104 in 2009 Week 49: Passion of Joan of Arc, Sherlock Jr., Adventures of Robin Hood, Our Hospitality, Band of Outsiders

Here we go, another big week to make up for the lack of movies over the past few weeks. It was a big week for another reason as well - Our Hospitality marks my 1900th movie seen. At my current rate, we're looking at about 7 months until 2000!

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc)
Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928

Joan of Arc (Maria Falconetti) is interrogated, tortured, and burned at the stake.

Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here may be the world’s first courtroom drama – and I don’t mean that in a good way. This film covers the very tail end of Joan’s life, from the time she is led into the courtroom to her death, and while it’s apparently fairly accurate (actual transcripts were consulted for the script), it’s pretty much a complete failure as a story, primarily for two (somewhat related) reasons. First, it’s extremely one-note from the perspective of tone: Basically, a bunch of powerful men beat up on Joan, first verbally, then physically. The horror of the powerful assaulting the weak is effectively conveyed at first, but as the same emotional beats are played out through the film, it loses all of its power due to lack of contrast. It doesn’t help that probably ¾ of the movie is shot in close-up, so there’s a tremendous visual sameness as well. The shot of Joan, her head tilted to the left, looking upward with a tear rolling down her face, is a strong image – the first three or four times. Once you hit number 37 (not an exaggeration), it’s meaningless. Second, Joan doesn’t really come across as a person because we only see one tiny aspect of her life repeated ad nauseum. She’s just an idea, an abstract figure, so it’s hard to get worked up when bad things happen to her, even if the details are rather horrific.

2/10

Sherlock, Jr.
Buster Keaton, 1924

A projectionist (Keaton) is accused of stealing his girlfriend’s father’s watch in order to buy her a box of chocolates. He tries and fails to catch the real thief, then dreams himself into a movie where he becomes the famous detective, Sherlock Jr.

There’s not a tremendous amount to this film, from a narrative standpoint. In fact, the plot basically gets resolved without our hero’s involvement while he’s busy traipsing around in a completely different story. Nonetheless, it’s a terrific bit of entertainment because everything else about it is so very impressive – the “shadowing” sequence, the escape from the train, walking into the movie, the pool-shooting sequence, jumping into the old lady disguise, the list goes on and on. When the moments are this entertaining, sometimes you can forgive the big picture.

7.5/10

The Adventures of Robin Hood
Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 1938

Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) steals from the rich to give to the poor, falls in love with Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), and generally makes himself a nuisance to Prince John (Claude Rains)

My experience with Robin Hood prior to this movie was mostly limited to the Disney animated film. I haven’t even seen the more modern interpretations like the Costner one. Or the Brooks one, for that matter. I therefore am unable to accurately compare interpretations of the myth, but I very much doubt that any other version could top this. It’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s gorgeous, and it has a hell of a cast (take the three listed above and add Basil Rathbone). I would have preferred that less of the story be told through on-screen text summaries, but it never really reaches the point of being a problem.

8/10

Our Hospitality
Buster Keaton, 1923

Willie McKay (Keaton) travels back home to the south to claim his father’s estate. On the way, he meets and falls in love with Virginia Canfield (Natalie Talmadge) – which is a problem, because her father and brothers have sworn to kill every last member of the McKay family.

Definitely the least of three Keaton films I’ve seen. As I’ve indicated before, Buster Keaton’s strengths lie in his stunts and setpieces, and that’s where Our Hospitality kind fails – we don’t get the good stuff until the last 20 minutes. There’s a lengthy bit of business involving an old-fashioned railroad early on that was probably meant to fill that void, but it pales in comparison to – well, everything I’ve seen from Keaton, honestly. Once we get to the chases and daring waterfall rescues and the like, they’re as good as the best moments from any of his other movies, but it’s too little, too late to make the film as a whole work.

4/10

Bande a Part (Band of Outsiders)
Jean-Luc Godard, 1964

Two would-be criminals (Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) convince a naïve young girl (Anna Karina) to help them rob her aunt’s house.

Band of Outsiders starts off slow, even a little boring – but picks up speed and interest throughout, so by the time our heroes reach the café where they have a minute of silence and dance the Madison, it’s pretty riveting. As with most Godard films, it’s the details that make the movie work – bits such as the boat that doesn’t go anywhere, the constantly shifting positions of the characters around the café table, and the fact that Arthur put his hat back on over his bandit mask. Some of the plot mechanics are woefully underdeveloped (what’s the deal with Arthur’s family?), and a Godard film without color is kind of handicapped from the get-go, but the character dynamics are fun and Anna Karina demonstrates very dramatically that women should wear sweaters with fedoras all the time.

7.5/10


Progress: 126 (Par +28)

104 in 2009 Weeks 46-48: The Last Laugh, My Favorite Wife, Quai Des Orfevres, and The Most Dangerous Game

Whoops. So much for getting back to normal.

Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh)
F.W. Murnau, 1924

An elderly doorman at a posh hotel (Emil Jannings) is demoted to washroom attendant, and his life begins to fall apart. He is saved by happenstance.

I’ve got a lot of love for Murnau, but this one didn’t work for me. He works some of his usual magic with some interesting camera tricks and multiple exposures, as well as his typically beautiful and expressionistic lighting, but the story just isn’t there. It’s extremely simple – a man loses his sense of worth and falls down the social ladder, then receives a bunch of money for no real reason and lives happily ever after. Legend has it that the studio insisted on a happy ending and Murnau tacked on the most ridiculous happy ending he could think of in protest. Points for sticking it to the man, I suppose, but it didn’t help the movie.

2.5/10

My Favorite Wife
Garson Kanin, 1940

Seven years after his wife is lost at sea and presumed dead, Nick Arden (Cary Grant) remarries. When he arrives at the hotel where he intends to spend his honeymoon, he is reunited with his recently-rescued wife (Irene Dunne), and has to figure out how to deal with the situation.

The most amazing thing about this movie is how unbelievably inappropriate the subject matter is for a wacky comedy (and it is wacky, slide-whistle soundtrack and all). The position that Nick finds himself in isn’t inherently funny at all – it’s horrible. And yet, as it turns out, it’s actually pretty hilarious in practice. Overall, it suffers from oversimplification – the new wife is very quickly established as being kind of terrible, so there’s no question of how things will turn out – but it still works, primarily on the charm of the leads and the kind of sick way they manage to keep wringing laughs out of such awful dilemmas. Fairly slight overall, but very enjoyable.

7/10

Quai Des Orfevres
Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1947

Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair), an up-and-coming singer, accidentally kills a lecherous producer who put the moves on her. Her husband, Maurice (Bernard Blier), who had intended to murder the producer, finds the body and becomes the chief suspect. Both of them proceed to hide the truth from the police and from each other, with potentially disastrous results.

Clouzot is often described as the French Hitchcock, and I tend to agree with that assessment, in terms of both positive and negative characteristics. Like Hitchcock, he has a way with the suspense scene – there are sequences in this movie that are masterfully executed, notably the bit of business surrounding the lighting of a pipe with crucial evidence – but he also shares Hitchcock’s typical clumsiness with and apparent disregard for the plot mechanics that make such scenes possible. The conflict in this story is resolved in a wholly arbitrary manner that reminds me of a “how to host a mystery” event – everyone tried to commit the murder, and a randomly selected character actually succeeded. Clouzot gets some points back by having his character recognize and address the meaninglessness of what’s going on, but it’s a nearly throwaway moment that doesn’t adequately cover the issue. Still, as I said before, there are some tremendously well-designed suspense setpieces, and some of the character work, particularly as it relates to Dora (Simone Renant), the photographer/neighbor, is very compelling. It’s not a bad movie, but doesn’t excel either.

6/10

The Most Dangerous Game
Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel, 1932

I know you’ve read the short story. It’s like that, except with a love interest (Fay Wray).

I don’t have a tremendous amount to say about this – it holds pretty faithfully to the story, with a few typical Hollywood alterations that don’t really change the trajectory of events. It’s awfully dated, though, with Count Zaroff’s googally eyes representing what is supposed to be intensity, and some extremely stagey sequences in the first half of the movie. One such sequence serves as the low point of the whole production, where several characters sit around a room, discussing the theme of the story in the most basic terms imaginable, just to make sure we all understand what we’re about to see. Fortunately, it was interrupted by a pretty nice shipwreck sequence. In general, the action was pretty solid – it’s just the dialogue and performances that drag it down. There’s a general sort of blah feeling about the whole exercise, as if no one really cared to do anything with the material other than put it in a film can.

As a side note – shame on Netflix for using a COLORIZED!!! print for watch-it-now. I don’t think I really would have liked it any better in black and white, but the color certainly didn’t help.

3.5/10





Progress: 121 (Par +25)

104 in 2009 Week 45: Assassination Bureau and A Story of Floating Weeds

Back to the old speed, two movies per week.

The Assassination Bureau
Basil Dearden, 1969

An up-and-coming reporter (Diana Rigg) convinces Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed), the chairman of the Assassination Bureau, to accept a contract on himself. Little does she know that the man bankrolling her contract (Telly Savalas) is also part of the Bureau, and has a scheme of his own.

Boy, and it started off so well. After an amusingly slapstick montage of assassinations over the decades, The Assassination Bureau kicks things off with several clever, smartly written introductory sequences. There’s a little twinkle in the eye of every actor, the witty rejoinders just roll off of their tongues, and everything seems like it’s going to be great. In short order, the apparent structure of the movie becomes apparent: Dragomiloff will travel to various European cities and outwit the Bureau member in each location that is trying to assassinate him. Simple, but fun, and well-suited to Reed’s smug charm.

If only it had stayed as simple. Instead, the whole movie begins to deflate rather dramatically, as a plot to start World War I takes over the plotline and things just get too big and ponderous. We eventually wind up with a swordfight on a zeppelin. It’s really one of the worse flameouts I’ve seen – even the Reed/Rigg chemistry seemed to diminish as it went on. This could have been a modest but wonderful comedy/thriller, and for a brief moment it was – but it all just slipped away, right on screen. Such a shame.

4/10

A Story of Floating Weeds
Yasujiro Ozu, 1934

A traveling actor (Takeshi Sakamoto) brings his troupe to the city where his beloved nephew (Koji Mitsui) lives – but the nephew is actually his son, whom he abandoned out of shame over his profession. The actor’s current mistress (Reiko Yagumo) becomes jealous and plots to tear the family apart.

This is kind of an interesting production, a silent film made several years after they’d fallen out of style. It seems there may not have ever been a score attached to it, because the DVD offers a modern composition only as a secondary option. I can’t imagine watching it without music.

Overall, the story is extremely melodramatic and even starts to border on the silly at times. Fortunately, every time it threatens to fall apart, Ozu manages to pull things back together with a wonderful bit of low-key humanity, like the father and son fishing, the child actor protectively stuffing his porcelain kitty bank into his shirt like a kangaroo pouch, or the two people (names withheld for spoiler purposes) eating together on the train at the end. Touches like these, not to mention most of the cinematography, are beautiful enough that it’s easy to overlook the excesses of the plot.

6.5/10

Progress: 117 (Par +27)

104 in 2009: Week 44: Putney Swope and the last of the horror

Okay, I lied. We're not quite back to normal - I've got to list off the last of the eligible Halloween movies. But then we're back to normal. So here's the Halloween stuff:

The Unseen 1.5/10
And Soon the Darkness 7.5/10

And now, here's the first post-Halloween movie:

Putney Swope
Robert Downey, 1969

Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson, voice of Downey), the token black man on the board of an advertising committee is accidentally voted in to be the new chairman, due to the unwillingness of the other members to vote for each other. He renames the company “Truth and Soul.” Chaos ensues.

Putney Swope opens well, with a hilariously deadpan board meeting that ends with Swope’s election to chairman. Then, as if someone threw a switch, it all goes off the rails. The rest of the movie almost seems like a series of vignettes that are maybe a little too interconnected for the term to be accurate, but not by much. This wouldn’t really be an issue if it managed to remain as funny as the opening scene, but, despite a few howlers, it really kind of drags after that. Part of the problem is that much of the comedy is based on the idea of being offensive and outrageous, and a lot of what’s happening doesn’t have that effect any more. Because there frequently isn’t much of a joke beyond the outrageousness, there’s not much left. Plus, there’s a strongly self-congratulatory feel to all of the envelope pushing that’s a bit obnoxious. Still, I have to admit that some of the racial dialogue in particular remains somewhat. . . I don’t want to say shocking, but let’s go with surprising. I can definitely see how it became the cult classic that it is, but it mostly misfired for me.

3/10

Progress: 115 (par +27)

Haunt Review: The 13th Floor and Blood Shed

6100 E. 39th Ave. Denver, CO
http://getscared.com/

No picture for this one; couldn't get anything to turn out. It was too dark and the signs were all too far away. Which brings up the first thing I want to address - organization and signage. This is the one area where this haunt completely and utterly failed. When you pull up, there are four lines - two for ticket buying (regular and VIP) and two for the haunt (regular and VIP, again). This seems like a good way to do it, but there are no signs anywhere and the lines sort of much together. I would expect that, with a separate ticket window for each type of ticket, they might label each window so that, for instance, someone buying a VIP ticket doesn't wait in the longer regular ticket line unnecessarily. Alternatively, they could have staff directing people to where they need to be. This haunt always has massive crowds (lines around the block), and they really need to figure out how to deal with them better.

But enough about the line - how were the haunts? Kind of a mixed bag. Blood Shed is first, and is the more modest of the two, running probably only a third of the length of the 13th Floor. It was, in some ways, the more effective of the two due to the fact that everything seemed to be running at full steam. The actors were well placed and worked for their scares, sticking with characters and not relying on the simple "jump out of the darkness" effect. Props and sets were fairly minimal with the exception of a few rooms, but what was there worked well. Quite enjoyable, but over far too soon.

After you exit Blood Shed, you are directed to the second of three lines for the 13th Floor (the first was outside, pre-Blood Shed). Entertainment for the line consisted of dancing girls on a stage, which was fairly amusing. Still, the haunt is very strictly designed around a particular theme with associated mythology, and I think it would have been better to spend the line time presenting some of that mythology.

Once you get through the line, there's a short (fake) elevator ride down to the underground 13th Floor and you reach the third (mercifully short) line - then it's finally off into the haunt. One thing I'll say for the 13th Floor - they have some really nice moments. Some of my favorites included a walk over a bottomless pit, a pitch-black hallway that you have to feel your way through (with bugs on the walls), a giant snake leaping out of a corpse, the spiked wall, and a ghostly bride who kept disappearing around the corner in front of us. The problem is that in between these great moments, there was frequently a whole lot of wandering through dark hallways with nothing happening. Also, there seemed to be some technical issues - at one point, we walked through what clearly was a vortex tunnel, but it wasn't vortexing. Also, near the end, there was a very impressive giant demon monster/thing, but it seems like it ought to have been moving, just a little. Still, overall, I think the good outweighs the bad - but given just how popular the place seems to be, I was expecting a little more oomph.

7/10

36, 37, and 38. The Black Cat, Behind the Mask, and Phantasm II

Finished off the month with three movies tonight that I'd seen before, so I'm just going to hit them all at once, and briefly. We'll be back to our standard weekly format for postings starting tomorrow.

The Black Cat
Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934

This was my movie club pick, and didn't go over all that well. I also think it wasn't as good as I remembered, but I still like it, primarily for the fun of watching Karloff and Lugosi chew the scenery at each other and for the fantastic set design. 6/10

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Scott Glosserman, 2007

One of the more clever horror movies I've seen in the past several years, even if not everything works as well as it could. The way they use the structural conceit, switching between documentary and horror movie, to influence the plot and characters is very impressive. Also, Nathan Baesel's performance as Leslie Vernon is fantastic. They do sledgehammer several points well beyond what would be reasonable, though, and the ending segment drags on a bit (not that it shouldn't end where it does, but some of the fat earlier in the segment could be trimmed). Still, very good. 7.5/10

Phantasm II
Don Coscarelli, 1988

I love the Phantasm series. They're ridiculous, cheap, poorly acted, and are largely incoherent from a storytelling standpoint, especially between films. But then there's that spark of creativity and fun that turns it into something special, completely unlike anything else out there. This may well be my favorite of the four; at the very least, it's the most rewatchable for me. 6.5/10

35. Mil gritos tiene la noche (Pieces)

Juan Piquer Simon, 1983

The first and last time I saw Pieces was long, long ago. It was my first Eurohorror, although I didn't realize it at the time since they go to great (well, moderate. Well, they sort of try) lengths to make it seem American. Mostly what I remembered was that there was an abundance of a) blood, b) naked girls, and c) bad dubbing. I'm pleased to report that my recollection was correct, and Pieces is primarily made up of those three elements.

Actually, that's not entirely true. There is a fourth element - sheer madness. How else to explain such wonderful/horrible moments as skateboarding through a mirror, the kung-fu professor, the chainsaw in the elevator, "BASTARD!", or the ending? These are not the fruits of a logical mind. I can't even really explain them in any way that you would believe - you just need to see them for yourself. It's kind of funny - the movie is so bizarrely wrong most of the time that the occasional beautiful and/or atmospheric shot (like the killer walking into the dance studio) is extremely jarring.

In a way, I kind of loved this movie. It's terrible. Horrible. Awful. But I still kind of loved it. Doesn't mean it gets a good rating, though.

3/10

34. And Soon the Darkness

Robert Fuest, 1970

A bit slow, but Fuest manages to build an tremendous amount of dread out of the idyllic French countryside and his love of deep composition keeps things visually interesting. Approximately half of the dialogue in the movie is unsubtitled French, which helps increase the feeling of alienation and was a very wise choice. The reveal of the killer at the end, while not a big surprise, was handled in a nicely creepy fashion - however, the final resolution left much to be desired. Still quite good on the whole, especially compared to a lot of what I've seen lately.

7.5/10

33. The Unseen

Danny Steinmann, 1980

Not especially bad, but completely forgettable. Which is actually kind of worse, in a way.

1.5/10

104 in 2009 Week 43: Yet More (late) Horror

Whoops, forgot to put this up on Sunday. Yet another week of dubious quality, although I did very much enjoy the ineligible Cloverfield.

The House with the Laughing Windows 6.5/10
Asylum 4/10
The Psychic 2/10

Progress: 112 (Par +26)

32. Creepshow

George Romero, 1982

This is kind of a sentimental favorite of mine, probably the first full-on (by that I mean R-rated and forbidden) horror movie I ever saw. So of course, I'll always love it. Fortunately, it's also a legitimately strong movie, so I don't have to be embarassed about it. The first two stories drag quite a bit, but after that you get three hits in a row. My favorite segment is the third one, with Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson.

8.5/10

31. Sette Note in Nero (The Psychic)

Lucio Fulci, 1977

I'm at the point where the only Fulci movies I have left to see are lower-tier Fulci. Which makes me very sad, just like this movie does. The suspense is devoid of suspense, the characters are devoid of character, there's almost no gore to think of, the ending is even more abrupt than usual, and the plot is about the right size to fill a Twilight Zone episode, not a full-length movie.

2/10

30. 28 Days Later

Danny Boyle, 2003 (US release)

Not as good as I remember thinking the first time I saw it, but still a solid, very effective movie. I hear a lot of complaints about the final 1/3 of the movie, once the soldiers come into the picture. I can kind of understand them, but I completely disagree - that segment is what makes the picture. Up until that point, it had just been a reasonably well-made post-apocalyptic movie, kind of like any other (outside of the aesthetic aspects). The soldier portion is where the more interesting ideas and moral ambiguity come into play. I think the issue for many may be that there is a strong fantasy component to all post-apocalyptic stories. As horrible as the events may be, there's a certain degree of "wouldn't it be cool/fun if. . ." This is typified by the shopping sequence, or by Selena's assumption that Jim's plan was for them to "fall in love and fuck," since there was no one else around. Once the soldiers come into play, the true ugliness of the situation comes to the fore and it's hard to look at things the same way.
8/10

29. Asylum

Roy Ward Baker, 1972

Typical fair to middling mid-70's horror anthology. Plusses include a stronger framing story than most (in fact, the framing story eventually morphs into the fourth tale), a solid ending, and Peter Cushing's herculean efforts trying to salvage his story. Minuses include a general dullness and apparent lack of enthusiasm, a ridiculously stupid penultimate murder, and the horribly overbearing and inappropriate use of Mussorgsky in place of an actual score.

4/10

Pogues in Denver!!!!!!

The first time I saw the Pogues perform was eight years ago, at the Brixton Academy in London. It was part of their first (and at the time, presumably only) reunion tour, so I didn’t really think twice about flying halfway across the world to see them. It was a terrific show, absolutely worth the trip, but I figured that would be it – I saw them once, and never again. I never imagined that they would continue to play together on a part-time basis, and I never in a million years would have imagined that this could happen:



That’s right. This time, the Pogues came to me. For the first time in their 25+ year history, they came to Denver, for a single, sold-out show.

I’m pleased to be able to say that the intervening eight years have not taken their toll on the band. In fact, if anything, I’d say they’ve gotten better. Even Shane, who many suspect is only alive due to some sort of Keith Richards-style deal with the devil, seemed a lot stronger and more present than at the earlier show. To be honest, the first time I saw them I wouldn’t really have understood more than 5-10% of the words coming out of his mouth if I didn’t already know what they were supposed to be. This time, I could easily make out ¾ of what he said, and that monstrous, inhuman howl of his (see “Sickbed of Cuchulainn”, for instance) shook the building. He also seemed much more interactive and playful with the performance, even engaging in a (very) little bit of commentary between songs on occasion and, when singing “and they ruined my good looks for the old man drag,” flipping up his sunglasses to give us a look at his *ahem* good looks. I also want to make a note of his awesome sweater, this gigantic fuzzy monstrosity (and I say that affectionately). I can’t imagine how much booze that thing must have soaked up over the course of the tour.



The rest of the band may have been a bit older and more tired, but they didn’t really show it. Sure, James Fearnley wasn’t quite the explosive onstage presence he was last time, but he still took a leap off the riser and did a couple of slides across the stage on his knees (all with a 20 pound accordion strapped to his chest). And yes, there was a bit more sitting down between songs, but the important thing is that when they played, it was every bit as powerful and lively as it ever was. The Pogues, as instrumentalists, are an incredibly tight and skilled group, which I supposed you would have to be with Shane MacGowan on the microphone. When he decided that the second verse of “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” started two beats later than everyone else thought, they adjusted so quickly (and uniformly) that it was almost imperceptible.




The setlist was a good mix of songs, similar to but probably better (although slightly shorter) than the more “. . . Fall from Grace”-heavy set that I heard at the Academy. Granted, I kind of missed hearing “Medley” and “Fairytale of New York”, but, after listening to many, many covers and live recordings of Fairytale, I’ve come to realize that if you can’t get Kirsty MacColl to sing it, there’s not much reason to play it. And if you don’t have a time machine, Kirsty isn’t singing. As for “Medley”, if that’s the price I have to pay for “Kitty” and “Sunnyside of the Street”, I can live with it. I liked the order of songs a little better here than last time as well, with the terrific crowd-pleaser “Fiesta” finishing off the last encore instead of the more sedate “The Parting Glass.” Fiesta also contained one of the highlights of the evening, as Spider Stacy switched over to his secondary instrument:



Yes, that’s a beer tray. And yes, he played it with his head.

The night fell in to a pretty consistent pattern – Shane would sing a few songs, then go take a breather offstage while someone else stepped up to since their signature song. All told, five of the eight performers wound up taking a turn at the microphone, which is something I really appreciate about the Pogues. A particular treat of the live shows is getting to hear Phil Chevron sing “Thousands are Sailing” which he wrote and which is clearly built for his voice, but which was sung by Shane on the album. The album cut is also great, of course, but Phil’s version is something you don’t really get to hear outside of a show.



The crowd was good, enthusiastic and active but not, for the most part, crazy. The demographics skewed a bit younger than I expected – I figured I’d be one of the youngest there, but I was probably more toward the middle of the bunch. One group that was particularly amusing to me included a fifty-something year old man, who was jumping up and down and pumping his fist in the air through the show, and his wife and two college-age daughters, none of whom seemed happy to be there. Seems like kind of a shame to drag them along when that’s three tickets someone who wants to see the show couldn’t have, but I suppose that’s just the way things go.

Overall, it was a fantastic show (if you hadn’t picked up on that fact yet), worth every penny and then some. I don’t know if they’ll ever be back to Denver (I suspect not), but they certainly made this one count. I could not be happier with the show than I am right now.

28. Cloverfield

Matt Reeves, 2008

I was pretty excited about this movie in the months leading up to its release, but for some reason, never got around to seeing it until now. In a way, I'm glad I waited - the central conceit of the video camera plays much better on TV than I suspect it would in the theater. Of course, I generally have no problem with "shakeycam," so maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Anyway, it's a briskly paced, fairly exciting movie with monsters big and small, which means that there's not much that I could personally complain about. The character running the camera through most of the movie is pretty annoying, I suppose, and there are certainly segments of the movie that would work better if he would just shut the hell up. None of the characters have much depth, but there's just enough there to make you feel what you need to feel. The very end was nice, I thought, especially coming on the heels of a fairly anticlimactic moment that I expected to be the end. The actual end makes good use of the structural idea that the movie is being recorded on a used tape, so we occasionally get flashes of video recorded a month earlier. I think that was probably the best idea the producers had, and I wish they had made more extensive use of it.

Anyway, some complaints, not perfect, blah, blah, did I mention the scary monsters?

7.5/10

27. La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The House with the Laughing Windows)

Pupi Avati, 1976

This is very much a slow-burn movie, in that nothing of any real consequence occurs until about 20 minutes from the end. This isn't much of a problem, though, because a) when things do start to happen, it's a doozy and b) there's enough atmosphere and tension in the early phase that it's still reasonably gripping, even though nothing is happening. It's generally classified as giallo, which I would quibble with, a little - of course, defining giallo is like defining film noir. Everyone's going to disagree with everyone else about it anyway.

6.5/10

104 in 2009 Week 42: I Win!

I got eight this week, plus two that don't count because they're too new and one that I'd seen before. Here are the (mostly disappointing) 104-eligible titles:

The Mad Doctor of Blood Island 1/10
White Zombie 5/10
Rosemary's Baby 3.5/10
Q: The Winged Serpent 6.5/10
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 6/10
American Scary 4/10
The Birds 4/10
The Cat and the Canary 3/10

Progress: 109 (yes, that number is more than 104. We're in overtime, baby! Also, par +25.)

PS. Yes, I know overtime is not the appropriate metaphor to use here. Just go with it.

26. The Cat and the Canary

Paul Leni, 1927

Kind of fun spooky-old house movie with some inventive visual tricks up its sleeve. The story itself is pretty dull, though, and the villain is painfully arbitrary. Some nice moments nonetheless.


3/10

25. La Sindrome di Stendhal

Dario Argento, 1996

The first time I saw this movie, I thought it was probably a great movie, but it was hard to tell due to the atrocious dub. Now, I've seen it with the more appropriate Italian language track, and I think it is definitely an improvement - but paradoxically, I am less impressed overall. The first half of the movie is marred by some terrible CGI (the first ever used in an Italian production, apparently), and it drags pretty severely in places. There are, however, some very interesting ideas at play, and the whole thing comes together very well at the end. It's good, but not great - which is still better than anything else Argento had done in fifteen years (or has done in the thirteen years since, really).

7/10

24. The Birds

Alfred Hitchcock, 1963

I'd avoided this one for a long time - it's probably the only "major" Hitchcock that I haven't seen. There was never a particular reason for this, it just never seemed to appeal to me. I recently read the short story by Daphne Du Maurier, though, so I decided to give it a shot. The result was about what I figured it would be, and can't begin to compare to the scary and downright apocalyptic story.

Things start off pretty well. The first half of the movie, or so, work pretty well in a romantic comedy sort of way. I was actually enjoying it quite a bit. Then the birds came in, and with them the troubles. The problem is that the bird attacks just don't really work on film. Action scenes aren't really Hitchcock's forte, and that's what these amount to. His rigorously storyboarded and structured style doesn't mesh with the content very well. An animal attack needs an organic ferocity that is anathema to Hitchcock's style. He doesn't embarass himself, and the scenes are never silly or anything like that - they just don't achieve much beyond perfunctory mechanics. Where the movie fares better is in the buildup to the attacks, where the birds are gathering ominously. There are a couple of nice sequences along those lines, like the crows gathering on the playground or the long walk to the car at the end - but even then, it feels kind of like Hitchcock is just doing the Hitchcock thing. There's no spark or life to it, just going through the motions. The ridiculously anticlimactic ending doesn't do much to dispel this impression. Everything about this movie is so very competent, but almost nothing about it is anything more than that.

4/10

23. American Scary

John E Hudgens, 2006

Not actually a horror movie, but I think it fits into the Halloween spirit. This is a documentary about the people who hosted late night horror movies on TV, ranging from Vampira in the 50's to Neil Gaiman (yes, that Neil Gaiman) in more modern times. The most notable thing I took away from this movie is the realization that there are a lot of these hosts. Dozens and dozens, not just the well-known handful.

The greatest strength of this documentary is also its greatest weakness, and that is the wealth of archival footage showing the hosts doing their thing. It's fantastic stuff, and I could happily watch it for much longer than the current running time. The problem is that there just isn't enough of it. We spend a lot of time watching talking heads discuss all of the crazy things these hosts would do, when all I really want to do is watch them do the crazy things. I realize you can't just make a clip show and call it a documentary, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that the subject is more interesting than the documentary.

4/10

22. The Signal

David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, and Dan Bush, 2008

The Signal is an odd movie. On the one hand, it's an anthology, made up of three segments that were written and directed by three different people. On the other hand, it's a single story following three characters in a world where a mysterious electronic signal is driving everyone crazy. Each segment picks up where the previous one left off (often backtracking as well) and presents its events from the perspective of one of the three principal characters. The tone of the movie shifts a little uncomfortably as a result of this structure, with the first section played as a straight up horror movie, the second as a pitch-black comedy, and the third hovering somewhere between the two. This makes a certain degree of sense, though, given that the comedic (and by far the best) segment is the one presented from the viewpoint of a crazy person.

Performances are as good as you could expect from a tiny production like this. Better than you would expect, really. The effects are also tremendously impressive given the budget. All three directors manage to create a strong sense of dread and unease, which even the abrupt tonal shifts can't undo. My only major complaint is that the third and final segment is easily the weakest, and kind of drags down the momentum that they had been developing. On the other hand, it also contained some of the best individual moments in the movie, including Ben and Mya's faux reunion and the oddly beautiful ending, which kind of touched me in ways I wasn't expecting and can't fully explain. I highly recommend this one.

8.5/10

21. Valerie a týden divu (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)

Jaromil Jires, 1970

I'm not sure what to make of this one. It's both stunningly beautiful and almost entirely incomprehensible. Well, on a literal level, it's incomprehensible. Thematically and subextually, it's pretty much puberty.

The principal vampire, the Weasel, is one of the more unsettling vampires in film, and borrows a lot from Max Shrek's Count Orlock. That's actually a term that could be applied to the majority of the film: unsettling. It's never really scary, but constantly creepy. I suppose the fact that it focuses on the sexuality of a thirteen-year-old girl contributes to that as well.

I should note my frustration with the subtitles on the DVD that I watched. They were somewhat rudimentary and occasionally misspelled ("sing" instead of "sign," for instance"), which is a little annoying but not anything I can't get past. The thing is, though, that they were also horribly, horribly mistimed. In many cases, the subtitle didn't even appear onscreen until the line of dialogue had been finished! Amazingly enough, this wasn't a technical fault with the DVD - the subtitles were burned into the film print. I cannot express fully just how obnoxious this was, and it's a testament to the film's quality that its strengths were able to shine through.

6/10

20. Q: The Winged Serpent

Larry Cohen, 1982

Patently ridiculous, but well-executed and quite a bit of fun. Who doesn't love the idea of Quetzalcoatl coming to New York and eating a bunch of people? The key to making it work is the sense of humor - it's a funny movie, certainly not a comedy, but funny. I don't mean "laughing at it" funny either; Cohen displays some terrific wit in both the writing and directing. The acting is also better than you tend to see in a movie like this, which helps as well - you can't really go all that wrong with a pair of detectives played by David Carradine and Richard Roundtree.

There's not a tremendous amount to it, depthwise (although Cohen does have some fun with the religious criticism), but it's a decent way to spend an hour and a half, and you don't need to feel guilty afterward.

6.5/10

19. Rosemary's Baby

Roman Polanski, 1968

I was really hoping to like this one, but it just wasn't meant to be, I suppose. It was Polanski's first American movie, and I wonder if he had a bit of a tin ear for the language, as the performances are pretty uniformly terrific when silent, but all seem to fall apart a bit during dialogue. Likewise, when Rosemary walks in on the Satanists at the end, it's quite atmospheric and unsettling. . . until everyone starts jumping around and shouting "Hail Satan," at which point it just gets silly. The real source of the problems, though, is probably the fact that it was adapted extremely faithfully (Ira Levin called it the most faithful adaptation ever). Movies need to be adapted from the page, not just translated.

3.5/10

18. White Zombie

Victor Halperin, 1932

Finally, a movie I can qualify as "good," if only just. Given that this pre-dates Romero, the zombies are of the voodoo variety, which is a not my favorite iteration. Still, there's nothing inherently wrong with the voodoo-style zombie, and White Zombie manages to wring some impressive creepiness out of them. There's also a surprising amount of visual inventiveness, with some multiple exposures that reminded me of Murnau's work in Sunrise, and a relatively sophisticated sound design (especially when you consider how crude the outcome was). Unfortunately, the end becomes kind of silly, and the final line is really painful. Also, the movie was sadly lost for several decades and, as a result, the surviving version is in pretty rough shape - little to no shadow detail, lots of jump cuts due to missing bits of footage, and sound that is so muddy it's unintelligible at times. It's a shame, really, because I think a lot more of the atmosphere would come through were it not so damaged.

5.5/10

Mad Doctor of Blood Island

Gerardo De Leon and Eddie Romero, 1968

Oh, god, make it stop.

And by that, I mean the whole movie, not just the egregiously abused zoom lens.

But also the zoom lens.

1/10

104 in 2009 Week 41: More Horror

Chugging along through October, with a decidedly weaker selection than last week.

Vampyr 3.5/10
Baron Blood 3/10
The Mummy's Hand 5.5/10
The Devil Doll 8/10
The Sender 2.5/10
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 4/10
Galaxy of Terror 2.5/10
Mutant 1.5/10

Progress: 101 (par +19)

Mutant (AKA Forbidden World)

Allan Holzman, 1982

--see Galaxy of Terror

1.5/10

Galaxy of Terror

Bruce D. Clark, 1981

Crap crappity crap crap.

But I had fun.

2.5/10

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

John S. Robertson, 1920

Not all that bad, but not particularly good, either. John Barrymore makes for a fantastic Mr. Hyde, but he can't do much with the rather boring Dr. Jekyll. Sadly, Jekyll gets the lion's share of the screen time. Also, Hyde's rampages and general debauchery are pretty disappointingly mild (come on, this was pre-code!), which robs him of a good portion of his menace. There are still a few really nice sequences, nonetheless - in particular, Hyde's first spontaneous (non-potion) appearance and subsequent assault and the dream sequence in which Jekyll is embraced by a giant spider.

4/10

The Sender

Roger Christian, 1982

The Sender starts with a great premise (a telepathic man who unconsciously projects his nightmares into other people's minds) and completely squandered it. The whole affair is extremely lifeless and clinical, and they take great pains to demonstrate that, while the telepathy is real, the hallucinations are not, which leaves you with kind of a "so what?" effect. Maybe it's more respectable that way, in the "we're not making a horror movie, we're making a psychological thriller" way that dominated the mid to late 90's. I guess, in that sense, The Sender was ahead of its time.

The bleeding mirror sequence was pretty great, though. If they'd tried more fun stuff like that and maybe designed the story so that there was something at stake for anyone ever, they might have had something.

2.5/10

The Devil Doll

Tod Browning 1936

This was a surprising little gem, not particularly scary, but still very compelling. It's one of those odd movies where the villain (the escaped criminal who turns people into murderous little 1-foot dolls) and the hero (the wrongly accused man trying to clear his name and take revenge on those who framed him) are one and the same. The process shots used for the miniaturized people look pretty terrible for the most part, but as the movie goes on they seem to move more and more in the direction of oversized sets and props, which look uniformly fantastic. The central conceit, that our hero/villain is able to hide in plain sight by pretending to be an old woman, is pretty silly and ridiculous - and yet, Lionel Barrymore is able to make it work. There's also a very nice emotional core to the movie, centered around the relationship (or lack thereof) between Barrymore and his now grown daughter. The final scene atop the Eiffel Tower was far more emotional and touching than I ever would have expected. It's amazing the sort of wonderful movies that can slip through the cracks sometimes.

8/10

The Mist

Frank Darabont, 2007

I saw this one twice in theaters, but this was my first viewing of the Black and White version, which is apparently how Darabont wanted to release it in the first place. I think it is a vastly superior version of the movie, with crisper images, a bleaker tone, and better effects (the rough edges get kind of smoothed out by the conversion). I'm still a little troubled by the ending, though. I don't mind the change from the novella in general, but the juxtaposition of the two major events (I'm trying to be vague for spoilers' sake) is so close that it makes it seem more twist, more like a twilight zone ending or a sick joke. I would have been happier if David had just walked into the mist after (SPOILER EVENT), or if there had been more of a sense of time passing before (SPOILER EVENT 2). Still, the rest of the movie is more than strong enough to overcome my reservations about this.

8.5/10

Haunt Review: Frightmare

108th & Old Wadsworth, Westminster, CO
http://www.frightmare.biz/

I’ve been to Frightmare twice before. The first year was fantastic, the second less so – but it primarily suffered from the fact that it wasn’t all that different from the first time. After a couple of years off, however, I’ve returned to find that Frightmare is completely revamped – unrecognizable, really, and better than ever.

The greatest strength of Frightmare has always been its location. The outdoor farm fields with the creepy mill and cave and such adds a tremendous amount of atmosphere to the haunt. They’ve never (in my experience) done much with a theme or a story, but they don’t need to. They just have a nice, creepy world. One of my favorite elements this year was a lengthy unlit segment that you have to make your way through using a lantern. Even better, they manage to deliver and retrieve the lantern with actors in character, which was a wonderful surprise. Other than that, there weren’t a lot of particular standout moments, but it consistently solid. Actors stuck to character pretty well and usually did more than just jump out and say “Boo!” The new castle façade for the entrance is not as creepy as the old mine they used to use, but I do appreciate mixing it up. All in all, a strong finish to the night, although I have to admit I kind of miss the old crazy levitating exorcism effect.

8/10

Haunt Review: Twisted Fairy Tales and Your Worst Nightmare

Westminster Mall
5433 W 88th Avenue, Westminster, CO
http://www.twistedfairytaleshaunt.com/

This was another first year haunt, and was put on by another portion of the old Scream Park team. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out nearly as well as City of the Dead, although a large part of that may have been a matter of circumstances – it’s a mall haunt, which is pretty limiting, and apparently came together in a very short period of time. The result has some nice touches, but is far too short overall, is way too sparsely decorated, and doesn’t have enough activity. I think it also suffers from the break into two haunts – you go into the space through Twisted Fairy Tales, stop to get some 3-D glasses from an employee, then go back out through Your Worst Nightmare. The break in the middle is a definite mood killer, and makes the whole thing feel shorter than it really is. Even if it meant ditching the theme, I think one longer haunt would have been more satisfying. The actors also didn’t seem to be as well-trained or enthusiastic as I would have liked. They mostly stood in their positions, waited for us to pass, then shouted out a scripted line or two. One of them, after bumping my leg with a prop, even stopped to apologize. I appreciate the sentiment, but it certainly wasn’t scary.

As for the nice touches I mentioned earlier, I feel I should point some of them out. The haunt started with a long, twisty black tunnel that was so dark you had to feel your way through. I liked this, as it acted a sort of sensory palette cleanser, and helped mitigate some of the effects of being in a mall. The giant spider was good. There was a white rat-bear-something creature in the sheet room that was a little unnerving. And the final gag (I won’t say what it was) is fairly clever and startling.

The fairy tale theme was interesting and has a lot of potential. I was really looking forward to seeing what they could do with it. Unfortunately, the answer turned out to be "not much."

3/10

Haunt Review: City of the Dead

7007 E 88th Avenue, Henderson, CO
http://www.cityofthedeadhaunt.com/

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I wasn’t sure going in what to expect with City of the Dead, since they are a first year haunt, but they seem to have skipped over all of the typical first year troubles, presenting a slick, well-oiled machine. From what I hear, some of the people from the now-defunct Scream Park are involved in this haunt, which may have helped them get up and running. It also didn’t hurt that someone clearly threw several large boxes of money at this haunt.

Before discussing the haunt proper, I’d like to mention the waiting area. They’ve set up several tents with vendors and food, as well as a hearse with coffins and zombies that you can have your picture taken with. I didn’t partake in anything, but I really appreciate it nonetheless because it gives more of a carnival atmosphere to the whole event. They also handed out a great prop souvenir, the Departed News:


This was probably intended to help people pass the time in line, but it was too dark to read in there. Still, nice touch. Fortunately, it was a moot point for me because, perhaps because it was early in the night, perhaps because it was early in the season, or perhaps because of the ridiculous cold, there were not very many other patrons. We only had a 10 minute wait, tops.

So – on to City of the Dead itself (SPOILERS here, primarily about the overall structure of the haunt). They have two major elements working in their favor here: Theme and scope. More than any other haunt that I can recall (outside of the movie-based ones at Universal Studios), they set a theme for the haunt and stick to it, start to finish. The idea is that there is a city hidden within Denver, which is just like any other city except that it is populated by the dead. You start out walking through a military checkpoint and security station, through what can only be described as undead customs, and finally emerge into the city. This is where that second element comes into play – the scope of this haunt is amazing. When you first emerge into the city itself, you find yourself at the end of an entire city block, cars and all. I’ve seen sets this big before, but not at an indoor haunt where everything has to be built.

For the rest of the haunt you wander in and out of buildings, passing through the barber, the butcher, the nursing home, the school, and several more. The actors in these scenes were generally pretty impressive – I’d say about 80% had settled fully into their characters and seemed well able to improvise interactions once they got through their scripted material, which is a pretty good percentage. I was also impressed that they would sometimes follow you around, popping up again in unexpected places far from where you first saw them. Also, the scope of the thing again came into play here – there were a tremendous number of actors, including several who seemed to essentially be part of the scenery, just wandering around the background looking creepy.

Eventually, you wind up escaping through the sewers, thus maintaining the theme and story to the very end. Extremely impressive the whole way through, which some shockingly elaborate costumes. Be warned, though – it’s much more of a gross-out haunt than most that I’ve seen, and it is quite disgusting at points. That just added to the fun for me, but your mileage may vary.

10/10

The Mummy's Hand

Christy Cabanne, 1940

The Mummy series is really the nadir of the classic Universal monster stable. Every one of the other sequels has embodied some degree of suck, so I wasn't expecting much here. As it turns out, though, it's actually a little bit good. To be honest, it's also not really a sequel - it has nothing in common with The Mummy other than the presence of a mummy, and all of the later sequels follow from this one. In fact, pretty much the entirety of the mummy lore comes from this movie.

It basically plays like an old adventure serial more than a horror movie. The mummy itself doesn't come into play until halfway through, and there's a strong overtone of scoundrel-y adventure. Think more Indiana Jones, less The Shining. There are no less than two comic relief characters among the principal cast, and amazingly, both are fairly amusing. I would even go so far as to describe Cecil Kellaway's "The Great Solvani" as wonderful, especially during the drunken conversation with his daughter in the hotel room, where he seems to compulsively perform magic tricks.

The ending is tremendously lame, as our hero defeats the mummy by dropping a bowl of fire on him while he laps up spilled tea from the floor. No, I'm not kidding. Even before that, the mummy never really exudes much of a sense of menace. And while the comic relief is solid, and George Zucco's villainous Andoheb is suitably menacing, the leads themselves are dull, dull dull.

Still, better than anything that followed it.

5.5/10

Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga (Baron Blood)

Mario Bava, 1972

Huh. One of Bava's worst to be sure, especially if you only consider his horror films. The scripting is lazy and tedious, the acting is terrible, and the visuals are - well, not bad, admittedly, but not up to Bava standards.

3/10

Vampyr

Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932

I had high hopes for this one, since it's generally held to be a sort of long-lost classic. At first, it seemed to be living up to the promise - a creepy, surreal experience filled with interesting visuals like a shadow that wanders off by itself. Unfortunately, the plot eventually kicks in and it turns out to be a standard-issue vampire story, filled with endless shots of text from a book of vampire lore. There's still some interesting stuff to be had, like when the protagonist dreams of his own death, a rightly famous sequence. But as a whole, it really just falls apart.

3.5/10

104 in 2009 Week 40: My Neighbor Totoro and some horror movies

This should be short and sweet, since I've already talked about most of these. The qualifying movies from this week are:

Something Wicked This Way Comes 2/10
El Orfanato 9.5/10
Curse of the Werewolf 4/10
[REC] 7.5/10
The Body Snatcher 8/10

There's also one other movie I saw prior to October:

Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro)
Hayao Miyazaki, 1988

A man and his two daughters move out to a small village while the mother is in the hospital. The youngest daughter encounters three magical beings that she calls "Totoros." Surprisingly mundane things happen to them after that, interspersed with cool fantasy sequences that may or may not be real.

I need to say right off that I don't feel entirely right evaluating this movie. The version that I saw was dubbed in the 80's by Troma, and, I think, dubbed very poorly. The structure of the movie requires that you connect strongly with the two young girls who stand at the heart of the movie - and that's very hard to do when they sound like screaming 30-year old women. In other words, the movie came across very badly. At the same time, there were plenty of great bits of Miyazaki-madness, like the wonderful catbus, and the direction the story takes is interesting and even kind of unconventional. So I suspect the movie is better than it seems. I'm giving a rating that kind of splits the difference between what I saw (which was somewhere in the 2-range) and what I suspect it would be with subs or a better dub (a 5.5 or 6).

4/10

Progress: 93 (Par +13)

The Body Snatcher

Robert Wise, 1945

A creepy, effective morality play anchored by one of Boris Karloff's best performances. It also, for a movie that deals so directly with questions of right and wrong, has a surprising and welcome degree of moral ambiguity - and doubly so, when you consider when it was made. It's a little troublesome that no one really attempts the Scottish accent that the setting would suggest. This isn't something that I generally worry too much about, but the dialogue is still peppered with "ayes" and "laddies," so it kind of stands out. Also, the handsome young doctor whom we're obviously meant to identify with barely seems able to muster an emotion. Ever.

The direction and lighting are stylish and shadowy, just the way I like them, with the murder of the street singer as a highlight. It's also always a pleasure to see Karloff and Bela Lugosi on screen together, even if only briefly. I was very pleased with this one.

8/10

[REC]

Jaume Balaguero, 2007

This is what you might call a great id movie. It's a fantastic roller coaster ride, executed nearly flawlessly, that doesn't really amount to much in the end. Still, it's hard to complain when you're fed a steady diet of scary zombies - and not just scary zombies, but that great European staple, scary demon zombies. The creature at the end, in particular, was tremendously upsetting. In the first long shot, I figured it had to be CGI - there's no way to make a person look like that for real. As it approached, though, I saw that it was indeed an actor in makeup, which made it all the worse. Good fun, and bring on the sequel.

7.5/10

Curse of the Werewolf

Terence Fisher, 1961

Easily the worst of Hammer's early updates of classic Universal monsters, Curse of the Werewolf suffers from two main problems. The first is an assortment of overly broad, almost cartoonish performances that are very atypical of Fisher's Hammer films. Anthony Dawson's Marques Siniestro (ooh, that name) is probably the worst offender. The other issue is a very oddly structured plot, which spends half of the running time depicting events that would qualify as backstory, at best. It's fifty minutes before Oliver Reed, the ostensible star, ever appears on screen!

I do have to give it credit for the unusual take on the werewolf mythology, which posits that werewolves are people demonically possessed by animal spirits due the weakening of their own spirit, which in turn is a result of being born on Christmas Day (or something like that). Also, acting-wise, Oliver Reed runs circles around poor old Lon Chaney, jr. But in the end, it just doesn't really work.

4/10

Haunt Review: The Haunted Forest

45250 North Delbert Road, Parker, CO
http://hauntedforestparker.com/

Somewhere out in the wilderness near Parker, marked by a barely-illuminated sign, lies the Haunted Forest. It’s a bit difficult to find, and a bit pricy compared to other haunts ($20), but it’s absolutely worth the trouble and the cash. Unlike most haunts, the Haunted Forest doesn’t take place in a warehouse, or in a densely packed cornfield. It’s a long, meandering path through the woods, marked only by yellow police tape. The experience is kind of like taking a nice 20 minute hike, except that sometimes people chase you with chainsaws. They get a surprising amount of mileage out of the parts of the trail where nothing happens – to be honest, it would still be pretty spooky even if there were no actors.

Once you factor the actors in, though, it gets a little bit terrifying. They are generally few and far between – but they take advantage of the space to make sure that every person counts. My favorite encounter involved an actor in a Michael Myers mask who came at us from behind. Because of the sparse layout, he was able to wait until we were well down the path before moving, and was therefore able to reach a full charge before announcing his presence (with a really creepy grunting/snorting sound). In a situation like that, it’s pretty hard not to just run away as fast as you can – and, in fact, during one of the later chainsaw chases, I kind of managed to twist my ankle while doing just that. This is not a complaint – it’s a testament to the effectiveness of the haunt.

Like the Haunted Mines, there were a couple of early season kinks to work out. The actors in the big schoolbus setpiece that ends the trail weren’t ready for us, so we wound up standing outside it for a bit. The graveyard toward the beginning of the trail also didn’t seem to be completely up and running – there were some exposed electronics and patches where it seems they probably meant to stick another strobe light. All in all, though, these were pretty minor concerns. We were told that they expect to get much better as we approach Halloween, but they’re already in pretty good shape. I loved this one.

9/10

Haunt Review: The Haunted Mines

The Mining Museum, Colorado Springs
http://hauntedmines.org/



This one didn’t get off to a very good start. We arrived just after opening time and got a spot close to the front of the line – maybe fifteen, twenty people ahead of us. Then. . . we waited. And waited. And waited. They didn’t actually start up the haunt until more than an hour after the advertised start time. Fortunately, there were Simpsons’ Halloween Specials playing on a projector to help pass the time, and an amusing security guard/Jason Vorhees who did a good job of freaking out the little kids. He was also surprisingly limber, skittering up walls and across rooftops. The waiting area was pretty well designed in general, with a tunnel and some graveyard areas, so it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Plus, about halfway through, they got the fog machine hooked up. When I got my first whiff of chemical fog, a warm wave of happiness rolled over me, as if I had just smelled cookies baking in mother’s oven or somesuch.

Once we actually got into the haunt, I was very impressed with the layout and set design. It began with an elevator descent into the mines, followed by a twisting, turning trail on uneven ground, up and down stairs, through tunnels with crawling room only, and down slides. The main strength was definitely the use of physical discomfort – and I don’t mean discomfort as in pain, but discomfort as a removal from the comfort zone, more disconcerting. There were also several points where two pathways are presented (usually a crawling one and a walking one), which certainly would up the value of a return visit. There were also a few small mazes, which made for the best use of actors, as they would circle around and come at you from different directions.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they were up and running at full strength (even ignoring the delayed start). There were several lengthy dead spaces, and they failed to capitalize on some of their terrific set design. When I’m on my knees crawling through a dark tunnel, I’m a perfect target for a scare – but nothing happened. I spotted a few hiding places for actors that were unoccupied, and a few props that seemed to be deactivated.

Finally, I also have to give them credit for sticking the obligatory chainsaw smack in the middle of the haunt, rather than at the end. Not only that, but it was in a maze, which made escape. . . . well, difficult. Sadly, there was a side effect of this placement: The end just kind of petered out. Overall, it was a decent start, and I suspect that late in the season it might be very good. It’s just not there yet.

6/10

el Orfanato (The Orphanage)

Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007

In a word - terrific. And oddly enough, it's not really a horror movie, in a sense. Sure, there are some (very well executed) haunting sequences of the classical ghost story sort, but the supernatural elements are of arguable substance (I vote yes, but appreciate the ambiguity). It's really, at the core, a story about how the mysterious disappearance of a child affects the parents. On the other hand, that's a pretty horrifying scenario, and the ongoing mystery becomes very nightmarish (even if you ignore the ghosts). Then there's the. . . I don't want to call it a twist, exactly, but let's say revelation, near the end, which is tremendously upsetting (I'm trying not to delve into spoilers here).

So it is a horror movie, then. Just not the horror movie I was expecting.

I don't want to say much more, because it's really better to just see for yourself - although if you have young children, consider yourself warned. Let me just add that the biggest problem I had with this movie is that a prosthetic effect on a traffic victim was kind of silly. And that's not a very big problem at all.

9.5/10

Zombieland

Robert Fleischer, 2009

The first thing I need to say is that all of the comparisons to Shaun of the Dead are overselling it quite a bit. The second thing I need to say is that it's still pretty good.

Basically, this is Woody Harrelson's movie. He's not technically the lead, and I suppose the main dramatic arc doesn't belong to him, but he dominates every scene he appears in. He also embodies the spirit of the movie more than anyone else (that spirit is badass silliness bolstered by misunderstood pathos). The rest of the cast is does what they need to as well, and the extended cameo by REDACTED provides one of the best laughs in the movie.

The tone can be a little inconsistent at times, but the director adds a lot of fun non-diagetic material that kind of papers over the holes. The most obvious example of this is the recurring device of onscreen zombie survival rules that pop up whenever appropriate. Unfortunately, although 32 rules are mentioned, only five or so are ever identified, and are then used repeatedly. Granted, the context usually changes enough that it works as a new, different joke - but it would have been nice to expand the material a bit.

This kind of sums up my feelings overall. Zombieland settles into a comfortable groove that's very enjoyable, but doesn't really stretch itself - which is where it falls short of Shaun of the Dead. It's a little disappointing, because I was expecting it to push the envelope a little more. It was probably just an unfair expectation, though, and Zombieland still does what it does very well. Besides, how could I possibly stay mad at a movie that features a zombie attack at an amusement park with a scene set inside a haunted house? It's like they did it just for me.

7.5/10

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Jack Clayton, 1983

What a muddled mess this was. It clearly bears the mark of massive studio meddling, not least of which are the scenes in which the two pre-pubescent protagonists suddenly appear to be a year older (hooray for reshoots). The tone is nostalgic and folksy nearly to the point of parody, and Bradbury's stylized dialogue doesn't really tend to work when it actually has to come out of someone's mouth. Also, those two kids I mentioned definitely don't pull their weight, acting wise. Jonathan Pryce is admittedly fantastic as Mr. Dark, though, and whenever he's onscreen the movie takes on an uncharacteristic spirit - but he's present for far too little of the running time. The confrontation between Pryce and Jason Robards in the library toward the end is excellent, but it's followed by a climactic battle (sort of) in the mirror maze that really sinks the whole production - not that it was in great shape before that point.

2/10

Friday the 13th (2009)

Marcus Nispel, 2009

Given that I would be kicking off the month of Halloween late at night, I needed to start with something modern and, therefore, fast-paced. At the same time, I wanted to tap into a bit of that comforting nostalgia, so what better choice than a modern remake of an 80's franchise?

I say franchise, rather than movie, because the 2009 Friday the 13th draws from all of the first four Friday Friday movies and probably has more in common with part 3 than any of the others. This works very much to its benefit, because the first Friday the 13th is actually not very good. It's not until part 3 that things start to become interesting, and part 6 is the only one that could be considered a good movie outright.

Nonetheless, I was less than impressed with the modern Friday, but it certainly had its pleasures. The college kids were generally amusing and there were some impressively brutal kills- I particularly liked the deaths of the two kids who went boating. The movie is empty calories, but still reasonably tasty. And at least it's an improvement on its source.

3.5/10

104 in 2009 Weeks 37-39: Clearing the Board

It's been a while since my last update, which is mostly because I haven't watched much in the way of movies over the last few weeks. There are a few reasons for this.

1. I was on vacation part of the time.

2. Batman: Arkham Asylum

3. I've been making my way through the first four seasons of The Office, which I needed to complete before October 1st, when they will no longer be available on Watch-it-now (as of last Thursday, this task is complete).

Don't worry, though, I'm about to make up for all of it. You see, Thursday is the first of October. As you probably already know, October is a very special time for me. Things are going to be a bit different around here for the next month or so. Here's what's going to happen.

1. I'm going to watch a lot of horror movies. And, whether they count for the 104 or not, I'm going to be commenting on all of them. I intend to do this on a daily or near-daily basis. These may be extremely brief comments, but every movie will be touched on.

2. I'll still post my weekly 104 update, but it will just be a list of the movies that count for the list and won't contain any new content.

3. Haunted house reviews!

4. Pie.

5. That's a lie. There won't actually be pie.

Now, here are the reviews for the last three weeks. All very brief, as none of them excited me very much and I'm busy getting ready for OCTOBER!

Badlands
Terrence Malick, 1973

Solid but uninspiring. There are some wonderful moments (the burning of the house, the subsequent period of wild living in the treehouse), but it kept feeling like it was about to take off without ever actually doing so. Still absolutely worth watching.
7/10

Monkey Business
Norman Z McLeod, 1931

I didn’t much like the first Marx Bros. movie I saw, but I figured I’d give them another shot. It didn’t go well. There’s really no movie here – just a procession of jokes. This is not necessarily a problem, but they’re only sporadically funny – and if there’s nothing but jokes, then there’s nothing left when the jokes fail.

2.5/10

Blazing Saddles
Mel Brooks, 1974

I don’t generally like Mel Brooks movies that much, but people at work were so aghast that I had never seen Blazing Saddles that I kind of had to give it a shot. Sadly, it didn’t pay off – we’re just not on the same comedic page, I suppose. That said, I did think the climactic metatextual meltdown was kind of fun, and it was Hi-larious when Mongo punched out the horse.
3.5/10

Progress: 87 (Par +9)

104 in 2009 Week 36: Nothing!

Took a week off after last week's 7-movie madness, although I did rewatch Alfred Hitchcock's terrific Rebecca. So I guess that's something.

Progress: 84 (Par +12)

104 in 2009 Week 35: Silent Film Week!

Welcome to SILENT FILM WEEK! All silents, all the time. No talkies here, nosirree.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I also watched Persepolis - but that was a movie club pick, so not my fault.

Then I watched the Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Just because. But I still watched five silents, so I'm still calling this SILENT FILM WEEK! Let's begin, shall we?

Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin)
Sergei Eisenstein, 1925

Fed up with eating maggoty meat, the crew of the Potemkin rise up against their captain, which inspires the rest of Russia to do the same.

I’ll say it here, and I’m sure I’m not the first: Odessa Steps. The massacre on the Odessa Steps is such a towering achievement, such an incredible and influential sequence, that it renders the rest of the movie kind of redundant. After all, it’s really not much of a story. Even those who laud it tend to view the plot as cartoonishly simple, at best. The lack of characters contributes to this – There are very few identifiable individuals. After the half hour mark, I don’t think anyone even has a name. This is clearly a deliberate choice, and a perfectly legitimate one – the movie is about the uprising of the proletariat, as a collective force. Focusing on individuals would undermine that. At the same time, though, it doesn’t leave much to focus on or develop. No, the pleasures of Potemkin lie purely in the details – Eisenstein’s sense of rhythm and editing skill, his innovative use of montage – or, to put it simply, everything that is on display on the Odessa Steps. Sadly, this also means you wind up with a movie that is more important than it is watchable.

5.5/10

Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man with a Movie Camera)
Dziga Vertov, 1929

Plot? We don’t need no steeeenking plot.

It does not inspire confidence when a movie starts off with several pages of text explaining that it’s a little different from other movies, because they’re all soooo conventional and it’s time to break free of blah, blah, blah.

Fortunately, my apprehension was somewhat misplaced, as Man with a Movie Camera is actually quite good. Granted, it suffers from the lack of plot and characters – my feeling is that the beauty of film is that it’s a composite art form, which takes elements of theater, literature, photography, etc. . . and if you deliberately set out to exclude some of those elements, you are ignoring your full potential. But it’s hard to be too upset about that limitation when what the things that do wind up on screen are just so. . ..neat. From slice-of life scenes of contemporary Russia to strange stop-motion sequences to a trip inside the editing room, where this very movie is being created, Vertov manages to keep the imagery novel throughout the running time. If there is anything that resembles a plot or a through-line, it’s Vertov’s continual focus on the movie as an element of itself (ooh, how meta!). We are repeatedly shown footage of cameramen recording the footage that we see immediately before or after, and the titular man with a movie camera is frequently composited into shots as a sort of supernatural, almost god-like being. Then there’s the afore-mentioned visits to the editing room, which capture the sense of a movie being created from the inside better than anything else. I’ve ever seen.

I’m starting to sound more enthusiastic about this movie than I really am. That’s bound to happen, the more I get into the details of the piece. Ultimately, though, I don’t think Vertov’s experiment was entirely successful. Sixty-eight minutes is a long time to go without something to focus on, and by the end, it’s hard to be certain what was really accomplished. It’s important that the effort was made, though, because this is sort of experimentation is what ultimately lead to modern film. And even as (partial) failures go, it’s a very enjoyable and interesting one.

7/10

The Son of the Sheik
George Fitzmaurice, 1926

Ahmed (Rudolph Valentino), the son of the Sheik (Valentino again), falls in love with Yasmin (Vilma Banky), a dancer. Her father and his associates rob and torture Ahmed, who mistakenly believes that Yasmin lured him into a trap. He kidnaps her in order to exact revenge.

This one didn’t really work for me. Part of that is the odd story, which progresses in fits and starts and skips over important parts (like Ahmed and Yasmin’s initial budding romance). Part of it is the generally cheap look – there’s some great desert photography, but most of the movie takes place on a few small-ish sets. Mostly, though, I just don’t but Rudolph Valentino in the lead. He looks like a petulant high-schooler and can’t seem to move any part of his face very much except for his eyebrows, which go into overdrive to compensate. He’s a total screen presence vacuum, and wanders through most of the movie relying on his friends/bodyguards/enforcers for the muscle to turn his whiney requests into action. Less of a leading man, more of a captain of the football team. You know, the douchey one that everyone hated. The kind that would kidnap a girl and rape her (that’s what it looks like, anyway) as revenge for a betrayal. I’m talking about Ahmed, not (necessarily) the football captain on that last point.

On the other hand, though, once they slap some old-age makeup and a fake beard on him to play the Sheik, it’s a whole different story. Suddenly there’s a touch of gravitas. I thought for a moment that maybe the filmmakers were engaging in a bit of misdirection, and that Ahmed was turning out to be such a little turd because the Sheik was going to step in and be the true hero of the story. Alas, this was not to be – The Sheik remains tangential to the plot, providing little more than an opportunity for some (admittedly very impressive) split-screen shots and a helping hand in the fight scenes. So we’re left with Ahmed as our hero. I think I might have preferred a movie about Ahmed’s friend/bodyguard, who looked like a cartoon rendition of Jayne Cobb and loved to strangle things. He was certainly the most memorable thing about the movie.

3/10

Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, 2007

The animated story of Marjane Satrapi’s (Gabrielle Lopes Benites and Chiara Mastroianni) childhood and teen years growing up in Iran and Vienna.

Persepolis features simplistic but beautiful hand-drawn animation, which does a lot to add interest to what is, ultimately, a fairly standard biographical tale. This is not to say that the story itself is completely uninteresting, but the animation gives it a more expressionistic feel, which in turn provides a more direct view of how Marjane thought and felt about the events portrayed. The details are better able to come to the fore, and it comes to life in a way that a live-action version, for instance, would not. After all, in basic terms, what really happens? Marjane grows disgusted with Iranian culture and leaves for the west, is unable to cope with life there, returns to Iran, is unable to accept life in Iran (again), and finally moves to Paris. Not much there. But when you start throwing in bread swans and snake-like nuns and magically transforming memories of her boyfriend in Vienna, you start to have something.

I suppose I should also mention that it’s quite funny in a lot of places, and how nice it is that Marjane is so not-idealized. What I’m ultimately saying is that the story may not have much drive, but the telling of the story goes a long way toward making up for that. And the animation isn’t the only part of that telling that helps. It’s just the most important part.

7/10

The Shock
Lambert Hillyer, 1923

Wilse Dillman (Lon Chaney), a crippled, cold-hearted hitman, is hired to stake out a small-town banker (William Welsh). He falls in love with the banker’s daughter (Virginia Valli), turns over a new leaf, and decides to defend them against his former employer. Earthquakes ensue.

This movie has one thing going for it, and that’s Lon Chaney. He’s a strong actor and always interesting to watch, even if the script doesn’t provide him much support – and this one doesn’t. Key stretches are skipped over (like Dillman’s conversion from evil to good) and there’s an extremely heavy over-reliance on title cards to tell the story. Their frequent use, great length, and ridiculously florid language make the whole thing feel more like a moving picture book than a movie. Other than Chaney, the only thing of interest throughout most of the running time is the occasional bit of bizarre hilarity, such as the scene in which a doctor, emerging from the room in which he is tending to the banker’s daughter, who was recently caught in an explosion, walks straight up to her fiancée and says “you better call it off, son. It’s not looking as pretty as it did.” Hell of a doctor.

Things do pick up in the second half, when Dillman must infiltrate the criminal underworld to steal some incriminating documents. This material plays out much more smoothly, with far fewer intertitle summaries, and the difference compared to the first half of the movie is night and day. Unfortunately, it all leads up to nothing, as our heroes are saved by a fortuitous earthquake. Yes, you read that right. Even the movie itself has to throw in the suggestion (without committing fully to the idea) that it was a response to Dillman’s prayers because there’s no other even remotely dramatically satisfying way to justify it. To make matters worse, the earthquake doesn’t just give Dillman an opening to turn the tables – it just kills the bad guys and saves the good guys. We have earthquake, we have brief romantic coda, and we’re done. The plot completely disengages from the characters.

At least Chaney got the girl this time.

2.5/10

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
Julian Schnabel, 2007

Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) struggles to find meaning in life after a stroke leaves him paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking his left eye.

I liked it quite a bit, particularly the technical aspects. Had some trouble telling several of the female characters apart, which is strange. Unfortunately, I wound up watching the English dubbed version instead of the original French, but at least most of the actors dubbed themselves. For some reason, I don’t feel like I have a lot to say about it. But it was good.

8/10

La Chute de la Maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)
Jean Epstein, 1928

Sickly Madeleine Usher (Marguerite Gance) dies just as her husband Roderick (Jean Debucourt) finishes painting her portrait. Or does she?

While a fairly poor adaptation of Poe’s story (what’s this husband/wife nonsense?), Epstein’s version of Usher is a terrific piece when considered on its own terms. The visual design is a bizarre mix of the abstract and impressionistic, with light bulbs serving as stars in the sky and a very Caligari-esque mausoleum, and the more realistic but still otherworldly interiors of the Usher mansion, which are cavernous open spaces that stand mostly empty with only a few small pieces of furniture. Debucourt’s Usher is at times terrifying to look at – insane, but with a strange childishness that makes it very creepy. Watch for the way his eyes glaze over near the end, as he awaits Madeleine’s return. I think he even surpasses the great Vincent Price in the role. Of course, he’s helped by Epstein’s innovative camera tricks, including extreme close-ups, double and triple exposures, and even something that looked almost like a snorricam.

The (sadly OOP) DVD features an interesting translation as well. Rather than replace the French intertitles, which are hand-drawn and very striking, with English ones, or subtitle the intertitle screens, the producers have opted to have an actor read the titles in English when they appear. A sort of inverse subtitle, you might say. It’s actually quite effective, both in keeping the audience off-balance (that’s not how you present translations!) and in establishing a fantastic, storybook sort of mood. The score, produced in 1990 and featuring medieval orchestration, is fantastic as well. If the damn thing wasn’t out of print, I would absolutely be adding it to my collection.

8.5/10

Progress: 84 (Par +14)