Day 75: The Mummy's Hand

Another pull from my Essential Horror book, I have broken my own rules of watching in order as I can't locate a copy of The Walking Dead from 1936. I went ahead and entered the 1940s today with The Mummy's Hand.

Mummy movies really are better as adventure stories than horror, per se. In this one, an amateur archeologist (in the Indiana Jones mode of two-fisted justice) and his con man pal attempt to find the jewel-filled tomb of Ananka. Unfortunately, there is a death cult and an angry Mummy waiting to stop them. The cult are the bad guys for most of the running time, listening in on and sabotaging most of the plans of the hero. By the end, the Mummy is in position to gain ultimate power or something and a few minutes are devoted to stopping him.

I was taken aback by how much comedy was in this. The con artist friend, Babe, and the financier of the expedition (a magician named Solvani) are both pretty funny characters in that gentle, 1940s kind of way. There are a few times the Hayes Code intervenes, seemingly. When a woman brandishes a pistol there is some ADR saying it is a fake pistol ( although it seems to make real holes in a door just a few minutes later) and a major character was obviously meant to die but turns up fine in the end. Hell, I was surprised that the handful who do die were allowed to when you think of how bloodless movies were back then.

Anyway, not a bad flick, it made for a good Saturday morning creature feature.

Day 74: 28 Weeks Later

Welcome to my Friday the 13th edition of Halloween 365. Today another sequel popped up on the old "random horror list." For a long time, I told people I liked 28 Weeks Later more than 28 Days Later, even though the latter is widely thought to be a revolutionary horror movie. I think the reason I claimed 28 Weeks and maybe still do, is the emotional heft of the characters. As thrilling as 28 Days Later was, I never felt much emotional attachment to Cillian Murphy's main guy. By making a family the center of the action in the sequel, I cared more about what was going on.

Oh, in case you don't know, this is the follow up to the movie that gave us "fast zombies" for the first time. They aren't technically undead in these movies but rather, infected with the Rage virus that makes them want to tear other people apart. 28 Weeks Later picks up after the military has regained control of Britain by sectioning off whole neighborhoods and letting the infected die out from starvation.

After a widely hailed opening sequence where Robert Carlyle has to abandon his wife to the infected, the movie becomes one of those "can you take these kids?" endurance tests. Carlyle's son and daughter want to go back into the infected zone to search their old house. Doing so creates a chain reaction that endangers all of the world. I didn't mind the kids in this, probably because they are from the UK and that goes a long way.

Idris Elba, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots and Rose Byrne are quite good in this. It caught quite a few people during the upswing of their careers. The director hasn't been very prolific but I think he did a fine job taking over for Danny Boyle. Exciting and moving, I would say this is worth a watch.

Day 73: The Roost

This post is all about the directorial debut of a mostly consistent horror director, Ti West. While his House of the Devil and Innkeepers are two of my favorite horror movies, he came out of the gate with tongue firmly planted in cheek on The Roost.

Tom Noonan is kind of in the movie in that he is a late night horror movie host whose show bookends (and in one memorable case, interrupts) the movie we are watching. As usual, he is a lot of fun but don't expect much from his performance in regards to time on screen. The bulk of the movie is about four friends trying to get to a wedding when a car accident leaves them looking for help. They stumble upon a seemingly abandoned barn that is filled with bats. Beyond just the normal flying vermin problems, these bats can turn you into a zombie. And so, the stage is set for the usual deaths and attempts to outwit a flock of bats.

As homage, this movie is spot on. It recalls 80s schlock horror pretty well and could easily have been a creature feature movie on late night UHF channels. As an actual horror movie...well...not so strong. The characters aren't entirely there and that makes tension or suspense slacker than it should be. West could go on to strong character work in his later movies but this was an entertaining first step. I could give this a solid C.

Day 72: Werewolves

This is the latest entry in my series "Why Are They Scary?"

Of course, Werewolves frighten on a purely animal level wherein you try to keep yourself from getting ripped apart by fangs and claws as much as possible. On an entirely different level, the werewolf is a handy psychological shorthand for the beast inside us all. Like the Incredible Hulk, we each have a raging hellbeast trapped inside us that occasionally comes out in the form of snide comments, passive aggression or "accidental" traffic violations. For the worst of us, it comes out in domestic abuse, breaking things and other violence.

Michael Chabon has a short story collection called "Werewolves in Their Youth" and it is mainly about using werewolves as metaphors for the evil inside us all. It is a pretty great collection (including the story "Son of the Wolfman" in which a rape victim decides to keep her baby) and I would recommend it.  For all the hue and cry over evolution not being real, our ancestors (superstitious as they were) could see the animal side in our actions and conclude that we had grown in time to quell those base impulses.

Either way you slice it, as an external monster lurking in the bushes to rip you apart or as an internal struggle to control your base urges, the werewolf is  a formidable monster and my personal favorite.
For good portrayals of werewolves, check out the TV show Werewolf and the movie Dog Soldiers (to be reviewed at some point this year).

Day 71: Friday the 13th, Part 3

If you're wondering, I won't be covering every single entry in the Friday the 13th series, only my favorites. Part 3 is pretty much a triumph of 3-D filmmaking and watching the movie in 2-D is kind of hilarious. This is also the first movie in the series where Jason dons his famous hockey mask disguise. That's right...it took three movies!

An injured Jason spends the first half of the movie licking his wounds in the small town around Crystal Lake. A girl named Chris and her group of friends descend on her family's lakeside cabin. The usual hilarity ensues. The fun comes from all the moments an object is shoved right into the camera in order to goose the 3-D. For example, an old man gives the kids a warning about being near the lake but it ends with him shaking what looks like an eyeball directly into the camera. Other objects that end up at the front of the frame include a harpoon gun, rat and yo-yo. It is pretty much a must see movie if you like awkward staging.

Day 70: Mad Love

This is an entry from my Essential Horror book. Mad Love was Peter Lorre's first American movie after years climbing the European ladder of stardom (most notably with the excellent "M"). This one is actually a retelling of The Hands of Orlac from the point of view of the mad scientist who gets the whole ball rolling. Whereas the original followed Orlac slowly going insane, this one shows all the machinations of Dr. Gogol as he tries to steal Orlac's wife away (a motivation I don't recall from the original).

It starts with Orlac's wife performing at the Grand Guignol in Paris. If this was a real thing, and I'm pretty sure it was, I would have loved it. It was like Medieval Times for Horror fans. People would buy tickets to see torture re-enactments. There were waxworks and the the employees all dressed like demons. Dr. Gogol has been buying an expensive box seat every night to watch Orlac's wife perform. He even buys her wax statue when he learns they are throwing it out.

I must say, the plot makes less sense this way. Orlac's father has a much diminished role and the bit about the killer having his head re-attached just doesn't play because you immediately know it is Lorre under the disguise. Still, his sweaty, greasy performance is pretty wonderful and makes you feel super creeped out no matter how sympathetic the script tries to make him.

All in all, Mad Love is just ok.

Day 69: The Dead Room

This was a recent watch during my horrorthon. This is a riff on the classic haunted house story. It starts with the audio only of a family fleeing in terror from...something...in the house. A group of paranormal researchers (two older guys and a young girl) show up to see if they can find evidence of the supernatural. The leader of the group has a theory on how to destroy ghosts using subsonic frequencies, so it even swerves into ghostbusters territory a bit.

Here you get lots of ghostly footsteps and slamming doors but also pretty violent poltergeist interactions where the ghost is trying to injure people. The investigators figure out there is a "dead room" at the back of the house where the ghost won't go. Whenever they get menaced, they race back to it like a panic room and this seems to repeat a couple of times in the movie.

The motivations for sticking around become less and less clear as their lives become more and more threatened but, mostly, it holds together. Of course, there is a big twist at the end but it takes forever to play out. This is one of those features that really could have been a short film and had greater impact. I would put this one as mediocre at best.