it follows

It's been an up-and-down decade for horror--from a smattering of retro throwback indie gems to James Wan's slick, entertaining multiplex fillers to wimpy forgettable boogedy pics like The Quiet Ones and Ouija. David Robert Mitchell's It Follows fits in this spectrum awkwardly really--in fact, it may appeal less to horror fans and more to some cineastes (its buzz began at Cannes) who may sneer at the horror genre. Though horror fans may relish a lot of the references on display.

Mitchell made his debut with The Myth of the American Sleepover (which I reviewed here)--a languid, late-summer teen movie which was frothy, shallow lake-surface deep but full of indelible imagery and style. In It Follows, Mitchell and his cinematographer Mike Gioulakis harken back to vintage John Carpenter, notably the anamorphic chiller Halloween, in creating a memorable, tree-lined suburban Detroit backdrop to an eerie story of non-supervised cursed teenagers (who are of the gawky, leisurely Linklater-Boyhood's third act variety; not the hyper stereotypes of modern slashers). The actors, led by a striking Maika Monroe (The Guest), solidly deliver. I wish I hadn't known what the curse was before seeing the film, as much of it rides on its surprise and its eventual bizarre, fever dream logic. 

Some clunky plot deviations and false climaxes ensue (an evocative, elaborately set-up swimming pool Cat People-esque sequence concludes unsatisfactorily) but the film often sets an incredible mood (also thanks to Disasterpeace's ominous and mesmerizing score). In fact the music of the film, while definitely Carpenter-inspired, is also its own entity. Whereas John Carpenter's iconic film score for Halloween was tight as a drum in the unusual 5/4 time signature, Disasterpeace goes for sprawling sonicscapes. The scores could reflect the feel of their respective pictures: Halloween is economical, streamlined fright fare whilst It Follows is more Sofia Coppola (particularly The Virgin Suicides--another moody, vintage--to an almost fetishistic degree--suburban Michigan misery piece)--a languid, muddily-plotted nightmare with stabs of slambag horror. 

As with any horror flick, many are already attempting to dissect its potential metaphors (STDs, consumerism, et al). There is much there that likely rewards multiple views. In Myth, Mitchell's teens never texted. Can the title itself be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the primary young adult (and for some, adult) obsession of today (how many followers do you have?)? It can't be an accident that a cute little peach, seashell-shaped e-reader is one of the few items that seems of this time or of a near-future. Otherwise, what most of America has thrown away since the end of the twentieth-century is in nearly every frame of the film (a tulip-shaped lamp, porn mags, outdated bath fixtures, tube TVs, typewriters, landline cord phones, clunker cars and station wagons--not unlike Micheal Myers' mental ward's). ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg

christine: one cold-blooded hotrod by spencer blohm

However silly the premise may seem, the 1983 film Christine is a classic of the modern horror genre — a work that blends the supernatural world with the industry of modern life. While the novel was a success, as many of Stephen King’s works have been, the idea of bringing it to the big screen would require a deft touch. Enter John Carpenter, who by this time, had gained quite a reputation for being able to harness and use tension and fear in his films with offerings such as Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing.

If Carpenter hadn’t become involved, the film could have ended up just another failed 1980’s B horror film, forgotten by the masses and ironically celebrated by the aficionados of bad film. However, Stephen King and John Carpenter both shared certain artistic and societal ideas, and their sensibilities complemented each other well.



Christine is, superficially, the story of an alienated young man who comes into possession of a fifties Plymouth that has a mind of its own. What’s more, it has a penchant for murder. At its core, Christine is about the inanimate becoming animate, the idea and meaning of the soul, and the idea of an unstoppable enemy who is untouched by the methods one would usually rely upon to vanquish a foe.

Historically speaking, the concept of “the Other” has existed for quite a long time, but the first truly modern incarnation of this idea was in the silent masterpiece Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang in 1927 it was the first film to truly posit the idea of a creature that while not human, maintains a notion of humanity. It didn’t merely set a precedent for a film like Christine — it set the precedent for all contemporary film. Similar in fashion to the eponymous vehicle of Christine, the Robot, or as it is called in the film, “Maschinenmensch,” causes nothing but pain and sorrow for those associated with it and in the end is destroyed to protect not only the protagonists of the respective stories. While both the villains in each story are machine at their core, Metropolis’s antagonist is not known to be a robot, while the 1957 Plymouth Fury in Christine is obviously just that — a car imbibed with the angered spirit of a human being.

Yet another shared source of inspiration for Carpenter and King were the EC horror comics of the fifties — particularly the stories by Ray Bradbury. Christine is reminiscent of a Bradbury story that was used by EC entitled “The Coffin,” which deals with a killer coffin that has been engineered to seal itself and bury itself six feet under. Bradbury’s work commonly dealt with many themes that are recurrent in both Carpenter and King’s work: denigration of the environment, cultural insensitivities manifesting in horrendous ways, and, to tie it back in to Christine directly, autonomous technology. Bradbury was famous for saying that “People want me to predict the future. When all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it.” This ethos seems to be simpatico with the personal philosophies of Carpenter and King. And where Bradbury’s eco-conscious The Martian Chronicles stories helped to create for a world where energy consumers are becoming more conscientious, Christine evidently failed to instill a deep enough fear of automated cars, as they’re currently being developed!

The future can look bleak in these films and novels of course, but these works do have one thing in common; the victory, or perceived victory as is the case with Christine, of the “true” humans. The Robot Maria is destroyed after the masses realize what they have wrought by following her, the vehicle in Christine is destroyed after the connection is made between suspicious deaths and the possessed car, and Bradbury’s automated house on Mars burns itself to the ground when it’s left to its own devices. The hope that human ingenuity and our connections to each other will always provide us the means to survive is the backbone of these stories — the technological aspects simply a modern day representation of “the Other.”

-Spencer Blohm

annie brackett's last drive

A new mixtape of songs inspired by Annie Brackett from Halloween (1978).

Annie Brackett's Last Drive by Jdbrecords on Mixcloud

Tracklist:

Ethereal Moods / Jean-Luc Ponty

Embrace (Cyclist Remix) / Goldroom

Fragments of Time (Roman Kouder Remix) / Daft Punk

Private Time / The Hood Internet

Paint a Smile on Me / Black Yaya

Free Your Mind / Cut Copy

Cape Town / Clubfeet

When Poison Starts to Burn / The Hood Internet

All Me (Vogue Rerub) / Fantasy Thrilla

Coma Cat Flash / Fear of Dawn

When the Night is Over / The Magician

Boy / HNNY

Annie / Anthonio

Ethereal Moods (Cyclist Remix) / Jean-Luc Ponty

Fragments of Time (Piano Solo) / Daft Punk

Laurie's Theme (Excerpt) / John Carpenter

scary movie themes

To get you in that Halloween mood.



Psycho - Bernard Herrmann






Phantasm - Fred Myrow & Malcolm Seagrave




The Fog - John Carpenter




Carrie - Pino Donaggio




The Thing - Ennio Morricone




A Nightmare on Elm Street - Charles Bernstein




Creature from the Black Lagoon - cue by Henry Mancini




Alien - Jerry Goldsmith



Poltergeist - Jerry Goldsmith




Jaws - John Williams




Suspiria (so scary!) - Goblin




Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) - Goblin




"End Theme from Friday the 13th" - Harry Manfredini






The Amityville Horror - Lalo Schifrin




"Tubular Bells" (from The Exorcist) - Mike Oldfield




Halloween - John Carpenter





Body Double - Pino Donaggio (love the synths on this)

who goes there? - the power of paranoia: a guest post by jerome murphy

Our favorite weird hothouse flower H.P Lovecraft - in all his florid Poesque overwroughtness, with a prose style like wrought-iron curlicued gates - got it right: "“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” With this solid premise, he built dream-castles on rock.

But where the concept really resonates, is in everyday life - where the unknown is not between human and alien, but between Self and Other. A most frightening truth is this: all others are alien. At some level, no one can fully know or trust anyone else. This is why Halloween masks scared me as a kid - they embody this basic insecurity of our experience. Children are still learning how much they can trust parents and teachers, where the boundaries are. Yeah - for me Halloween masks threw a match right on that gasoline.

"Who's there?"- the immortal opening of Hamlet, the prototypical paranoia play. There is a ghost who may or may not be Hamlet's real father, a mother he cannot trust, a play-acting uncle, a play-within-a-play; Hamlet himself pretending madness and innocence (or is he) - and you see? everyone winds up dead.

And so, the Lovecraftian "Who Goes There," a 1930s pulp sci-fi story by John Campbell Jr, has proved endlessly durable, almost adaptable as The Body Snatchers. The shared concept of the alien who mimics the everyday Other handily embodied Cold War-era paranoia, and in later adaptations, our distrust of the military-industrial complex; then fears of infection in the HIV era. Politically, physically, sexually, you can never tell what's inside your neighbor just by looking at them. The strength of The Thing, versus Body Snatchers, was the isolation factor: the characters had to do battle with this basic insecurity in a remote, confined space.

The latest adaptation, a slickly reverse-engineered prequel based on the doomed Norwegian team referenced in Carpenter's version, is itself a shapeshifting blob in the process of digesting earlier influences - particularly Ridley Scott's Alien. The influences are showing clearly in the films transparent digestive tract, kicking and screaming. You've got a no-nonsense female protagonist, a wrecked spaceship, a claustrophobically isolated crew, and flamethrowing. No, really - lots and lots of flamethrowing. You will be hungry for s'mores by the end of this movie.

What this Thing, with its elegantly chilly setting and distended CGI budget fails to tap into, is the power of paranoia. It sits on top of a rich reserve of paranoid storytelling, from Hamlet on down, without striking any oil. The creatures' appearances are not supposed to terrify in and of themselves (and they don't); what terrifies is the swift, sudden revelation of who is not to be trusted.

Enough plot holes for fishnet fetishwear - where do the vehicles come from after being disabled, why is the ship able to work again, how is clothing replicated by the thing - don't matter if you can tap into the elemental power of paranoia, as John Carpenter did. Carpenter's flick made enough gestures (hastily, yes) toward distinct personalities that we had characters we thought we knew. On which pivots the whole enterprise. You had Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley and Keith David on one Arctic team, and you didn't want any of them to be Thinged.

The Thing can only replicate organic matter, but there needs to be organic matter in the first place. Where's the wisecracking ("but it's a dry heat!") from Aliens or any of the necessary touches of eccentricity to show us we're dealing with real live people?

In this gleaming Coors Lite can, few of the interchangeable Norwegians seem human to begin with, so who cares who's the Thing? Oh, that was Lars? Go ahead and torch him, he won't be missed. Yeah, there's the arrogant hubristic professor type. Yeah, there's a token black guy, whose personality is -  the token black guy.

To be fair, like the team members with their fumbling flashlights, the scriptwriters vaguely grasp the resonance of this theme. A clever touch like a radio playing Men At Work's "Who Can It Be Now" signals their awareness. They simply miscalculate how pivotal an element it is to this story's effectiveness.

Attention, horror filmmakers: you're showing too much. More masking. Let our minds interact with the unknowns. That's why Rosemary's Baby works. Why Body Snatchers works. Why flashy CGI is less effective than long hallways, howling wind and subtly suggestive soundtracks, and close ups of faces which may hide something unspeakable. You don't need to assault our senses with orchestral surround-sound. Don't let the monsters wear out their welcome. It's all enough to send you back to Lovecraft and his subtly suggestive tales of masked shapeshifters ("The Thing On the Doorstep," "The Whisperer in Darkness"). Or to the many successful horror flicks which successfully play on the insecurity between the known vs unknown Other, like Carpenter's own They Live, in which the aliens are all around us, wearing attractive human faces. What a nightmare to be one of the few who can see through the exteriors!

Indeed, this is the fundamental, underlying power behind the phrase trick or treat. Which is which?

Or, as a scared child once realized: who needs Halloween, when faces are masks already? The best horror flicks are those that recognize that when it comes to human societies, Halloween is all year round.


-Jerome Murphy

body bags

Last month Karen G. listed some retro horror favorites. One of them, From A Whisper to A Scream is an entertaining 80s anthology film.  I'm into those now, so while perusing World of Video, my friend Jerome recommended Body Bags.  We rented it on VHS and had a lot of jump scares and laughs.

In the first tale, simply titled "The Gas Station,"  Alex Datcher plays a newly employed attendant on an unsettling night shift.  The finale is a bit over-the-top but the believable, low-key atmosphere (similar to what John Carpenter did best with Halloween) delivers creepy goods.

Carpenter is less successful in the cheesy Rogaine-gone-wrong "Hair" which features one odd cast: Stacy Keach, Sheena Easton, Debbie Harry, and Burgess Meredith.  There's a misplaced keyboard jazz demo score, clunky dialogue, and mood-killer lighting.  But the morbid special effects, wacky, Twilight Zone-inspired story and that bizarre cast make it fun.

Tobe Hooper plays it pretty straight "Eye" which has mustached Mark Hamill as a baseball player who gets unfortunate eye surgery after a car wreck.  Hooper's intense flashbacks are the tale's most effective moments.  A de-glammed Twiggy as the concerned wife is pretty amusing. There are plenty of optical allusions to the Bible.

In "The Morgue," the film's bookend segments, Carpenter is loose with lots of unfunny wisecracks about cadavers.  It's kind of sad that this never did get the Showtime series it planned to have (a would-be relative of HBO's Tales from the Crypt).  I'm so grateful to Jerome for finding this hilarious little made-for-cable horror gem. **1/2

-Jeffery Berg

don't fear the reaper

This is one of my favorite sequences (skip to 8:11 on the video) in a horror film: Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Annie Brackett (Nancy Loomis) being followed by the Shape (Nick Castle), listening to "Don't Fear the Reaper" in Halloween. Debra Hill (the director and scriptor of this particular scene) captures an ominous transition from day to dusk. I watched this film last night and instantly got in the mood.

Happy Halloween! Tell me what your favorite horror scenes are.