horror movies

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Asami Yamazaki

~ lobablanca

asami

Remember what I wrote about Annie Wilkes? Ramp that up by a million and you’ll enter the galaxy of Asami Yamazaki. But you still won’t quite be anywhere near her. Trust me when I say that’s a good thing.

Japanese director Takashi Miike’s Audition was one of the first movies I experienced at the rise in popularity of Asian horror here in the States. I’ve seen quite a few horror movies from places like Japan, China, Thailand, and South Korea since then, but Miike’s tale remains near the top of the list in terms of what has been seen can never be unseen.

Part of me feels guilty for adding Asami as a contender, because I can’t in good conscience recommend this movie for everyone. It’s one of those films I would only recommend to really serious horror fans. However, it’s for this very reason that I knew I couldn’t leave Asami out of the running, especially if I included Annie Wilkes (and I had to include Annie Wilkes). Both of these characters complement each other as prime examples of how the passage of time will inevitably lead to the “ramping up” of what we deem shocking or horrifying. You thought a hammer was bad? You’ve no idea.

Is this necessarily a good thing? I don’t really think I’m the right person to answer that question. My current personal horror preferences tend to lean toward those movies that introduce some kind of unexplainable (read: non-mortal-human) element into the storyline. I’ve learned that I don’t really enjoy movies that focus on the all-too-real ability of regular humans to be horrible to each other. I see what transpires in real life, and some of that makes horror movies look like Care Bear cartoons. We really are the disease, Agent Smith. Therefore, movies that depend upon the ramping up of realistic-looking violence as their sole source of “horror” aren’t really up my alley.

Why include Asami, then? Because, like Annie Wilkes, there’s a perverted logic to her behavior that makes her more than a pointlessly violent horror movie character. She has motivations that are understandable when examined through her warped view of reality (kind of like our lovely May from yesterday). I think this is one of the more interesting aspects of horror. When the story is told properly, even if you can’t imagine yourself responding in the same ways as these characters, you can understand them. Asami has obviously, to use layman’s vernacular, “seen some shit.” And whatever she’s gone through, be it internal or external, it’s seriously twisted her ability to behave in socially acceptable ways.

And that’s putting it mildly.

Also, Asami was definitely a “trial-by-fire” introduction to a new cultural perspective on the horror genre. She opened my eyes and sent me on my merrily terrified way, tearing through the foreign horror section on Netflix like a mouse loose in a cheese factory. For that, I hold a special place for her. A place far removed from my actual location. She does not need to know where I live.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: May Dove Canady

~ lobablanca

maycanady

Oh, I’ve been waiting to draw this name. After all, who better to represent the month of May-hem than that lovely, shy lass, May Canady?

Written and directed by Lucky McKee, May introduces us to this eponymous young woman, in all her lonely, socially inept glory. May’s a bit of a strange bird. She lacks any skill when it comes to interacting with others, whether it’s her overly friendly coworker Polly or hunky mechanic Adam. She’d like to connect with others, but she very obviously lacks any experience when it comes to relationships. She spent most of her life ostracized by a particularly difficult-to-manage lazy eye, which caused her to grow up practically friendless. In fact, her “best friend” Suzie is a doll her mother made for her with the explanation, “If you can’t find a friend, make one.”

Great advice, Mom. Too bad your little girl’s going to hold you to that when she grows up.

An optometrist finally helps fix May’s physical problem, but the emotional damage is already done. She does try to become more social and form normal bonds with others. She doesn’t really enjoy the entirety of others, though. She quickly realizes that people are holistically imperfect…but she is a believer that everyone has something to offer her. Something that can help make the perfect friend.

Bringing May to life was the Xenaean (yeah, I just made that up to take the place of “Herculean”; what of it?) task taken on by actress Angela Bettis. I’d never seen Bettis before this movie. Now, I can’t see her as anyone other than May at first blush. For all the terrible things that we watch May do, Bettis is able to convey those broken parts of May’s psyche in such a way that I can understand why she ends up doing the things she does. Not condone them…but understand them. Thanks to Bettis’s skill and obvious respect for this role, May’s denouement, though shocking and a little heave-inducing, makes sense when viewed through the lens of May’s shattered perspective on reality.

Ultimately, May exists as a reminder that looking solely at the exterior is never a good way to choose someone for friendship. Oh, and always be careful when giving advice to little kids. Prophets help you if they take everything you say literally…

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Mrs. Ganush

~ lobablanca

mrsganush

I love Sam Raimi. Whether directly or indirectly, he has brought so much joy into my geeky little world, be it in the form of horror or thriller or fantasy or radioactive spider. And Xena. Let’s not forget Xena. However, I love him most when he’s in his horror mode. Especially when said horror mode brings about wonder and grossness in the form of his most recent submission to the genre, 2009’s Drag Me to Hell.

The plot is pretty straight-forward: Loan officer Christine Brown refuses to grant elderly Mrs. Ganush a loan extension, thus paving the way for her to be evicted from her home, which is pretty horrific in a real-world, “you’re a bit of a douche” kind of way. What Brown doesn’t realize is that the woman she’s just evicted is not going to take this lightly. She’s also highly skilled at cursing, and not in the “drunken sailor” kind of way.

Hilarity? Oh, it doth ensue.

Mrs. Ganush is one of the most terrifyingly sympathetic characters to ever spring from the fertile depths of a mind as wonderfully warped as Raimi’s. She’s just a harmless old lady when we meet her, with her bad eye and questionable hygiene. But what transpires is a work of filthy, funky, frightening art. Raimi masterfully twists and turns the roles of protagonist and antagonist in unsettling yet ultimately fantastic ways, leaving us rooting for…well, maybe not even rooting for anyone…but loving the battle that takes place along the way. This movie reminded me how great he is at horror, and how I wish he’d do it more often.

Beyond Raimi’s influence is the miraculous casting of Lorna Raver as Mrs. Ganush. I love actresses who allow themselves to let go of all pretense and fully immerse themselves into a role, and, boy howdy, does she do just that. Raver will make sure that you do not forget Mrs. Ganush or her warped game of “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?” for a very long time.

I really don’t want to say anything else about Mrs. Ganush, because I really, desperately want you all to watch this movie. It’s disgusting as only a Sam Raimi horror movie can be, with body fluids galore…and a gumming. I just…there’s a gumming. And it’s So. Very. Awful.

Seriously, watch this. And brush your teeth. And bathe. And don’t take buttons from strangers. And don’t evict little old ladies from their homes. Those little old ladies will drag you down…

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Mary Henry

~ lobablanca

maryhenry

And finally, a regular here at the lair surfaces!

I have raved about the wonder that is Carnival of Souls for quite some time now, and yet I continue to hear it described by fellow horror hounds as “the best movie never seen.” As a full-on fan of this movie, I feel that it’s my duty to continue to sing its praises and encourage as many people as possible to see it.

That being said, I almost didn’t include Mary Henry as a possible Lady of Horror May-hem. She spends a large portion of the movie being reactive rather than proactive. However, because I’m a generous soul and because I really do love this movie so much, I allowed her to attend. After all, she is the one who sets into motion the entirety of this story thanks to her actions at the beginning. That counts! Also, she does it all by drag-racing a carload of hot-rodders. Drag-racing grrls, FTW.

Mary, as portrayed by Candace Hilligoss, also stands as the first bad-ass lady to go up against the modern cinema’s take on zombies (no, they aren’t really zombies…then again, most “zombies” we see in movies aren’t zombies either…they’re simply plays on this prototype). She stands at the pinnacle, even above George Romero’s Barbara from Night of the Living Dead. Romero even states that director Herk Harvey and writer John Clifford inspired his perennial zombie favorites.

Carnival of Souls is not your typical horror. It’s not burdened by special effects that would have aged in noticeably awkward ways. It’s streamlined and stunning, a firm and fit tale presented in the most delicious black and white shots imaginable. Harvey knew how to work that monochromatic palette. And Hilligoss’s portrayal of Mary’s downward spiral into terrified confusion is such that even when she tipples over into campiness, you never feel like she’s insincere. Just really overwhelmed by all that’s happening around her.

Another aspect that marks Mary as unique among early horror movie heroines is her unexpected hardened edge, especially regarding her take on religion. One assumes that a woman who has made church organist her profession would have a profound respect for the religion that employs her. Not so, Bob. She’s just in it for the Benjamins. In fact, she really doesn’t give much of a damn for anything other than her work and being left alone. Is this a side effect of the events of the movie, or is this her true personality? Regardless, it’s who we meet, who we observe, and who we ultimately follow to that penultimate dance that keeps luring her closer and closer as the dusk descends upon the carnival.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Pazuzu

~ LobaBlanca

pazuzu

I think this might be my most controversial choice for this series. However, I stand by it 100 percent. See, for me, The Exorcist remains one of the greatest horror movies ever made. The reason stems from so many different sources, from original book to screenplay to direction to casting to practical effects to makeup to special effects…this movie had so many moving pieces that fell perfectly into place to make this well-oiled machine of a movie.

Two of the oft-overlooked but integral cogs in this wheel are the two women who helped to make the demon Pazuzu even more terrifying than a little head-spinning, naughty language, soup-puking, crucifixated little girl could by herself. First, however, I don’t wish to take away from Linda Blair’s performance as Regan MacNeil. I think she was amazing in this role, and her ability to make Regan sympathetic and believable as this vessel for the demon Pazuzu are two reasons why this movie remains as powerful as it is more than 40 years later. However, Regan as her own character does not fulfill my requirements for the Ladies of May-hem, because she is not the proactive central character. She is the receptacle for the proactive possession by Pazuzu.

Back to what I was saying. One of the creepiest recurring themes throughout the film is the split-second splash of luminescent white face we see throughout the movie (even more throughout the jazzed up re-release they did back for “the version you’ve never seen” DVD release). The flashes are so brief…just long enough for you to register that horrific visage and shiver as a result. That face was actress Eileen Dietz, see on the left:

dietz-mccambridge

The lady on the right is the one who ultimately makes Regan’s possession the most believable. Close your eyes. Now, imagine the sounds emanating from that possessed little girl. The wheezing breaths. The raspy moans. The guttural, vile, almost multi-voiced heaving and threatening and cursing and screaming and laughing…all of it, so terrible flowing from the mouth of a child.

Only it wasn’t really a child making all those noises. It was silver-screen star Mercedes McCambridge, who went uncredited for her vocal talents at first but later received the credit she most definitely deserved. McCambridge went through hell to provide those voice-overs for Regan, sometimes having the sound recorders tie her to her chair and leave her in the dark, to put her in the proper frame of mind. As if there were such a frame of mind for those sounds. Those awful, demonic, spine-shivering sounds.

Just thinking about them now is giving me a strong case of the NO.

Dietz and McCambridge actually both went uncredited for their parts in The Exorcist. However, they both helped give Pazuzu its true face and voice, thus solidifying the demonic presence even more and solidifying their places in horror history.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Alice Johnson

~ LobaBlanca

alicejohnson

I was so excited about the thought of adding Alice Johnson to my list of horror heroines. See, most of the time, when people think horror heroine, especially in reference to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, they immediately (and rightly) think of Nancy Thompson. She was, after all, the first Elm Street kid to defeat Freddy Krueger.

(Sorry for that spoiler and for the few spoilers that I have to drop into this post…but I kind of have to reveal some stuff to reveal my reasoning…)

What a lot of people fail to remember is that, yes, Nancy defeated Freddy twice, but there’s only one bad-ass grrl who both defeated Krueger twice and lived to tell the tale.

Enter Alice Johnson.

We first meet Alice in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. She’s one of those “transformation girls,” quiet and shy and mousy and weak…but guess what? Let’s just say that she “masters” those issues like a baus. Honestly, it’s one of the best depictions of the transformation trope I can think of in slasher-level horror. Of course, I say that with the full confession that I have a huge soft spot in my horror heart for Freddy Krueger (the Robert Englund version…which, let’s face it, is the only version that matters at all in the history of ever).

Still, watching Alice Johnson metamorphose through this movie is a joy to behold, and nearly as much fun as watching Englund not just chew scenery but devour it, whole piece at a time as Krueger. When you’ve got someone like Englund playing your main villain, you need an actor who not only can convince viewers of her inherent weakness but also can be believable as a suitable counterpoint to Krueger when the time comes. Lisa Wilcox was quite a brilliant choice for these reasons. She pulls off timid, fearful Alice quite well. And bad-ass Alice? Oh, yeah. She could match the camp and slash of Freddy K.

When I saw that they’d brought Alice back for A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, I was actually sad. I kind of figured, based on previous track records, that this meant that she wasn’t going to make it to the end. Again, I’m sorry for this spoiler, but this is ultimately one of the main reasons I chose Alice…she kicks Freddy’s ass one more time and lives to tell the tale.

For the final movie in the original series, the creators decided to go in a decidedly different direction from the previous movies, and then Wes Craven came back to reclaim Freddy with his New Nightmare (which ironically brought Heather Langenkamp back into the Krueger fold), so we never saw Alice again in the movies. I’m actually okay with that. I admit that I wanted to know what had happened to her after the fifth movie, but I also reminded myself that the third time could have been the charm…for Freddy.

No, I’d like to believe that Alice never encountered Freddy again and that she and her son found a nice little suburban neighborhood to live in. Somewhere green and quiet, where her biggest nightmare would be trying to pay bills or get her son to ball practice on time. I know, it doesn’t sound all that exciting…but she’d probably love every minute.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Annie Wilkes

~ LobaBlanca

anniewilkes

Oh, Annie Wilkes, you crazy dirty birdie, you.

That’s right, denizens…my selections aren’t always going to be the heroines of the story. And that’s the only spoiler that I’m going to give you for Misery and its leading lady. Yes, this movie came out in 1990, but I know that some of you haven’t yet seen it. Or some of you haven’t seen it in a long time. I urge you to remedy this. This might very well be one of the best screen adaptations of a Stephen King horror novel yet filmed (I would even contend that it holds its own against non-horror adaptations like The Shawshank Redemption).

The plot revolves around writer Paul Sheldon, most famous for a series of novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain. When Sheldon crashes his car during a blizzard while driving through an isolated section of Colorado, he’s lucky to be rescued by Annie Wilkes, a local nurse who just happens to be his “number one fan.”

No three more frightening words exist in the English language, thanks in great deal to Kathy Bates. In fact, the role of Annie Wilkes not only instantly tagged Bates as a major-league Hollywood player, but also earned her a Best Actress Oscar, the first ever awarded to an actress for a role in a horror movie. Even King loved her performance

BookBin2013: Reel Terror: The Scary, Bloody, Gory, Hundred-Year History of Classic Horror Films

~ lobablanca

reelterror

This is a first for this year, denizens. This started out as a library loan that I simply couldn’t finish before I had to return it…so I just went ahead and skipped adding it to my wish list, instead buying my own copy right away. I was enjoying it so much while reading it that I knew I was going to want a copy for my own library anyway (guess you can guess what the Final Verdict is going to be today, eh?).

You all know how much I love horror movies. As someone who has been a fan of the genre longer than even sci-fi and Star Trek, I tend to read and watch a lot about horror movies. Therefore, I can say that, from the perspective of a die-hard horror fan, David Konow’s anthology Reel Terror didn’t provide a lot of stuff that I didn’t already know, but did provide a nice timeline of the evolution of cinematic horror as well as an outline of some of the biggest movie high points. The book would be a good genre guide for those who might not be as well-versed in horror trivia but would like to learn more.

To be fair, the book does feel a bit redundant in light of the special edition DVDs of the movies Konow covers, which all have special features that cover a lot of the same ground. Also, a lot of the really big horror franchises have documentaries that cover way more ground in way more detail. For example, if you’re a Freddy Krueger fan, get thee to a copy of the documentary Never Sleep Again…or…just…here:

[hulu id=tbspev-i2zgahnxb13hchw width=512]

It’s also kind of strange how Konow shifts from a more holistic history of the genre in its early days to more specific movies once he reaches more recent times. I guess that’s because he’s more in his comfort zone with modern films that more people know. Then again, isn’t that more reason to go into more detail on the early stuff? So that more people know about them and discover their importance to the genre?

And, since I am an editorial nitpicker, I have to say, this anthology needs an editor STAT. Sentences need tightening, grammar needs correcting, facts need checking. Come on, now. Don’t let poor editing wreck a decent book (and some of the mistakes are really quite jarring).

All this aside, Reel Terror is a nice compendium full of fun facts for both beginners and old pros to the horror scene. If you like the genre or are interested in getting more into the genre, I think this book might be for you (you might want to wait until the next edition, though…maybe, just maybe, it will be properly edited!).

Final Verdict: Um. Yeah. You all are lovely smarties. You know the answer.

Poster Picks: The Broken

~ lobablanca

I have very little to say about this poster for the 2008 psychological thriller The Broken, because I think it pretty much speaks volumes without me simpering on about it. I will say this though: It’s effective. And absolutely unsettling. I keep staring at the jagged shards of Lena Headey’s head, and my brain keeps screaming that so many things are wrong that it simply wants to reject what I’m forcing it to process.

Simplicity, denizens. Sometimes it really, really works.

Poster Picks (and Bonus Movie Review): Cloverfield

~ LobaBlanca

I haven’t done a two-fer like this since my Runaways review, but I was inspired by my recent re-viewing of Cloverfield as part of my month-long Halloween movie marathon.

So, first, the poster. I’ve decided to go with the initial teaser poster, which had no text on it beyond the movie release date. That’s right, it didn’t even have the movie title on it at first. But, honestly, when you use imagery like this poster uses? You’re just going to attract even more attention by the fact that all you’ve included is the release date. Brilliant bit of marketing, no?

So, no text, no name, no tagline. Only a minimally written date in a nice white font, with dots as separators. Obviously, we’ve got to figure some things out based on what we do have. Let’s start with the primary focus of the poster: a headless Statue of Liberty. Not just headless though. From the exposed, jagged remains of the support frame, the torn copper, and the plume of debris and smoke, it’s obvious that Lady Liberty’s head was removed rather violently. By something very large.

And that very large something has headed into Manhattan. See the wave pattern in the water, leading from the Statue of Liberty toward the destruction within the city? Something has moved from the harbor into the streets…and it is hell-bent on taking down Manhattan. Look at the wreckage of the buildings that were in its way when it came ashore. Look at the plumes of smoke rising from the heart of the city. Look at the helicopters hovering overhead, so incredibly tiny in comparison with the surrounding damage.

Whatever has done all this is large enough that those dinky little choppers aren’t going to do much else besides probably annoy the hell out of it.

Not much else there though, eh?

Not so fast. There are conspiracy theories about “hidden images” in the Cloverfield posters. First, there’s the attacking sea turtle head:

See it? It’s the cloud shape to the right of Lady Liberty’s torch. It seriously looks either like an angry sea turtle…or a peener monster. Personally, I don’t want to think about either attacking the Statue of Liberty…

Next on the list? The smoke cloud monster:

Now, this one is a little more convincing and impressive if it’s true. Take the original poster, duplicate it, flip it horizontally and line up the edges…and voila! See the face? It actually kind of does look like what’s ultimately revealed as the Cloverfield monster. Or any other monster from any other J.J. Abrams movie. The man’s about as original as a Xerox machine.

Which brings me to…

Bonus Movie Review

I hadn’t seen Cloverfield since I went to see it in the theater. I did remember liking it enough that when I saw a used copy for sale for a couple bucks, I went ahead and picked it up (looking back, however, I was probably remembering the fun I had with the friends I went with rather than the actual movie). However, even more vivid was my memory of nearly hurling from the unrelenting shaky cam action. Not even The Blair Witch Project made me feel quite as queasy as Cloverfield did. Every time I thought about watching the DVD, that memory would drown out all others and I would simply put it back on my shelf.

I am pleased to report that the shaky cam was almost unnoticeable to me on the small screen.

More noticeable to me on this second viewing, however, is how truly unoriginal and lazy J.J. Abrams is as a filmmaker. Admittedly, my opinion of him is forever tarnished by the hot mess he ladled into my lap in 2009 with his Trek abomination. That was when I first decided that he was lazy. He could have made an original science fiction film. Instead, he usurped the name of a globally revered science fiction franchise, had some hack writers throw together a script that isn’t even worthy of being pulped into Communist-grade toilet paper, and smeared his Star Wars-loving paws all over a legacy that is so beyond his reach, it’s pathetic.

Why people wouldn’t let me space him for his crimes, I still don’t understand.

But I digress.

Back to Cloverfield. Most people have probably heard it described by genre fans as “Blair Witch Meets Godzilla.” That’s pretty accurate as descriptions go. Although I think a real match-up of the Blair Witch versus Godzilla would not only be awesome, it would be far more original than this movie. It’s fairly derivative as “monster attacking the city” movies go. The only “inventive” addition made here is the Barf-O-Rama shaky cam “found footage” aspect, which wasn’t really all that new by this point anyway.

What’s most troubling, however, and what makes me label Abrams as lazy, is the fact that there are several scenes in this movie that tap directly into a pre-programmed societal fear that was developed on September 11, 2001. New York under attack. Buildings toppled in the middle of the City That Never Sleeps. Plumes of smoke and debris roaring through the heart of Manhattan. Survivors trying to escape by foot on bridges leading off the island.

Some of the scenes from Cloverfield are almost frame-for-frame images that we witnessed on auto-repeat on all the 24-hour news channels that were covering that awful day in 2001. For Abrams and his band of filmmakers to tap into the still raw emotions of that day for what otherwise would have been just another cheesy monster movie (with CGI that has not aged well at all in some areas) feels cheap…and lazy.

I know that great horror often taps into our darkest fears and exploits them. This, however…I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too critical because I hate Abrams so very much. Although I do remember feeling displeased by these scenes the first time I saw the movie as well. Back in the halcyon days in which I still had hope that Abrams wouldn’t punch Trek fans in the collective naughty bits with a power converter from Tosche station while blaring Beastie Boys the whole time.

Douchey hipster tool.

All that aside, though, is this a good monster movie? Meh. There are far better ones. Far more original ones. At best, it’s brainless background fodder for when you want to watch something that’s not going to require any form of activity from you beyond blinking occasionally. I know that there were a bunch of Web sites out there, giving clues about what the monster was…tapping into the new way of presenting a movie as a holistic “new media” experience. Something that Abrams would try again with his Trek movie…only this time it wasn’t for free. “Hey, fans, does none of this make any sense to you? Well, that’s because you have to go buy the accompanying comic book! Then it probably still won’t make sense…but we’ll be that much richer!”

Okay, now I’m just making myself angry…