Ultimate Fantasy: Magic, Murder & Performing Femininity in The Love Witch

I wrote about one of my favorite recent films, Anna Biller's The Love Witch (2016), over on Death & the Maiden. Please check it out by clicking on Samantha Robinson's bewitching visage in the above photo.

Good Spooky/Bad Spooky: Capsule Reviews

Sinister is the latest movie (that is not part of the Paranormal Activity franchise) from Blumhouse Productions, which has a special place in my heart because a) they have given us some fun scary movies, b) they ended the Saw/torture porn reign of terror that dominated the early aughties, and c) they produced the new Rob Zombie witch movie The Lords of Salem, which is due in 2013. Anyhow, Sinister is sort of like The Shining meets Paranormal Activity: It's about a true crime writer, played by Ethan Hawke, who moves his wife and two children into a house that was the scene of a grisly unsolved crime - a family of four was murdered, and the youngest daughter vanished. He finds a box of extraordinarily disturbing "home movies" in the attic, and begins to lose his grip on reality as it becomes clear that the crime he's investigating was not an isolated incident - and an extremely, well, sinister boogeyman may be to blame. This movie was a little silly in parts, but it was tons of fun. If you liked Insidious, you'll probably enjoy this one too. Extra points for doing a "found footage" movie with a twist: Instead of claiming the movie itself is comprised of found footage, in Sinister a character actually finds and watches the footage, with terrifying consequences.

And speaking of Paranormal Activity 4, what did everybody think? I really enjoy these movies, but even I have to admit that the conceit is getting a little tired at this point. I love the second and third movies - maybe even more than the first one - but this one felt like a retread, and few of the scares surprised me. Not a bad movie, and if you like this kind of thing you may as well check it out, but it won't be a tragedy if you wait for the DVD. I hear a fifth installment is already being planned. Has the franchise run out of go-go juice or are there still scares to be had in the saga of Katie the suburban succubus and her demonic cronies? You decide!

Like I said, PA4 - while flawed - wasn't bad. If you want BAD, I hope you caught NBC's airing of Bryan Fuller's Munsters remake, titled Mockingbird Lane, last Friday. Since the series wasn't picked up for the fall schedule, the network decided to broadcast the pilot as a one-hour Halloween special. (That, or they truly are "tanking NBC," just like Jack Donaghy said on 30 Rock!) I wanted to like this. I did! I'm not opposed to remakes (see: my love of Rob Zombie), and I love what they did with the Addams Family in the 90s. But tonally, this was a complete nightmare...and not the good kind. It lacked charm, it lacked scares and it lacked laughs. Maybe there's some sort of Munsters Curse that has rendered this great piece of classic '60s horror kitsch completely un-remake-able. We have the complete original series on DVD already; maybe this retread will be the last nail in the coffin and the Munster clan will finally be able to rest in peace? Here's hoping!

Capsule Movie Reviews: Prince of Darkness, Frankenweenie, From a Whisper to a Scream, Equinox

Sometimes there are movies I want to write about, but it just doesn't feel like I have enough in me to create a "full post." For those moments, I give you...capsule movie reviews. (I actually really love shorter movie reviews, personally. They give you enough to help you determine whether or not you want to watch the movie, but they're usually too brief to give away major plot points.)

Prince of Darkness: This is a John Carpenter movie from the 80s that focuses on the Devil, which is such an 80s horror topic, right?! Satanic cults were a real thing back then. Anyhow, in Prince of Darkness it turns out that, concealed beneath an old church is an unspeakable evil, in the form of green goo that is vaguely reminiscent of You Can't Do That on Television, or the filling of a delicious, delicious Cadbury Screme Egg. Donald Pleasence plays a priest with haunted eyes who says terrifying things about how everyone is doomed. Alice Cooper plays a homeless guy who stabs someone to death with a fucking bicycle. It's on Netflix streaming - check it out! It's not a masterpiece, but it's enjoyable nonetheless.

Frankenweenie: Tim Burton (sorta) redeems himself to diehards who want to love him but can't pretend his most recent movies have been good with this supercute black-and-white 3D animated tale about a boy who resurrects his beloved dog, based on his live action short of the same name which you probably watched as an extra on the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD. It has lots of Burtonian atmosphere, a creepy/manic Danny Elfman score, nods to Universal monster movies and Vincent Price and even the voice of Winona Ryder as a Lydia Deetz-ish deadpan goth girl. If any of this sounds even remotely appealing to you, you'll dig this movie.

From a Whisper to a Scream: Another horror anthology currently available via Netflix streaming, this is an 80s movie starring an elderly Vincent Price about the evil that infects the (fictional) town of Oldfield, Tennessee. (Note: For some reason, I thought there would be a murderous scarecrow in this movie. I'm not sure why I thought this, but let me tell you there are no scarecrows whatsoever. You have been warned.) VP plays a classy/creepy old librarian whose serial killer niece has just been executed, and a mysterious lady comes to visit him to learn more about what drove her to murder. What follows is four ghoulish tales covering topics like murderous babies from beyond the grave, voodoo, necrophilia, carnival freakshows and the horrors of the Civil War (no, really!). This movie was kind of brutal, actually - anthologies tend to be a little on the kitschy side (think Tales from the Crypt) and this one had a number of gory moments that took me by surprise. And can I just say that I'm so fucking tired of watching women murdered in movies for rebuffing a man's sexual advances, as if that somehow lends sympathy to the murderer? (Note: This is why we need more women filmmakers, especially in the horror genre!) Apparently Vincent Price hated this movie. It's nothing I would recommend going out of your way to watch, but if you're an anthology fan with a couple of hours to kill, you could do worse. Like, for instance, you could wind up watching...

Equinox: This 1970 movie straddles the line between so bad it's funny and so bad you're kinda pissed that you spent valuable minutes of your life watching it. It's full of annoying characters who do inexplicably stupid things, and I can safely say that I was rooting for absolutely everybody's death. The special effects are abysmal, even for the time, and don't make a lot of sense within the context of the story. Like, why does one of the characters end up battling a large blue caveman? Hmm. It gets points for all of the cool cars and for showcasing L.A. hiking trails that I know for a fact I've been on, including the Bronson Caves in Hollywood. Points taken away for the hyper-annoying casual sexism and the utter idiocy of the plot.

Tales That Witness Madness (1973)

 

Here's something I just figured out that's kind of blowing my mind: The reason I love horror anthology movies can be almost entirely traced back to The Simpsons' annual "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween specials. Anthologies offer an excellent return on investment in the 90 minutes or so they take to watch; instead of following just one storyline, you get 3 or more. If all of the stories are creepy and engaging, it's like hitting the horror jackpot, and if a few of them suck, the production can still redeem itself with one killer segment. (Example: Creepshow 2 isn't exactly a great movie, but I sure love that menacing lake sludge in "The Raft.")

Tales That Witness Madness, a British anthology from 1973 that is currently available via Netflix streaming, is a keeper through and through. First, the title...the poster...the tagline that promises a veritable orgy of the damned! Made in 1973, this is a movie that is very much of its time visually, especially in terms of costume and set design. If, like me, you love how intensely ugly the 1970s could be, this is a must see.

 

The four stories contained within the movie are framed by a rather clever device: Each one is a tale that has been told by a madman (or madwoman, or madchild) to his or her psychiatrist, who relates the macabre missives to a colleague while guiding him from room to room through the retina-searingly white halls of an ultra-sterile Clockwork Orange-ish mental hospital. The shrink is played by a pre-Halloween Donald Pleasence, doing that doctor-profoundly-haunted-by-the-presence-of-unspeakable-evil thing he does so well.

In the first room, we meet a little boy with a very dangerous imaginary friend. While there were creepy moments, this segment turned out to be the weakest of the bunch. But hang on to your trousers, because next up is a segment about a sinister penny-farthing and the antiques dealer it terrorizes.

Yes, friends. A possessed penny-farthing.

Just when you're beginning to think, "Dude, this is one of my new favorite movies!" it gets better. Because out comes Joan Collins. Early '70s Joan Collins, wearing filmy negligees and floppy bows in her hair and bitchily throwing her drink in the face of a rather feminine-shaped tree that her husband brings home.

Finally, the movie reaches its climax with a segment about a satanic luau, which sounds kind of like the plot to a Scooby Doo episode, which it kind of it is, except no kids meddle so no one's evil plans are foiled, nawmean?

The movie wraps up with a nice little twist - sort of predictable, but fun nonetheless. The morals of this movie seem to be: Don't bring home every crazy thing that you find in the street, or the forest, or your uncle's estate sale or wherever. Handsome men who murmur lasciviously into the ear of your teenage daughter every time you turn your back might have some sort of diabolical ulterior motive. If your child tells you that his imaginary friend hates you, you're probably going to get murdered. And don't fuck with Joan Collins. Hesitate to ax a bitch, she will not.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

A profoundly strange and disorienting movie, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (a Czech movie filmed in 1969 - with government funding! - and released the following year) is a fever dream of sex, death, religion and the confusion that so often accompanies the onset of adolescence. Is it a straight-up horror movie? Not exactly. But if you're in the right frame of mind, the images from this film will certainly find their way into your nightmares.








Everything that happens in this movie is like something out of a bizarre fairy tale - we're talking classic Brothers Grimm here, not the cleaned up Disney versions. While the plot doesn't always "make sense" per se, I think the dreamy flow and jarring imagery accurately convey the horrors of being a 13-year-old girl. You're not quite ready to grow up, but your body has other ideas. Adult sexuality is foreign and intimidating at best, disgusting and threatening at worst. Every man you meet could be a potential predator. And in the middle of all this is Valerie, refusing to be a victim.

There are vampires, demons and a bit of witchcraft (or at least a burning at the stake), ladies who put fish down their dresses, magical earrings and menarche. Fun for the whole family it's not, but if you're down for a visual feast that will stay with you for longer than the 73-minute runtime, I encourage you to seek out a copy of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.

The Hearse (1980)

Such a strange and pointless movie! The plot is as follows: A woman who strongly resembles Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich but with slightly less extreme hair inherits a house in the country and decides to live in it; upon arrival, she discovers that the town is populated exclusively by male sex offenders and potential rapists who eye her lasciviously with varying degrees of both lust and disdain, barely concealed and in equal measure. Each scene is fraught with tension, as you repeatedly wonder whether you're about to learn that naive, trusting Jane just invited the wrong man into her house. There are vague mumblings about pacts with Satan and lovelorn ancestors, and a little girl with pigtails curtly informs Jane, "Your house is haunted and you're a ghost." I kept expecting something to happen that would begin to propel the plot forward, but instead the main character just trips around making questionable choices, and occasionally a creepy hearse driven by an even creepier driver appears and then disappears - making his rounds before he drops by Oliver Reed's place in Burnt Offerings, no doubt.

There's something to be said for the nostalgic, Vaseline-on-the-lens magic of any horror movie shot circa 1980, but there are other, better films from the era that you should check out before you take a spin in The Hearse.

Movie Review: THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL

October has passed, and that can only mean one thing: If you're still reading this blog, you're no Johnny-come-lately to horror and Halloween; like me, you're a lifer. So while we can all bow our heads in a moment of silence for our dearly departed Halloween season, which is sure to rise again in a mere 363 days or so, I have good news for you: There is a fantastic new scary movie for you to seek out - and no, it's not Paranormal Activity, which I'm sure you've already seen (and formed your own opinions about). This one is somewhat more obscure, but - in my estimation - even more effective at generating those atmospheric, slow build scares. It's called The House of the Devil.

Last week, I read an article in the L.A. Times that described this film as the kind that "transforms the mundane into the macabre, and when...[it] finally takes a step into the supernatural, it comes as even more of a shock because of the muted atmosphere that precedes it." This is exactly how I like my scary movies: Long on atmosphere, short on cheap thrills, and painstakingly paced. From the very first frame, I had a feeling I would love it. To begin, it's set in the early 80s, but not in the spoofy, played-for-laffs way that most movies set in the 80s present the decade; no one is dressed like Pat Benatar or wearing garish neon colors. Instead, the colors are muted, the hair is softly feathered, and the jeans are high-waisted - in other words, authentic. The protagonist is a reserved, thoughtful college girl named Samantha, as portrayed by Jocelin Donahue, who calls to mind a young Margot Kidder far more than she evokes overly toned and styled modern-day starlets like Jessica Biel.

We learn that Samantha desperately wants to move out of her dorm and into an apartment of her own, but she doesn't have enough money for the first month's rent, and there are few available job prospects. Then she is presented with an intriguing opportunity to babysit for an eccentric couple in a sprawling Victorian mansion in the country. Despite her reservations about the creepiness of her employers and their shady bait-and-switch when it comes to the particulars of the job, Samantha accepts - and that's when the real fun begins.

If you're looking for an action-oriented horror flick, stay away from this one; about three quarters of the movie is spent entirely on building anticipation and heaping on the tension. When is the axe going to fall? When are the Satanic rituals going to start? What's with the lunar eclipse that everyone keeps mentioning?! From the opening credits to the lingering closing shot (and even the promotional posters that I found online!), everything about this movie is eerie, unsettling and meticulously true to the period without crossing the line into camp. If you fetishize late 70s/early 80s horror movies as much as I do, this is a must-see. Director Ti West knows his shit when it comes to the era - and I can say that this is easily my favorite new horror film of the year so far.

The House of the Devil is currently in theaters in limited release, in addition to being available for viewing OnDemand.

Movie Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

If you're a horror fan in L.A., I'm sure you're aware of the fact that Paranormal Activity had a free midnight screening last night at the Arclight in Hollywood. (Not familiar? Think Blair Witch-meets-The Haunting, and check out the truly excellent trailer.) I was seriously chomping at the bit to see this movie, to the extent that a) I actually had a nightmare about it before seeing it, and b) I was more than happy to wait in a line for nearly 4 hours. So what's the verdict? Was it worth the wait?

Um...yeah, sorta. Here's the thing about this movie: In my opinion, it absolutely has the potential for greatness. All of the elements are there: A simple yet effective concept ("What Happens When You Sleep?"), a lack of CG effects, unknown actors in the lead roles, etc. At times, the movie is extremely effective. There were at least 3 shots that made all of the hairs on my arms stand on end. (When your body physically responds to a movie, you just can't argue about its effectiveness.) And one scene in particular, involving a trip to the attic, had me actually looking away from the screen just because it was so unpleasant. (Not gross - nothing disgusting happens in this movie - just really unpleasant.) I was ready to love it. I wanted to love it.

And then there's that ending.

I won't go into detail, because I don't want to ruin anything for anybody and this is certainly the kind of movie where the less you know the scarier it will be, but for me, the ending can absolutely make or break a horror film. If your film is kinda meh, but the ending is incredible, I'm sold; conversely, if the movie is really good but the ending is super lame, I walk out feeling cheated. This ending was definitely an eye roller. Tonally, it's completely different from the rest of the movie, and in my opinion, betrays the spirit of the film, which is a shame.

And guess what? It's not the original ending!

Apparently, Paranormal Activity actually had two different endings prior to this one - and, from what I've read, both of them were superior to what I saw in the theater last night. My favorite, of course, is the original. It fits the movie, and sounds truly terrifying. Without that ending, this movie is simply good; with that ending, it could very well have become a classic.

Would I recommend Paranormal Activity? Yes. It's fun, it's scary, and it's easily the creepiest new movie to come out this year. But keep in mind that it is flawed - not only because of the revamped ending, but due to that perennial horror movie downfall, the Character Who Makes Stupid Choices. Still, it gave me nightmares. Again. So, in the end, it did its job - and if you don't believe me, you can ask all the little hairs on the back of my neck. They don't lie.

Movie Review: Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2

As previously mentioned, I was fortunate enough to attend the red carpet premiere of Halloween 2 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Monday night. There seems to be a little bit of confusion about how, exactly, this entry can be called "H2" when it is, in fact, the tenth - count 'em! - film in the Halloween series, so here's the skinny: Rob Zombie's 2007 take on Michael Myers was not a sequel, it was a "reimagining." Thus, this film is a sequel to that reimagining, not another entry in the series started by John Carpenter. Got it? It might sound a little strange, but the truth is that the less you think about Carpenter's movie, the more you'll enjoy this one.

How did I feel about it? Overall, I liked it. But I should preface this by saying that I am, in fact, a Rob Zombie fan, and I did like his first Halloween. What I like most about him is that he genuinely seems like a fan of horror and of these movies. Whereas the Texas Chainsaw and Friday the 13th remakes seem like they were made by people who were, at best, ignorant and, at worst, disdainful of the films they were revamping, I think Zombie has the proper reverence for the original Halloween, which just so happens to be my favorite film of all time. True, he has made a lot of changes, but I actually find that more respectful than trying to do a shot-by-shot remake a la Gus van Sant's Psycho; it was perfect the first time, so if you don't have something totally different to bring to the table, why bother?

Okay, now that we have that settled, on to the movie itself. I read somewhere that Zombie conceptualized his first Halloween as two movies, with the first focusing on Michael Myers as a child up until his escape from Smith's Grove, and the second dealing with "the night he came home." The general consensus is that he succeeded far more with the first half of the movie than he did with the second half, and I'm guessing he agrees, because H2 is essentially a remake of the second half of that first film. (Woo! Confused yet?!) It's basically Laurie's friends getting slaughtered one by one as she tries to avoid the same fate herself; however, it is scarier and more interesting than it was in the first movie. There are a few flashback sequences and some very bizarre glimpses into the psyche of Michael Myers; these are less successful than in the first movie, I think mainly due to the absence of Daeg Faerch, a.k.a. young Michael Myers. He's been replaced in this film, and the new kid is way too cute to look adequately disturbed.

Scout Taylor-Compton plays Laurie Strode, and while I wasn't particularly impressed with her in the first movie, I think she did a fantastic job in this one. There's also a nice twist near the end that calls Halloween 4 to mind. Oh, and as for the kills, which Zombie has trumpeted as particularly brutal this time around? They are - mostly because of the sound! As my boyfriend put it, "It's like he's punching people, but with a knife." Prepare yourself for lots of crunching, snapping, squishing noises, and a lot of jump moments (including two that actually made me clutch my chest and hiss, "Oh my God!").

The premiere itself was rather thrilling; we managed to spot a number of the film's stars, including Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris (who was sitting two rows behind us!) and, of course, Rob and Sheri Zombie. My favorite celebrity sighting of the night, however, was Ace Frehley of KISS, who was practically anonymous without his signature "Spaceman" makeup.
I did like this movie, but I'm not sure it was better than the first. However, if you enjoyed that film, I would definitely recommend this one, but I don't think it's going to win over any Zombie detractors. You have to be a fan of his whole mean, dirty, disgusting aesthetic...which I am. One note: While I think Zombie is a very talented director, sometimes his dialogue can be a little cringeworthy. It works in a movie like The Devil's Rejects, which centers on a family of deranged outlaw serial killers, but it seems a little out of character for suburban, Midwestern teenage girls.

Essentially, here's how I view "the two Halloweens," Carpenter vs. Zombie: John Carpenter's original version is a masterpiece, a love note to autumn and the terror of childhood/adolescence, a fantastic example of elegant filmmaking that illustrates just how far the economy of imagery can take you. Nothing goes to waste. Every shot is a keeper. Rob Zombie's version, on the other hand, is in your face, over the top, loud, wild, colorful, filthy and bizarre. While Carpenter's Michael Myers is a boogeyman, "the Shape," Zombie's is a crazy, hulking, angry monster. They're both scary, but Carpenter's is iconic. You may not want to marry them, but if you take Zombie's movies for what they are, they can definitely show you a good time.

Halloween 2 opens everywhere this Friday, August 28th.