We all go a little mad sometimes… and, for me, I’ve gone hog-wild on the horror films this October. Here’s a roll-up of some of the classics (20+ years at least). Some stretch the concept of classic, of course (I’m looking at you, ’80s movies). And good taste. But that’s Halloween for ya!
This is part 1 since it’s already too long a list half-way through spooky season.
1957 – The Curse of Frankenstein – Hammer’s first technicolor Frankenstein film starring Peter Cushing as the good doctor and Christopher Lee as the creature. Didn’t realize Lee played the monster in the Hammer films – just knew his rep as the Count. But I enjoyed this one well enough. Cushing makes the movie with his posh, casual cruelty. He’s a victim of his own elitism. And Lee’s creature… he’s fine in it but its really the art direction and makeup that work. I can imagine his ghoulish, grisly appearance was quite shocking for the 1950s.
1958 – Horror of Dracula – Christopher Lee’s first Dracula picture with Hammer Horror. Bright red technicolor vampire action… only I wish it was a little scarier and a lot less stodgy and British (shocking, I know). Dracula seemed to run from everything more than a creature of the night aught to… kept wondering why he was so afraid of these stiff upper lip British dudes who kept chasing him around…
1960 – The Little Shop of Horrors – the original Roger Corman movie that was turned into a stage play and then the classic 80s film musical. I laughed quite a bit at this kind of poorly made film. It’s written and directed by Corman and I never thought of him as funny… but the direction is bad and that’s what I usually think about when I think about Corman. But it was cool to see and it had the courtesy of only being about 70 minutes long.
1975 – The Amusement Park – a recently discovered PSA from, of all people, George Romero. Seems a Lutheran society wanted to highlight the plight of the elderly and hired Romero to film something. What he turned in was a bizarre fever dream of an old man visiting an amusement park and experiencing all sorts of ageism. It’s a surreal nightmare of a society gone mad at times… and others a heart-rending piece of sadness. It got the job done – it highlight the plight of the elderly – but it freaked out the Lutherans who didn’t pick it up for distribution. It was recently rediscovered though and now we have a very weird PSA in the guise of a short horror film. And that’s pretty cool.
1980 – Terror Train – Unimportant slasher film that is pretty forgettable. Only interesting thing is that it’s one of Jamie Lee Curtis’ scream queen films. Since the other films are Halloween, Prom Night, and The Fog, this is clearly lower on the list. And there’s not much to say for it other than it has some decent suspense moments in a story that’s otherwise super full of padding.
1982 – The Slumber Party Massacre – not sure if this is an 80s classic slasher or just a VHS box cover I saw a bunch of times at the store but never rented. It’s a pretty typical slasher flick of the time except it was originally written as a satire but was filmed seriously. Except you can kind of see the in-jokes and satire bubbling to the surface occasionally. If you aren’t too distracted by the serious amount of boobs in the flick (yep, definitely an 80s slasher flick).
1982 – Piranha 2: The Spawning – we’re torturing mercilessly the word “classic” now… but there’s something to be said for this trash allegedly being directed by one Mr. James Cameron. Apparently his level of actual involvement is debated. And I can believe he was locked out of the editing bay or perhaps was fired two weeks into filming. No obvious craft from an excellent craftsman is evident in this terrible movie. But I’ve seen almost all his other films, it was about time I subjected myself to his flying fish movie. Huzzah.
1989 – Begotten – This messed up movie’s reputation preceded it and that’s why I wanted to watch. I’d seen pieces of the opening scene and was interested. Looking forward to a creepy, surreal, disturbing, f’ed up imagery. The whole movie looks like an overexposed, grainy film shot on a waterlogged Super 8 where something is often happening and it looks super messed up… but it isn’t always clear what. And then the movie just kept happening with very little change. Just a bunch of people in robes tormenting a guy who may or may not have his internal organs coming out. It got to the point of repetitive doldrums that it didn’t matter if the movie was giving the impression something awful was happening because I was too bored to care.
1989 – Tetsuo: The Iron Man – this film is very similar to Begotten but so much better. It’s Japanese freakout cinema – an experimental film, a biomechanical nightmare that often doesn’t have a plot but has moving images, hyperkinetic editing, and badass soundtrack. It’s one messed up series of images after another that you just live in and experience, but maybe not understand. Decidedly adult even if you can’t always tell what you’re looking at… whatever it is is pretty messed up.