The Seventh Victim (1943)

Finally got around to watching The Seventh Victim (1943) and man, it's terrific. Maybe you knew that, as it's generally regarded as one of the best horror films of all time. That's me, always late to the party! Well, hey, at least I still show up. Now point me to the snack table, and on the way we can talk about this super boss Val Lewton production.

• The Seventh Victim boasts three of my very favorite themes in both cinema and life: Satanism, urban isolation, and ennui!
• Even if you're some kind of freak who thinks this movie stinks, you cannot deny the effect it's had on the genre: its influence is obvious in horror classics Psycho and Rosemary's Baby.
• Speaking of an influence on Psycho, the shower scene in this film is full of dread and menace like nobody's business. NOBODY'S I SAY
• There are some gay undertones in the Frances/Jacqueline relationship, no? It certainly seemed like it could be read that way. Then again, I think most things could be read that way, so.
• Speaking of Jacqueline, let's talk about her white hot, outré Cleopatra wig! It's perhaps the most startling thing in the movie. I looked up actress Jean Brooks because once you see that wig, why wouldn't you? The results were not as I'd hoped, to put it mildly: a few years of floundering outside the studio system until an untimely death of malnutrition caused by alcoholism. I was reminded of Gail Russell, whose equally sad tale I discovered after watching the superior ghost story The Uninvited (1944). It's always shocking when "I wonder if _______ is still around?" and some internetting deliver a depressing life story that's in complete contrast to the perceived glamour of Hollywood's golden era.
• I understand there were a few scenes scrapped during production, and I'd really like to see 'em because this shit wraps up in about ten seconds, and some ideas come out of left field in the final moments.
• Man, what a delightful downer of an ending!

I think perhaps the greatest lesson in all of this is that you really can't go wrong with a Val Lewton horror production. Also, that I love snacks...but unless this is your first time here, this is not surprising.

The Final Frame

This is the final frame of what horror movie?

Nope, still the worst

I know that y'all know that I love The Haunting (1963). I mean, I've said it so many times that even I'm sick of hearing it. It's like, man, we get it, if you could marry The Haunting you would, now let's all move on.

I also know that y'all also know that I loathe the 1999 remake about as much as I adore the original. Why, I have such a vendetta against Jan de Bont's The Haunting, you'd think that it chews its gum too loudly or it murdered my family. Why, I was just talking about it fairly recently!

Last night, however, I had a thought: what if I'm being too hard on it? Is it really so bad, or am I just holding on to a 15-year grudge for no reason? Is there hope that The Haunting '99 and I could ever come to some sort of a ceasefire? To find out the answer to all of these questions, I did something I never imagined that I'd do: I watched it again. I watched it again and tried to keep an open mind, tried not to compare it to the 1963 masterpiece, tried to treat it as its own thing, tried to enjoy it.

I tried.

And guess what? I failed because this movie is so terrible! I found myself completely unable to stop comparing it to the original (and to the book both films are based on, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House) because it's such a...such a...twisted perversion of that film that I can't ignore all of the differences, the oh so wrongness of it. This movie is obscene like that defiled statue in The Exorcist. It's the worst stereotype of an American: it's fat, loud, and stupid. It's an abomination! I've said it before and I'll say it again, because after watching The Haunting again, these sentiments are forever sealed in my heart place: If it were up to me, though, every copy of it would be placed in a big pile, and then the pile would be burned down, and then the ground would be sown with salt.

All that said, the film is not without its highlights. Let us peruse them!

1. Lili Taylor, because Lili Taylor.

2. Virginia Madsen! I'd totally forgotten she makes an appearance, but isn't she just the best? (yes)

3. This guy on the left, who has one word of dialogue.

4. Luke gets fucking decapitated in front of her, and Eleanor responds by calmly saying "Oh no."

5. Goodness gracious but Catherine Zeta-Jones is so pretty.

6. Eleanor's morphing teeth

7. Eleanor's hair vagina

That's it! Those are the highlights. Well, okay, so maybe Eleanor calling Hugh Crain "grandpa" could be a highlight but my god that is just so so so despicable, I can't. I can't.

When it comes to movies, music, any of that stuff, I tend to have a "live and let die" attitude. Everyone likes different things! The heart wants what the heart wants! There's no accounting for taste! You do you, girl! But for fuck's sake, if you think this is a good movie or- Charles Nelson Reilly forfend- you think The Haunting '99 is better than The Haunting '63...you really need to see your doctor because there is absolutely something wrong with you. It could be a blood clot, demonic possession, or worse and I worry about you, get it checked out.

awesome movie poster friday - the JAMIE LEE CURTIS edition!

Sometimes I take Jamie Lee Curtis for granted. It's just not raging all the time, you know? If I see Adrienne Barbeau's name in a film's credits, you can consider my shit lost. Same with Charles Napier and Joan Collins and anyone from the cast of Dallas or Melrose Place. But if JLC comes up, my shit remains totally under control. Maybe it's because I've seen everything in her horror oeuvre countless times, or maybe it's because she's too familiar now that I know so much about her regularity issues. Maybe it's because she's made so many movies I'll simply never see (I mean, Christmas with the Kranks combines like ten things I hate, and that level of negativity can only be partially mitigated by the presence of Ms. Curtis and M. Emmet Walsh).

I was recently reminded, however, that my love for her is an eternal flame burning so bright that even The Bangles are all "Tone it down, Stacie". This is thanks to the JLC documentary on the recent 35th Anniversary Blu Ray edition of Halloween. I know...I know! You could have a very sizable movie library consisting solely of the various releases of that GD movie. Every five years- at least!- there's a new one with fancier packaging or cruddier packaging, more special features or no special features, better picture quality or a plush Lester (I WISH), and so on. This 35th Anniversary edition has to be it, though, the version to end all versions. It has to be. It's chock full of everything (commentaries, the television edit, blah blah blah), so what else is there?

Best of all- and what put me back on the Jamie train- is "The Night She Came Home", an hour-long documentary chronicling Curtis's first and only convention appearance, at HorrorHound 2012. The feature, shot by Curtis's sister Kelly, basically just follows the star around as she arrives and works at the show, posing for photos, signing stuff, and talking with fans. An inconsequential event for those of us relegated to watching it all unfold on a TV screen, perhaps, but, as corny as it may sound, there's a lot of love going on throughout. It made my coal black horror fan heart beat at least one time! And by the end I remembered that despite the dilution of the title "Scream Queen" in recent years, she really is the Super Ultra #1 Scream Queen For Real. How could I ever take her for granted? ILU JLC!

What better way to celebrate than with an Awesome Movie Poster Friday? None. There is no better way. Except pizza.

Halloween

Halloween II

Halloween H20

No, no Halloween: Resurrection posters because fuck Halloween: Resurrection!

Terror Train

Prom Night (what the heck, that Japanese one looks like a car ad)

The Fog (ow, my bursitis is flaring up no wait, that's just my love of The Fog)

Road Games

Mother's Boys (have you seen this? It is some Lifetime Movie-level thriller shit and I love it)

ki ki ki meh meh meh

Came across this yesterday and I was so shocked I almost spat my leftover Thanksgiving stuffing all over my computer screen.

Can you believe this shit? Mind you, I thought that the remake was a big waste of natural resources- no wait...actually, I pretty much wanted to set it on fire- but I'm surprised that instead of hopping down the sequel trail, they're re-reboot-ening.

But then, on the older, wiser, perhaps more boring hand...I find that I do not care. You see, I no longer live in Los Angeles, so my days of press screenings and free screenings and movie openings are past. Having to pay for something, well, that makes me a far more discerning viewer because the idea of spending some of my precious few dollars on another remake of Friday the 13th makes me want to puke. I'll have to wait for it to show up at Redbox or Netflix or something, and I have a feeling there's always going to be something I'd rather watch. But who knows! I've done worse things in the interests of science, so maybe I'll take a reckless plunge when the time comes.

Moreso, however, it got me thinking about slashers in general, their place in the horror movie pantheon, and how much appeal they hold for me these days. Heck, I started Final Girl to talk exclusively about 'em! Now here I am, unable to achieve a metaphorical boner of love or hate for the idea of a new Friday the 13th.

I suppose it's a combination of things. Tastes change, after all, and right now my horror tastes generally run in directions other than "young attractive people are stabbed in creative ways". I say "generally" because hey, every once in a while a new slasher flick comes along and I really dig it. And, of course, I still adore the slashers of mah yoot and indulge in them on the regular. Geez, I wrote a comic about 'em! I guess I've simply come to a place in life where I embrace the freedom of not giving a shit about stuff like this. Or, at least, my Internet Anger tank is running on fumes, so it'd take something particularly heinous- say, a remake of Martyrs starring Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian- to get me all riled up. Even then, though, I think I'd run out of steam pretty quickly. After all, I've seen some of the crappiest remakes to ever crap a crap, and yet...here I am. My love for the original films continues unabated. The moon continues to wax and wane, my haircuts continue to mystify even myself. I just don't see the point of frothing over it beyond an initial ARE YOU KIDDING ME NOOOOOO. Then it's back to Thanksgiving leftovers, you know?

The choice has been chosen

Thanks for all the Film Club suggestions posted both here and on the Final Girl Facebook page. You guys have the best taste, I swear! But this month, there can only be one movie and that movie is...

La residencia (aka Finishing School, aka The House That Screamed)

It's a SHOCKtober placer, having appeared at #301 on the list of films that have scared you the most, and at #229 on your list of favorites. Therefore it's been on my radar for years. Therefore, the time has come. And the whole damn thing is on The YouTubes, so you have no excuses. Give it a watch. Write something up or join the discussion or both! See why everyone* raves about the Final Girl Film Club.

The movie: La residencia

The due date: Tuesday, December 17

The deal: 

1. watch the movie

2. link to Final Girl somewhere in your review

3. email me the link: stacieponder at gmail dot com

4. bask in the warm embrace of your fellow Film Clubbers

If you wrote a review of the film previously, that's totally fine. Just add a link to Final Girl in there somewhere and send it along.

*no one

A call to arms!

So I'm sitting here having the darndest time- THE DARNDEST TIME I SAY- deciding what the next Film Club selection should be. The last couple of weeks have been largely movie-free for me, and now I don't know what I feel like. Supernatural? Classic? Slasher? Something I've seen already? Italian? I just can't figure out my feels.

Help me out! List some suggestions in the comments and we'll see what shakes out. While I can research and find out how readily available a movie might be, I do implore you: consult my reviews list before naming a film to see if I've already written about it.

Here is a picture of the late Macdonald Carey of television's Days of Our Lives to reward you in advance for your efforts.

Wow, a free movie!

So check it out. As some of you may recall, once upon a time I wrote and directed a little horror movie called Ludlow. It was on DVD for a while, but now it is out of print. But DVDs are so last century, amirite? Now you can just download the movie! Hooray. And in hooray-ier news, you can download it and pay what you want! If you want to pay nothing, pay nothing. If you want to pay a dollar, pay a dollar. If you want to pay nothing now and a dollar later, pay nothing now and a dollar later. If you want to pay a dollar now and ten dollars later...oh man, according to my science calculator, the possibilities are endless. Here's the link to download it at Gumroad, yay! And here's the teaser trailer.


I don't know if it's any good, but maybe it's not terrible for being shot in like two days with a crew of one and a budget of about $200. And it's free, so what's the harm? At the least, you'll probably like the terrific soundtrack courtesy of James M. Barry. If you want to read a couple of reviews and check out some making of blog posts I wrote, here you go. Movies, amirite?

PATRICK WILSON STANDING CLUELESSLY IN FRONT OF A SCARY THING - a film by James Wan

Film Club: The Conjuring

It's about time I saw The Conjuring, isn't it? Everyone has had their hands down their pants over this flick since it hit theaters, where it racked up more money than every other horror movie combined. It's the best genre film since forever, director James Wan is single-handedly saving the industry, it's got a 7.6 on IMDb, it's #31 on the What Movies Have Scared You the Most list...man, I would have seen this months ago if I wasn't such a creepy recluse! Now that The Conjuring and I have gotten conjugal, how oh how do I feel?

Purportedly based on true events, The Conjuring tells the story of the Perron family, who seek the help of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren to rid their house of some seriously troublesome malevolent force. Kids are yanked out of bed, doors open and close, knocks are heard when there ain't no one knocking...pretty standard modus operandi for a ghost poltergeist demon, pretty standard horror movie stuff. So why is everyone flipping out over The Conjuring?

Well, everyone is flipping out because the film is, quite simply, designed to scare you. At times, it works- I mean, noises coming from somewhere in the dark is super effective, duh. If the subject matter is treated seriously- and The Conjuring takes itself really, really seriously- then the audience is bound to respond. One sequence in particular had me...hmm, how to describe, hmm. Okay, if The Conjuring had a hand, one sequence would have had me eating right out of the palm of it: the scene that finds Perron matriarch Carolyn (Lili Taylor) investigating those noises in the dark. Super effective! Hooray!

But man, I dunno. The rest of it seemed so calculated, so obvious, a bit like one of those haunted houses that pop up around Halloween. You know, you walk through it and it's dark and creepy and you're clinging to the shirt of the person in front of you and your stomach is twisted up in knots...but then part of you knows exactly how everything will play out. You see are dark corner and you think, "Okay, so that's where the person will jump out at me." You walk by a closed door and you know it's going to pop open. There's nothing wrong with this, and it's fun to get on board and just go with it. But ultimately, rather than burrow under your skin and stay with you, it's sort of fleeting and cheap and hollow. Like some of my best relationships! Heyoooooo!

It's to the film's detriment that Wan establishes a standard routine to the scares: there's a lure, a false scare, and then the real scare, ahh! It doesn't help that he seems reluctant to let a moment linger. Instead, there's always a music sting or a jump scare to wrap things up. On the rare occasions he allows a scene to progress slowly, it's terrific: when a terrified young girl whispers to her sister that there's someone standing in the dark behind her bedroom door, it's the stuff of childhood nightmares played out. I wanted more of that, the creeping dread, and less of the startles, if you know what I mean.

I have no idea whether or not Ed and Lorraine Warren are a couple of sheisters, capitalizing on peoples' fears and gullibility. Mind, I say "I have no idea" while knowing that they undoubtedly are...it's just that I find a world where demons are a possibility much more interesting than one where they are not, so a part of me will always entertain the notion that the Warrens were on the up and up. Regardless, The Conjuring doesn't quite know what to do with the couple, and this is where the film really falls apart. We get some backstory (which also allows James Wan to once again confront his fear of creepy-looking dolls) and see them lecturing, sure, but there are only hints at how their demon-busting ways have affected their lives. There's too much on the Warrens, but also not enough. We know God brought them together, as they say, and we know that they've seen some shit...so why are they so friggin' boring?

The Conjuring is essentially set up like a porno: the scenes between the "good stuff" are total throwaways, the ones you fast-forward through to get to the sexy times (or, in this case, the scary times). When Carolyn attends one of the Warrens' lectures and then tries to convince them to investigate her house, it is some "Who ordered the sausage pizza?" shit! Basically, it's this:

Carolyn: Some weird stuff is happening at my house. Will you come look?
Ed and Lorraine: No, sorry...
Carolyn: Please?
Ed and Lorraine: Okay.

And the fact that somehow, Lorraine has done some research and solved every single mystery and figured out every single clue and explains it all to Ed in 15 seconds? You get the idea that the film was originally a bunch of scary ideas, and then right before shooting, everyone realized they needed some scenes in between.

Girl, and don't even get me started on that exorcism.

Okay, do get me started.

So, exorcisms are a big deal, right? There needs to be research and documentation. Permission must be granted from on high (if not from the Exorcist Committee of the Vatican or what have you). They are serious business and only once in a while are they ever performed. When they are performed, it's by, you know, an exorcist. The Conjuring makes note of all of these facts...and then craps all over them. Here's how you can perform an in-home, priestless exorcism today, according to this movie:

1. Believe in God
2. Read from "the book"
3. Sprinkle some holy water
4. Remind the possessed person about something nice

That's it! The possessed person will then barf out the demon, problem solved. I don't see why Fathers Merrin and Karras got so worked up about the MacNeil affair and why it took such a heavy toll on them, or why they had to take breaks. That shit looks easy!

I know, it seems like I'm harshing on this movie. Maybe I am a little bit. I thought the "so this one Salem witch was a real witch, honest" angle to be somewhat distasteful. As I said, the scare pattern took away much of its power, and I spent the last 20 minutes or so just waiting for it to be over. I did have some fun with it, but I'm sorry to say that my hands are decidedly outside of my pants over The Conjuring.

EDITED TO ADD: For real, can someone explain to me how this was a demon and not just the ghost of the witch? Is it because she was all "Go, Satan!" so he made her a demon? Or, what, ghosts can't possess people and the film needed a possession? I am for real confused.

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vinomadefied

fun-o-rama

My coffee doesn't seem to be kicking in very hard this morning, so I figured I'd wake myself up with a little bit of rage by watching the trailer for the 1999 remake of The Haunting.

I know some people like the remake, so I thought, "I've only seen it the one time. It does have a good cast...I will check out the trailer- perhaps I've judged it too harsh--" and then the trailer began and OH MY GAHD, they get it all so SO wrong with the very first line! By the time 15 seconds have passed, you realize that this movie will poop all over the legacy of the original film. Check it out:


"There once was a house...a bright, happy home. Something bad happened...now it sits all alone."

Forget for a moment how poorly written that is, how absolutely unterrifying it is. Calling Hill House a "bright, happy home"? What kind of fuckery is that? Hill House was never a bright, happy home. Hill House was different from all the other cinematic (and literary) haunted houses that came before because it was an evil place, "born bad". It's not the Overlook Hotel, full of the ghosts borne of misdeeds past; it's "vile", an abomination. While "the dead are not quiet" there, it's not so much that it's "haunted" by ghosts as it is the haunt itself.

To get that very concept wrong...I guess this remake was doomed from the start. As I said, I know folks out there like it and that's great! Like what you like. Liking things is good. If it were up to me, though, every copy of it would be placed in a big pile, and then the pile would be burned down, and then the ground would be sown with salt.

I know that you know that I really love The Haunting. Like, really. But look, I just watched the new Blu Ray and it was beautiful and it's one of my favorite films and it's so good and sad and sorry I just love it OKAY (although geez, it's the film's 50th Anniversary and Warner Brothers really dropped the ball with this bare-bones release).