31 Days of Halloween - Day 7 - Movie 1

Today's viewing is of two very different movies involving merpeople. The first one is The Lure (2015) is about two mermaid sisters who come ashore in Poland for adventures among the humans, and who become strippers and back-up singers in a sleazy nightclub. The movie is a visual delight, but often seems all over the place, often to the point of losing sight of what it wants to be. Even through all of the distraction there are two parallel plot threads which hold it all together. The mermaids depicted straddle to line between Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and the more monstrous mermaids of folklore. Silver, tragically, falls in love with the bass player of the band, and goes to horrible lengths to obtain true womanhood from the waist down, while Golden becomes increasingly consumed with hostility as her sister grows apart from her, and she finds it harder and harder to resist her own vampiric urges to feed on the humans who only want to exploit them.

As a horror-musical, The Lure is certainly not for everyone, but it's compelling to watch in its novelty. Marta Mazurek and Michelina Olszanska are riveting as the mermaid sisters, at once vulnerable and threatening, but always sympathetic.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7

Cemeteries and Halloween go hand in hand. When we think of cemeteries, and Halloween decor based on them, we think of something akin to the photo above. In my searches online, I've found a lot of headstones, and tombs that are quite different than that. Quite different. You can see some weird ones right here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6 - Movie 2

In Curtains (1983) a group of young actresses head to a director's mansion to compete for the role of Audra in his next movie. They are killed off one by one by a killer in an old hag mask.

This movie seems to have a following, so I decided to take a look, even though I'm not a fan of the slasher subgenre. That status has not changed. The actresses are all very similar looking, even though each is defined by a single trait; ice skater, dancer, slut, etc. Their deaths are all improbably staged. A doll standing by the roadside that attracts no other motorist other than the intended victim. Another victim running through the woods, leans back against a tree to catch her breath. Guess who not only secretly kept pace with her, but happened to be waiting behind that very tree.

This movie was really dull and disjointed, which makes sense given it's trouble production. Tension between the director and producer over the tone of the film led to the director quitting with only 45 minutes shot. The rest would be filmed a year later. The whole film is just a boring mess. The hag? Not scary in the least.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6 - Movie 1

In the Texas backwoods, a bunch of people keep showing up at rundown hotel that looks like it hasn't seen a guest in ages. The hotel owner is a big guy with some serious issues and a huge crocodile that lives in the swamp abutting the hotel's deck. The purpose of all of these guests stopping by the hotel is to provide fodder for Judd to feed his pet. Oh, and Judd likes to use a full-sized scythe to dispatch his victims first.

Eaten Alive was Tobe Hooper's follow up to his masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Loosely based on a true story, it lacks the raw, cinema vertité feeling that made TCM so successful. It's a mean, ugly movie with a grating soundtrack of near constant screaming and a painful electronic score. It's probably best viewed in an early 1980s 42nd street grind house, or not at all. This was a pretty dismal viewing experience. It may hold some curiosity for appearances by Carolyn Jones, Mel Ferrer, and Robert Englund. Every character in this movie is a disposable role.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6

Above is a cut paper recreation of a Collegeville mask of the Metaluna Mutant from Universal's This Island Earth (1955) that I did as a private commission.

At this link you'll find a Halloween related piece I did just for the fun of it back when I was in college.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 5 - Movie

We know all of the elements of the home invasion movie; masked killer(s), isolation from the nearest neighbors, cut power, the arrival of a neighbor and possible salvation, improvised weapons made out of household items. Husband and wife team (Absentia, Oculus)of Writer/Director Mike Flanagan and Writer/Star Kate Siegel know them too and make the effort to use those elements to their advantage in Hush (2016).

The story is pretty simple and straight forward. A deaf writer (Kate Siegel) is living in an isolated house as she struggles with her second novel. One night a masked stranger (John Gallagher, Jr.) arrives and chooses to terrorize her before killing her, using her deafness to his advantage.

Kate Siegel's character is one you can sympathize with, not because of her deafness, but because she is presented as a real person before the assault begins. She's smart and courageous and thinks before acting, making it seem entirely plausible that she's going to turn the tables on her attacker, who comes of as not the smartest, or most effective serial murderer. He comes of as a bit of an amateur, even though the notches on his crossbow tell is this is far from his first outing, and that maybe we are underestimating him. The best aspect of this film is that the outcome is never certain. Right up to the finish, there are no assurances that the writer is going to best her attacker, and it's just as likely that she's going to be one more notch on his crossbow.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 5

Halloween would not be Halloween without the headless horseman from Washington Irving's  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow riding through. You can examine my posts about the headless horseman here, here, here, here, here, and here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 4 - Movie

I'd been looking forward to watching Maggie (2015) since I first saw the trailer. I was intrigued with the premise of Arnold Schwarzenegger playing an everyman father caring for his daughter (Abigail Breslin) who has been infected with a slow working zombie virus, and only has a few short weeks before she stops being the human daughter he loves and becomes the monster he must either turn in to a quarantine location to be destroyed, or he must destroy himself.

The intimacy of the scope of this film set against the backdrop of the now overly familiar zombie apocalypse scenario was one of the things that appealed to me, but not a whole lot happens in this film. It could be about any family coping with a member with a fatal illness, only with putrid make-up. The performances are all right on the money, and it was nice seeing Schwarzenegger in a quiet role, where he's conveying most of his inner turmoil through behavior more than words. The movie slowly leads towards one action which the filmmakers chose not to include, thus undermining the strength of everything that came before. There are enough moments in it to make it worth a look, but don't expect too much from it.



 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 4

It's never too early to decorate. If you need a special project to give your home that old haunted house look nothing is more classic than filling it with cobwebs. Here's how to do it.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3 - Movie

An island of fishermen, scientists, and alcoholics is menaced by killer crabs. Many of these are big, but really normal sized crabs, but one of them is about the size of a bus, and comes equipped with an impenetrable shell.


Island Claws (1980) is something of a leftover from the 70s range of environmental horror movies such as Squirm (1976), Food of the Gods (1976) Frogs (1972), Empire of the Ants (1977), Day of the Animals (1977) and Prophecy (1979). If you've seen any of those films you know exactly what you can expect from this one. There's a lot of talking about things that don't further the story, local color which has the same impact, drinking, walking around, and scientists working on experiments to increase the size of crabs (for food reasons) although there's nothing to link this work with the crabs attacking people, nor the existence of a giant crab. There's also a leak at a nearby nuclear reactor, which again is not made to be a direct cause on the behavior, nor size of the crabs, so it's all a bit confused. In spite of this, the path of destruction left in the wake of the giant crab is impressively done and adds some real suspense and awe. The giant crab itself, a practical effect, is actually pretty impressive, though maybe not enough to recommend this film.

As a bit of trivia the screenplay was co-written by Ricou Browning who played the gillman during all of the underwater scenes in Creature from the Black Lagoon.







 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3

Spooky records were such a staple of my childhood, and something I still listen to every season. You can read about my two favorites here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2, Movie 2

In City of the Dead (1960) a college student (Venetia Stevenson) travels to a small New England town to research its history of witchcraft for a term paper. She uncovers more than she bargained for. When her brother and her brother both set out to investigate her disappearance they discover that witchcraft is still very much alive in this town.

This movie is filled with atmosphere; creepy character actors, fog by the acre, off-kilter cemetery, rich black and white cinematography, unsettling details. There are also some interesting parallels to Psycho (also 1960) which elevate the film from a simple supernatural mystery into something more complex and sinister.

This film also had some added charm for me. While the city of Whitewood, MA is fictitious, the driving directions on how to get there situate it not too far from where I currently live. I could get there in twenty minutes, or less, depending on how much fog is unleashed. As far as I know, we didn't have any witch hunts here on Cape Cod, and no one in New England burned them at the stake, as they do in the opening scene. For a film made in the UK they do a fair job of creating mythologized puritan New England.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2 - Movie 1

Today's first movie only qualifies because of its subject matter, but even though most of the characters in Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) are vampires this is not a horror movie. Lovers Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) are the epitome of cool, but find their idyllic lives endangered by Adam's tiring of existing in a world where the primary occupants are bent on destroying it. The arrival of Eve's reckless sister brings further danger to their lives and drive them towards a more trying existence.

This film, by Jim Jarmusch is exquisitely beautiful, and moves forward at a purposefully languid pace that allows us more time to focus on the compelling characters that occupy the story. The past few years have given us some truly outstanding vampire movies. this is one of them.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2

If you are looking for some craft projects that will fill your month up, here's a bunch. From monster busts. masks and miniatures to famous haunted abodes, you'll find them all here, here, and here. 

Countdown to Halloween - Day 1 - Movie 2

After an attack at a stable leaves one dead and two missing, a sheriff puts together a rescue party. The victims were spirited away not by Indians, but by something worse, violent, cannibalistic troglodytes.

Bone Tomahawk (2015), starring Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins and Lili Simmons is like a weird western version of John Ford's The Searchers (1956). The anticipation of bad things about to happen is palpable throughout. The characters, while archetypes, are also well rounded, and don't follow the predictable paths that you'd expect. The violence, when it's there is sudden, loud, and brutal. This is a really good, well made film, and I recommend it.







 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 1 - Movie 1

A young man, learning of his father's disappearance returns home to try and end the curse that's plagued his family for generations, uncovering dark secrets and terrible creatures which try to pull him into the same trap that's claimed his own father.

The Mill at Calder's End (2015) is a remarkable film. In the space of about 14 minutes, we get some of the best moody atmospherics, and a creepy Victorian ghost story filled with building dread, as well as the presence of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Steele. The characters are all played by incredibly detailed puppets, something which you often forget over the course of the film.

Everyone involved deserves a big round of applause. The art direction, lighting, cinematography, sets, music, script, direction, and voice performances are all top notch. There are so many beautiful and beautifully ghastly visuals in this film. One of my favorites is a moment when the light flickers across the family crest transforming it into a far more sinister image.

This is a really beautiful film and must be seen.

The disc also includes, director Kevin McTurk's earlier horror film told with, not as sophisticated, puppets, but still an impressive work, The Narrative of Victor Karloch.

You can order both films here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 1

Welcome to my 13th Annual Halloween Countdown. This year has been a busy one for me and I have not had the time to devote to what I was hoping to offer up this year for my countdown. Instead, each day I will be offering up some posts from Halloween Countdown's past. I know this seems kind of lame (and it might be), but I began this in 2006 and every October has had at least one post a day, but more typically three, since there were daily movie viewings as well. That's a lot of posts. I also decided that nor everyone has seen every one of my Halloween Countdown posts going back to 2006, nor will they take the time to peruse them on their own (which you are welcome to do. Simply click on each year's October in the side bar). I've decided on a selection that both represented the presentation of ephemera found in a wide variety or sources, such as old magazines, as well as posts that exemplify what Halloween really means to me personally. There's a lot of good stuff in here, so check back every day to find out what's in store. There will also be a daily movie, and  in some cases two a day, though my time this year is pretty restricted.

To begin this year's Countdown, I'll begin by posting some interconnected posts on what elements I find absolutely necessary to a successful Halloween and my ideal viewing marathon if I could ever take the full day to just sit in front of the television, or better yet, a movie screen. You can find these posts here, here, and here.

Also, don't forget to visit my companion blog, The Grim Gallery, for monster goodness every day throughout the year.

A Week Away

Countdown to Halloween 2018

Mad Scientist #33 now available for pre-order

Issue #33 of Martin Arlt's wonderful, Mad Scientist magazine is now available to pre-order )or, if you are attending G-Fest you can pick up a copy there). The issue is devoted to dinosaurs and features a wrap around cover that I created as a 3-D cut paper piece featuring the cast of The Lost World (1925). You can view the full contents, and also order, here.

Quatermass and the Pit

Issue #40 of Little Shoppe of Horrors, the outstanding magazine dedicated to the films of Hammer Studios, is dedicated to one of my favorite genre films, Quatermass and the Pit. I created two cut paper illustrations for this issue which can be found among the outstanding articles, photos and artwork all behind this amazing Mark Maddox cover. This issue ships this month. You can find ordering information here.