100 Scariest Movie Moments: #95 Jurassic Park

It's been over a week since I re-watched Jurassic Park, and I've spent much time since then trying to figure out what to say about the film horror-wise. What strikes me about the movie though is not its horror value, but the fact that it shows how incredibly lazy most blockbusters are in terms of writing, effects, and acting. Because in defiance of the usual low standards, this was a movie that had real effort put into it.

There's a real build-up to the action, and that build-up never once feels like padding. All of the actors seem to actually care about the project. Even the children, usually the worst part of any film with kids in it, manage to give acceptable performances.

However, that's not what I'm supposed to be talking about, is it? In terms of horror the biggest problem with this film is that almost every shot that could be considered even slightly chilling has become so well-known through pop-cultural osmosis that the shock is lost. Indeed, the only film I can think of which I can confidently say has been parodied more than Jurassic Park is The Godfather.

The obvious scenes are the original T-Rex attack (if I need to explain why being attacked by a Tyrannosaurus is scary, then something is wrong), and the Raptors hunting the kids. Both of these scenes get credit for making the predators act more-or-less like real predators, thus not breaking my suspension of disbelief. In far too many dinosaur films (including the sequels to this one) gigantic predatory dinosaurs were willing to put far too much effort into trying to kill and eat humans, who would have been little more than a snack to them. Here, though, the T-Rex does little more than run a short distance to kill humans and poke some glass with his nose. The Raptors, on the other hand, are small enough to justify a very enthusiastic hunt. Even the Raptors, the classic villains of the franchise, are clearly no more malicious than any other hunter.

Beyond that, I have very little to say other than “Jurassic Park is awesome!” It's a film that should be enjoyed not simply by horror movie buffs, but by anyone who is capable of enjoying films.

Wednesday Review: The Vatican Tapes

This movie is terrible. It appears that the recent streak of good horror movies Hollywood's been producing has finally come to an end, and we've gotten one of the biggest stinkers I've seen in quite some time. It doesn't even feel professionally made.

I imagine this is the kind of film you'd get if Tommy Wiseau directed a movie, while working with a script written by someone else. The story mostly makes sense, but the scenes lack build-up, and often seem to begin or end with no rhyme or reason. I suspect at some point this was supposed to be a Found Footage movie, because we periodically jump to the POV of various cameras, but without the Found Footage aspect this is simply a distraction.

I don't want to give the impression that I dislike director Mark Neveldine. I enjoyed both Crank and Gamer as stupid fun. However, both of those films were based around constant action, and I suspect that's what left him so unable to craft suspense or build-up effectively: they're not elements he's used to using.

The actors really don't help the situation. They're not bad actors, but I never got the impression that any of them particularly cared about this project, and they usually look downright bored. Even Djimon Hounsou can't make his scenes fun.

The movie revolves around a girl stuck in a conflict between her over-protective Catholic father and her non-religious live-in boyfriend. The two most important men in her life don't get along, and have wildly different values. Then, she cuts her finger and it gets infected. Then she becomes possessed, which may or may not be related to her finger. It speaks poorly of the movie that reading back over my own plot-summary was somehow more frightening than watching the events unfold in the movie.

I don't recommend this movie, at all. I cannot imagine anyone enjoying it, and even ironically there's nothing that jumps out at you as funny. For the love of God if you're thinking of seeing this, just see TheGallows a second time.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #96 The Birds

I can't help but wonder if anyone with any knowledge of cinema has ever watched The Birds without comparing it to Psycho. While the movie does seem to remain in the public consciousness, at least enough to be sporadically parodied, it also had the shit luck of being made by one of the greatest filmmakers of the twentieth century three years after he'd completed his magnum opus. It also doesn't help that the Magnum Opus was practically put together with barbed wire and spit, as the studio attempted to punish Hitchcock for not making the movie they wanted him to make by cutting his budget. The Birds, on the other hand, has a budget roughly four times higher than Psycho, but still can't hold a candle to it.

If the movie does exceed Psycho in any area, it’s in the aesthetics. The movie is unquestionably beautiful. It creates a fantastical aesthetic in which people in fur coats and sweaters on hot, sunny days are not even allowed to sweat, let alone have their beauty tarnished before the evil comes.

As with Psycho, the film opens with the appearance of a totally different movie. A practical joker named Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), and a lawyer named Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) have an encounter in a store that sells pet birds. He informs her, knowing of her record of criminal pranks, that she should be in prison. And she, being attracted to him, decides to track him down and bring him some love birds for his young sister (Veronica Cartwright).

Part of me does wonder how that film might have played out. It's unusual today to see a romance that's not a comedy, so this tone is strange. It obviously doesn't last, though.

It’s hardly a spoiler at this point to say that she finds Brenner at his mother's farmhouse, and then an army of birds attack. I don't mean to imply that there's no build-up to this event. A few comments are made about the behavior of birds, and Melanie is injured by one that swoops down and scratches her. Then, there's an initial attack on birthday party of Mitch’s sister, and another attack off screen, followed by a lull. Next, there's an attack on the school, and several other residents at the bar mention similar occurrences before there's an all-out war.

In my view far too much has been said about the decision to never explain the Bird's behavior in this film. For some, that makes this movie scarier. For me, it affects the movie not one bit. I can say that a scientist running into the house to explain why this is happening might be a bit distracting, but I find that an explanation for the birds' behavior is completely superfluous to the fear elicited by it.

Far more significant is the pattern of the behavior. Towards the end of the movie the birds stop attacking and simply rest by the sides of the road, allowing the characters to escape the farmhouse and head for the city as the final shot. The earlier, smaller attacks however leave open the possibility that this is just another lull. And that mere moments after the film ends, the characters could all be torn apart.

The film is frightening, yes. It feels almost as if it’s an idyllic still-life that has been disrupted by terror. It certainly never hits home in the way that Psycho does. It never feeling as if the characters or places represent the real world, or even a facsimile of it. However, representing reality was hardly Hitchcock's intention.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #97 Cat People

I'm less than impressed with this film. I feel it’s a good idea for a movie, but there comes a point at which a horror film becomes too subtle. Parts of Cat People feels more like a discussion of a horror film the characters saw earlier that evening than an actual horror film in itself.

The basic premise is that a young Serbian immigrant named Irena (Simone Simon) believes that if she falls in love she'll turn into a panther and kill her lover, and she's just gotten married. From there on we establish that animals are afraid of her. She feels an attraction to a panther in the zoo, to whom she feeds a dead bird who died of fright after seeing her. Eventually, Irena’s husband (Kent Smith) falls in love with another woman (Jane Randolph). And he feels torn between his responsibility to take care of his wife, who he believes to be mentally ill, and his desire to be with his new lover.

Having Irena actually go to a psychiatrist is really the kiss of death for this movie. Because while he does serve a role in the film, attempting to seduce her and thus drawing her wrath on himself towards the end in one of the few truly frightening moments, his talks with her frequently serve to make her emotional turmoil too explicit, leaving nothing for the viewer to interpret.

I've heard many people say that this movie is brilliant for its subtlety, making it uncertain if Irena is actually becoming a panther or merely imagining that she is. However, my opinion is that this is total bullshit. Several scenes leave no other interpretation, unless a panther literally just happened to wander into the room and attack someone. Specifically, a panther with a strange fear of crosses.

The movie ends with Irena, having attempted to kill her husband and his lover, allowing herself to be killed by the zoo's panther. The husband says “she never lied to us,” and he and his new lover walk off. Apparently a bit of reflection at the end would be too much to ask in a film that was otherwise obsessed with analyzing itself.

Do I hate this movie? No. But do I find it memorable or interesting? Equally no.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #98 Zombie

In reviewing this movie, I choose to use the name from the original list, “Zombie.” This movie was originally released as a cash-in sequel to Dawn of the Dead, called “Zombi” in Italy, under the title “Zombi 2.” Since there was no “Zombi 1,” in US or UK markets it was rebranded as “Zombie” in the US and “Zombie Flesh Eaters” in the UK. Although the sequels were still released as “Zombie 3” and “Zombie 4,” which I'm sure back in the days before the internet left many a film buff searching desperately for “Zombie 2.” The movie was also shot in both English and Italian, simply because they had both American and Italian actors who didn't speak each others' languages, and then released the film with Italian and English dub tracts. So no matter what language you choose to watch the movie in, there will be lips out of sync.

The plot deals with two stories. For the first, a boat floats into New York harbor, devoid of passengers. The daughter of the boat's owner (Tisa Farrow), along with a reporter (Ian McCulloch), must journey to a mysterious island to investigate what happened to them. In the other plotline on the island, a doctor (Richard Johnson) is fighting a zombie plague... or investigating it for science... The storylines come together about halfway through the movie, with the daughter's arrival on the island.

It's fairly interesting that this movie puts emphasis on the uncertainty as to the origin of zombies, presenting the characters as debating them as supernatural or the product of a disease. This definitely sets it apart from more modern fare which goes immediately to the viral theory. (For anyone who’s read the original Walking Dead comics, the idea of zombies not being viral is considered a major plot twist). This arguably makes the movie work well as a sequel to Night of the Living Dead (as an extension of its status as a sequel to Dawn), where the uncertainty was presented, but not dwelt upon (Primarily because Romero was dealing with characters who neither knew nor cared where the zombies came from).

The movie is also distinguished from more modern horror films by its emphasis on individual zombies, each of which is presented as a real threat to the protagonists. While they're still slow, it is shown that they are at least as strong as humans, and can do real bodily harm without biting. One infamous scene has a zombie pull a woman's eye into a long splinter of wood while trying to drag her towards him. Whether this makes them more frightening than modern zombie hordes (which do, eventually, make an appearance) is really up to you. Although personally, I found it a bit contrived that the writers had to continuously find ways to put humans in close quarters with one or a small number of zombies.

If the movie excels in one category though, it’s in awe. This is most likely a result of it being produced before the wave of zombie films had fully hit. But the characters in this movie never appear as if what they're seeing was anything short of mind-blowing and horrifying. The material isn't used for humorous effect, none of the elements of the horror are glossed over, nor are any characters dispatched without any real weight behind their deaths. Even towards the end, when zombies are being gunned down, you understand how hard it is for the protagonists to open fire on the reanimated corpses of innocent people. It's that weight, especially towards the end, that does succeed in making Zombi an effective film.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #99 Creepshow

There are certain ideas that seem to be recycled every so often, which everyone is expected to treat as if they're incredibly original. I don't simply mean “comic book movies.” I mean things as specific as “a tribute to EC Comics horror stories." Just to name the movies I know of that used this formula: Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt (3 or 4 films, depending on how you count them, and two TV shows), Creepshow (3 films, two with the original creators), Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie (the unofficial Creepshow 3), and Trick 'R Treat. Sadly, in my view, the best by far is Trick 'R Treat, which is also among the least known. But, I wanted to start this writing by highlighting the fact that the gimmick of Creepshow has been done many times. Even removing the films that came after Creepshow from the list, it was still the third. (The original Tales form the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror movies were made roughly a decade earlier). Creepshow, however takes the tribute more literally than most, showing actual panels and coloring backgrounds to display emotions at key moments.

Moving on from the issue of originality to the issue of quality, I have mixed feelings. The movie is set as a frame-story and I'm uncertain how much to discuss in terms of plot. A little boy (Joe King) gets his comic taken away by his abusive father (Tom Atkins), who throws it in the trash. At the end, the boy kills his father with a Voodoo Doll that he ordered from the comic. What happens in between is a bit unclear, but best as I can understand a witch is letting the little boy experience the stories directly, since he didn't get the read them. (Just go with it. If I try to explain what's happening then I'll never talk about anything else in this review).

As with the original comic series, the stories tend to act as cautionary tales about the evils of patricide, revenge, racism, and so forth. The tones of the stories also vary on the scale of comedy and horror, with Stephen King personally starring in the most comedic as a hillbilly turned into a plant by a meteor. However, pretty much all the stories have an element of camp to them.

This movie was placed on the list primarily because of one story, “They're Creeping Up On You,” which is the unquestionably the most serious in the film. The humor is derived solely from the eccentricities and prejudices of Upson Pratt (E.G. Marshall); the racist, germophobic executive, and the main character of the story. This was selected as the “movie moment” to highlight for good reason. It's the only story that I regard as truly disturbing.

The story is a metaphor for the way Pratt sees other humans. He lives in a “bug-proof, germ-proof apartment,” struggling to protect himself from vermin, both of the two-legged and six-legged variety. He mocks a rival executive whose company he was taking over, and he openly insults the black maintenance worker who was sent to help him deal with his bug problem. All the while he goes around his apartment killing cockroaches that have somehow continued to get in. Naturally, the roaches become more and more numerous, until the entire apartment is eventually flooded, killing him.

This movie, for the most part, is just gory fun. Most of the segments are enjoyable if you don't take them too seriously. And yeah, if you're a horror fan, you should see it.

Wednesday Review: The Gallows

My first Wednesday, and my first Wednesday Review (wow, I'm creative with that title). Why Wednesday? Halfway between the other two reviews for the week, so why not? Since Wednesday Reviews will be films still in theaters I'll try to give less spoilers, and I won't break my neck trying to identify every actor. I've only seen these films once, and the wikipedia entries are likely incomplete, so I'd probably get some actors wrong otherwise..

I feel like the Found Footage genre is one of the most misused in cinema today. This is sad, because the style has so much potential. It's as if the filmmakers forget that we're supposed to be watching edited footage presented to us by someone interested in the events. This means anything boring or irrelevant should be edited out, and narration could be used to explain known events that weren't filmed and exposit the narrator's theories about unknown events. Anyone who's seen The Last Broadcast can tell you that making the editor a character works.

That said, however, The Gallows at least manages to deliver scares, and avoid the boredom of the Paranormal Activity series. It's actually something of an oddball for Blumhouse, which seems to make horror films exclusively about horrible things happening to people who were already severely depressed. That kind of melancholy acting can work some of the time in horror, but it was really starting to get old. In this film, however, most of the characters are varying shades of unlikeable, but they at least seem to be relatively happy teenagers before the evil arrives.

The film does have two things really going for it: the atmosphere, and the use of Nothing is Scarier. The film is about a group of High School students who break into their school in the middle of the night to wreck the set for a school play. The jock drafted as the play's lead doesn't want to do it, and hopes to get the whole thing canceled. However, over twenty years earlier another boy was killed in an accident during the same play, and the teens find themselves locked in and under attack by the student's hangman-hooded ghost.

The environment of a school after hours is creepy. It's an environment we all relate to, and without students and lights it's just looks wrong. The sense of “they shouldn't be here” is drilling into our brains through the entire movie. At the same time, the ghost isn't seen until near the end, but his actions are. Noises echo through the school, and objects move inexplicably. This is build-up done right.

While the ghost is seen, he's saved mostly for the end. I think the end hurts the film, however, as he goes from unseen to overused in the final twenty minutes or so, and is seen far too clearly. He was far scarier when he was cloaked partially in shadows, or not seen at all.

The final twist of the movie worked for me. It was specific enough to give us a final shock, while vague enough to leave us asking questions. It didn't blow me away or anything, but it did leave me wanting another viewing of the film when it comes to Netflix.

2015 has been a good year for horror. This film is probably fairly low on the scale of 2015 horror movies, not holding a candle to It Follows, and arguably also worse than Insidious Chapter 3 and the Poltergeist remake. Had it been released in 2014, however, it probably would have been among the best of the year, blowing away Annabelle and Ouija. I'm not sure what's changed, but it's changed for the better very quickly.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #100 28 Days Later

The plot of 28 Days Later: A man named Jim, played by Cillian Murphy wakes up to find England has been overrun by zombies. These aren't the traditional zombies, though. They're infected with the so-called “Rage Virus,” which makes them easier to kill (they're alive, anything that will kill a human will kill them), but at the same time, allows them to be fast, strong, and highly aggressive

Re-watching this movie, I found it interesting that the scariest scene is one that was not even highlighted in the 100 Scariest Movie Moments special. It was the opening scene in which a group of animal rights activists attempted to free chimps from a medical research facility. And a single researcher attempted to stop them, knowing what they were about to unleash. I'm uncertain if a hypothetical person who didn't know what this movie was about would be as terrified. But understanding that those activists were bringing about the apocalypse certainly gave me chills as the researcher screamed for them to stop, and then attempted to bludgeon the first one of them to have been bitten to death, knowing there was no other way to stop the infection.

There are several alternate endings to this movie. But the one that was chosen was the most unambiguously uplifting, with all three of the main characters who made it to the halfway point of the film surviving (two previous main characters having been killed off after being well-developed), and the zombie plague eventually dying of starvation (It was established earlier in the movie that this would almost certainly happen).

I find it interesting that, for all the complaining I've heard of happy-endings being tacked-on to otherwise depressing movies, this one works. This is most likely because the director always intended a happy ending, and thus the movie builds well to this point. In the original ending our protagonist Jim (Cillian Murphy) died, and his two companions, Selena and Hannah (Naomie Harris and Megan Burns), walked away. Danny Boyle originally filmed this scene to be bitter-sweet, giving the audience an idea that they would carry on and survive. But, too many audiences felt that they were marching to their deaths, causing Boyle to reject this ending.

Indeed, this movie would be ironically empty with a downer ending. While the movie is both terrifying and depressing, the protagonists throughout the film find ways to be smart without abandoning their humanity as we see numerous scenes of them having fun, eating, and joking around to remind us that they have something to live for. When we finally encounter a crazy band of Survivalist soldiers, led by Christopher Eccleston, they're portrayed not as smart, but as being downright crazy. The protagonists will kill anyone who’s infected in a heartbeat, but the soldiers have somehow developed the idea that they need to start raping any females to repopulate the human race effective immediately. And at one point a soldier points out that there's no way the virus could have possibly exited the UK, so humanity as a species is in absolutely no danger. He is completely ignored.

The lighter, more optimistic side of the film does nothing to make it less terrifying, as people we like are infected twice, and we know they have to die immediately. The film is scarier because the stakes are higher, and you feel that what happens to the characters actually matters.

There is not a single frame of this movie that is not glorious in both its horror, and its beauty.

Hello, Blogger!

Ah, my introductory post. This is an awkward one. On the one hand, no one has had time to find me yet, and I have my doubts that if people ever do find me anyone will bother to look back and find this post. On the other hand, do I really want to just dive right in without explaining who I am?

I decided a while ago that, unless this blog takes off in a major way, I want to be anonymous. So, I'm just Serpenthrope. You can call me Mr. Thrope, if you so desire. Or Serpy. Or whatever shortening you find most appropriate.

I'd like to say that I was raised on horror films, but sadly I wasn't. Until late High School I was very sheltered, living in a conservative home in the rural South. Shortly before I graduated, however, I happened to catch a special on Bravo called The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. I think it was the first year it aired, although Bravo played it every year at Halloween for some time (they may still play it, I don't really do television anymore). Something about that special stuck with me over the years, and as I went through college I found myself watching, and eventually actively seeking out, films from that list.

A few years ago I made it my goal to see every film on that list, and I made on-again-off-again attempts to seek them out. Then, a bit over a year ago, having seen a bit over half of them, I decided to up the ante: rather than simply watching them all, I wanted to write reviews of each of them. Maybe it seems a bit silly, but the idea appealed to me.

So I spent over a year on that project. Seeking out every last one of them by any means necessary (Amazon, Netflix, youtube, borrowing old VHSes from friends).

Now, at long last, they're ready! And I can enter to blogger community with a gigantic buffer!

 

I should note that while the special focused on key “moments” in the films, I do not. I considered the list my jumping-on point for the horror community. What I find memorable about films may not be the same as what others do.

My original plan was to release three a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. However, I've changed my mind about this. Instead, I will do one Monday, one Friday, and keep Wednesdays in reserve if I want to review a more recent film, or discuss some other horror-related subject. That way all my material won't automaticaly be over a year old.

I should also let everyone know that my rule for my Monday and Friday reviews is that I must have seen the film twice. This does not apply to Wednesday reviews, since I'm not paying to see a film twice in the theatre to review it. So, I apologize for inevitable errors in my Wednesday reviews.

  

With that, I suppose I've summed myself up. Any questions? Ask away! First review on Monday.