31 Days Of Horror (Films)

DAY 23
HOUSE
streaming on The Criterion Channel and HBOmax

This 1977 Japanese flick is a trip. Imagine if Hanna, Barbera, and Sid & Marty Kroft had collaborated on a horror film. Yeah, it’s that wacky and weird, plus it’s a bugged out mind-fugg to boot.
The insane blend of pure strangeness, tilted humor, and off-kilter horror obviously rubbed off on cats like Sam Raimi (specifically Evil Dead II), Tim Burton (mainly Beetlejuice), and Sion Sono (Tokyo Vampire Hotel). Heck, you can even see this film’s influence on the similarly titled 1985 American horror comedy starring The Greatest American Hero and Norm.
But enough of those ruminations. Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film is off-the-nuts entertaining. While not particularly scary, it is creepy and eerie and the sheer manic absurdity is near brilliant.
It’s the type of film one wishes they could see in a packed midnight screening or at the drive-in with a large crew and a keg of brew.

PS
It would make a killer double-feature with Black Magic 2

DAY 24
THE EYES OF MY MOTHER
streaming on Kanopy

Borrowing a page or two from the Ed Gein mythos by way of Psycho and the likes of Polanski’s Repulsion, writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s debut film presents a good case against home schooling.
Filmed in crisp black & white, it’s a steadily paced descent into supreme dysfunctional family fallout. Pesce does a fantastic job with alluded to gore and grue and keeps the macabre musings moving along with enough cringe worthy moments to keep you unnerved.
Sure, most of the plot points are old hat, but the cinematography, pacing, and acting insure that things feel just fresh enough.

DAY 25
THE CURSED (aka EIGHT FOR SILVER)
streaming on Hulu and Kanopy

Holy hairballs and gnarly fingernails!
Despite an ever-so-brief theatrical run, this film has largely flown under the radar, which is a shame because it’s a nicely made little neo-gothic horror gem.
Dripping with moody atmosphere (copious amounts of fog and shadows, plus some great camera angles and shots), well-paced action and drama, and containing some solid thespian turns (all you Yellowstone fanboys can rejoice at seeing Beth Dutton gussied up in 1882 French couture), the film delivers on the chills and thrills.
The only slight is the debatable CGI, but thankfully it is used sparingly; the film definitely would have been better served with more practical FX, though.
Still, it has this opulent Hammer-esque sense of production design, great period costumes, and a keen air of suspense.

DAY 26
RABIES

Incompetent map readers.
Incest.
Peeing in the woods.
Sexual assault.
Land mines.
Animal cruelty.
Jealous lovers.
Rusty bear traps.
Tennis.
Serial killers.
These are just some of the things bubbling through the insanely bugged out plot of this 2010 release.
Billed as Israel’s first horror film, Rabies is a strange melange of genre tropes, yet despite its familiarity it resonates with a fresh sense of off-kilter consternation.
The best thing about this ensemble piece is that you never know just exactly where it’s headed; it starts going one way and then veers precariously into a completely different direction. Keeping the audience on their toes and constantly guessing is its major strength. That and a wonderfully weird sense of macabre humor.

DAY 27
THE ENTITY

Think 1 part The Exorcist, 1 part Ghostbusters, and 1 part Prince of Darkness and you’ll kinda nail the vibe of this overlooked 1982 jewel. Although, this film is based on the 1978 novel which fictionalized a real 1974 parapsychology case, so perhaps it actually influenced the latter two films mentioned above.
Regardless, this is a thrilling and disturbing endeavor, one which expertly utilizes all the patented horror film tricks to great effect.
There’s discordant music, jump scares, and Dutch tilts up the ass. Such techniques could easily have come off gimmicky, but here they work wonderfully, creating unease, confusion, and terror. And while the blood and gore is beyond minimal, the violence portrayed is palpable and unnerving.
Sure, it dips into hokey territory at times, but the pacing and the use of all the aforementioned techniques make this a brisk and entertaining edge-of-your-seat experience.

DAY 28
BRAIN FREEZE

I had high hopes for this Quebecer zombie film based on the fact that the last undead oriented endeavor to come across the border—2017’s Ravenous—was pretty damn bueno.
Sadly, this effort starts out mildly promising and then just deteriorates into a hodge lodge of tired tropes. It doesn’t help matters much that it gets bogged down in long, drawn out sequences where literally nothing happens. That and the gore is sparse, as are the thrills and any modicum of tension. And never mind that the film borrows liberally from the likes of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Z Nation, without bringing much newness to the proverbial table.
To top it all off, there’s an uninspired through line of nationalism (i.e. racism), classicism, and corporate greed, all of which are meant to be thoughtful social-political commentary, but come off as lazy and rote, instead.
The editing is uneven, there are interesting subplots that are brought up, but never followed through, and even the film’s twist ending is lame.

solid recs. much gracias dookey

DAY 29
HIS HOUSE

This entry, which was much heralded when it screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, starts out promisingly enough, but ultimately succumbs to trite and tedious tropes.
In the first act we are introduced to a refugee couple who have escaped from an unnamed African nation mired in civil war violence. It is presumed that they are seeking asylum in England, though we never know which city. They are given a rundown apartment in a dilapidated housing project as they await their fate in regards to citizenship.
There are some genuine creepy moments and a few solid jump scares one they being getting settled in their new home, but from there it devolves into "seen it all before" territory.
There is one really freaky sequence where the wife ventures out of the house and gets lost; it effectively captures the whole "stranger in a strange land" vibe.
And there's a nice twist reveal just before the third act.
Ultimately, however, the film becomes a rote exercise in people who have committed an immoral act being punished and tormented by demons, both real and imagined. While it does draw upon some unfamiliar (to me, at least) African folklore, it's still a story that has been told umpteen times before in a similar manner.
Methinks the bulk of critics who applauded this film succumbed to "exotic bias," which I myself have been know to exhibit. Here, though, the routine nature of the story ends up bogging the film down.

DAY 30
STARRY EYES

This film is an unabashed homage to Dario Argento's Susperia, albeit with less emphasis on colors and set design. But it keeps all the eerie and off-putting elements intact, often ratcheting them up to 11.
It's also a pretty damn bueno critique on the Hollywood mystique and people's continued quest for fame and adoration.
And it presents a genuinely creepy view of casting calls that predates the Harvey Weinstein MeToo revelations of 2017 by a good three years.
Essentially unfolding as a descent into madness, the film follows the ambitions of wannabe star Sarah, who slums at a fast food restaurant between attending auditions. She's surrounded by other like-minded individuals, all grasping for the elusive Tinseltown Dream. The cattiness displayed between the competing actresses, the lechery and power plays of low-level management, and the seedy underbelly lurking beneath the Silver Screen are all delivered with vim, vigor, and tremendous verve.
The ending is a bit hammy, but the journey there is so taut and teeming with sinister undertones that it's worth the trip.

DAY 31
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

Figured I'd end the month with a classic of early cinema. And, surprisingly enough, I'd never seen it before.
While I would hesitate to call it a true horror film, it does contain a lot of the core elements of the genre.
But it's essentially a macabre looking murder mystery with a few twists and turns that have become de rigueur in modern cinema.
A feat of German Expressionism, it's the look of the film, much more than the story, that creates a sense of abstract horror: buildings are slanted, authority figures sit on insanely high chairs in crowded offices, and everybody wears scary make-up (yes, I know this is the style of the time and a holdover from stage productions that used elaborate and heavily caked make-up so that the folks in the back rows could see the facial expressions, but it's still unnerving and weird looking by today's standards). Suffice it to say, one would be hard pressed not to notice the obvious influence this film had on folks like Tim Burton and Joe Dante, amongst others.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dookeyXXX

DAY 31
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

Review on the way…

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A classic. Have you not seen it before? Or keeping the best for last?

Great thread.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by skinipenem

A classic. Have you not seen it before? Or keeping the best for last?

Great thread.

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

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I had never seen it before…:eek:

Ok, that was on so many rerun channels back in the day, Im truly shocked that you’ve never seen it before

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mcski

Ok, that was on so many rerun channels back in the day, Im truly shocked that you’ve never seen it before

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I only finally saw Nosferatu about a year ago, too.
:biggrin:
Ditto for the Universal horror classics, Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Wolfman, as well as Christopher Lee’s seminal Dracula
:biggrin:

Also, the fact that I lived around the corner from The Castro Theater from 2000-2009 and never went to see either The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Nosferatu on the big screen with the live organ score is pretty lame…

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dookeyXXX

I only finally saw Nosferatu about a year ago, too.
[emoji3]
Ditto for the Universal horror classics, Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Wolfman, as well as Christopher Lee’s seminal Dracula
[emoji3]

Also, the fact that I lived around the corner from The Castro Theater from 2000-2009 and never went to see either The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Nosferatu on the big screen with the live organ score is pretty lame…

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Live organ score? That is frickin cool!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by skinipenem

Live organ score? That is frickin cool!

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

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I may be wrong about the live organ score to those films. The Castro used to have an organist who would play before screenings. Not 100% sure if he also played along to silent films...

That said, The Clubfoot Orchestra definitely did live scores for both Caligari and Nosferatu.
I never saw them live, unfortunately...

http://www.clubfootorchestra.com