So as many of you probably already know, last night saw the debut of Ryan Murphy's newest mess with your head spectacular American Horror Story. And sure there's only been one episode but I am exciiiiiiiiiteeeeeed. Pilot episodes are usually a bit shaky, and sure there were things about the pilot that could have been... better. I know I'm in the minority here, but I could have done with MUCH less naked Dylan McDermott. But overall. When it was over I had a whole "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I NEED TO WAIT A WEEK FOR THE NEXT EPISODE????"
Okay, so here's the obligatory synopsis for those of you who weren't lucky enough to catch it, or haven't heard of it, or fall into both categories. It's about this house, all right? This freakishly BEAUTIFUL house in Hollywood, which, of course, everyone who moves into dies really badly. And some people who just stumble into it die pretty bad too, as you see within the first five minutes. The Harmons, our American family who we are going to be sharing our living rooms with every week, move from Boston to said house. They're starting over because Ben (Dylan McDermott) can't keep it in his pants, so his marriage is in need of saving. Wife, Vivien (Connie Britton) is a slightly twitchy ex-cellist, who, while I wasn't too annoyed by, really reminded me of the kind of people that I get cornered by when I occasionally go to Whole Foods, who want to spend five years telling me why I shouldn't drink out of plastic water bottles, and I end up crying or going all Patrick Bateman on them and have to find a new grocery store.
Then there's the daughter, Violet, who I haven't seen in anything, but I probably have warmed to the most, just because I feel like back in the dark ages when I was a teenager we would have gotten on swimmingly. There's also the insane ex-starlet neighbor played by Jessica Lange, which is enough of a reason to watch the show, the creepy house keeper, and a host of minor characters that add to the atmosphere which is already completely AWESOME only one episode in. Mainly the first episode is settling you in the characters and the house, and it does that pretty well ... expect for when it becomes the Dylan McDermott's ass show... then this girl starts to yell at her TV, and attempt to toss pants through the screen.
It's moody and beautiful, and the music, oh sweet jesus, the music. I shouldn't be surprised that the music selection is so wonderful, it is from the team that gave me my number one guilty pleasure show Nip/Tuck, and while many will like to argue with me that Nip/Tuck was trash (and I'm not saying it wasn't), the music was AMAZING. And I seriously could just lick the camera work.
Do I have your attention yet? Because you should be watching this show. Okay, yes, it is a Ryan Murphy show on FX, which means that there is as much violence and sex as they can get onto cable, but we're horror fans! When has boobs and gore ever been an issue for us?
I for one, can't wait to see where it goes next, and am delighted that this is my kick off into my month long Halloween celebration. Well dears and darling, it is nearing the 5AM mark, and it means that it is time for this Spooky confection to crawl into bed before the sun makes an appearance. So Ta for now.
Okay, Okay, Okay, Okay, so I am more then a little aware of the fact that I made a pretty damn similar squee-filled post last year. But here's the fact of the matter my chickpeas, I love this stupid show like a bad habit. And, as any of you who watch it may know, last season, like those before it, ended in one hell of a cliff hanger. So For almost a year I've been impatiently awaiting the return of my favorite psychic waitress and her undead vampire beau.
(yes, I'm aware there is a lot of seething internet debate about who Sookie belongs with, and I'm getting into that here other then to just get out of the way that I have always been a Sookie and Bill girl, always will be, and no I am not going to argue about this with you)
So when, a few months ago, a teaser trailer was release, featuring Say Hi's "Devils" I may have gone a little bit mental
But I don't think I should be held responsible for the lethal combination of music I love and my favorite trashy TV show. I mean, really, a girl can only take so much. And really, True Blood is an almost overwhelming combination of more things I love then I would care to admit. So I'm bouncing like a kid who didn't take her Ritalin because ON SUNDAY THE WAIT IS OVER AND MY TRASHY VAMPIRE SHOW COMES BACK. DO YOU GET HOW AWESOME THAT IS??? THAT'S LIKE FOUR DAYS! THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!
And if you aren't psyched, seriously. Get psyched. Watch this damn trailer and get psyched.
And if you still aren't, then Jesus take the wheel, because there is no pleasing you. But keep your negativity to yourself my friend, I will have no raining on my True Blood parade. Especially with how royally my horror TV shows have disappointed me this season, and yes, I'm looking at YOU Supernatural. My only current regret is my lack of proximity to my fellow True Blood nerd friends, because otherwise I would probably be having some sort of ridiculously stupid premiere party with bite mark cookies and Hawaiian punch. Oh well, maybe this girl will have that party by herself.
what in the seven hells am I going to do about you? I have such conflicting feelings about you. Let's get one thing straight, you are not, by any stretch of the imagination a good movie. You are most certainly the exact opposite of that. The problem is there were definitely things about you that I really liked, and I feel like you had the potential to be a good movie and you just sort of went "OH GOD! WE CAN'T BE HAVING NONE OF THAT!!!!" and just threw your hands up and went squealing all the way to the dumpster where this film inevitably ended up.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I'm like to do. I'll blame it on my long absence from this blog and just missing all my Spooky Dos so damn much. (seriously kids, how have you been? Mama's sorry she hasn't checked in on you)
The premise of Insidious is initially a rather simple one. Laughably so. Like you would look at the synopsis and go "wow... because THAT'S never been done."
Renai and Josh Lambert are a young couple who have just moved into a new house with their three children Dalton, Foster, and baby Cali. The house is question, looks like one that I've seen at least 7 horror movies take place in, and so I immediately question their collective wisdom in moving into it. I mean really, the interior looks just like the freaking house that they shot House of the Devil in... which should have been a tip off for me, since I was just so fond of that movie.
Shortly after they move in all sorts unsettling things start happening: Doors open and close on their own, phantom voices start talking through the baby monitor, you know fun stuff. And then Renai and Josh's son Dalton falls into a coma with no medical reason behind it whatsoever. Renai gets progressively more hysterical, and justifiably so, and is convinced that everything horrible happening to them is because the house. Josh, however, poo poos the whole thing until Renai finally has a big fat hysterical melt down and then he changes his tune to "oh damn, maybe we should move."
... yeah. Maybe you should.
So they move into a significantly less creepy, and smaller house. Why they needed to live in a house with eighty rooms to begin with was totally beyond me, but hey, I didn't write this movie. And all seems to be going better for everyone, except that Renai starts seeing a whole NEW bunch of dead things, all of which seem concentrated around their son Dalton.
Long story short, they end up calling in paranormal experts that made me feel like I was watching The Ghostfacers spin off of Supernatural. (It's okay if you didn't get that reference, I still like you). And it turns out it isn't the house, or houses, that are haunted, it's THEIR SON, because no one saw that coming. And all the spirits are drawn to the fact that there is essentially and empty living person that they want to cram their fat selves inside and take a stroll.
So here's the problem. If that was just the movie I would have been totally cool with it. Sure, it's a little predictable, but hey, that's fine. But then it turns into SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY and the last third of the movie turns into this really convoluted story about astral projection and demons, and lots of little sub plots get introduced only to be promptly forgotten.
And I end up thinking "Why couldn't we have just stayed with the ghosts? I liked the ghosts! The ghosts were GOOD", and it's true, they are. There are some genuinely spooky scenes of the ghosts that remind me of why Thirteen Ghosts is such a guilty pleasure for me; the ghosts are so DAMN COOL.
Not to mention the fact that title sequence was actually pretty nifty. It felt like a complete homage to the supernatural horror films of the 1970's. So I actually got my hopes up way too high because I thought for a hot minute that Insidious was going to be a new awesome cult movie that felt like it was made thirty years ago. And they had a fairly decent cast, Rose Byrne is absolutely lovely and fragile as Renai, and while it's taken me forever to stop thinking of Patrick Wilson just as "that pedophile from Hard Candy", he didn't too bad either (and I warmed to him considerably after Watchmen). Plus Barbara Hershey and Lin Shaye, who is no stranger to the horror circuit.
IT HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL AND THAT IS WHAT MADE ME SO ANGRY!
I won't lie I actually yelled in the theater when this movie ended. That's how much just "OH WHAT????" it built up in me.
It could have been amazing, instead it just turned into a really really weak attempt to become M. Night Shyamalan's ugly stepsister. I mean, good grief Insidious! Get some self respect! Look at your life! Look at your choices!
It's like they were writing the script and got to the last one third and just all looked at each other and went
"Oh God! What do we do now???"
"Give the bitches some weird demon nonsense! Bitches love weird demon nonsense!"
Which is erroneous you guys. At least this bitch was impressed anyway. And few things annoy me more in a movie then wasted potential. And if you were going to just throw some nonsense in at the last minute, at least make it like, the Cthulu or something.... or, you know, Benedict Cumberbatch.
Okay, so I'm going to collect myself and take some deep breaths now. You kids be good until I come back.
In a totally unbeknown to me coincidence, I sat down to write this review today and noticed that many of my fellow horror bloggers have been participating in "Women in Horror Month". I didn't even know that there was such a thing, but it seems mildly serendipitous that I should be reviewing a book by one of the undisputed Queens of horror during in such a month, Poppy Z. Brite.**
**Note, this article was published years prior to Poppy Z. Brit’s transition, as such this article contains outdated language, and we support William Joseph Martin whole heartedly here at TGDH
Now, that all aside, let's get onto the meat (oh God, that was a regrettable turn of phrase to use in context with this book) of the review.
If you strip Exquisite Corpse down to its bones, (another regrettable phrase, wow, I'm batting zero), it's a love story. A really, really, twisted love story. Even though the two lovebirds in question don't even meet until a little over 3/4 of the way through the book; it's clear, in retrospect, that everything that comes before their meeting is Z foreshadowing their eventual romance, they are each other's destiny if you will. And if you won't, then take it outside, your negativity is bringing down the room.
In a relationship that would put Bonnie and Clyde to shame, our protagonists Andrew Compton and Jay Byrne are two serial killers with the Atlantic Ocean between them. However, as they discover when they finally meet up, they are cut from the same cloth, as they are incredibly similar in their preferences. The main difference between the two - Andrew likes to kill boys, then screw them, then keep 'em in his flat until they smell, at which point he throws them in the Thames.
Whereas Jay likes to screw boys, then torture them to death, and then, finally, eat them.
WHAT A CRAZY RANDOM HAPPENSTANCE AM I RIGHT?!
However, it stands to reason that Jay must be a good deal craftier, because while we begin the book with Andrew wasting away in a British prison, Jay is rumbling the about the streets of New Orleans, picking up transient pretty boys. The first part of the book mostly parallels between these two, Andrew's goings on in England versus Jay's in America. And whilst Jay is busy seducing his dinner, Andrew is pulling off an elaborate jail break that involves fooling everyone into thinking that he's dead and then busting out of the Morgue and pretty much slice 'n dicing his way to the airport. And without spoiling much of the journey of the book for you - he ends up in New Orleans.
Beneath the plot line of Andrew and Jay's eventual love at first sight encounter, there are two subplots; the first of a Vietnamese boy named Tran who is interested in Jay, and has a rocky past including an abusive relationship with his psychotic, HIV positive, ex-boyfriend. The other sub-plot is the HIV/AIDS epidemic in general, to the point that it is almost a character in the work. A third serial killer, if you will. Most of the supporting characters are HIV positive in the work, and it does deal quite sensitively with the subject matter of the men who are slowly dying of the disease. And it's an interesting juxtaposition against the relatively quick, gory, deaths of Jay and Andrew's victims. And its all set against the already macabre associated backdrop of New Orleans (thanks Anne Rice), which is an apt enough location. This is essentially a modern Gothic novel, and what says Gothic better then the French Quarter and above ground mausoleums.
So on a psychological level, that was incredibly interesting. However, as you can imagine with a book about two serial killers in love it is extremely graphic. The details of the murders, necrophilia, and cannibalism leave nothing to the imagination - to the point that I occasionally felt squeamish. ME! I watch slasher movies while eating spaghetti with tomato sauce! So, really, that should tell you something.
Without sounding too prudish, I should also note that it is downright pornographic in points. If Z doesn't pull punches with the violence, then she sure as hell doesn't when explaining sex to the readers. And if I'm admitting that I got a bit squeamish with the gore, I will have to also admit that some of the sex scenes had me clutching at my pearls and lamenting my delicate modern sensibilities, in a full on southern accent.
But I don't want you going into the book, should you choose to read it, thinking it is nothing but "sex,sex,sex, graphic murder, eating people, some more sex" ... sure, there is plenty of that. But there is also plenty of interesting psychology tucked inside as well, especially since roughly a third of the book is told from the perspective of Andrew Compton, so literally, the mind of a serial killer. So, if you're interested in abnormal psychology, or serial killers this might well be your cup of tea. But, like when I reviewed Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, I feel that it's only responsible for me to warn you that if you don't have a strong stomach you should put this book down, now, really.
It's okay, just set it down on the table and walk away. Nobody is judging you, we're all friends here.
So, if you feel like curling up this Valentine's Day with a really warped love story, then PZB delivers that. If not, I don't know, there's always Jane Austen or something. With or without zombies or sea monsters.
So until next time kids, play nice, tip your waitresses, you know the drill.
Okay, okay. Right about now you're probably going "what? Another review? Within a week? But Spooky you never do this! Are you sick?"
Well kids, the answer to all your questions is "yes", unfortunately. My few remaining days of freedom before university starts back up and I manage to get a head cold.
But hey, there are few things that are better to do than to sit around in a movie theater drinking Coke Zero when you're just a bit under the weather. Me and carbonation are like this. So when the whole "Do you want to go see 'Season of the Witch'?" came up I was like:
"oh sure."
So here's the part where I have to put in the pre-note that despite how trendy people seem to find it these days to heap on the Nicolas Cage hate, I consider myself not standing with the haters on the left, because I don't care, I find the man entertaining.
Here's my second unpopular opinion, I actually kinda, sorta, maybe ... liked this movie. But please, hold your stones until the end kids.
And keep in mind all the good times we've had...
... Please?
First off, to clear up any possible misconceptions, this is not a re-make of the 1973 George A. Romero film of the same title. This one is set during the crusades, and most specifically, the witch trials. Oh yes, and we even open with a good old fashioned one - but at least while you know that the 'villain' of the film is the supposed which, there are no pretenses that the church is the paragon of virtue in this tale.
Which is sort of what introduces us to our main characters Hell Boy and Ghost Rider Felson and Behman, played by Ron Perlman and Nicolas cage, respectively. These fine lads are two knights of the church who have recently become disenfranchised with the supposed "Holy War"; and its tendency towards brutally killing innocents.
But, generally, the church looked on deserters about as kindly as they do witches and through a series of events they get coerced into escorting a supposed witch to an abbey where priests can perform a certain rite on her, because, oh yeah, she apparently is causing the Bubonic plague.
But our boys, they be chivalrous, so they only agree to go along if the girl gets fair trial. The merry little troupe is fleshed out by another knight, a boy who wants to grow up to be one, and priest who is, shock, a complete douche bag, and a merchant because he knows the land.
Along the way there are plenty of "is she a witch?" "Isn't she a witch", "Is she bad?" "Isn't she bad?". And lot's of Ron Perlman being a bad ass that you really ought to think a moment before trifling with.
Okay, so maybe not a very complex plot, but, you know, that can work sometimes. And honestly, after my last foray into cinema with The Church I have to say that there is something to be said for a movie that makes sense and doesn't just leave me wailing: "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED HERE?!?!?!" for two hours.
So I'm not sure if I should attribute it to the fact that sometimes I go to movies just to shut my brain off and be entertained, or maybe that I went into it with basically zero expectations; but I just couldn't hate this movie.
So yeah, it's not going to win any awards for being the most brilliant to ever grace the silver screen, but it does make a for a fun night.
I just realized that this was pretty short as far as my reviews go, but eh, it's better than just going on and on and on and on...
Also, I think that I need to watch something that has nothing to do with the freaking crusades next or I may well go daffy.
So that's all I got, I'm off to have a hot cuppa and watch the Buffy marathon that's running Chiller right now, and winge about like I'm on my death bed.
Because I believe that's standard protocol when you have a cold ... or something. Nobody tells me anything.
So until next time, hugs not drugs, tip your waitresses, you know the drill.
Some of you may, or may not, know that I basically heart Chuck Palahniuk more than what probably lies in the realm of human decency.
Sure, sometimes I have a hard time remembering how to spell his last name, and yes there is the matter of that pesky little restraining order (I kid, I kid). But in short, I pretty much devour every book of his as soon as I can get my mitts on it.
However, I was somewhat resistant to reading Haunted for awhile. This is largely because instead of being just one large storyline, it breaks off into sub stories told by each of the characters. And, generally speaking, I don't usually go for 'anthology' type books, mostly because I like to have the entire novel to get to know the characters, get a feel for them. When it's a bunch of short stories I usually feel like the individual tale ends before I have gotten anywhere in the neighborhood of giving a good, and honest, damn about the characters.
Well, a pox on me for being such a ridiculous ninny! Why I thought good 'ol Chuck would fail me this time, when he never has in the past, I don't know. I'm a silly bitch.
So the essential idea of Haunted is this; Seventeen people sign up for a three month Writer's Retreat. They are to be completely cut off from the outside world during that time, and are told that this will be the time to write the masterpiece of their career.
No real names are allowed, and everyone is allowed only one suitcase. In theory, none of the participants are in any real danger, the only real trouble is that no one is allowed to leave before the three months is up, and the retreat is below ground and remote enough that escape is highly unlikely.
The real trouble comes from the seventeen writer's realization that rather then create their own master works, they are going to gain a fortune telling their story to the outside world. Of how they were held captive, tortured, forced to survive without heat or food.
None of this is actually inflicted on the writers by the people organizing the retreat. It's the writers themselves who become their own villains, even though, for the sake of the story, they have painted the organizer and his assistant as their villains and captors. So it really isn't that surprising when the writers begin to die off one by one, and with each one who bites the dust the others don't mourn; they just discuss how they will have to split the royalties in fewer directions.
On the side of the core narrative of the goings on in the retreat, as told by an unnamed narrator. Each character has a side story, and each story has to deal with what dark secret drew them to hideout in the retreat.
As the title would suggest, each of the writers is, in fact, Haunted.
Throughout the course of the book comparisons keep being drawn between this little group of writers, shut off from the outside world, and the Villa Dioda. For those of you not in the know, this is where Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Pollidori holed up; this resulted in the writings of both Frankenstein and The Vampyre. And it's an easy enough comparison to draw, and, more than likely, since it is Palahniuk who gives us this parallel, that this was in fact what inspired him to write Haunted.
However, this is really not the comparison that most came to mind for me whilst I was reading this novel. Throughout the whole thing I could not help but be reminded of Jean-Paul Sarte's No Exit, and it's chilling, most infamous line:
Hell is other people.
For those of you unfamiliar with Sarte's work, No Exit is about three completely unrelated people who die and end up locked in a room together. After a bit they realize that they are in Hell and each one speculates on who is the torturer and what torment they will receive. It soon becomes evident that there isn't a torturer, it's just the three of them, locked in a room together, for all of eternity. The only torment stems from the way they treat each other. Which leads to the one character's realization that "Hell is other people".
And, considering that all the harm that comes to the players of Haunted comes from themselves, is it any wonder that No Exit was the first thing that came to mind? I didn't think so.
Do I recommend Haunted, yes, but NOT IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH. This novel is really quite grisly at points, considering one of the short stories called Guts, Palahniuk read aloud and reportedly has had multiple faint from listening to it. Also it was a story controversial enough that it got a Highschool teacher sacked for having his students read it.
So really, bare that in mind, and I don't even think that it's the most disturbing part of the book. HOWEVER if that is something that you can get past it's a GREAT book, not my favorite of his works, but still pretty damn amazing in this girl's opinion.
So, a little while back I saw over at The Final Girl Film Club that the new movie to review was Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse. And I thought "Well, heck, that's in my netflix queue anyway." So, to the top of the queue it went. I will admit that I had more than a little bit of trepidation in watching this one. I know that I am in the horror fan minority here, but I'm really not the biggest fan of Mr. Hooper.
With the exception of Poltergeist, which only sort of counts since it was largely Spielberg's baby, I haven't really liked anything he did. I know, I know, everyone will swear up and down that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a milestone in the horror genre, and that it has such iconic scenes associated with it.
Sorry guys. I just don't like it. I will be honest, however, and tell you that I pretty much automatically dislike anything that has cannibals associated with it. I can't help it you guys, everybody has their thing, mine is cannibals.
But we're getting SO far off topic now. Enough about Tobe Hooper's other productions, we're here to talk about The Funhouse right now. Which, I'm going to go out on a limb here by saying, is my favorite of Hooper's works. Excluding Poltergeist, but we already covered that.
The Funhouse is essentially a Brother's Grimm-esque coming of age tale, modernized, and hidden under the guise of being a typical slasher film. Like the titular funhouse itself, the film is all about what goes on as far as the surface, and then the gritty things happenings that are hidden beneath that.
At first glance, The Funhouse is almost formulaic.
Step 1: Get a group of teenagers together.
Step 2: Introduce some sex and drugs into the mix (with the exception of the mandatory virgin)
Step 3: Teenagers come upon some sort of danger/madman/hillbillies/undead killing machine
Step 4: Said danger will then pick off teenagers one by one
Step 5: Token Virgin goes up against the Big Bad, with some sort of blunt instrument.
Step 6: The virgin escapes alive, older, wiser, and in need of about thirty some-odd years of intense therapy.
Throw in some insane carnies, a weird-ass dark ride (if you don't remember what a dark ride is, shame on you, and go back and refresh your memory), tons of jiggling boobs, and you have the outer shell of The Funhouse's infrastructure.
I'm not saying that escaping terrifying, potentially inbred, carnies is not a key factor to the film. It is. And if you don't really want to have a long think about things and watch the violence, that is potentially enough. However, there is so much more to this film than simply running through plywood sets whilst dodging the Elephantman's ugly cousin.
You just have to know where to look.
To fully understand the heart of the film, you have to understand the film's heroine. Meet Amy Harper.
Amy is in that frightening state of her teenager years in which she is uncomfortably sandwiched between her need to "grow up" like her "cool adult friends", and the crippling fear of what dangers will befall her as soon as she shirks the mantle of childhood in exchange for that of a grown woman.
As much as she wants to be a woman, so much that goes along with it essentially scares the crap out of her. But our little Amy is willing to put on a brave face and stride forward into the great unknown, despite the urge to puke from sheer terror at any moment.
The subtle workings of an after-school special are at work here as well. In the opening, as we see Amy primping for her date, in the background her father tells her how he "doesn't want her going to that damn carnival". Her mother, on the other hand, is busy voicing her disapproval of 'Buzz', the boy who will be taking Amy out.
Basically, Amy's parents tell her "SEX WILL KIIIIIILL YOU"
It was a lot like the Sex Ed bit from Mean Girls
Amy more or less tells her parents that they are full of it and flounces out of the house in her nifty wedge heels. We can wag our fingers and tell her that she should've listened to her Daddy until the cows come home, but if she did then we really wouldn't have a movie.
The aforementioned boy, Buzz, is picking Amy up so they can meet their friends Richie and Liz for a double date at the ominous carnival. I'm not really sure how Buzz fits into this group, because he looks like he's in his late twenties. But whatever. Liz, who I believe is Amy's best friend, is in an established, sexually active relationship with Ritchie. It's fairly evident that Amy not only looks up to Liz, but that Liz's opinion holds a fair amount of sway. I.e. if Liz is doing something, Amy wants to as well.
It's obvious how uncomfortable and inexperienced Amy is where sex is concerned. She shrinks away from Buzz when he starts to come on too strong in the car and is fairly rigid when he attempts to charm her while the four teenagers travel through the carnival. However, after a discussion of her virginity and "saving herself" in one of the Carnival's derelict bathrooms with Liz, Amy seems almost determined to loose her virginity. Even though it's not so much that Amy wants to because she genuinely likes this Buzz fellow, but because it's something that would make her more like Liz.
Sex scares Amy, but she's going to give it the old College Try. So she becomes progressively chummier with Buzz, even thought there are numerous moments where you can still see that she is uncomfortable through her facial expressions. Much like the other instances of Amy's susceptibility to peer pressure, when Ritchie makes the ludicrously moronic genius suggestion that they spend the night in the funhouse ride, Amy foes along with it. Despite the fact that it's, you know, a really really bad idea.
Especially since it becomes apparent that the only reason Ritchie wants them to stay the night in the funhouse is that it seems like a freaky place to, well, get your freak on. So to the funhouse they go, and while our happy couples are in the process of getting down to the nitty gritty there is a general disturbance from beneath the floorboards. Our merry band groups together and peers through the floor boards where they witness probably the creepiest part of the entire movie.
One of the carnies, dressed in a Frankenstein mask is propositioning the carnival fortune teller by means of grunting and waving money at her. It's a short lived encounter, as our boy Franky is not exactly a sexual dynamo, but the woman is still planning on keeping the hundred dollars she, pardon the pun, squeezed out of him. This makes hulk mad, and he murders the her to get back said cash.
Further proving to dear, sweet Amy that, oh yeah, SEX KILLS.
Needless to say, our band of heroes goes from "Hey look! It's Live Weird Porn!!" to "HOLY CRAP! THERE'S A KILLER ON THE LOOSE!". Except with way less panic then that, because they only make a fairly half-assed attempt at escape, despite having just witnessed a murder and knowing that there is just no way that this is going to end well.
So after some unenthusiastic shuffling around wiggling door handles, they decide that the best plan of action is to go back to the scene of the crime and sit on their asses doing nothing. Because that is OBVIOUSLY the best decision. After some time Frankenstein boy comes back with his angry hillbilly daddy in tow.
His daddy is pretty "hey man whatever" about the fact that his satanic offspring has offed a woman until he realizes who she is. And then he goes a bit apeshit because she's a fellow carnie. If she'd just been a local girl then, you know, who cares. But since she's part of the carnival THIS IS WAY BAD LIKE WHOA.
Ritchie, being the fine specimen of humanity that he is, of course, manages to give the chillun's location away. Because he's awesome, and so, of course Hillbilly and son know that the only way to handle this situation is to eliminate all witnesses. Which, of course, leads to our intrepid heroes flailing around the freakish insides of the ride whilst being chased, and picked off by some of the most bizarre characters to grace the slasher genre.
But here's where The Funhouse deviates from the general slasher film. Because Amy manages to not be our general slasher film heroine.
Generally speaking, the Final Girl of any horror film's general arc is that she makes the progression from the victim to the empowered hero. Notice I used the term hero and not heroine. That is because, as nearly any text book on horror will tell you, the Final Girl's genesis has a tendency to stem from her taking on more masculine traits and leaving behind being a scared little girl. That is not the case in what happens with Amy. And that is a big part of why I don't consider Amy in the usual class of Final Girl.
If you will recall, at the very beginning of this entry I said that I viewed The Funhouse as "essentially a Brother's Grimm-esque coming of age tale". This is largely because Amy is more of a Grimm's Fairytale Heroine then a Final Girl.
For my money, Amy is an almost perfect parallel to Snow White.
She is essentially innocent, and despite the frequent opportunities that arise to sully her innocence, she escapes the tale with it intact. And like Snow White, the temptations to corrupt Amy's innocence are also potential threats to her life just as much as to her vulnerability.
In the original tale of Snow White, the Queen tempts her with more than just the apple. First there is a corset - meant to give her an adult womanly figure- or suffocate her, as it turns out. Then the poisoned comb to make her look pretty an appealing to the opposite sex. Things that are supposed to make Snow White appear as an adult woman, further more, Snow White is being pressured to appear as such. These trials we can almost think of as being embodied by Liz and Ritchie, Amy's pressures to lose her innocence.
Whereas, the poison apple can be the analogy for Amy's pressure to lose her virginity to Buzz - and in a more biblical sense, to the apple of knowledge that Eve ate - to gain the knowledge of adulthood.
Also, like Snow White, Amy must deal with the abandonment of her parents in the face of grave danger. After Snow White's mother dies, for the rest of the tale her father pretty much checks out, and no point even tries to help his daughter. Likewise in one scene in The Funhouse, Amy's parents actually arrive at the Carnival to collect her younger brother. Amy sees them through a fan vent in the side of the funhouse and calls out to her parents. While her little brother appears to see her, the adults don't even glance in her direction. Like Snow White, Amy is on her own, no adult is going to help her.
Like is the case in most Grimm fairy tales, Snow White is not self rescuing. She does not take up a sword, march on the castle, and have a showdown with her Wicked Stepmother to reclaim her rightful thrown. In turn, Amy does not have the usual Final Girl moment of heroism, where she finds a large blunt object and stamps determinedly towards the villain to bash his brains in and save the day.
In this respect, Amy is not only like Snow White, but, honestly, like many of us would really act thrown into this situation. Your first instinct is not always to go into "Badass" mode. Most of use would behave just like Amy. We would run into the night, screaming like a banshee. Furthermore Amy doesn't, really defeat the villain, it's more dumb luck than anything else that saves Amy. Which, really, is more relate-able. That's normal, that's human
And while further delving into the symbolism that we can link to Snow White, Amy's suitor, Buzz, can almost be cast as the role of the Huntsmen. Buzz is, initially, a danger to Amy, he is older and more mature than her. Further linking the theme of sex and death, The Huntsmen initial role is to kill Snow White, and initially Buzz's role is to defile Amy.
Neither of these men perform their initial function. The Huntsmen cannot kill Snow White, and Buzz does not taint Amy's innocence. Both, however, essentially put their necks on the chopping block so that the innocent girl is given a chance to escape her would-be killer. Buzz takes on the Hillbilly brigade single-handedly so that Amy can make a break for it, in a scene that is almost direct remake of the forest scene in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The biggest difference, for Amy, is that at the end of this tale there is no prince to rescue her. There is no glass casket, or seven dwarfs. However, whereas in Snow White, her death-like sleep and awakening is the symbolism of her coming into herself as an adult, Amy's voyage through the funhouse can be scene as such.
Also unlike Snow White, there is no Happily Ever After storybook ending for Amy. Nor riding off on a white horse into the sunset. Amy's "happy ending" is that she gets to limp out into harsh light of the morning after, clothes torn, and on the verge of nervous collapse.
But not everybody can get that Disney ending right?
Right.
So, fairy tale allegories aside, The Funhouse is not perfect, though enjoyable. The special effects makeup is a little wanting, our lead villain is ... interesting looking, but by no means something realistic. Also on the subject of the villain, you don't really understand enough about him to feel anything towards him, empathy or otherwise, and to have a truly good villain, you have to actually like them a little bit.
There are points in which the characters actions make less than no sense, but that's a common trait in slasher. As is the fact that they really are not all that fleshed out. But still, I like to care a little bit about someone, you know, so I can be at least a little disappointed when they kick the bucket. I like to root for people even when I know that they're going to drop like flies.
On the other hand, Tobe Hooper artistically outdid himself in this one. It's beautiful to look at. The colors are rich, and there are some scenes that are shot so well it is almost jaw-dropping. So, really Mister Hooper, good job there. I may be alone in this, but I feel like The Funhouse kicks Texas Chainsaw Massacre's ass and takes its lunch money.
So that's what I got babies, even if you don't want to sit down and look at the film in an academic sense, it's good to just look at. Basically, it's a decent night in.
Okay, I admit that I put this review off for awhile, but that's mainly because I was having trouble putting into words the sheer, overwhelming, adoration that I have for this novel.
Also, this is probably the weirdest book I have ever read ... ever. Period. And that's saying something, because I read some pretty weird shit, believe you me. I mean, Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite authors, and I think he would find this book strange.
So also, I had no idea how I was going to describe it to y'all, because I got the feeling it would be a lot like when you witness something strange and hilarious, and then you are later trying to tell your friends about it, and they're all looking at you like "Shit son, you've gone completely sideways." So you end up huffily telling them "Well, I guess you HAD to BE there."
It's kind of like that. Although I suppose in this case it's more of a "you had to READ it"... or something... anyway, I'll give the obligatory summary a shot. But I make no promises that you aren't going to read it and think I've lost my fool head.
Okay Dears,Darlings, and fellow Spooky Dos, basically, the story of this charming little book is about two guys, David and John. These are not their real names. If they used their real names then they could be tracked down. Also the town where the whole story takes place is referred to as [Undisclosed] because we couldn't let you know about that either.
Dave and John are a couple of college drop-outs in un-fulfilling minimum wage jobs in an extremely boring town. But after a seeming normal concert by John's band "Three arm Sally", wherein David encounters a drug peddling fake Jamaican thing get kind of loopey.
The drug in question is referred to as "soy sauce", due to it being roughly the constancy of. When you take it you can apparently see into the future, and around sound waves, and just generally know shit you shouldn't. But people who take it have a tendency to explode, and it also seems that the soy sauce has to do with a strange group of "shadow-like" beings that are trying to overthrow humanity.
Mixed into this story for good measure are helpings of demonic possession, floating dogs, paranormal conventions in Las Vegas, and some unpleasantness involving bratwurst.
The whole thing is narrated by David, as he meets with a reporter who is going to "tell his story". And honestly, it's a GREAT voice that the story is told in , like really, I feel sort of hosed that this is the only book this man has put out.
The novel itself is the most scrumptious blend of hilarity, creepiness, and "Oh my God what the HELL just happened" that I wanted to start reading it again as soon as it was done.
Y'all don't even know. I finished the book and pretty much did this for like an hour:
Seriously, seriously, weirdest thing I ever read. One second I was snorting with laughter (how sexy is that?) and the next I was literally getting the chills.
IT WAS AWESOME.
On top of which, this little, well, maybe not really so little, book is one of the most amazing "Little Engine that Could" type things around.
I mean, it started out a web-serial over at Johndiesattheend.com , which a few years later got turned into a book. The book did not sell, like, at all, but this story developed such an avid cult following that fan outcry finally got in re-released in brand-spanking-new paperback form in 2009.
I for one was overjoyed, I came into knowledge of this book in-between the first an second printings. I don't even remember how, but I somehow ended up at the author's website, reading all the absolutely AMAZING madness on johndiesattheend.com, and when I saw that there was a BOOK I absolutely *HAD* to read it. Except, you know, at that point it was no longer in print.
The author talked about how there was a good chance it was getting re-released. But it hadn't happened yet, and the first edition copies were selling on Amazon for around $100. I'm not kidding. I'm also not kidding when I say that I was seriously considering paying that for it.
But then one day in the not too distant past I was driving my roommate to the airport. She had a pretty long wait there and hadn't remembered to bring a book. Being the combination of caring roommate and freakish bookworm that I am, a produced the book that I kept in my purse, that I hadn't even gotten a chance to read yet, and let her borrow it. I think found myself not too long afterwords on my university campus before class with suddenly NOTHING TO READ. Which, by the way, NEVER happens to me.
So I wandered into the campus bookstore (which actually has a stupidly good selection of books), and there, on a table of new releases, was John dies at the End. The clouds parted, angels sang, I was nearly weeping as I handed my money over to the cashier, and not just because books really cost way more than they should. Especially when you buy as many as I do.
It was love, you don't even know. It's not a short book, seriously, it's about the size of the bible. I was done with it in under a week. Complete and utter madness, I tell you what.
Filming has officially begun on the movie adaptation of John dies at the End. And it's being directed by none other than Don Coscarelli. Who, by the way, was the director of the Phantasm franchise, in case you didn't know. And this girl sure does love her some Phantasm. Sure, I would be a little more jazzed if Sam Raimi or Edgar Wright had gotten the rites to it, because in my book, they are the KINGS of Horror Comedies. But let's face it, it's probably going to be totally awesome.
I know that this girl, at least, will be following the film's progress with damn-near rabidness. And you had better believe that she will also be at the first showing she can't get herself to as soon as its released.
Okay Parasomnia, I don't know if it's that I set my sights to high with you or what. But Son, your father and I are very disappointed in your behavior. I mean, really now, your trailer looked so FREAKING AWESOME. I guess I really should have known better, it was, after all, it is a William Malone movie. And, while I will admit to a very guilty love of Fear Dot Com, he also did the extremely shameful House on Haunted Hill remake.
Alas! Alack!
Apparently, my relationship with William Malone's films, is very similar to Lewis Black's relationship with Candy Corn. Every single time I go "Oh boy! This film is going to rock!.... SON OF A BITCH!".
I have no one to blame but myself. Curses. I don't want to blame me, so I'll blame Bono.
Okay, wow, really short attention span, I got COMPLETELY off topic there. So Let's look at the meat and bones of the plot here before I get heavily into the opinion part.
Our little tale starts out with Danny.
Danny is a sad sad boy who has just been dumped by his girlfriend. Who didn't just dump him, but also threw out his couch while he was at work.
Danny "works" in a record store, and I use the word "work" very loosely here, as all he seems to do is stand around talking about obscure 1960's Brit-Pop with a fellow co-worker.
When Danny isn't "working", or lamenting the loss of his living room furniture, he likes to visit his friend the crackhead at the local mental research facility. Whilst visiting his friendly neighborhood speed freak, Danny discovers that just down the Hall is a psychopathic serial killer named Byron Volpe. Volpe is in a single cell room tethered to the walls, with a bag over his head.
Apparently eye contact alone can make you fall under Volpe's influence. He has supposedly convinced his girlfriend/wife/trained monkey to jump off a building and the judge at this first court appearance to park on railroad tracks.
The Doctors and our friend the crack head all spend a good amount of effort telling Danny DOOOOOOOOOON'T LOOOOK IIIIIIIIIIIIIN TO HIS EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYES! All he has to do is look at you and you apparently become a gibbering idiot completely under his sway.
As far as I can understand it, Volpe is, essentially, Hypnotoad.
Let's compare shall we?
But more on Hypnotoad Volpe later, We've more pressing matters to discuss. I suppose, like, you know, the rest of the "plot".
Whilst young Danny is staring at the freak show on display in Volpe's room, he notices the room next door and its catatonic occupant. And, like any man whose lost his girlfriend and his living room set in 24 hours, he naturally decides that this girl is the woman for him. Apparently, they met once when they were little kids for about five minutes, and that's all the introduction he needs ... weirdo.
The attending physician comes in and explains that this is Laura and she suffers from a medical condition known as Parasomnia or "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome". (The science of this part is completely off, but I'll get into that later.) Laura's condition causes her to spend more time asleep than awake, waking up for intervals of anything from two minutes to half an hour before conking back out for another week or so.
So far this doesn't seem so bad to me. Sleeping 80% of your life is somewhat ideal as far as I'm concerned, for the most part dreams are way better than reality.
However, once we are shown what Laura's dreams look like, well, I think it would be time to start loving mass quantities of caffeine, because the inside of this girl's head is downright unpleasant.
But everybody loves a sleeping broad, so Danny diligently visits her all-the-time, until one day when he learns that she is going to moved to a different facility so her condition can be studied by a doctor who specializes in sleep disorders. Although, apparently, he kind of sucks, since he's been involved in quite a few malpractice suits and a couple of his patients have gone belly up under the watch of the good doctor.
In Danny-land this is UNACCEPTABLE LIKE WHOA and he devises a "cunning", and by cunning I mean overused and kind of crap, plan to "spring her out", by which I mean kidnap her.
Because, you know, nothing says successful relationship quite like Stockholm Syndrome.
Once he gets her home it quickly becomes apparent that the amount of time she has spent asleep and not interacting with the waking world has given her basically the mentality of a seven year old. And so Danny does a lot of bathing her while she's unconscious and feeding her, and what have you.... which is, you know, not weird, or creepy, or anything. (I won't lie, this was probably the aspect of the movie that gave me the heebie jeebies more than anything else).
But moving right along... it turns out that Danny was not the only person who was freakishly obsessed with Laura. Our good friend Volpe apparently digs catatonic women as well.
Despite the fact this girl is virtually never awake, Volpe seems to feel that they have a deep personal connection. Whatever dude.
Apparently Volpe has found away inside Laura's head and her dreams, so on the subconscious plain he has more interactions with her than anyone. On account of this, he also has a fair amount of control over Laura - to the extent that he can get her to carry out his murdering sprees for him while he's still in the clink.
Naturally, Volpe manages to escape and all Hell breaks loose, and him and Danny have to have a big testosterone filled showdown over who gets to have Narcolepsy girl.
Okay, so the plot, pretty damn minimal.
It's like; "Let's take Sleeping Beauty and The Phantom of the Opera and mash them together which a bunch of faulty science and people who can't act their way out of a paper sack."
Patrick Kilpatrick (wow, what a name), who plays Volpe, plays his role competently. However, our good friend Danny, played by Dylan Purcell, could easily have been replaced with a plank of wood that had a face drawn on it and we would have gotten a pretty similar result.
I don't feel that I can really analyze Cherilyn Wilson's performance, considering she spends the whole movie either lying around asleep or running around yelling "DANNY!" at the top of her lungs.
For all I know given a different role she might be a superb actress, or she could be better off in roles with virtually no lines. Who knows? Not me.
Acting aside, here's the part where I rip the movie open and poke at its insides, in order to tell you what did and didn't work.
I have mentioned the incorrect science/psychology of the movie multiple times, so that probably would be a good place for us to start.
First and foremost, there is no singular condition known as "parasomnia". Parasomnia is a classification for a fairly diverse group of sleep disorders; somnambulism, night terrors, teeth grinding, confusion arousals, and restless leg syndrome. Not a singular condition that entails that the patient spends more time asleep than awake.
And parasomnias are in no way connected to "Sleeping Beauty syndrome", which, while a legitimate condition, is also unrelated to what Laura suffers from in the film.
In truth, Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, or Kleine-Levin syndrome, is more about being excessively lethargic and hallucinating.
So, as someone who knows at least a little bit about abnormal psychology, I was pretty confused as to why Malone felt the need to essentially name drop existing conditions, but then completely fabricate the science behind them. At the point it would have made more sense to just invent a condition all together, because anyone who knows anything about these things will immediatly start going:
"AAAH! AHH! YOU'RE WRONG! THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!" while pointing animatedly at their Television set.
It's a pet peeve of mine, I know a lot people would probably be able to watch without knowing or caring that the science is made up. I know, I should be able to just suspend disbelief or something while I'm watching this movie. But, Goddamit, if you're going to try and pull semblances of reality into this fantasy AT LEAST DO SOME FREAKING FACT CHECKING OKAY???
Wow... sorry about that... where was I?
Oh yeah...
Danny and Laura's relationship.
It's creepy.
I mean creepy LIKE WHOA. Danny knows nothing about Laura when he shanghais her, other than that she's 'real purdy', and due to being asleep all the time, probably won't be able to throw his living room furniture out the window.
But after he saves/kidnaps her, and actually has something resembling a conversation with her, it's pretty obvious that she's basically a little kid in a fully developed woman's body. Even if her outsides are all grown-up THIS IS JUST PLAIN WRONG.
Sure, Volpe has a thing for her too... but he's a psychopath, so I don't really question his motives. Danny, however, is supposed to be our lovable hero with a heart of gold. But essentially, this whole thing makes him look like a pedophile.
The only scenes in the whole film that legitimately gave me the willies were once based around Danny and Laura's interactions. In one he takes her out for ice cream, she's never had ice cream in her life and has no idea how to eat it.
After it falls off the cone she proceeds to eat it with her hands, getting ice cream all over her face. Danny, without any semblance of humor, tells her how he just finished getting her cleaned up and GOD now he's going to have to bathe her again. While Laura spends a lot of the movie not seeming to know what is happening around her, at that point even SHE is looking at Danny like "Ew... there is something wrong with you."
In another scene Danny comes home from work to find Laura dressed in a cheerleader outfit. She's happy to see him and does one of those "give me (insert letter of choice here)" cheer. But, like I mentioned before, she's pretty much a kid, so it's just a mess of letters with no correlation to each other. She tells him that it spells "home", however, and rushes to hug him to show him how glad she is that he is back. Danny, on the other hand, just snaps at her that it "doesn't spell anything".
Generally, he treats her like a moron. He's like a more judging, whiny, version of Humbert Humbert, from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. But we're supposed to like him, he's supposed to be the knight in shining armor with a moral compass that always points to north. In truth, I found him creepier than Volpe.
So, that alone, made it a little difficult, at points, to watch this movie.
I am not going to tell you that there is absolutely no reason to watch this film. Or that it had no merits whatsoever. Because the only redeeming quality in this movie, is exactly the one that makes me keep, like an Alzheimer patient, watching William Malone's films.
Visually it is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING.
Parasomnia is much like most modern pop music. Ignore the words and just enjoy the catchy beat, and you will probably like it. That's pretty much the case here.
While the plot and the script are really quite wanting, I think that if you watched Parasomnia on mute, with some Chopin or something on in the background, it would be a fairly enjoyable experience.
I know that modern horror movies have gotten a certain amount of flack for their tendency to saturate shots with colors in order to enhance mood. I think that's just stupid, color saturation can turn a ho-hum shot into something mysterious if done right. And in Parasomnia, it was done COMPLETELY RIGHT.
The touches of blue permeating throughout the film give it not only a moody, but utterly surreal visual quality. It makes the film look like you are observing a dream that someone else is having. It's gorgeous, it's one of Malone's tricks that, for me, saved his earlier film Fear dot com.
Furthermore, the dreamscapes inside Laura's head are basically amazing. They're like if you took MirrorMask and The Labyrinth, mooshed them together, and then ran them through the filter of Gore Verbinski's interpretation of The Ring (which, in my opinion, was one of the only somewhat successful US remakes of a foreign horror film).
I feel pretty confident in my feeling that had the whole movie had the look and feel of the last fifteen minutes, I would probably have loved it. Seriously you guys, its beautiful.
The problem is, the last fifteen minutes or so, are basically a completely different movie. It goes from being a character study of Danny and his interactions with Laura to being a portrait of Volpe and the inner workings of his brain, and how he translates these things into visual representations via art and music.
It truly would have been better on all grounds, including more interesting, if Volpe had been the center focus for the whole film, instead of a fringe character only brought in a few times to move along the plot - until the end.
Dears, Darlings, Spooky Do's .... I just don't know what to tell you kids. On the one hand I want to tell you to run as far and as fast from this movie as you can, because it is going to be 103 minutes of your life that you will NEVER GET BACK.
On the other hand, some of the visuals almost make up for that...
I don't know guys. I just don't know.
Parasomnia's flaws far outweigh its strengths ... but in the end its up to you to do the right thing, you know, like Smokey the bear would tell you... or something.
But if you do watch it, and you hate it, this girl will give you no sympathy. No, no my dear, all you will get is a disapproving look and a wag of the finger.
Oh Trick R Treat, you have filled me with such glee that this girl just doesn't know what to do with her self. See, Dears, Darlings, and Fellow Spooky-Dos, Halloween is just around the corner. The air is starting to cool in anticipation of Autumn, and the approaching holiday has almost constantly been on my mind. Whether its been on account of Target getting in its lovely ladies Halloween shirts, or because I've been diligently planning my costume I am in a constant state of anticipation these days.
And let me tell you, this movie was really the best way to kick off the most wonderful time of year that I could possibly ask for.
Which of course, thrills me to no end, especially since I had been looking forward to this film for quite sometime. But first its 2007 theatrical release got pushed back, and then it got further debunked in 2009 as a direct to DVD that I only recently managed to get my hands on. Trust me my lovelies, I have been kicking myself for not going to the screening of it at Comic Con a couple years back a LOT.
You would think with that level of anticipation that this film would fall flat, because, let's be fair, what ever truly lives up to the hype that we assign something in our minds? With the exception of the Dairy Queen Pumpkin Pie blizzard and Disneyland's seasonal "Nightmare before Christmas" revamp of the Haunted mansion, pretty much nothing ever does.
But I have a third thing to add to that list now kids, and that is Trick R Treat.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, before I just completely lose myself in babbling about how much I loved this movie I should give you a bit of an idea about what its about.
This movie had me hooked from the get-go, the title sequence is one of the most awesome I have seen in a movie in years. Seriously if it doesn't make you bounce in your seat with excitement than.... well, you just have no love of the world. I mean for Goddsake, its presented in comic format, introducing you briefly to the charecters you will meet, the rules of Halloween, and generally sets you up for the lore of the film exquisitely.
What follows is four different stories that are interwoven into one all encompassing ones. I've seen this done in movies before, and usually it requires that the movie be broken into chapters, with titles announcing the name of each of these chapters. Trick R Treat, however, overlaps and blends all of them in such an intricate and seamless fashion that I am absolutely dumbfounded that this work of art was Michael Dougherty's directorial debut, because he handles it better than many veterans.
At the center of these stories is the character "Sam", cleverly named after Samhain, or the Pagan Halloween celebration. He appears in each tale and is the embodiment not only of the holiday, but of the danger and fear associated with it, that lead to many of the practices we still use today. The use of Jack 'o lanterns, the dressing in costumes, etc. He's also adorable, in a really, weird, disquieting way. And not just because he reminds me a bit of a demented Sack Person from Little Big Planet.
The first of the stories that we are introduced to, revolves around Principal Steven Wilkins (played by Dylan Baker of Fido and Hide and Seek) who plays a thoroughly disgruntled man who firmly believes in upholding the age-old traditions of Halloween, as well as a few dark ones of his own. Although, like most of the characters, he makes appearances in the other stories as well. He's throughly creepy, but in a fun way, because he's also intensely awkward and neurotic, and there was one instance in the movie I had a definite "YEAH! ALL RIGHT!" moment for him.
Next we're introduced to a group of trick or treaters, headed by Macy (Britt McKillip, who I know and love as Reggie Lass in Dead like me). They are gathering Jack 'O Lanterns in a grocery cart en route to a rock quarry. Along the way they stop at the house of Rhonda, who Macy introduces as "The Idiot Savant". I warmed immediately to Rhonda; she's completely awkward, obsessed with Halloween, artistic, oh, and she made her cute little Witch costume herself.
I won't lie, I saw a little bit of a Young Spooky Pie in her, and felt instantly protective. We then learn that the pumpkins have been gathered as an "offering to the dead". Macy relays the tale of how a group of children were killed when a bus crashed into the lake nestled in ravine. And then tells the other children that that are going down to place the pumpkins at the water's edge, one for each child who was killed in the accident. As to be expected, this is when things go wrong.
Our next tale introduces us to Laurie (a nod, perhaps, to another great heroine of this holiday?), who, by the way, is played by Anna Paquin. Which, I won't lie, was one of the driving forces to see this film to begin with. I'll let you in on a secret my lovelies, but I do have the teeniest bit of a girl crush on Miss Paquin, largely because of her portrayal of True Blood's Sookie Stackhouse.
Anyway.
Laurie is out with her sister and friends, who are all dressed as over-sexed version of fairy tale characters. With the exception of Laurie, who appears practically demure in her Red Riding Hood costume, WHICH I WANT, by the way. There is, apparently, a tradition every year with these girls. They all go out to a big bonfire party in the woods, and each one has to find herself a date to bring to said party.
The other girls tease Laurie about her sexual innocence, her sister claiming that she has "22 year old virgin" carved on her forehead. Laurie is further ostracized as the other girls find boys and pair off with relative ease. They leave Laurie to fend for herself, and head off to the party with their respective dates with a patronizing pat on her cheek and an instruction to come meet them once she finds a man.
After she is abandoned, Laurie is left wandering through the woods on her own, directly paralleling the Fairy Tale she is dressed as. With the viewer just waiting for the inevitable Big Bad Wolf to spring at her from the shadows.
The last of the stories tells the tale of a grumpy old shut in, called Mr. Kreeg. He hates Halloween, he has his TV and his dog, the rest of the world can go to Hell for all he cares. He is also, quite cleverly, the neighbor of Principal Wilkins, and we see him briefly in the first story, bellowing through the fence at the slightly weaselly Principal.
Okay, okay, I felt a little biased going into this tale. I automatically love grouchy old men; especially when they have a small dog and watch the television with a rifle. They remind me of my own, dear, Grandpappy Pie. And Spooky loves her Grandpappy.
Sorry, got a bit side-tracked there, I'd tell you that it won't happen again but I respect you too much to lie to you like that.
Anyway, the other key player in this last tale of woe is dear little Sam, the sack boy who could. He is, apparently, intent on punishing Mr. Kreeg for his unwillingness to give Halloween the respect it deserves. To be fair, when Principal Wilkins wished him a Happy Halloween earlier in the film, Kreeg responded with "SCREW YOU" (and with that, he won my heart). This little story further establishes Sam as the spirit of Halloween, or at least the one responsible for enforcing the rules of Halloween.
Through that, and the rather poetic concluding scene we are re-affirmed with the fear that we all grew up with. On one hand, Halloween is the exciting, fun time of year when we all get to dress up and be given heaping bagfuls of diabetes. On the other hand, as a child, you always could feel that there was something just a bit dark lurking around corners, the sort of thing that could only be possible on that one night of the year.
And that leads us to one of the major reasons I have fallen so head over heels in love with Trick R Treat. It so perfectly encompasses the feeling of Halloween I had as a child, a feeling that you don't quite get any more as an adult. When you lose some of the fear associated with the holiday, you lose some of the fun too. So Trick R Treat reminding you that the fire in the Jack 'O Lantern will keep you safe so long as it stays lit, and that you wear the costumes to blend in with the spirits who they won't get you, even to check your candy for razor blades; well, it just filled me with nostalgia.
The storytelling is largely responsible for this, the conversations and people seem real. When they have conversations you don't sit there saying "What? Nobody talks like that!". And while you don't like all the characters, and you aren't supposed to, you find at least a few that you latch onto and care about. Much like the title sequence set you up for, it reads like a comic. Which is AWESOME.
Now, I've talked about the storytelling and the general feeling, so I feel it only fair to now talk about the final element that made this movie so wonderful. The Cinematography is utterly breath taking. Putting aside that this is a horror film, it is absolutely beautiful to look at. The color pallet, the editing, the subtle way certain shots are framed. My goodness, it damn near gave me the vapors.
So, Essentially, if the holiday were a film, it would, hands down, be Trick R Treat; fun and creepy, with an undercurrent of candy-like sweetness to pull it all together. If you want to watch something to get you in the mood for some good old Halloweening, Trick R Treat is the cure for what ails you kiddies.
Well, it's been awhile since I've done a good old fashioned review her at TGDH, too long, I know, I'm a bad girlfriend to you internets, I'm sorry. Moving on though, considering my overwhelming excitement about Guillermo Del Toro's re-imagining of "Don't be Afraid of the Dark" I thought I should see the original. Which turned out to be easier said than done.
Considering it was a made for TV movie from the 70's, it was stupidly difficult to hunt down. And when I finally did I ended up with a slightly rubbish version, that at times made weird blipping noises on the sound track, and at other times the audio didn't quite synch up, and was fairly grainy the whole way through. By I plodded through it, my darlings, I plodded through it for YOU.
Yes you, in the back of the room, trying to sneak out like you thought I couldn't see you! Sorry buster, pointing right at you, so get back in your seat, no one leaves until the presentation is over.
Anyway, stop distracting me now or we'll never get out of here. So 'Don't be Afraid of the Dark'. Wow, I feel that this is one that I can have an absolute Academic field day with, dissecting the intentional, or otherwise, symbolism that this film is filled to the brim with. On the surface, it's like 'Poltergeist', 'The Descent', and snippets of the original 'Dark Water' were thrown into a pot together and mashed up like potatoes. But, like I said, that's just on the surface. And if there is one evident thing that 'Don't be Afraid of the Dark' deals with, it's that what you see on the outside in no way matches the inner workings.
So before we pop the hood and take a look at the engine, so to speak, let's inspect the body of the thing, since so much of this film deals with the idea of a disconnect between inside and outside. So then, on the outside, our film opens with, seemingly, normal, well off, red-blooded American, husband and wife team Sally and Alex Farnham.
Sally has inherited an enormous, gorgeous, mansion from her grandmother. I can write volumes on how much I love that damn house, but we'll come to that later. Sally, however, thinks that Grandma didn't have half the sense God gave her when it comes to interior decorating, so her and her flamboyant decorator buddy are in the process of ripping the place to shreds and throwing as much paint, draperies, and area rugs to mask Grandmama's apparent poor taste. Alex, the human Ken doll, is content to let Sally just wreck as much havoc as possible, because hey, she's a woman, let's just let her do her womanly things.
Alex is generally not concerned about Sally's interests anyway. Alex is only concerned about Alex's business. He's a lawyer ... or something? He might just be a professional douchebag. His policy seems to be that if Sally isn't organizing a party or fixing him a sammich, she should just shut the Hell up. So as Sally continues to try and fill the hole in her soul that might otherwise be filled with spousal affection she stumbles in to dear old Grandad's boarded up study. And by study, I mean tiny dark room probably filled with mildew. For some reason or another Sally thinks that this place is HER IDEAL ROOM LIKE WHOA. LIKE SERIOUSLY, SHE NEEDS TO HAVE THIS ROOM LIKE FIVE DAYS AGO. And she in no way finds it odd that the fireplace is bricked up. Or that the old Carpenter man who has been helping with renovations says all kinds of creepy old man things about "some things being better left alone."
Sally decides that the old man, and probably her Grandad too, is a giant moron and just waits until he leaves and then jimmies the thing open with the tools he left behind. Because that's not a terrible idea or anything.
That is, of course, when everything goes to Hell. I bet you're shocked. I'm shocked, horrible things never happen when a somewhat spooky old man whose "done seen things with his own two eyes" is ignored. From that point on Sally starts being plagued by disembodied voices chanting her name, and doing juvenile pranks to make her look crazy.
All of these shenanigans start to make Sally go a bit apey, and Alex, being the supportive husband he is, basically informs her that she's stupid and to suck it up and throw him a party. But Sally wants her abusive asshole husband to be happy, so throws him a party despite being on the verge of a nervous collapse. Sally is a brave little soldier, so she puts on the most horrible 1970's dress she can get her hands on and plays the dancing bear for Alex's arrogant WASP friends. The little beasties Sally released from the fireplace don't like that these people are turning their house into party central, so they help Sally to have that mental breakdown that was in the making.
Alex is so sweet, and considerate, and attentive, that he is completely supportive of his wife's fragile mental state. And by supportive, I mean he sits her down and screams at the top of his lungs at her. He, in fact, at one point, bellows "STOP BEING SO SCARED" at her. I wish I was making that up. Obviously Alex won the title of 'Mr.Asshole '73'. So then Alex goes off with his fellow holier-than-thou bureaucrats and tells Sally that if she doesn't get the crazy out by the time he gets home he just might have to ship her off to one of those places that take care of hysterical women with overblown cases of the Vapors.
So then Sally is left alone with the little dudes that she let out. Who only show up when it's dark because they're ultra photosensitive. Fair enough. But honestly, much scarier before you actually see what they look like.
In theory, these things are akin to the "Crawlers" in 'The Descent'. Photosensitive beings that dwell in the underground, and shuffle around in the dark making bizzare noises. Although the similarity stops there, sure, I cut some slack because it's 1973. But the little demon things look like tiny sad old men with gorilla bodies. And that did kill a bit of the scare factor for this girl, sorry to say.
However, this film is a psychological goldmine. As when I discussed 'Candyman', I reiterate that I do not consider myself a feminist, but I could help but see a truly feminist angle to the film. Furthermore, 'Don't be Afraid of the Dark' comes across a more modernized version of the The Yellow Wallpaper. Just take away the fixation on ugly wallpaper with a woman supposedly lurking behind it, and make it a fixation on darkness dwelling creature and you have an almost direct parallel.
"It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity--but that would be asking too much of fate! Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures. ... one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency"
Intentional or otherwise, the resemblance is striking. Both women are wives of affluent husbands, both are expected to upkeep a certain appearance of Upper Society and any deviance is deemed dementia. In both cases as well the husband can be seen as just as much the aggressor as the women's respective "demons". And on the account of maintaining appearances, both women have to fight the evils on their own, while their husbands only start to be even remotely sympathetic when the hypothetical shit has already hit the fan.
Don't get me wrong. 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark' is no masterpiece. It is flawed, intensely so. If you can get away from the fact that Sally is 'Miri' from the Original Star Trek episode of the same name, she doesn't exactly have the best acting skills, that and I had an intense paranoia that the other awful children from said Star Trek were going to show up at any minute, and that would be scarier than the cheaply done demons skulking through out the film. But bearing in mind that it was a made for TV movie from 1973, it actually holds its ground fairly well against cinema-bound movies of the same genre. If nothing else, it is worth a watch for the absolutely stunning house that it is shot in. Seriously, this girl would be beating down the door to live there.
Skulking demons be damned, I would vacuum up the little bastards and move on in.
However, it's an enjoyable, if not depth-plumbed watch. And it's a film that I cannot wait to see transformed in Guillermo Del Toro's more than capable hands.
'Candyman' was one of those movies that came out in the period of time in which I was too young to be allowed to view such cinema. I'm not going to date myself here by saying just how old I was when said film came out, but I was young. And I was a pretty damn sheltered kid.
So basically, 'Candyman' entirely passed me by. But it is a personal goal of your humble narrator to go back and reclaim the movies that came out whilst she was but a tiny confection, or before I even began baking, so to speak. Also, the 'Candyman' urban legend is one of those ones that every little kid was tortured by, at least in my childhood he was basically the male version of Bloody Mary (although Miss. Mary caused much more fear in this Pie than the man with the candy ever did).
But there is a trouble with movies in the vein of being recreations of Urban Legends, as a child these were things that scared the ever living crap out of you. The man with the hook for a hand was always waiting in some ally, Bloody Mary was in every friggin mirror, the Bogeyman was always either under the bed or in the closet, and let's not even get started on the babysitter with the killer upstairs business. So here's the thing, how is a movie ever going to be able to even touch upon the complete and utter horror these things instilled in you as a child? It's impossible, that's just a fact. Learn to love it.
So basically, I was geared up to snort and poo-poo my way through 'Candyman', as I have through all film adaptations of Urban Legends that I have seen before (although, the 'Bloody Mary' episode of Supernatural was actually a pretty darn good try). I won't lie, I kind of wanted to hate this movie.
But Goddamit, I didn't. In fact, I found amazing merits buried in it. And you know, I could probably have dismissed this movie as rubbish all together if they hadn't had such an amazingly strong female lead to carry the entire movie on her shoulders.
Dears, Darlings, and fellow Spooky-Dos meet our Intrepid Heroine, Miss Helen Lyle.
She is smart as a whip, obnoxiously gorgeous, and will spend the whole movie having life and the world essentially crap all over her.
The movie opens with Helen interviewing a college girl who tell her a story that is "the scariest things she's ever heard, and it's totally true". It turns out to be a story about the aforementioned guy version of Bloody Mary crossed with the "Hook man" legend. Long story short, horny teenagers say Candyman's name five times in a mirror, he show ups and fillets the girl. And her roommate's friend's boyfriend totally knew the people it happened to.
Which is how we learn that Darling Helen, along with her awesome best friend Bernadette are graduate students working on a thesis about Urban Legends.
Helen's husband, Trevor, is an enormous Douche-bag who teaches at the university where Helen and Bernadette were interviewing college freshmen about what urban legends they'd come across. So, of course, he decides to make a lecture about Urban Legends to his class (which is who knows what, maybe Anthropology?) and ruin their study collection possibilities by wising the kids up to it all.
Helen is, justifiably, torqued. Trevor, the douche who is also rather obviously giving "extra credit", if you get my meaning, to one of his students, all but tells Helen that she is being a hysterical female and he is not going to let her silly little thesis interrupt his teaching schedule.
We're less than ten minutes into the movie and I'm hoping that Trevor gets terribly, terribly maimed.
But anyway, sweet hubbie's bastard tendencies force Helen to look further than college freshman for her study group. But she lucks out whilst typing up the interview she had with the freshman that opened the film, a woman cleaning the classroom she is in comments upon it. This leads Helen to interviewing said cleaning lady and her co-worker, which then leads her to a rendition of the legend that actually corresponds with a crime that happened in the Projects.
So Helen, in true Nancy Drew fashion heads out to the place the grisly murder took place, dragging reluctant voice of reason Bernadette along with her. In the projects the 'Candyman' legend is alive and kicking, so to speak, and everyone and their mother alternates between living in abject fear of him, and blaming him for all the normal hoo-ha.
Helen is an educated woman and is not to be bothered with superstition, so she insists to these people that their own personal Bogeyman is complete Horse Feathers. And as such COMPLETELY DAMNS HERSELF.
In true Freddy Kreuger fashion Candyman understands that the only way to exist is through other's faith in his legend. So in true "shun the non-believer" fashion he reveals himself to her, creepily, in a parking lot. Insisting that either she let him kill her or he will make her pay for the loss of faith she has caused within his congregation. Trouble is, I won't lie, Candyman looks pretty Badass whilst being a total creeper, and I wasn't exactly mad at the dulcet tones of his smooth baritone voice.
Which is when everything goes to Hell in a hand basket, so to speak. Candyman brutally murders people left and right and sets Helen up to take the fall, insisting that the slaughter will continue until she gives herself up. And we aren't just talking in a "give up and let me kill you, you difficult woman" way, it's all pretty down right sexual. Almost romantic, in a frightening sort of "Phantom of the Opera" way.
But Helen, God bless her, she is one tough cookie. Horrible, horrible things are happening all around her and she keeps on fighting. And looking perfect the whole times, yes, even when she is drenched in the blood of those that Candyman has slaughtered, and having a near hysterical meltdown, she still looks basically awesome.
But it is only when all the shit starts to hit the fan that the real reason I found myself enjoying this movie began to pick up. No, it's not just because this movie had a villain I could get behind, which is important to me and all, but not the big reason here. The allegory between Urban Legend, belief in something allowing existence becomes a subtle, and amazing theme.
Helen, herself, is not unlike Candyman. No, she doesn't go around gutting people with her festering hand with a hook jammed in it, granted, but she only exists as long as she is believed in, as much as he is.
She begins the movie, strong, vibrant, confident in her existence. But this is when she has the, supposedly, happy marriage, a wonderful best friend, and the respect of her peers. As this all falls apart, as there is suddenly a lack of people's belief in her Helen seems to be feeling herself disappear, much in the way Candyman described himself as doing when the legends were not to be spoken of him any longer.
Taking out the twisted romantic aspect of the Candyman's feelings toward Helen, he is offering her something that douche-bag Trevor, or anyone else really did. A chance to truly exist because she will always be remembered, believed in. Even if it is only for the crimes that Candyman has perpetuated and framed her for.
And yes, I have acknowledged that it is sick to think of 'Candyman' in the sense of being a romance. But there is a highly romantic aspect to it, more romantic than you can perceive between her and Trevor. Even before things began to go south we were more than reasonably sure that that her sorry excuse for a husband was having one of those "special" teacher relationships that involve lot's of staying after school for "extra credit assignments".
And once the going gets even remotely rough Trevor is more than willing to throw his hands up and be done with her, more than anything else because this is the perfect excuse for him to move in with his barely legal trollop. And when confronted with this, Trevor essentially counters with a "yeah, but you're a crazy person who killed people, even though you were never proved guilty, so I put all your stuff on the lawn with a 'free to a good home' sign on it."
Well, not in so many words, but you get the picture.
Candyman, in his own psycho way, is sort of the Byronic love interest for Darling Helen. He offers her eternity with him. They'll live forever so long as there are people who will speak in whispers about them, and he is happy to have that forever include her in the main focus of it.
I know it's wrong to think it, y'all. But it is a little bit sweet.
Sweet in a "I probably shouldn't have stopped seeing a therapist" kind of a way, but eh, I've seen the Phantom of the Opera a bazillion times and I still get upset every time Christine chooses that tool Raul over the Phantom. Sure the Phantom murdered truckloads of theater folk, but didn't he also write her the loveliest songs? I'm just saying.
But Helen proves that she is firmly the hero of this story, because she believes she can be strong. Once she shakes the shackles of her horrible marriage, and even avoids the seductive lure of the Candyman, she truly comes full circle and is truly in her own by the end of the film.
Which is why I can't be mad at this film.
I don't consider myself a feminist, but the strong female character that was Helen is arguably one of the strongest women in Horror cinema. Yes, I know everyone always looks first and foremost to Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley. But I argue that the self-rescuing Helen should be considered at least as highly. After all Helen fends off an evil that cannot be jettisoned out an air lock, because it exists in the very fibers of the mind.
And she never has to walk around in her panties to do it either.
