50 Nights of Horror Challenge: Week Six - Italian Eyeball Violence

50 NIGHTS OF HORROR WEEK SIX!

Instead of keeping a list of the movies I've seen and then wrapping everything up at the end of the week, I'm going to start typing notes as I watch the movies so I can review them more accurately.  We'll see how successful this is.  I fear it might just devolve into me typing and rambling more than usual.

Black Sabbath (1963)
Format:  Netflix Streaming
Genre:  Anthology
Subgenres:  Serial Killer, Vampires, Ghosts, Giallo

Wow.  I've never seen a Boris Karloff movie before, but damn, this guy is just as fun and just as scary as Alfred Hitchcock, Vincent Price, or Peter Cushing.  I toss Hitchcock into the equation because, like AH, Karloff narrates this horror anthology.  Even by 1963 standards, this film is really beautiful.  It's just colorful and creepy and dark (can something be beautifully colorful and simultaneously beautifully dark---I feel like I just asked a question that will launch a goth teen's pubescent rock/YouTube career).

Karloff gonna getchu!

There are three stories at play, one a ghost story, one a serial killer story (more on this later), and one a very effective vampire story.  None of these stories are so gruesome or terrifying that they couldn't be remade into a fun, creepy Doctor Who episode.  In fact, I think each one of these has been remade into an effective Doctor Who episode.  I say that because the production value is that of a Hammer Horror or Amicus film.  That's ok.  I'm not one to complain about 60's horror production values.  It's fun for me to think that my dad was only six when this movie came out, and I imagine a baby Jim crapping his pants if he was to watch this in a movie theater.  And that's quite a compliment to this film.

Even though the effects, gore, and sexuality of this film render it completely suitable for TV, it's still creepy, and a very effective forefather to the Creepshows, Trilogy of Terrors, and V/H/S's of today.  In fact, it was so memorable that some successful rock band from yesteryear named themselves from the title of this movie.  True.  Story.

Ghost from the first story (3rd story in Italian version)

My only complaint about this movie is its movie poster.  The image that Netflix picked for this movie was so negligible that I would probably have never gotten around to seeing it if my friend Patrick hadn't recommended it.  Once I opened that can of worms, though, I was extremely satisfied.  After doing some homework, I actually have a second beef.  According to wikipedia (which is never wrong), the serial killer story had much more subplot and drama in the Italian version.  The American cut of the film leaves out a lesbian lover and revenge kill aspect of the story.  Still...it's still a fun section of the movie.  Just hurts that I missed out on something that I really enjoyed.

The fact that it was directed by Mario Bava coincidentally lines up with the fact that I'm on a tear of loving Italian horror right now.  So this gets a couple bonus points.  Might be hard to knock this movie off the top of the week's list.

Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Format:  Blu-ray
Genre:  THIS MOVIE CANNOT BE CONTAINED BY ANY GENRE

BAM!  This is going to be a tough week to compete for movie of the week!  This movie is smoking awesome.  To be fair, I also saw this movie in theaters on its opening weekend.  AND I subsequently snuck in a pint of bourbon to mix in with my $7 Coke.  AND I watched in the theater with with fellow horror-dork ("dorrork") Mike.  That's an almost insurmountable combination to overcome.

Regardless, even when I watched it at home, the movie still feels fresh and exciting.  Cabin in the Woods encompasses just about everything that I love about the horror genre.  And it's so difficult to describe on a blog.  The best I can do is repeat what I told Mike as the movie rolled through its credits:

"How can anyone imagine that?  How does that kind of story slip into any person's mind?  HOW DO YOU GET THERE?!"

It is a really great movie that blows the roof off of the entire horror genre.  There's something here for just about anyone that enjoys scary movies.  And after seeing it in the movie theater I still jumped.  And I still left wishing that there was still another two hours of movie to watch.  The last thirty minutes will blow your mind.

The Beyond (1981)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Haunted House
Subgenre:  Demons, Zombies, Hell, Giallo

Dude!  Apparently I need to watch more giallo films, because this one was really entertaining from front to back.  Like some of my other favorite giallo films ("Giallo" is Italian for "yellow," stemming from the mystery/horror/fiction genre of cheap paperback novels that all shared yellow covers), there isn't much of a succinct story here.  In fact, it can be summed up in one sentence:  woman inherits old New Orleans hotel and inadvertently opens gateway to hell.  There's not much to chew on here.  That being said, there are tons of gory deaths as demons torture and kill even the most cursory movie characters.

For as much as I thought Pulse had potential to grow if it had more "throw-away" characters with throw-away deaths, this movie (typical of 80's giallo) has a a disproportionate amount of characters being killed without much story.  If only Pulse and The Beyond could meet in a happy middle, it could make for one hell of a movie!

Spooky stuff, folks.

Before I go any further, I should admit to being a huge fan of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise.  I love each installment, albeit for very different reasons.  The creepiness of the first Evil Dead was kind of a high-water mark for me in middle-high school.  I've seen that darn movie at least a dozen times.  Watching The Beyond, I can see that Raimi must have drawn at least a little inspiration from Fulci.  The deaths, the gore, the camera angles...it's all there.

Oh, Hai!

The scary elements?  Ghosts, zombies, the physically handicapped, dogs, sewage.  What more could you ask for?  A fleshed-out story that brings all of these elements together?  What do you want?!  Sense and Sensibility?!  Geddowdaheer!

The New York Ripper (1982)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Serial Killer, Giallo

As far as my recent viewings of giallo are concerned, this is by far the least impressive.  It's sillier than the other movies, and really just unnecessary.  Horror fans may recall that this is the movie with a serial killer with the Donald Duck voice.  No kidding.

There is gore aplenty here, and nudity, too.  In fact, there is so much nudity and raw sexuality in this movie mixed with violence and gore that it feels like the first movie I've ever seen that could actually deserve the modern equivalent of an X-rating.  Back in the day, X-ratings were given kind of indiscriminately.  This one, though...wow.  And it wouldn't earn the rating for the gore/violence, and not necessarily for the sexuality.  But for the liberal application of both without hesitancy....it makes for a tough film to watch.

I would give credit to the script for being a murder/mystery at its core, but the detective work employed in the movie is almost non-existent.  The detective, Lieutenant Fred Williams, is given a murder case, and reviewing the case, the pathologist tells the detective that this is a similar style of murder to two other bodies he'd recently observed.  MUST BE A SERIAL KILLER.  From this point, the detective visits several "experts" that are all wrong at different points in the film.  It's not until the end that there's any real indication that anybody knew what the hell they were talking about.

The lone point of interest for me in this movie was seeing the director's vision of 1982 New York City.  I've said it before, but I'm a sucker for movies set in New York now that I live here.  The subway, the skyline, the dark streets, Times Square...they're all here, and each is interesting to look at.  But it's the history that has piqued my interest.  Not the gross story.  This is still not as awful as Street Trash, but it is pretty bad, and The New York Ripper makes a greasy, nasty slide in that direction.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)
Format:  VHS
Genre:  Zombies

This trailer gives one the impression that they're going to watch a funny, grim movie about witchcraft, zombies, and maybe necrophilia.  One is lead to believe there will be many things bumping in the night.  unfortunately, that is not the case here.

Creepiest part of the movie is a ham-fisted monologue directed to Satan.

I read that this movie has a lot of dedicated fans.  Me?  I just don't see it.  The scariness doesn't come until there are less than 20 minutes left in the movie.  Before that point, we're treated to a slew of obnoxious characters that all seem to try to one-up each other in the shit-eating-grin and bad jokes department.  One character in particular hams it up with horrible forced laughter to the point that you want the character to get eaten by zombies immediately.

Therein lies a micro amount of charm in this movie, I suppose.  Each character is flawed to the point of being unlikable.  So the buildup, then, because anticipating when the corpses (really the victims of this movie) will get their revenge on these college-aged a-holes.  I only wish the corpses had started their revenge a bit earlier in the movie.  Like maybe 30 minutes earlier.  The characters are almost immediately recognizable as jackasses.  Additional exposition to the levels of their jackassery was really not needed.  They were established idiots after 20 minutes into the film.  Might as well start hacking and slashing them shortly thereafter.  No such luck, though.

Zombies!  Yes!  Too bad there are only ten minutes left in the movie...

The other cool note about this movie is that the actor that played the ringleader of this squad was also the special effects guy.  This is a very low-budget horror movie, so set your expectations low.  And its actually pretty OK for the money this team was given to work with.  The zombies don't look great, but they look...OK.  It's really the characters and the pace of conflict that ruined the movie for me.  I don't hate it, but I certainly am not going to put this towards the top of my list.  Worth seeing once.  But don't let the cool poster and trailer fool you.

Christine (1983)

Format:  Borrowed

Genre:  Killer Car

Christine has so much going for it, it was going to be impossible for me not to like it.  Based on a novel by Stephen King.  Excellent.  Directed by John Carpenter.  Also excellent.  1980s horror.  Turbo excellente!

As far as killer car movies go, this is the best I've ever seen (also:  only).  Setting realistic expectations, this is a movie about a sentient, self-healing, evil car that influences it's owner/driver to do bad things.  If you can swallow that fact, the rest of the movie is really good.  If you can't get over that fact, then you might as well pass this up.  Think of it as the antithesis of Herbie, the Love Bug.

Holy crap.  That is one evil looking car.

What we get outside of the car is solid participating from everyone involved.  The special effects are really cool.  The gore is more implied than it is shown (and in this case, that's ok).  The acting is better than average.  And I give a lot of that credit to John Carpenter (who held it all together) and Stephen King (for turning in a story about the usual high school kid that experiences a lot of dark stuff).

There's not too much gore here, and not much nudity (if any).  There are some beautiful damsels in distress.  There are solid relationships between all of the characters.  There are some creepy people (including evil-John Travolta-ish guy).  There are some lovable losers.  And there's also Harry Dean F'n Stanton!  BOOM!

William Ostrander.  AKA: Evil John Travolta-ish Guy

Ultimately, any horror buff should be able to find something enjoyable here.  There are realistic plot elements to be appreciated.  There are some completely unrealistic plot elements to be enjoyed.  Something for everyone.  And even a killer car to boot.

Also, kudos to this movie for having such a bad-ass soundtrack album art.  Most of the music is probably John Carpenter's unsurprising synth music.  But still.  Badass cover.

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

Format:  DVD
Genre:  Serial Killer

Full disclosure:  Brooke Shields is only in this movie for the first 15 minutes.  She is then brutally murdered.  This is a picture of her corpse:

Brooke Shields has certainly looked better...

If you wanted to see a young, pre-pubescent Brooke Shields do something sexy in a movie (a la Blue Lagoon...never seen it), look elsewhere.  This is a genuinely creepy movie about a spitfire of a little girl that is honest-to-goodness bad.  But is she serial-killer-bad?  That's what you try to figure out in this movie.  She does lie.  And steal.  And sneak.  And torture her fat, no-good, waste of a landlord.  But would she resort to murdering him?  Would she resort to murdering a sister that is favored over her?  That's the question this movie is all about answering.

I was pretty freaked out by the opening credits.  The Hail Mary prayer is whispered over and over again before a shadowed figure begins stabbing at the camera.  The Hail Mary was the prayer my mom always had me say when I was scared as a child.  And hearing that prayer over and over just bothered the crap out of me.

The movie is really creepy.  There's gore here.  There are gross characters aplenty...the kind you can't wait to see earn their comeuppance.  I even caught myself rooting against the wholesome mom and stepdad simply for their poor parenting skills.  That being said, I'm sure that alone is not going to be enough for the majority of horror geeks to get on board with this movie.  It's still a goody that I recommend, but not one I suspect will be universally appealing.

Trilogy of Terror (1975)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Anthology


This is an odd-ball.  That might sound odd in a forum that's all about oddball horror movies, but this one sticks out for one bizarre reason.  This was a made-for-TV movie-of-the-week on ABC back in 1975.  And it was never meant to be an anthology film.  It was actually three pilot episodes for what was supposed to be a horror TV show like the Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt.  So it couldn't be too scary or too gory.  It was shown on ABC during primetime.  So this film has a lot of restrictions working against it.

That being said, it's still pretty graphic with what is implied.  Of the three stories, we have off-camera rape, murder, incest, and potentially gore and demonic possession.  All three stories/episodes star Karen Black in all of her Karen Blackness.  I can't tell how pretty Karen Black is.  That's my one complaint against her.  And it's not a fair one.  She's a fine actress, and she pulls off everything well enough.  But I get confused, because she was a really hot teacher/professor, but she also looks kind of weird when you notice her cross-eyes or her extremely defined features.

"Prey" is the third, scariest episode.  It is also the most notorious.  It centers around Karen Black accidentally unleashing an evil Zuni hunter spirit from it's doll-shaped prison.  The Zuni doll then hunts Karen Black throughout her apartment, trying to kill her.  The special effects aren't all there, but the camera angles and the editing still make this a creepy one.  Imagine all of the best scary scenes from movies like Gremlins or Critters, and condense them into a 20 minute story.  That's what this is.  Without any character development.  It's a chase scene with our heroine trying to escape an inanimate-yet-sentient statue with a knife.

"Prey" was also the story that had picture gracing the VHS box of Trilogy of Terror.  And that movie box scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.  So when I finally sat down to watch this last night, I was kind of let down about how NOT scary it was.  As I said earlier, that can't really be helped.  It was an ABC flick.  And I imagine it was re-released and put at the front of my video rental store's horror section because of the success of the Gremlins, Critters, and Ghoulies of the store.

ODD NOTE:  The actors in this movie had the worst haircuts I've ever seen in a movie.  They were all just really awful.

House by the Cemetery (1981)
Format:  Borrowed
Genre:  Serial Killer, Haunted House

OK...I think I've seen enough giallo movies now at this point.  And this is a good one to end on.  Of the three Fulci films I watched this week, this was by far the creepiest and the most linear.  The story was much easier to follow, the ending made much more sense, and the pace of the movie matched the character development, the drama, and the gore.  This was much more balanced than The Beyond, and I really liked that movie.  There were a couple loose ends that I didn't quite grasp (why does everyone think they've seen the father before?), but that didn't present too much of a problem to the film's story.

This is a pretty and scary scene.

Like the other Fulci movies, there is some very bad editing here, some odd dialogue, random plot points, and a peculiar amount of peppy music in an otherwise gloomy, grim part of the movie.  I've noticed this about The Beyond and The New York Ripper, too.  We'll go from a gory, depraved scene to an ambient shot of the environment or a character walking around in public, and the music goes from dark and gory to light and pleasant, not unlike the music you would hear before a 1970's weather report from the local TV news channel.  Sorry...I digress.

Notice the eye damage.  Not sure why I didn't see this go down.

ODD NOTE:   I suspect the version I watched was heavily edited.  Fulci was beating the hell out of eyeballs in the other movies I watched this week.  And here I saw corpses with damage to the eye area, but none of that violence took place on screen.  And that leads me to believe those scenes were chopped out.

Solid, genuine child fear here.

The child acting in this movie is solid.  The boy and girl have dubbed over voices, but damn it, when they scream, you can see the fear in their poor, young eyeballs.  The gore is typically over-the-top.  The monsters are awesome here.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone.  The backstory of a haunted house is pretty neat.  There's nothing brand new here, and it's not mind-bending like The Beyond, but it's still a neat scary story.  This is the one giallo movie that I've seen that I would like to add to my collection for repeat viewing.  I would be ok buying The Beyond, but House by the Cemetery is the cream of this Italian crop so far.

You wanna dance?  How about a little...polka!

This movie literally opens with a fun scare and closes with an even more fun scare.  I really got behind this one.  There are loads of fun, scary scenes, the kind that would scar my sisters if I had shown this to them when we were all younger living with my parents.  Bats have never looked simultaneously so fake and yet so terrifying.