Spoiler Warning - Halloween review has loose spoilers.
octoberm201819.jpg
[#
19]
The Old Dark House James Whale’s
The Old Dark House is inhabited with a bizarre parade of kooks, a family tree touched with madness. A bedridden patriarch presides over his sinister brood, the presentable but cowardly Horace, his sister the uninviting Rebecca Femm, with a sly deafness, played tempestuously by
Eva Moore, and Saul the pyromaniac locked up on the top floor, whose wily mischievous intent flashes in glimmers when no one is looking.
Boris Karloff plays Morgan, a lecherous alcoholic butler in servitude to the family, but feeling more as if he’s keeping them captive, locked away from the outside world. It’s a film that navigates genres deftly, mixing horror with comedy, without sacrifice. The visuals and sound design meld to create a dread-filled atmosphere, malformed reflections haunt the mirrors, a breathtakingly playful shadow dance gives way to terror, a landslide that feels more a malevolent push to trap traveller and viewer alike, in
The Old Dark House.
octoberm201820.jpg
[#
20]
Scream For Help
Directed by
Michael Winner from a script penned by
Tom Holland,
Scream For Help is surprisingly lacking in notoriety. It’s a film that feels malleable in its structure, starting out as a teen movie quaintly narrated with diary entries by protagonist Christie Cromwell, before changing composition, descending into a darker home invasion framework. The twee teen movie trappings lend a power to Christie’s scandalous discoveries, and in typical fashion no one believes her. There’s a mean spirited streak, one character is dramatically murdered moments after revealing their pregnancy, a sinister swiftness in the succession of events.
Scream For Help feels scattershot in terms of inspirations, at times similar in tone to
Wes Craven’s
The Last House On The Left, just as shocking and taut, without sinking to the same depraved depths, but several elements feel ahead of their time, a precursor to
The Stepfather and even
Home Alone.
octoberm201821.jpg
[#
21]
Someone's Watching Me
The lesser known of
John Carpenter’s films released in 1978,
Someone’s Watching Me is tame by comparison to his chilling masterwork Halloween. Made for TV audiences there’s an understandable restrain. With shades of
Alfred Hitchcock’s
Rear Window, it literally feels like a reworking in a then modern late ‘70s setting, liberally borrowing mechanics, and even a whole scene. Protagonist Leigh Michaels is imbued with an endearingly kooky sense of humour, personable, skilfully realised by
Lauren Hutton. As a viewer it’s hard not to form an attachment to the character, lending further gravity to her situation. The scene where
Adrienne Barbeau’s character is keeping watch for Leigh through a telescope, as she snoops around the stalker’s apartment in the opposing apartment complex is suspenseful, and a tense scene where Leigh is hiding under a grate as the suspected stalker walks over is effective, but the sense of menace and dread never quite give way to all out horror.
octoberm201822.jpg
[#
22]
Halloween (2018) David Gordon Green and
Danny McBride had the unenviable task of taking the reigns of the
Halloween franchise, creating something that would appeal to a modern cinema audience and long time franchise fans alike. The result falls somewhere between
John Carpenter’s original, and
Rob Zombie’s entries, showing occasional glimpses of the mean spirited visceral violence of the latter. The superbly suspenseful motion sensor scene is the perfect example, the build up in tension is evocative of the original, but the mounting on the spiked gate is more in tone with the viciousness of
Zombie’s work. The film eschews the sequels, following on directly from the original, forty years later, yet liberally borrows sequences from several of the sequels, homage that will enamour series fans.
Carpenter’s score is a boon, but Laurie Strode’s character arc is most compelling, her Doomsday Prepper transformation is a fresh take. The most unforgivable aspect lies not with any franchise ties, but with the fate of the boy who just wants to dance.
Could not recommend
Scream For Help more highly! It's such a blast, I hadn't even heard of it previously and it blew me away. I also finished watching
The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, and it's insanely good. I wasn't sure for the first couple of episodes, but from episode 3 onwards it hooked me, and from episode 6 it genuinely felt like something incredibly special. Just spotting some of the spectral apparitions in the background, or in mirrors or glass, often out of focus, it feels packed with secrets, very layered. I really rate Mike Flanagan, and look forward to his Doctor Sleep adaptation. He's come a long way from the crowd-funded Absentia, which I loved too.