Women In Peril Series Overview: A part of film history/sub-genre Part I

Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry, Wrong Number 1948.

With the countless list of films in the sub-genre, I am starting to list just a smattering of very memorable women in peril films over the past decades that have left an impression on me and some that have truly left their mark on the horror/Noir/mystery/thriller genres.

Here are the films that I plan on discussing in depth with individual reviews to follow. I’m sure that I’ve forgotten some, so I’ll be periodically adding whatever films I might have overlooked during this series. Each day I’ll offer another essay on most, if not all of the films seen here. If there’s a film that you’ve noticed I’ve omitted please feel free to drop me a note and I’ll gladly add it to the mix.

I’ve considered adding Rosemary’s Baby and The Mephisto Waltz, but I’d like to save them as a pair of essays on Witchcraft in cinema.

The criteria that I am using to classify what I consider to be a woman in peril film is how I view the plot narrative as seen a) through the female gaze b)there is one or several main female characters who are central to the plot and are not just on the periphery of the film. There are so many films where women characters are either victims, in danger, or are targeted, and so their presence satellites around the story but does not drive the narrative enough for me to qualify it for this sub-genre study.

As in Psycho, Dressed To Kill where the female lead is killed in the beginning these films we are following more of the Protagonist(Norman Bates) as in Peeping Tom, or Silence of The Lambs( Hannibal Lechter)where women have been murdered, they should be reserved for solo review because the plot is viewed through the Protagonist’s lens. In The Boston Strangler 1968, there are various women victims, yet the film is shot almost sensitively facilitated by Henry Fonda’s character who guides Tony Curtis ( Albert DeSalvo) through a self-reflexive process in order to reassemble the timeline and the motivation and substance of his insanity which lead to his crimes. It is more Psychological True Crime Police Drama

The films are not in any chronological order nor are they sorted by definition of how much I either loved the film or at least found the film entertaining. Here is a general synopsis:

You will notice that I am a huge fan of Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Baxter Joan Bennett, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Grahame, Lee Remick, Simone Signoret, and more. 70’s actresses like Faye Dunaway, Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett, Barbara Parkins, Joanna Pettit, Stefanie Powers, and more.

Beware My Lovely (1952)

Stars Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan whose volatile temper makes him a walking time bomb.

The Blue Gardenia (1953) Starring Ann Baxter and Richard Conte

Baxter gets mixed up in a murder mystery and must try and figure out whether she’s the killer or not!

Lady In A Cage (1964)

Olivia de Havilland stars as The Lady, Mrs.Hilyard, a wealthy poetess who lives in a three-story city mansion. The cage that the film refers to is her elevator, which remains suspended above the main floor due to an electrical failure on a July 4th weekend. While ringing her outside alarm, she is noticed by a drunken derelict, who breaks into the house, and avails himself of several items and alcohol, but doesn’t come to Mrs.Hilyard’s aide. He leaves with the goods but returns a while later with a prostitute and three teenage hoodlums, one of which is played by James Caan, who proceed to terrorize Mrs.Hilyard as they wreck her home. A very early home invasion film for its time.

Cast A Dark Shadow (1955)

Stars Dirk Bogarde as the sociopath Edward “Teddy” Bare who marries an elderly woman Margaret Lockwood, for her money. He dotes on her until the time is right, then moves on to his next victim.

Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

A masterpiece of Gothic proportions Robert Aldridge directs this Southern Gothic tale with

Bette Davis as Charlotte Hollis, an aging recluse living out her life on the secluded family plantation, living with delusions of the past, lost loves. Tortured by horrible memories and hallucinations. Thirty-seven years before, John Mayhew her married lover, was gruesomely beheaded and mutilated by an unknown assailant.

Charlotte is a wealthy southern spinster who is shunned by her community for the grisly murder some 40 years prior.

She is taken care of by her faithful servant Velma played brilliantly by Agnes Moorehead. Charlotte holds up in the house refusing to leave when she is issued an eviction notice. Enter, “Cousin Miriam” with her gentleman friend played by Joseph Cotton. Unfortunately, Miriam has other motivations for coming to the Hollis Plantation. Miriam is the sole beneficiary once she can manage to have Charlotte committed for her odd and reclusive behavior. This is a tragic and twisted tale of revenge and greed.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)

Directed again by the great Robert Aldridge this was the first time he brought the two great titans together, regardless of how tumultuous their relationship was off-screen.

Bette Davis plays Jane Hudson, a washed-up child star living as a recluse in her mansion with her invalid sister, Blanche played by Joan Crawford. The psychological warfare that Jane wages against her sister a virtual prisoner is intense. A story of envy, jealousy, loss of youth and revenge.

Sudden Fear (1952)

Starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, and Gloria Grahame. After an ambitious actor insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy middle-aged playwright and marries her, he plots with his mistress to murder her.

Die Die My Darling aka Fanatic (1965)

Stephanie Powers stars as Patricia Carroll who arrives in London to get remarried, and regretfully takes a detour out to the rural English countryside to see her former fiance’s mother the controlling Mrs Trefoile. Played by Tallulah Bankhead. Mrs.Trefoile blames Pat for an automobile accident that killed her son.

Sorry Wrong Number (1948)

Barbara Stanwyck plays Leona Stevenson a daddy’s little girl married to Burt Lancaster. She’s a sickly, dependent wife confined to her bed. One night, she picks up the phone and accidentally overhears a conversation between two men planning a murder. She becomes increasingly desperate as she tries to work out who the victim is so the crime can be prevented.

Rebecca (1940)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on Daphne Du Maurier’s novel, Joan Fontaine becomes the second Mrs de Winter, the new wife of Maxim de Winter Laurence Olivier who brings his bride back to his estate Manderlay. Ultimately she winds up living in the shadows of the first Mrs and a battle of the wills ensues with the great characterization of Mrs Danvers played by Judith Anderson, who keeps her unholy obsession with the first wife alive. Secrets, sensuality, murder, and malice.

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Another Hitchcock thriller:

Ex-tennis pro-Tony Wendice decides to murder his wife for her money. He blackmails an old college associate to strangle her, but when things go wrong he sees a way to turn events to his advantage.

Ray Milland plays Tony Wendice who finds out that his wife Margo played by Grace Kelly had an affair. Tony sets out to plan the perfect murder but his plans go terribly astray when the killer becomes the victim instead. Wendice trying to cover everything up, decides then to make it appear that Margo had an ulterior motive for killing the man.

The Spiral Staircase (1945)

directed by Robert Siodmak

Dorothy McGuire plays Helen a pretty mute, who is a domestic worker for old ailing Mrs. Warren, the great Ethel Barrymore. Warren’s two sons, Albert (a professor) and womanizing impudent Steven, also live in the Warren mansion.

There are a series of murders involving ‘women with afflictions’ and Mrs Warren starts to worry about Helen. and when another murder occurs inside the Warren mansion, it becomes obvious that Helen is in danger.

Gaslight (1944)

Why does the flame go down? In a London house where the fixtures are gas flames. The lovely Ingrid Bergman plays Paula Anton who is being driven mad by her husband Charles Boyer. Joseph Cotton plays a Scotland Yard detective who suspects that something isn’t quite right. suspects. This Oscar-winning (Best Actress) dark mystery, introduces Angela Lansbury in her first acting role plays one of the servants. Also nominated for Best Picture, and Best Actor (Boyer).

Repulsion (1965)Catherine Deneuve plays a very troubled Belgian girl, Carol, who works as a manicurist at a London beauty salon. She shares a flat with her sister Helen and her sister’s married lover, Michael. Carol has a distrust of men. The Landlord is a lecherous sort who terrorizes her, and ultimately her mind begins to unravel over a long weekend while she’s alone in the flat. Roman Polanski directs this disturbing imaginative film. The scenes of catalepsy and hallucination are very heavy as Carol descends into madness. I wrote a song called There’s A Crack In The Wall off my neo-classical album The Last Drive In as a tribute to this film.

Reflections of Murder (1974)

Directed by John Badham and stars Tuesday Weld, Sam Waterston, and Joan Hackett. this is a very faithful retelling of Diabolique.

Nightmare (1964) Hammer Horror

A British thriller by the Hammer group. A young girl is released from an institution on her sixteenth birthday, after having been believed to have killed her parents. Is someone trying to drive her mad?

A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

Robert Wagner plays a perfect all-American sociopath in this film about an opportunistic fellow who sets his sights on becoming successful at any cost. When his girlfriend Joanne Woodward gets pregnant that puts an obstacle in his way

Scream Of Fear aka Touch of Fear (1961) Hammer Horror

Starring Ann Todd, Christopher Lee, and Susan Strasberg and scripted by Jimmy Sangster

In England, the body of a young girl is found determined to be an apparent suicide In Nice, France, the chauffeur, , dutifully arrives at the airport to pick up Penny Appleby(Susan Strasberg). She is confined to a wheelchair since a long-ago horse riding accident, Penny has come to stay with her wealthy father and stepmother, Jane played by Ann Todd.

All Penny knows is that she’s told her father is away, but she keeps seeing his corpse all around the house.

A Place In The Sun (1951) Based on Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters.

Games (1967)

One of Curtis Harrington’s best psychological thrillers starring James Caan, Katherine Ross, and Simone Signoret. Ross and Caan are a New York City couple who like to play games. Suddenly Simone Signoret comes into their lives and now the atmosphere changes from parlor games to deadly games.

Diabolique (1955) directed by Henri -George Clouzot

and starring Simone Signoret as the mistress to a cruel headmaster at a private school for boys. She befriends the emotionally abused wife played by Vera Clouzot. And this friendship starts a series of events that are equally mysterious and disturbing.

What’s The Matter With Helen (1971)

Curtis Harrington’s best film, starring Debbie Reynold’s Shelley Winters and Dennis Weaver. The two film queens, play mothers of sons who are convicted of the sensational crime of murder. To escape the scrutiny of the press and the public, they move and open up a small dance studio for little girls. But terror follows them as some unknown assailant is lurking in the shadow, or is there something seriously wrong with Helen ( Shelley Winters)

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Audrey Hepburn plays Susie a blind woman who spends most of the film in the claustrophobic apartment waiting for her husband to come home. He’s been asked to hold a doll for a woman as they get off an airplane. The doll winds up in Susie’s possession. Enter Richard Crenna and Alan Arkin play memorable roles as the thugs who are after the doll which has been stuffed with the heroine.

See No Evil aka Blind Terror (1971)After being blinded in a horseback-riding accident, Sarah Mia Farrow moves in with her aunt, uncle, and cousin. During her absence, the entire family is murdered. She is unaware of this until she stumbles onto the bodies, and now Sarah is trapped in the remote farmhouse and must try and escape the killer who is now hunting her.

Fright (1971)Susan George is the young babysitter Amanda who arrives at the Lloyd residence to spend the evening looking after their young son. There is an escaped maniac from the local asylum on the loose and soon a series of frightening occurrences in the dark old house has Amanda frightened to death. Starring Honor Blackman and Ian Bannen.

And Soon The Darkness ( 1970)

Pamela Franklin stars in this film about two British tourists, young girls who decide to travel the lovely country side of France only to encounter a psychosexual rapist/murderer who begins to stalk them while vacationing. Very taut and claustrophobic journey of two girls out of their element and in harm’s way.

The Collector 1965)

Freddie (Terence Stamp) is a shy psychopathic bank clerk whose passion is collecting butterflies, When he becomes obsessed with art student Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) he sets out to acquire her the same way. He prepares the cellar of the house to be a collecting/killing jar. Based on the novel by John Fowles.

The Stepford Wives (1972) Written and scripted by Ira Levin who also wrote Rosemary’s Baby and Boys from Brazil. It stars Katherine Ross, who unwittingly becomes the target of an elite group of men who decide that their wives in this bedroom town of successful beautiful people aren’t quite perfect as they are. Also starring Paula Prentiss.

No Way To Treat A Lady (1968) Starring Rod Steiger, George Segal, and Lee Remick. Directed by Jack Smight. George Segal is a nice jewish boy detective who’s under his mother’s thumb, this weary yet clever cop winds up playing a cat-and-mouse game with a highly dramatic and psychotic killer who is using the art of disguise to lure and trap his women victims. The element of the Oedipus complex is richly explored in this film and Steiger is masterful as a man coming undone on his mission to destroy his mother with every stroke of the red lipstick he leaves as his calling card.

Blood Simple (1984)

Joel Coen’s of the Coen Brothers startling thriller with Frances McDormand, M.Emmet Walsh, and Dan Hedaya. A bar owner hires a private eye to follow his wife to make sure that she’s not cheating on him.

Night Watch (1973) Elizabeth Taylor plays Ellen Wheeler, a rich widow, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown. One day, while staring out the window, she witnesses a murder. No one especially her husband played by Laurence Harvey nor her friend Billy Whitelaw believes that she’s actually seen a gruesome murder take place in the abandoned house across the courtyard.

Klute (1971) http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2492530969/

John Klute’s (Donald Sutherland)friend has totally disappeared. The only clue is a connection with a call girl, Bree Daniels played by Jane Fond. Klute sets up shop in Bree’s apartment to try and uncover the answers to what has happened and must guard against the allure of the beautiful New York City call girl he enlists to help him while putting her in grave danger.

You’ll Like My Mother (1972) made for television film

Patty Duke stars as a young pregnant woman who comes to her mother-in-law’s house after her husband dies. Something is not quite right in the house and Richard Thomas plays a really convincing psychopath in this chilling made for tv movie also stars Rosemary Murphy

Night Must Fall (1937)

Robert Montgomery plays the likable psychopath who is hiding out on the loose and keeping his victim’s head in a hat box. I prefer this earlier adaptation of the film with Rosalind Russell to the later 1964 version with Albert Finney. Robert Montgomery is spectacular as the charming psychopath, and Dame May Whitty is superb.

Undercurrent (1946)

Starring Katherine Hepburn, she plays the wife of Robert Taylor who may be a psychopath trying to kill her. Also starring Robert Mitchum.

Shadow Of A Doubt (1943) is another Hitchcock masterpiece.

this one’s about good old Uncle Charlie masterfully played by Joseph Cotton, who just might be the Merry Widow Killer. Teresa Wright is his niece who starts to see him for who he really is.

The Secret Behind The Door (1947)Fritz Lang

Joan Bennett and Michael Redgrave are exceptional in this tale of newlyweds Celia and Mark Lamphere. This is a Freudian journey of insanity, undying love, and redemption. Is Redgrave a twisted murderer and will Bennett survive what lies behind the door?

The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)

Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, and Alexis Smith.

Bogart is brilliant as he plays struggling artist Gerry Carroll who meets Sally while on holiday in the country. A romance develops but he doesn’t tell her he’s already married. Suffering from mental illness, Gerry returns home where he paints an impression of his wife as the angel of death and then promptly poisons her. He marries Sally but after a while, he finds a strange urge to paint her as the angel of death too and history seems about to repeat itself. The film also stars the angelic Ann Carter as Carroll’s lonely daughter.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977)Directed by Richard Brooks

Stars Diane Keaton as a dedicated teacher of deaf children by day but lives a dual life as she cruises the bars at night looking for abusive men to have dangerous sexual encounters with. Also stars Richard Gere, and Tuesday Weld.

Ladies In Retirement (1941) Starring Ida Lupino as a housekeeper trying to look out for her two emotionally disturbed sisters. One of which is the wonderful Elsa Lanchester.

The Night Walker (1964) directed by William Castle and written by Robert Bloch stars Barbara Stanwyck whose dream lover Lloyd Bochner may or may not be real. She is haunted by these nightly visions of her dead husband. Also starts Robert Taylor.

Cape Fear (1962)

Exceptional thriller especially with great performances by Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Polly Bergen. Peck is the lawyer who puts Mitchum a rageful psychopath, Max Cady in jail, and now he’s out to terrorize the entire family.

Experiment In Terror (1962)

Directed by Blake Edwards, Lee Remick plays Kelly Sherwood a woman who is being terrorized by a creepy asthmatic man named Garland “Red” Lynch brilliantly played by Ross Martin. He wants her to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works. Red kidnaps Kelly’s younger sister Stefanie Powers in order to strong-arm her into doing what he wants. Glenn Ford plays the cool agent on Red’s trail.

The Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978) written for the screen by John Carpenter

Stars Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, and Brad Dourif a very underrated actor.

Dunaway is a high fashion photographer and her models are being assailed and gruesomely murdered by a psychopath who doesn’t approve of her point of view as art. Very disturbing and well-done thriller.

Coma (1978)

Based on Michael Crichton’s book, stars Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas. Bujold becomes curious about several deaths where patients are inexplicably going into comas.

A Howling In The Woods(1971) Barbara Eden stars as a woman who comes back to the family estate, only to find that her father has disappeared and her stepmother is acting strange. So are all the town folk. Vera Miles and Larry Hagman also star in this made-for-TV film

Death Car On The Freeway (1979)

Starring Shelley Hack and Peter Graves. There is a psychotic driver playing fiery fiddle music on his 8-track stereo as he runs women off the L.A. Freeway in his van. Fun made for tv film.

The Screaming Woman (1972)

The great Olivia de Havilland hears a woman crying from underneath the ground on her property, but no one in the area will believe her. Has Ed Nelson buried his wife alive?

Crescendo ( 1970) Scripted by Jimmy Sangster, Stefanie Powers is an American girl who goes to France to work on her thesis. She stays with the family of a famous pianist/composer, but something isn’t quite right.

Scream Pretty Peggy(1973)

Directed by Gordon Hessler, it stars Bette Davis the mother of Ted Bessell(That Girl) a sculptor who hires young girls to come and take care of his aged mother and insane sister.

The Mad Room (1969)

A remake of 1941’s “Ladies in Retirement” Stars Stella Stevens as a psychotic woman who is a companion to the wealthy Shelley Winters. Stella’s younger sister and brother have just been released from an institution have believed that they killed their parents years ago.

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark (1973) tv film

John Newland directed this really spooky film starring Kim Darby and Jim Hutton. About little evil gremlins that have been trapped in the family fireplace down the cellar. It’s a classic spooky tv film

When Michael Calls (1972) made for tv film

Starring Michael Douglas, Ben Gazzara, and Elizabeth Ashley play Helen who keeps on receiving phone calls from a child, who claims to be her nephew Michael – but Michael died 15 years ago.

Sweet Sweet Rachel (1971) was made for a tv film starring Pat Hingle, Louise Latham, and Stefanie Powers.

An ESP expert uses his powers to try to track down a psychic who uses telepathy to commit murder.

A Taste Of Evil (1971)

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, this film stars Barbara Stanwyck, Barbara Parkins, Roddy McDowall and William Windom. Barbara Parkins has been in an institution after a brutal rape as a child. Now she’s come home to her mother’s house where it happened, and strange things begin to happen. Is she going crazy or is she being assailed by an unseen stalker?

Picture Mommy Dead (1966)Bert I Gordon directs something other than things either growing large or shrinking into oblivion this film is starring Don Ameche, Martha Hyer, and Zsa Zsa Gabor

Susan Shelley is released from an asylum where she’s been confined to after the shock suffered over the fiery death of her mother.

Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)

Starring Laurence Harvey a Korean War veteran who lives with his sister Joanna Petit. A girl wandering on the beach is taken in by Harvey but she soon learns of his strange appetites. Also starring John Ireland and Stuart Whitman.

Walter Graumen puts Olivia de Havilland in peril as a Lady in a Cage (1964) “Right now I am all *animal*” or “Oh, dear Lord… I am… a monster!”

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part III Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “He’ll Love You Til He Dies”

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! 🎃 Part 2

Fiend of The Day! Private Detective Loren Visser: Blood Simple (1984)

Halloween Spotlight: ABC NBC & CBS Movies of the Week–the year is 1973 🎃 13 Fearful Tele-Frights!!

Dark Patroons & Hat Box Killers: 2015 The Great Villain Blogathon!

70s Cinema: Runaway Trains, Racing toward oblivion, Psycho-sexual machinations, and ‘the self loathing whore’ Part 1

The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) The ‘Angel of Death’ and a nice glass of warm milk!

Bubba Ho-Tep: Cult Horror, Black Comedy, Western and an Anachronistic Masterpiece/Hero Worship and Used People

I’ve been reflecting on some contemporary horror films lately because there are a bunch that are really worthy of attention. There are so many retreads that I feel the industry suffers from remakitus. And I don’t ascribe to the theory that what was once culturally relevant has to be made more accessible to a new generation of genre filmgoers. I don’t think that filmmakers need to underestimate the hunger and exploration of vintage films because what made them great is timeless. I’ve rarely seen a remake that improved on the original. In fact, the hyper use of CGI (I swear I’m not a technophobe) sort of distracts from the actual substance of the plot. Not in every case, of course, I believe if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I won’t continue to go off on a tangent as I often do, but I will say that the remake of my beloved The Haunting by Robert Wise was a travesty.

Chapter 4 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

Nothing short of sacrilegious. I squirmed in my seat at the movie theater. I anticipated that the remake could never come close to the original, but the mess that was on the screen was an affront to an iconic masterpiece that never should have been attempted. Okay, I’m done (deep sigh)

So, rarely does a film come along that does something so original, thoughtful, entertaining, and true to the horror genre that’s made it so great over these vast decades. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) was scripted and directed by Don Coscarelli who came out of the shadows after giving us one of the most memorable nightmarish journey /horror films of all time. Phantasm.

Phantasm is a film that I plan on reviewing down the road. I used to watch it several times a year because it is one of the most frightening, atmospheric, and haunting stories that just sticks with you. And like wine, horror movies like Phantasm get better with time. But I imagine someone is going to remake this one as well.

Coscarelli is such a masterful storyteller. He’s a modern brother’s Grimm, who evokes a creep factor that is superbly surreal. He creates snapshots, images that stay with you. And with Bubba Ho-Tep there is no exception.

He’s crafted an Anachronism on purpose, not like Charlton Heston’s character Ben-Hur wearing a wristwatch during the epic chariot race in that film.

Bringing Coscarelli together with the bigger-than-life Bruce Campbell was a stroke of genius, the perfect actor to portray an elderly Elvis hiding out at an East Texas Nursing home.

The film opens up with a slickly campy textual reference to both sub-names of the picture’s title character. In the official dictionary style, we see on the screen

Ho-Tep n. 1) relative or descendant of the 17 Egyptian Dynasties,3100-1550 B.C. 2) Family surname of an Egyptian Pharaoh (king)

Bubba -(bub’uh) n. 1) Male from the Southern U.S. 2) Good Ole boy 3 )Cracker, redneck, trailer park resident. Already Coscarelli is letting us know that he’s going to spin a tale that blends humor and genuine chills with a dash of Egyptian mythology in order to blend the cultural eons and blur the lines that will bind them together.

Also utilizing a wonderful undertone of the Western motif, and a great score by Brian Tyler using, 50’s blues, rock-a-billy, and surfer/twangy western emo for its soundtrack.

One of the quirky retirement home’s characters Kimosabe. Is a has-been cowboy, who’s still slinging guns and wears a Lone Ranger mask. The use of blending the themes of Western and Horror work so well together, because there has often been a correlation between the idea of lone, renegade isolationism and morality plays working within the constructs of the good vs evil epitome. The us vs. them, the “other” as alien, and some things to be cautious against. There are several hallway shots in the rest home that are reminiscent of High Noon.

So the film starts out with some reel footage from the 30s of an archeological discovery of one of the famous mummies of the 17 Egyptian Dynasties and the ensuing shipment bound for a museum on a train is stolen by some thieves during a Tornado so, it winds up crashing off a bridge into an East Texas Creek. Freed from imprisonment, to roam and feed on souls.

Juxtapose that with present-day Mud Creek Texas. A Hammond organ breathing its slow and pining breath as we are now at the retirement home. The use of color in this film is also notable. Reminiscent of the fable-like tones Coscarelli used in Phantasm. The austere and vacuous landscape of a place, where used-up people go to wither away.

One such despicable character, is an old woman who steals a pair of glasses off another sweet old lady who is unable to fend her off because she is in an iron lung. The loathsome old biddy also steals the poor dear’s box of chocolates as well. She is not a sympathetic character because she is obviously preying on the weaker of the residents at the home.

So I wasn’t too unhappy when what she thinks is a very large cockroach turns out to be a scarab from ancient Egypt that is either the minion or the host of Bubba Ho-Tep the mummy and antagonist of the film. As she tries to desperately get away from this large beetle it morphs into the large and forbidding shadow fiend of the mummy. The effect is so grand. Soon after we see her from the top half, in the doorway laying on the ground asking Elvis to help her, as she is swiftly dragged away from sight. Another very effective scene.

Elvis, known to the staff as an Elvis impersonator Sebastian Haff, whom he had secretly switched identities with, years ago, needing a way out of the limelight, disappointed and dissolute, he signs a Mephistophelian contract with the impersonator which condemns his true identity and his eternal soul into obscurity forever., by accidentally burning the contract up in a BBQ explosion incident at a trailer park. Sebastian Haff is the one that the world thinks has died. The blueberry pie smeared on Haff’s mouth when Elvis first encounters his fated partner is precious.

So Elvis is bound to wander incognito as Haff, doing shows as the impersonator, until he falls off the stage and breaks his hip, and winds up at the retirement home, that is now being visited nocturnally by an ancient mummy whose thirst for souls is insatiable.

The now 68-year-old Elvis is being cared for by a staff nurse played perfectly by Ella Joyce who adds an excellent level of cynicism to the film. No one at the home truly believes Elvis’s true identity except for Jack.

The premise is so implausible, but the characters are so believable and so enjoyable to watch and listen to their little diatribes, that you could care less and die laughing at the same time. The editing is so seamless. Bubba Ho-Tep is filmed with such great style and fluidity that while I usually don’t enjoy quick jump cuts, but in the few places here Coscarelli uses it like a dream. They work to connect these unlikely characters to this even more implausible plot.

Now, Elvis has been sighted for years, in the National Enquirer and similar rags, seen downing chili dogs and slurpies at 7-11’s and Piggly Wigglys everywhere.

This really taps into the urban myth and cultural yen and hero worship of icons like Elvis who were very hard to let go of. The film rekindles that desire and puts him in the “what if” scenario which makes for a great adventure. As his companion, yet another unbelievable character emerges in the form of Jack, played by the wonderful veteran dramatic actor of stage and classic film Ossie Davis. Davis plays Jack, who claims to be John F. Kennedy. Of course, he explains that his being black is due to the fact that they dyed him that color. Jack has photographs and mug shots of Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald on the walls of his stark room. And at first, he’s convinced that the scarab is really President Lyndon Johnson come to assassinate him.”Come to finish him off” Some of the quirky characterizations could have been penned by The Coen Brothers, it’s that good.

The reoccurring scene with the hearse in front of the rest home, with the two bumbling funeral home attendants and their idiotic commentary on life.

Essentially what transcends this film from just cult horror status is the notion that here two very life-weary men have an opportunity to regain some vitality, and dignity and reclaim their identities because they are now both joined together by this intriguing and dangerous adventure. The chance to be heroic. To be relevant. This is a story about used people, lost amidst the wasteland of old age and isolation. The creepy fiend, this Bubba Ho-Tep is merely the vehicle with which to regain their sense of self and conquer their impotence in life.

The team forms a bond and begins to seek out Bubba Ho-Tep to destroy him before he continues on his destructive path through the nursing home, feeding on the souls of the weak. The dialogue in this film is so richly hilarious and punchy that I’m sure a lot of the lines will be quoted in fanzines forever. And there are so many funny moments like Elvis finding the Hieroglyphics on the wall of the bathroom stall. “Why is an ancient Egyptian hiding out in a Texas old folks home and writing on the shit house walls?” Jack explains that he eats souls, so he probably craps “soul residue”

There’s also a reference book that Jack uses where he gets his information and charms and prayers to ward off the evil fiend. It’s called The Everyday Man or Woman’s Book of The Soul

Jack and Elvis meet up in Jack’s room at night as Jack offers him a snack ” Would you like a ding dong? Well, I don’t mean mine ” Jack has inexplicable insight into the motivation of this ancient fiend. He is the one who has inherently discovered that the mummy is feeding on souls. He’s The Soul Sucker. He digests souls til they don’t exist anymore There’s a chapter for that in the book. And he’s most interested in small souls, like those of the residents in the rest home, because they are easy targets. At one point Jack states that he narrowly got away before the mummy sucked the soul out of his anus. ” “He don’t want to be around If he comes back and wraps his lips around some elder’s asshole”

“Damn straight, comes tonight I don’t want him slapping his lips on my asshole”

Ossie Davis delivers these lines with a regal elegance as if they were lifted from a Shakespearean tome. And Bruce Campbell’s Elvis is incredible as he spouts his dissatisfaction with himself and his life, still adorned in jewel-encrusted rings and wide-lens sunglasses. Both are on a mission to acquire hero status and redeem themselves from being some of life’s castaways. Their mission is not just to kill the mummy but to break out, like the Indian in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s an exploration of regrets and redemption, looking for that elusive thing, glory.

The House Of The Devil ( 2009 ) A Contemporary Vintage masterpiece

House Of The Devil (2009) is a truly effectively creepy film that doesn’t purport to be creepy yet just is by virtue of using an almost unselfconscious lack of high art “high artiness”. By the time the House Of The Devil found its climax, I was certain that I would suffer a nightmarish revisitation of the images from this film. Seldom does a contemporary film manage to throw itself way back to the time during the late sixties, seventies and early 80’s when filmmakers on the fringe created subtle classic masterpieces with originality and a philosophical vision of what is truly horrible, disturbing, or frightening. Not just by the use of violence, although they knew how to impact the narrative with a powerful dose of that as well.

Shot on 16mm film which was very popular in the 80s it gives House Of The Devil its very retro stylistic look.

A style that uses understatement, and calculated pacing and is driven by human nature on a trajectory path toward the malevolent and stomach-turning possibilities that certain characters and events can conjure for you. Directors like Wes Craven and Toby Hooper knew how to utilize this. Or Curtis Harrington did this with several of his obscure art house /grade b movies like What’s the Matter With Helen, How Awful About Allen, and Games, which were more of what I call “The Horror of Personality” than supernatural film. Although, when someone’s mind is truly twisted in a dark way, it borders on the supernatural I think. And whether this small migratory group of people like a band of “yuppie gypsies” conjured a real demon (The Blue Demon)or not, is not relevant, what is, is that “they” believe it’s possible and so everything that happens is essentially just as horrific.

Above is filmmaker Curtis Harrington. And the always great Shelley Winters in What’s The Matter With Helen

My problem with many of the contemporary horror films is that they keep remaking films created as perfectly charming and yet deliciously spooky experiences, which now become a roller coaster ride, a clockwork orange, eyes taped wide open assault of body violation and severe and abject violence for the sake of causing as much psychic harm as possible while filling the theaters with gore going patrons. I have no problem with gore. One of my favorite films is Romero’s Dawn of The Dead. It’s a beautifully campy and compelling watch. I can’t however subject myself to half the films that have insignificant actors being violated horribly against no plot, no substantive concepts, and the only driving force is to see how many grotesquely brutal ways there are to hurt someone. If I wanted that, I would commission someone on Etsy to build me a time machine and step back to the Inquisition or The Middle Ages.

Now, House Of The Devil does something very very different, and yet scared me more than Saw, or The Grudge and Hostel put together. It lurked like a shadow outside your mind’s window. The pump was beautifully primed for that sense of dread but it wasn’t right there in your face, rather, it lurked. HouseOfTheDevil doesn’t depend merely on some artifices like tortured victims, mind-assaulting CGI’s, or violent death scenes perpetrated on beautiful youth. It just paced itself in a way that lured you into an expanding sense of something’s very wrong here, but there isn’t any blood yet and there aren’t any histrionic acting moments that irritate yet inform you of the plot’s motivation. There are no images flashing before your eyes like gruesome psychedelic visions of blurry distorted faces sliced in mock smiles from ear to ear, hacked like Conrad Veidt’s character Gwynplaine from the (1928) adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel The Man Who Laughed, which did it much more effectively than a literal onslaught like that of so many women who’s faces have been slashed that way in many of the genre films in recent years.

Tom Noonan

of Michael Mann’s superior Manhunter (Red Dragon) and veteran cult film actress Mary Woronov (Silent Night, Bloody Night) also one of my favorite obscure films of the early 70s create a sort of gothic “lack of affect”, that is chilling.

Jocelin Donahue is so believable as the girl in peril in this film, that it’s hard not to consider that we are actually watching a true story on hidden home video. Actually, it supposedly does take place in the 80s and is based on events that might have happened although there are no textual props to back up this claim. Probably generated by the urban legend of that era, I remember growing up on Long Island and hearing the urban myths about hidden Devil Cults and Satanism in Suburbia. They would hold sacrifices in abandoned Asylums, the woods on the North Shore, or someone’s palatial mansion on the Gold Coast of L.I. or the more seedy mysterious end of Long Island. Perhaps that’s an extra reason why the film felt so authentic to me. Ti West really caught the feeling and atmosphere of 1980’s Long Island, and I know, because I was there! There was an almost brilliantly conducted mathematical equation to the way West built the tension in this film.

From the start, you feel like you’re just watching a girl desperately trying to live her life, get out of a repulsive living situation with a filthy, slovenly sex addict for a roommate, and so she winds up making a decision to take a babysitting job on the night of a lunar eclipse because she needs the money for her new apartment Landlorded by Dee Wallace (The Howling ) of similar 80’s horror film jewels. The eye for detail in terms of the music, and the clothing are meticulously dead on for that 1980’s slasher-style film. It’s so accurate that you might almost believe it was shot back then and held for a 2009 release.

Samantha herself is portrayed as someone very tightly wound, and pretty much of an anal-retentive germaphobe. The character development in this film does more in one subtly expository yet passive scene, than all the dialogue spouted in Lake Mungo. While I watched frustratingly as Sam chooses to stay in a strange scenario for the sake of the money, I wasn’t angry at her. I did care what happened to her because she was so believable. I also liked her more cautious friend Megan played by Greta Gerwig, who was very likable and the voice of reason, the sort of ArchAngel Gabriel messenger of doom, heralding the warning to Samantha that something wasn’t quite right about the job.

After a stalled attempt at meeting her new employer, the red flags should have gone up right then, but the way this film builds its tension is so exquisite not exasperating like Lake Mungo. So, in order to set the tempo for the inevitable horrifying reveal, we must allow Samantha’s distraction and suspend our disbelief in order to get her to the house. And once again, we all might do things at one time or another, because we’re on a mission and ignore the signals that we’re heading down a dangerous path. It’s not inconceivable that back then, someone would take a weird job for the promise of much-needed cash. It wasn’t quite like now, the day of serial killers and thrill killers in every city and town. Depicted on television shows like CSI and Criminal Minds with nasty things being done to good people just going about their daily lives.

Now once, Samantha finally meets Admiral Akbar ( Tom Noonan ) who has hired her to babysit his elderly mother, you might scratch your head and ask, why would you take a job, all the way out of town, particularly when the first signs of odd behavior presents itself you’d get out of there right away. The odd man has been evasive and has already admitted one lie, but Samantha Hughes does what probably a lot of kids would do, and stick it out because you need the money, and hey, so what if the guy lied once, what could he be hiding he seems so harmless and mild-mannered. Tom Noonan is wonderfully creepy. He has a certain odd, but gentle quirkiness that comes across as haunting and edgy.

There is even a sense in which the film acts as a cautionary tale/metaphor which a lot of the films of the 80s manifested themselves from the drug and club culture and indulgences of the Seventies which became the onset of the preoccupation with health and the scare that was brought about by the AIDS epidemic.

Watching Samantha’s uncomfortability, her idiosyncratic neat freakery and her anxiousness unfold in this house, a house which is every bit a character in the film, causing a grotesque suburban bourgeois persona, creates the eerie pacing that slowly unravels into a grotesquely nightmarish conclusion. Perhaps it’s just a babysitter in distress movie to some, but there is so much more going on in this film because of its masterful storytelling by vintage veritae.

Not that I would ever compare the great Rosemary’s Baby, my all-time favorite film in general, but that sense of impending doom, and the disturbing reality that comes knocking in a very ordinary person’s life, is quite well done here too.

And I will not soon forget how my stomach churned at the climax, not because someone was graphically tortured on film in gory autopsy style for no reason other than to shock and disgust. This ending made me shiver because it felt so real and so abnormal in its ordinary horror. It’s simple storytelling like the real boogeyman or the devil and demons do exist. That Hansel and Gretel followed the breadcrumb trail and found a witch with a really hot oven. A true retro suburban fairy tale.

Lake Mungo (2008)my first contemporary horror film review

Lake Mungo (2008)

I would rarely write about contemporary horror/thriller films because I don’t consider myself to be adept at grasping the modern vibe as much. I am not at all familiar with the new selection of filmmakers, Indie or Hollywood. Although I am a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro’s work. He has a grasp of that vintage gothic reminiscent of Mario Bava and Henry James.

I was urged to write this review because I’m told I’m pretty savvy about films. Perhaps that’s true, who really cares? People seem to like to read film reviews by independent bloggers. And truly a few have actually entertained me more than the films we both were subjected to and hated mutually. So I am going to try my hand at talking about a film I just watched, that miraculously garnered amazing reviews by a majority of bloggers. I’m not going to say that they are seriously misguided, I will just say that it’s their personal right to experience the movie the way they did and leave it there. Now onto my very personal impression of Lake Mungo’s ( 2008) theatrical release. A supernatural horror film about grief.

The only one grieving is me, for having tried so hard to follow a Mobius strip of circumstances, plot, and character under-development.

I suppose I should at least give a little info about the actors, director, and the basic character overview.

The film is directed by Joel Anderson and released by the After Dark Film people, who will be doing a remake of The Ring.

Lake Mungo is a low-budget mockumentary-style Australian horror film. The story revolves around a grieving family trying to come to terms with the tragic drowning death of their daughter, Alice (Talia Zucker) while grappling with the unsettling suspicion that her ghost may be haunting them.

Ultimately Alice’s family discovers her phone in Lake Mungo. Upon viewing a blurry video clip from the phone, they witness a disturbing encounter: a corpse-like doppelganger of Alice, a portend of her own impending end.

Rosie Traynor and David Pledger play June and Russell Palmer, the oddly emotive parents of their tragically, mysteriously drowned daughter, Alice Palmer portrayed by actress Talia Zucker, who obviously has the potential to be quite a good actress if the script allowed her to stretch beyond being rigidly dressed up in secrets, and teenage angst splattered on her pretty face. Brother Mathew is played by actor Martin Sharpe.

The premise in a nutshell here is that we have a small regular Australian family confronted by the sudden and very ambiguous death of Alice, a sixteen-year-old girl who apparently held secrets back from the rest of the family. Strange happenings begin to take place in the house, and we are led through a very convoluted maze of local folk, and the Palmers, examining their relationships and the reasons why Alice might have died, and what might have transpired weeks before her final exit. We are also now wondering if she is in fact haunting the house.

At the opening credits, we are introduced to some iconic images taken from the late 1800s spiritualist movement. Spirit photography was very big back then. Seances, Psychomantiums, ectoplasm and Angels appearing to

two British girls were all the rage. I remember seeing these images in books and in documentaries about the paranormal. So I assumed that we were in for a contemporary examination of the same.

It was like opening up a box from Tiffany’s thinking you’re getting pearls only to find out that it was merely the container for a package of Tube Socks, a set of three.

I read in a few places that this particular film didn’t hurt your brain to figure out the twists and turns. Well, actually my brain did hurt. Physically manifested a piercing sort of din in the hollows of my ear canal, straight on through to my Medulla oblongata. Quite like motion sickness of the thought processes, but not due to quick filmic jump cuts, but rather the meandering plot twists, or lack thereof, that the film boasts of.

It was rather more like constantly being led down a shadowy alley, only to hit a brick wall to nowhere. Like a deliberate scene showing us a visit to the doctor’s office with brother Matt’s inexplicable bruises, and the questionable significance of Mother June walking into other people’s houses at night. Perhaps that was just to make the film effectively quirky. To me, it strained my head to follow along an empty path littered with several plot detours again, to nowhere. I pride myself on being able to anticipate where things will lead in films, and here in this film, we are led away constantly from the obvious. I guess this grand plot twist was that the obvious was just that, the obvious, and the twists were random personality quirks that never manifested into authentic character development or motivation, nor explanation.

Speaking of which, the mother comes away at the end saying she now knows her daughter on a deeper level when actually the events should have created more questions for her than illuminating the unspoken ones. Why someone would decide to bury a few random possessions after possibly seeing their own dead self on their cell phone, coming at them mind you like a pickled Indian spirit guide, which is supposed to be the one big creepy payoff of the film?

And this is a supposed supernatural film laced with paranormal activity that kept wanting to debunk itself until I couldn’t care less whether she was a real ghost or not. And as for the Psychic? who made all his clients do the work for him, sort of the “vicarious shaman psychic” who asked each person to elaborate on what they were seeing. Leading them to answer their own questions. Isn’t he supposed to do that? There was never an ounce of evidence or revelation to this man’s ability whatsoever. He was either a grief counselor or a sham artist who kept showing up to add another level of misdirection to the plot.

The only thing twisting during this film, was me, once they started contorting the film into some psychological high art experiment stylized by utilizing a pseudo-documentary lens. It not only started to irritate my brain but I actually got annoyed from going back and forth between nonrelevant players and one of the central figures Brother Mathew who wound up faking the photographic images altogether. And the “why” is as murky as the faked footage. This family was as weird as the idea that Alice’s ghost might or might not be trying to tell them something. What that was, was never realized cinematically. The one true thing I knew was that Alice died. I could have read an obituary.

I think Director Joel Anderson assumes that the question is answered, but it was not. And if It’s my job to imbue the film with my own concept of what transpired, I wasn’t given any coherent imagery or context to inspire a thought let alone motivation or conclusion. We kept getting led away from the obvious until the very end, which I suppose was that Alice WAS haunting the house, because, during the credits, you see her image in the house window, behind the three remaining family members in a snapshot. If you were holding it in while watching this film and had to pee or weren’t the kind of film watcher who sits for the entire credits, you might have missed that great plot twist. In the end, we are left playing the “Find Waldo” version of spirit photography. Or like one of those Ranger Rick magazines where you have to locate hidden items in a large oak tree and then circle them.

I didn’t like straining my eyes that hard, especially if it was just another neighbor crouching behind the chest of drawers. Did Alice keep popping up or was it more hocus pocus-itus? The film suffered from this throughout.

So was it obvious that she was a ghost? That she knew she’d be dead and then remain a ghost who was constantly being debunked by the actors and director Anderson? And was she depressed because her mother and she were not close? because she was having an affair with the neighbors whom she babysat for? Did she commit suicide because a bloated creepy version of herself came hurling itself at her via cell phone image?

Incidentally as creepy as the image was, it could have easily been the likeness of that Face on Mars or The Virgin Mary indelibly and inextricably burned into a piece of French Toast as it was Alice’s image.

Alice’s cell phone footage, the doppelganger is revealed in an eerie fuzzy close-up.

Not enough to make her want to bury a few doodads in the ground, which miraculously, the family managed to find amidst a huge expanse of landscape. What superb tracking skills.

And again, that friendly “psychic” character, that was more guided meditation guru than psychic, who kept popping up with secrets of his own. Oh yes, there’s a memorable line in the film, well not for me, but it’s used on the IMDb website as the best line in the film, “she had secrets about having secrets” clever, sure. Was it her secret that she was dying to get away from this awful family dynamic? A father who is too eerily calm all the time? That was more creepy to me than anything. Random neighbors shot footage in the park where Alice died, capturing the image of brother Matt instead, like it was a big foot sighting.

Oh, is that a ghost in the bedroom,? No! it’s the neighbor crouching down in a crawl space behind the fireplace. Why, well you tell me? To get the video back? Why did Alice have this video in the first place? Perhaps the sex tape was faked as well? Perhaps we all dreamed of this movie collectively. Like a nightmare with great landscape photography. Perhaps Alice should have buried the script with her possessions.

Alice’s boyfriend who would meander in and out, say a few words about his dead girlfriend, none of which shed any light on anything. And then there were the constant, still photography shots, of the night sky, of the backyard, which is always an eerie place right? This wasn’t supposed to be a documentary about photography nor a travel logue about Australian Summer skies. So after the 2^nd or 3^rd pretty image of a night sky, I started to get irritated again.

I read somewhere that Director Anderson laid everything out so nicely for us. Well, he might as well have ripped up an entire Anthropology catalog using random people, and unconnected images and thrown them up in the air, then film the images as stills, from what settled on the ground and call it a movie. Because nothing connected us to anything, and even if it did, who the hell would care? I didn’t.

The only real tragic thing was that Alice had to be part of this bunch for 16 years of her life. And where was this dog in the film? Maybe he’s a ghost too.

Did she drown by accident? Did that scary bloated image jump out at her via reflection in the water? Some bloggers theorized that the neighbors killed her so as to avoid being caught for statutory rape. I’d like to know how they could have done that, while the brother was getting out of the water because he was cold. Perhaps the water made his bruises bluer. Perhaps the neighbors hid behind a magic-faked rock in the Dam and beat her so badly that she fell below the surface, but the father and brother couldn’t hear her screams because they had faked their own presence at the Dam altogether. I guess Mom was busy sneaking into someone else’s house, trying someone else’s coffee for a change. Speaking of faking things, they might have tried calling this film Fake Mungo.

Maybe they should have held the séance in the dark as other spiritualists do. Instead of looking like they were sitting around paying the bills at the table.

Again, I’d like to know what kind of psychic this was. Or perhaps he killed Alice~

Maybe the time she had the counseling session with him, he drowned her in the bathtub, moved her body to the Dam, and then had the brother pretend to be Alice. Maybe she was never there until the 25^th when they found her. Or was it the 27^th? Geez that seemed to matter somehow as part of the documentary feel. To account for dates and times, and opinions of the local town folk who knew and loved Alice but didn’t know that she had a secret side to her. That she was one of the very few people who ever encounter their bloated ghostly self-assaulting them through their cell phone service.

This is where it hurt me! At the brain stem.

So I hear they are remaking this unique masterpiece here in the States which only means one thing. There will certainly be more nudity, quick jump cuts of the irritating nature, where you don’t quite know what you’re looking at, but you know it’s malevolent and harmful. Using black blood instead of the good old red kind they used to use in the good old days. The first time I saw the black blood I admit I found it an interesting effect that caused my skin to crawl in a good way, but unlike the great potato chip theory, I can only taste this once. After having seen it in The Grudge or The Ring, I’ve lost my interest completely and it has become artifice and unoriginal. The remake of Lake Mungo, due out in 2011 will probably use the same drastic black hazy bloody images that screech in and out so abruptly to replace any substantive content. So, I guess by now, those of you who loved this film hate my guts and think I’m crazy and naïve. That’s alright. At least I didn’t fake this review. Tomorrow I review a far more interesting film, executed masterfully and in great contrast to this nasty little post. The House Of The Devil (2009)