October Horror Movie Marathon

[J Harker]

First horror film of the month.

Black Sabbath, Mario Bava. 1963.

Legendary Italian director Mario Bava's stab at the portmanteau film, bookended by an introduction and a farewell from the wonderful Boris Karloff, Bavas film is like any film of this sort a little uneven. The opening segment (on the Italian version) The Telephone, concerns a woman being harassed by phonecalls from an escaped convict. Frankly i found this segment dull, 30 minutes of not a lot, and not a great idea for an opener, that said its Bava so it still looks gorgeous. This is fortunately followed up with a simply marvellous piece, The Wurdalak. Starring Karloff as the patriarch of a small family living in the mountains, the less said about it the better, except that its brilliant and with a little more padding would have made a great feature. Oh and did i mention? It looks and sounds bloody beautiful, all misty forests and fogbound hills and marshes. The final piece, A Drop of Water isn't quite as good but is still of a very high quality. A nurse is called late at night to attend to patient who has died in the night. This is probably the most surreal piece and the corpse of the old lady looks very effective with its garish over the top look. Water dripping has never sounded so ominous either.
I've had Arrows excellent blu for a few years now but have only just got around to it. Hopefully it won't be long before i return to it, perhaps the AIP version. Perfect Halloween film, even with The Telephone being so dull the other two pieces more than compensate.

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by J Harker

First horror film of the month.

Black Sabbath, Mario Bava. 1963.

Legendary Italian director Mario Bava's stab at the portmanteau film, bookended by an introduction and a farewell from the wonderful Boris Karloff, Bavas film is like any film of this sort a little uneven. The opening segment (on the Italian version) The Telephone, concerns a woman being harassed by phonecalls from an escaped convict. Frankly i found this segment dull, 30 minutes of not a lot, and not a great idea for an opener, that said its Bava so it still looks gorgeous. This is fortunately followed up with a simply marvellous piece, The Wurdalak. Starring Karloff as the patriarch of a small family living in the mountains, the less said about it the better, except that its brilliant and with a little more padding would have made a great feature. Oh and did i mention? It looks and sounds bloody beautiful, all misty forests and fogbound hills and marshes. The final piece, A Drop of Water isn't quite as good but is still of a very high quality. A nurse is called late at night to attend to patient who has died in the night. This is probably the most surreal piece and the corpse of the old lady looks very effective with its garish over the top look. Water dripping has never sounded so ominous either.
I've had Arrows excellent blu for a few years now but have only just got around to it. Hopefully it won't be long before i return to it, perhaps the AIP version. Perfect Halloween film, even with The Telephone being so dull the other two pieces more than compensate.

Yeah, The Telephone is a bit of a slog but the other two stories are so good (that boy crying at the door is so damn haunting) that it's worth the wait.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by MacBlayne

Yeah, The Telephone is a bit of a slog but the other two stories are so good (that boy crying at the door is so damn haunting) that it's worth the wait.

I didn't want to mention the child, but yeah creepy as hell. Couldn't help thinking of Salems Lot for some reason, only Bavas film is about 246 times better.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

There are a number of Easter eggs on this disc

Thank you, i read up about which version has which extras on DVD Compare.

Originally Posted by J Harker

As i recall something weird happened with this film. It was originally released by someone (Prism?) as a cheapo, 4:3 barebones disc, then later as a packed SE by Tartan, then oddly that went Oop and it was put back out by the original label with all the stuff from Tartans disc.

As far as i'm aware the later Prism version is more or less bare bones. Tartan put it out again themselves in 2013. All versions are now out of print.

[BAKA]

[03] Blood Diner
A radio news bulletin in the opening moments of Blood Diner perfectly sets the tone for proceedings, warning us of a suspect in an all-girls glee club slaying, armed with a meat cleaver in one hand and their genitals in the other. Blood Diner was one of a glut of horror comedies from the period, perhaps less fondly remembered than its 1987 contemporaries, the likes of Bad Taste and Street Trash. Blood Diner is so stuffed with jokes and puns that it wears down your resistance, what shouldn’t be funny becomes funny, and what is funny becomes riotous. From the disembodied brain of Uncle Anwar, who steals the show with some killer one-liners, the rival restaurant owner and his ventriloquist dummy, to the Egyptian Goddess Sheetar, who appears to have had an ‘80s makeover replete with gold foil disco wig and a stomach that resembles the Sarlacc from Return Of The Jedi, it’s pure cheese. Blood Diner is endearingly kitsch, a time capsule of the period, completely unhinged and over the top, a genuine pleasure to watch.



[04] Curtain
I can’t help but admire the inventiveness of modern independent horror. Sure, a great deal of them remake or regurgitate, but every year a handful of films do something a little bit different, outside of the box. Curtain is definitely one of those films; I can honestly say I’ve never seen a film about missing shower curtains before. The element of surprise of such an offbeat concept is endearing. Sadly the film never really capitalises on the potential of the concept. The protagonists are loveable losers, Danni, despondent after quitting her job as a nurse and Tim a dreamer who lacks the courage to follow his dreams, both united by a campaign to save whales… and locate a missing shower curtain. The despairing duo are the heart of the film, but nothing quite as ably provides the horror. The gateway element isn’t adequately explored and the sort of anti-cult lacks any kind of imposing presence. Director Jaron Henrie-McCrea is clearly a fan of Hitchcock, he gave away shower curtains at the film’s premiere, and brilliantly titled his first feature Pervertigo, but unlike Hitchcock he never quite manages to build suspense.

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by MacBlayne

The Babadook

Much to JHarker’s dismay, everybody here has had a pop at this film. And I’m sorry, but I didn’t care a lot for it either.

This may be the most frustrating film I’ve seen in a long time as I can see the brilliance within. But, it’s drowned out by a load of art-school bollocks (ironic, considering director Jennifer Kent refused to go to film school), and the most irritating child I have seen in a long time. I get what the film is doing and that the Babadook is a metaphor for the mother’s growing resentment of her child. Yet, this nonsense could have been averted if she would just tell her child to shut the #$*! up.

It probably doesn’t help that I did not find the Babadook itself scary. Kent does an admirable job at building suspense but I ended up giggling when it showed its face. I feel that the film may have been better if the Bababook was only hinted at in the book, instead of manifesting itself physically.

There is something amazing here but it is definitely the work of a first time director that feel that they need to show off (I can easily imagine Kent’s mentor, Lars von Trier, pausing the film every two minutes and asking “what’s this shite about?”). But, I look forward to seeing Kent’s next film. Well, I thought I was looking forward to that but I looked up The Babadook and who Jennifer Kent was.

Critics masturbated themselves over who could deliver the most praise. It wasn’t like those other horror films that relied on gore or scares (apparently, they never saw any Japanese or Korean horror), it was about a lone woman struggling (um, isn’t there a lot of horror films with that as a theme), the perils of raising a child (you’d swear Wes Craven never made New Nightmare), and that it was a woman that directed this horror film (I suppose the Soska sisters, Claire Denis and Kathryn Bigelow aren’t that famous). And Kent seems quite happy resting on her laurels, judging by interviews.

So, I don’t know. Kent is quite talented but I believe she can do much better. Yet, everyone has told her she’s magnificent and she seems to agree that she doesn’t need to do better. I hope she surprises me but I’m getting the horrible feeling that she won’t.

Thanks, critics!

totaly agree found it very overrated and annoying myself can't understand the praise it gets

[Frankenhooker]

I enjoyed The Babadook, but I don't consider it to be the masterpiece some do and despite having it on Blu-ray, I have no inclination to watch it again. Solid 7/10.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Thanks for reviewing Curtain, Baka.

It's certainly an intriguing idea, shame you don't think it lives up to it.

[MuckyFunster]

Film #2

Rec.

I watched this last night with a mate who's been going on for years about it being his favourite film, and the scariest film ever. Maybe he'd talked it up too much, but I was left a bit underwhelmed with the movie. I'm not a huuuuge fan of the shaky cam found footage type of thing anyway. But because I'd heard pretty much nothing but positive reviews for Rec I did go in with high hopes. The way they'd done the claustrophobic elements was pretty good, and the feeling of panic was pretty good too. But I felt like there were a lot of avenues that were opened ip in the dialogue and then not explored, explained or concluded, such as the racism towards the Japanese family, the weird medical type room that was in the building, and obviously the finale, which was spring completely out of nowhere and to me didn't make a lot of sense.

I found the main character really annoying throughout, especially nearer the end, and, like I think with every found footage horror Ive seen, I just kept thinking "why the hell is the camera man still filming? If I was there I'd be going daft telling him to put down the camera and help!"

I don't want to give away any spoilers, in case any readers haven't seen the film yet, but as I mentioned above, the mad twist at the end was just a head scratcher.

Fair enough, I get that the infectious zombie plague thing has been done a load of times before and the film makers were obviously looking to do something, anything, different and new. But at the end all I could think was "what??"

And who the hell was the child in the loft? ?


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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MuckyFunster

Film #2

Rec.

I was left a bit underwhelmed with the movie.

Don't bother with [.REC] 3 it's awful.