal lovers, besides that a major plot point is a dead pet. The accident isn’t shown, nor do we see anything graphic like a mangled corpse. Check it out if you’re in the mood for something cute but horror-themed.

fw4 — Look, it’s Jason Hervey from *The Wonder Years*, Paul C. Scott, and Sofia Coppola!

Somehow all YouTube has are stuff from the remake and clips from either this scene or the scene when Sparky gets hit.

‘The Fourth Kind’ is Eerie, but Nowhere Near Based on a True Story

Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich) is a psychologist in Alaska whose patients all seem to have repressed memories of being abducted by aliens. (The title comes from Allen Hynek’s scale for UFO experiences, being, respectively, sightings, physical effects, and the actual presence of aliens, though Hynek did not posit a fourth kind himself–thank you, Wikipedia. For the love of all that is holy, give them some money, folks.) Her home life is also complicated by the recent death of her husband, resulting in her daughter going blind and her son being hostile toward her. Her patients start exhibiting extremely erratic behavior, and one seems to be warning her to stop her investigation of the phenomenon. When Abigail’s daughter is abducted too, she’s at her wits’ end.

Ostensibly The Fourth Kind is based on a true story. The movie is inter-cut with supposed footage and sound clips from the “real” Dr. Tyler’s collection, along with interviews with Tyler by the director of the film, Olatunde Osunsanmi. IMDB claims the film is a hoax and has a filmography for the supposed “real” Abigail Tyler (Charlotte Milchard). Nevertheless, Milchard gives a smashing performance with her skeletal face and dead eyes.

While the footage of the “real” victims adds a sense of realism and is suitably creepy, it’s difficult to try to watch a continuous split-screen with two sets of audio. The film tries to be authentic, but now all I can see is hoax.

However, the film sticks in my mind as creepy even more than a decade after first seeing it. Give it a look if you’re in the mood for an interesting take on the extraterrestrial horror movie.

‘The Fly’ (1986) is More Emotionally Involving than the Original, but Much More Revolting–So, Standard ’80s Cronenberg

Seth (Jeff Goldblum) is a scientist working on teleportation. His girlfriend Veronica (Geena Davis) is chronicling his experiments for a book. After a lengthy process of figuring out how to transport live objects (without making them a bloody mess), Seth transports himself, inadvertently with a fly. He and the insect fuse together, causing Seth to mutate. At first, he’s pleased; he can do gymnastics and have marathon sex sessions. But then his nails, teeth, and even his ears fall off, his skin becomes gray and bumpy, and he has to eat like a fly, which involves dissolving his food. Emotionally, he becomes aggressive and insists Veronica leave him before he hurts her. Unfortunately she’s pregnant, and scared to have the baby. Meanwhile, an increasingly deranged Seth thinks he can weed out the fly genes if he splices himself with enough people, and sets his sights on Veronica.

fly4 — “Dammit, I’m more than just a sexy sexy man! I’m an actor!”

Ah, my very first David Cronenberg film. I feel he did a good job with this remake; in fact I don’t think anyone else should have done it—the radical altering of flesh is his specialty. There are major changes from the original, not the least of which are updating it scientifically (watch for Seth’s giant ‘80s computer), changing everyone’s names, and making the characters American instead of French. Of course he took out the fly crying “Help me! Help me!” but he replaced that iconic scene with the much-used phrase “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” I do miss Vincent Price, but Davis is always pleasant, and Goldblum gives a great performance as the “fly who dreamed he was a man.” Kudos to him for wearing what looks like ten pounds of makeup. I enjoy how oddly cheerful he is while mutating, and how excited, like the scene when he examines a mystery growth on his stomach: “Oh, look at this. What’s this? I don’t know.” I rarely consider remakes to be superior to the original (or even a good idea) but this one’s in gifted hands.

fly6 — Juuuust kidding. Here’s what we all came for.

This film has one of the worst gross-out moments I’ve ever seen. Seth is arm-wrestling a guy, and makes the bone pop out of his forearm. What makes it worse is the guy’s agonized screams (when I watched it last, my brother came in from another room to see what was going on). Check it out if you like Cronenberg’s tactics for disgusting happenings (but not for bizarre ones), and watch for him playing a surgeon.