October Horror Movie Marathon

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

A carnival sideshow entertainer / mad scientist (Bela Lugosi) scours Paris for a bride for his pet gorilla. Blurring the theories of evolution he injects his female victims with blood from the gorilla then discards their ravaged bodies through a trap door in his lab. He finally finds the perfect mate (Sidney Fox)for his hairy pet, resulting in a race against time as her fiance (Leon Waycoff) attempts to save her.

Whilst obviously not top drawer Universal horror the film is still a serviceable vehicle for Lugosi allowing him to carry off his Dracula persona but this time in an Edgar Allan Poe story whilst the top billed Sidney Fox provides us with a sweet and charming heroine.

Universal have done a lovely job with their set design creating a marvelously Gothic Paris and it more often feels like silent German Expressionist cinema rather than full blown Universal horror even though they were no doubt using their famous backlot streets as they did in many films at the time. The dry ice machine operators must have been on overtime as some of the outdoors scenes are so shrouded in fog you can barely make out the performers which isn't entirely a bad thing when you see the man in a suit gorilla costume bounding across the rooftops.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

This was a chore to sit through on dvd for me. So disappointing. One of those films i bought twice. Once in the early days of the medium and then got rid of it and then a few years ago to check i hadn't dismissed it unfairly. I hadn't.

As for Howard's Way i watched the dvd box set of that series a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it once again after seeing it on it's initial transmission. It is pretty much the definition of British drama in the 80's much like Dallas was of US drama in the same period.

Yeah, not quite sure why I dropped the 'Howard's Way' comparison into things, but I'm pretty sure I'd take a series re-run of that over the prospect of watching 'Underworld' again.

[MrBarlow]

Nightbreed: The Ultimate Cabal Cut.

Clive Barker's original vision of his novel Cabal, which runs just over 3 hours and to be honest it was good seeing the full work print but you can tell what has been added in with the fuzzy clips and sometimes no dialogue that comes up with subtitles due to lost audio. As much as I love this film i'm still gonna stick with the theatrical cut.

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The Changeling. 1980.

George C. Scott is a solid presence in this film as the man bewildered by this huge old home, with Scott's wife, the elegant Trish Van Devere, cast as a member of the local historical society instrumental in having secured him this house. Melvyn Douglas appears as a U.S. senator who is somehow related to the house.Director Peter Medak lets the suspense build slowly in this intelligent made ghost story. Rather than going for terror, this film goes for subtle chills. There's a seance scene that is genuinely eerie, as Medak's camera returns to that small room and then starts to glide down the stairs towards the seance participants trying to communicate with the spirit. Some ghost films are all special effects and over the top performances of terror. Like the best of the classy, more mature films that explore the supernatural and never goes for cheap thrills.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

THE NEWLYDEADS - Fawlty Towers might not look all that great set against today's socially attuned media landscape, but at least you could never peg Basil as a transphobic murderer. The same can't be said for Lloyd, moustachioed hotelier of 'The Newlydeads', whose misfiring fumble leads to him stabbing a drag queen. One of the many strange features of 'The Newlydeads' is that it seems to be suggesting that we in some way get behind Lloyd, who spends the rest of the film in a slightly heroic role, doing his best to uphold that shopworn but classic genre trope of 'put-upon hotel owner versus undead being in bridal drag'. Yep, it seems Lloyd's victim is back from the dead with a lust for vengeance and a repertoire of gravel-voiced Freddie-isms, setting the stage for the kind of epic struggle that takes place in Travel Lodges nationwide. A late eighties piece of SOV tat that aspires to black comedy, 'The Newlydeads', as I'm sure you've guessed, isn't interested in suspense, human drama or the damage wrought by a lifetime in hospitality. It doesn't even find room for that much horror - scenes roll along with an air of sunny disconnection, and you clock well before halfway that it's never going to reach the place where it all adds up. But if you like flat-falling wit, constant nonsequitors and a ghoul in a veil's shitty one-liners, all in lovely VHS, then you might want to check in.

[MrBarlow]

The Shining. 1980.

Stephen King can be easily thanked for writing such a great book based on a hotel with a disturbing past and Stanley Kubrick bringing the novel to the screen in his own way. Jack Nicholson and the late Shelley Duvall somehow manage to create a near perfect married home with Danny Lloyd to stay in a hotel for the winter season and then a slow descent into madness happens, that makes one person snap and go berserk with nowhere to run and hide outside. Beautiful camera work, incredible visuals, that opening is iconic. So many incredible, visual moments, the twins, the lift with the blood and the ghostly barman Joe Turkel made this a classic.

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[MrBarlow]

The Devonsville Terror. 1983.

In the small town in Devonsville 1683, three women are accused of witchcraft and killed. 300 years later, three women arrive and one is a reincarnation of a witch looking for revenge.

Director Ulli Lommel who brought us The Boogey Man brings us a simple tale of witchcraft that made me think of City Of The Dead, i have no idea why, but we get Donald Pleasance in this as a docotr researching the occult and witchcraft and places Suzanna Love in a trance which awakens her darker side a bit more. Donald can never do any wrong in a film which he seems to manage to save this from being crap. Ulli manages to homage to a film with the face melting scene which was a bit more laughable than it should be, think I would return to this film.

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[MrBarlow]

As Above So Below. 2014.

After the disappointing 2007 movie Catacombs, I stayed away from this one I judged a movie by the tone of the film, something I actually regret now. A small team go to the Paris catacombs in search of a mystery artefact and uncover something darker. What begins as a small find in one country ends up being a search in another country, what starts as a slow build up then recruiting a expedition team and then a journey into the unknown. Some found footage films never really match up to the hype of the trailer but this one did. Plenty of dark atmosphere and claustrophobic moments settle in mixed with decent acting.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW - I'd better include an Octobery, Halloweeny type film now we're nearly a week in, so here is 'Dark Night Of The Scarecrow', which must've been on UK TV at some point as it's the source of many lingering childhood memories. I haven't revisited it that often over the years, but it struck me yesterday - what a classic. I think it works so well because, unlike the majority of horror movies, it has an emotional core that seems capable of tugging at the heartstrings as well as summoning dread. For the unacquainted, it's about what happens in a small town after mentally challenged Bubba, despised by the local postman, is murdered by a vigilante posse; when the culprits start dying, we're left to figure out whether someone's taken up Bubba's cause, whether the rats are turning on themselves, or whether we're witnessing vengeance from beyond the grave (very skilfully, it keeps us guessing to the last). What stands out now is the sheer eeriness of some of the scenes and the vibes that director Franke De Felitta pulls from the Autumn air, and I was surprised to see a superficial TV movie flatness give way many times to really striking, indelible images - Bubba's eyes staring out from that scarecrow mask, a distant shot of one of the perps kneeling before the scarecrow in a landscape of rolling corn, an underlit scene in an attic full of shadows. All this plays out against a backdrop of roiling suspense driven by Charles Durning's great performance as the rabid postie, always stood there his ridiculous sub-military suit and helmet as he paints a picture of utter weasellyness. By turns unsettling, tense and heartbreaking, 'Dark Night Of The Scarecrow' has to be one of the best American TV horror movies of its era and is just really compelling viewing.

[MrBarlow]

Cobweb. 2023.

This was a bit of a slow burner start with a bullied eight year old Peter hearing noises at night in his room that seems to come from the walls. His parents note it off as rats making their appearance, a concerned teacher budging her nose into the family that is not welcomed and the parents themselves seem a bit unhinged. The film does have a dark atmosphere all the way round like a ghost story or something close to The People Under The Stairs vibe. You do get the "why did you go there or not call the police" situation which would have helped the tension be built up but that's down to some lazy/bad writing but the ending isn't played out well. Shot completely in near darkness the strain on the eyes isn't great. I really wanted to like this one but just falls flat for me.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

In Spain in the sixteenth century a boy, born of a mute serving girl and a beggar grows up with the unfortunate habit of howling at the full moon.

Curse of the Werewolf is not really a horror film in its truest form, its more a character study of affliction and how a young man attempts to cope with it until finally succumbing to it with his untimely demise at the hands of the villagers. Although the werewolf's presence is felt, it is not seen onscreen until the final ten minutes of the film. There are no stalkings or attacks to up the horror elements just scenes of slaughtered animals. Oliver Reed himself doesn't even appear in the films first fifty minutes.

This fifty minutes is superb drama, the early scenes in the banquet hall are nasty and cruel yet unmissable viewing as the revelers humiliate the beggar before throwing him in the dungeon to be forgotten about. The fact that the beggar, years later then rapes the shapely mute wench who tends to his needs ruins all sympathies nurtured in the earlier acts.

Yvonne Romain is excellent as the mute girl and the viewer is allowed time to sympathise with her plight at the hands of the wicked Marques Siniestro, nicely played by Anthony Dawson, before we are left shocked by her brutal actions as she bludgeons him to death.

When the BBFC watched a complete print of the film they were appalled and demanded extensive cuts to several key scenes, namely the rape, the stabbing of the Marques, the transformation, shots of the dead Leon's face and all the werewolf killings, not to mention dialogue which may have been construed as anti religious. In the US only three scenes were cut and finally in the mid 1980's the cut scenes were restored to the British version, so the film could finally be seen as the director intended.

As it is you can tell why Hammer never ventured into werewolf territory again as the film as a whole despite being enjoyable (and cruel) still leaves you with that underwhelmed feeling come the closing credits.