Sebastian Bendix's Blog, page 3
October 12, 2017
10/12/17 – day twelve of thirty-one days of horror!
What the heck is a Christmas movie doing here, it’s too
early! Well, as fate would have it, Bob Clark, the same man who gave the world a perennial holiday classic
with A Christmas Story also delivered its greatest Christmas horror present
(sorry Silent Night Deadly Night), Black Christmas. It’s a well-known fact that
Clark’s proto-slasher tale had a big influence on John Carpenter’s
genre-starting Halloween a few years later, but to reduce this yuletide tale –
of a sorority house being menaced by a prank-calling psychotic killer – to a
simple stalk-n-slash does it a great disservice. For one thing, there’s a
pitch-black streak of comedy running through Clark’s crazy little movie, aided
immeasurably by a great cast, with stand-outs being a drunken, foxy Margot Kidder,
a tightly wound Keir Dullea, a classy final girl Olivia Hussey, John Saxon as –
you guessed it – a cop and best of all, Martha Gibson as the booze-sneaking
house mother. My wife and I attend the New Beverly theater’s yearly screening
of this holiday classic as part of our Christmas tradition, and its zany 70s
creepiness never gets old. Sadly Clark died in a tragic car accident a few
years back, but thankfully he left us with a Christmas – and Halloween –
miracle, the original (don’t bother with the 2006 remake) Black Christmas!
October 11, 2017
10/11/17 – day eleven of thirty-one days of horror!
How about
something for the kids? Anyone who grew up in the late 70s or early 80s likely
remembers The Watcher in the Woods, a spooky bit of kindertrauma that seemed to
impact anyone who managed to catch it the many times it was broadcast on TV.
Born in the halcyon era where Disney was making live-action genre films for the
young adult crowd, John Hough’s adaptation of the Florence Engel Randall novel
follows an American teenage girl (Lynn-Holly Johnson) who moves to a spooky
Olde English manor with her family (including younger sister Kyle Richards) and
finds it seemingly haunted by the ghostly daughter of the manor’s owner –
played with end-of-her-career crankiness by Bette Davis. I don’t want to get
into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that what starts off as a typical
haunted house story evolves into something far crazier, leading to a baffling
and bizarre climax which – if you happen to have the DVD and check out the
alternate ending – is actually a far less crazy and baffling climax than what was
originally shot. Despite the nuttiness the scares are well realized and
genuinely creepy, a perfect starter-kit spookfest for the monster kid in your
family and a nice revisit for the nostalgic horror veteran.
October 10, 2017
10/10/17 – day ten of thirty-one days of horror!
OK, so every Halloween deserves a campy, so-bad-it’s-good
pic, and you’d be hard pressed to find a more shriekingly dumb but wildly
entertaining horror movie than Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf. This
journey into lycanthropic terror follows the brother of Dee Wallace’s character
from the Howling, played by wooden-plank football star turned actor Reb Brown,
who, along with the help of a clearly slumming it Christopher Lee, follows the
werewolf curse to its place of origin – Transylvania, of course. (Wait… isn’t
that supposed to be where vampires are from?) There he runs afoul of softcore
star Sybil Danning’s werewolf queen and her army of unconvincing wolf-people
who seem to be more interested in her often-exposed boobs than doing anything
particularly scary. And who wouldn’t be? Look, this movie is idiotic and drove
the Howling franchise straight into the toilet, but you have to give director
Philippe Mora credit – he knows how to turn baffling material into something
compulsively watchable. Mora would go on to direct Howling III: The Marsupials
which is even more bugnuts – maybe I’ll whip that one out for next year’s
left-of-field pic. This year kick back to the endlessly repeated theme song
courtesy of unknown goth/new wave band “Babel” and enjoy your sister’s werewolf
boobs.
October 9, 2017
10/9/17 – day nine of thirty-one days of horror!
Every year I choose an anthology TV show to showcase, and
this year homage must be paid to the first and greatest, Rod Serling’s
incomparable Twilight Zone. Though not strictly relegated to horror, the
1959-64 run featured its fair share of terrifying tales, many of which served
as inspiration for the filmmakers that would go on to define the horror in the
next few decades. Of course the Richard Matheson scripted “Nightmare at 20,000
Feet” is an iconic horror story thanks to the show, and who can forget Billy
Mumy as the creepy super-powered brat in “It’s A Good Life”, but the show also
boasts numerous creepy dolls, evil ventriloquist dummies (my personal fave), terrifying
aliens and even Old Scratch himself, the Devil. One of the lesser known
episodes from the final season, “Come Wander with Me”, not only creeped me out
as a kid but gave me the yen la to write murder ballads. The Twilight Zone has
something spooky for everyone, and if you’ve resisted doing a proper marathon
when they pop up on cable TV, do yourself a favor and fire up Netflix streaming
(they’re all up there currently) and take a trip through another dimension, a
dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind!
October 8, 2017
10/8/17 – day eight of thirty-one days of horror!
Ask a Friday the 13th fan what their favorite
Jason Voorhees slashfest is and 9 times out of 10 the answer will be Friday the
13th: The Final Chapter. The reasoning here is simple: Joseph Zito’s
1984 fourquel has the franchises’ most crucial elements: Jason, in the hockey
mask, killing teens, with Tom Savini back to handle the gore. It also has one
of the series’ best casts; young Corey Feldman is here as Jason’s greatest
nemesis Tommy Jarvis, and a pre-Back to the Future Crispin Glover flails his
way through one of the greatest dance sequences ever committed to film. You see
that there’s a little more money being spent this time around – the cinematography
is a step up from the grindhouse grit of the first three films and there are
legit, Hollywood-trained stunt people on set. Zito’s direction is workman and
assured; while that might not seem like a ringing endorsement, he balances the
teen comedy elements effortlessly with the stalk-n’-slash mayhem, delivering a
striking finale that while not the true end of the franchise is nonetheless a
great wrap-up to the first leg of Jason’s gore-soaked journey into legend. If
you watch only one Friday the 13th this Halloween, make it The Final
Chapter.
October 7, 2017
10/7/17 – day seven of thirty-one days of horror!
This scary doll movie – a proud horror subgenre that
deserves more celebration than it gets – arrived last year with little fanfare,
so imagine my surprise to find it’s actually a fun little horror movie! I don’t
want to get too into spoilers because there are some surprising twists, but the
central conceit is that a young American woman (Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan)
lands what she thinks is a nanny job for wealthy British couple, only to find
that she is actually being hired to care for a life-size doll made in the short
pants-wearing image of their dead son. Naturally things around the Olde English
manor start getting spooky, and our plucky heroine begins to think that either
the doll is haunted or she is going insane – or maybe both. Unlike the
over-designed, underused, glory-hogging Annabelle, the evil doll here – named
Brahms after his once living namesake – is creepy without trying too hard and
actually serves a real function in the plot. It’s rare that a new horror film pulls
the rug out from under me but this one managed to, so I say give the lil’ tyke
some love this Halloween. Let’s hear it for the Boy!
October 6, 2017
10/6/17 – day six of thirty-one days of horror!
Perhaps this isn’t a proper straight horror film, but if you’ve
ever been in a rock band that played sketchy venues in the middle of nowhere,
you’d recognize the true terror that is Jeremy Saulnier’s superb 2015 thriller
Green Room. Last year’s tragic death of Anton Yelchin was a real loss to the
world of genre cinema, and this film is yet another example of his outstanding
acting ability and captivating onscreen presence. It helps that he’s supported
by an equally stellar cast that features the comically named Imogen Poots, Alia
Shawkat, Saulnier regular Macon Blair and, best of all, Patrick Stewart as the
main villain – a ruthless and calculating white supremacist. Basically Captain
Picard only evil. If you aren’t familiar
with the premise, Green Room follows the events that unfold when a young punk
band unwittingly witness a murder after performing at a remote Oregon club run
by Nazi skinheads. Saulnier is brilliant at ramping up gut-twisting tension,
using the claustrophobia of the venue to set the stage for explosive, horrific
set pieces and moments of brutality that will stay with you for days. This
Halloween lace up you combat boots and put on you bomber jacket cuz The Green
Room is your backstage pass to terror!
October 5, 2017
10/5/17 – day five of thirty-one days of horror!
We sadly lost zombiemaster George A. Romero this year, but
instead of honoring one of his living dead films, I choose to honor his lesser
celebrated vampire film Martin. Taking a deconstructionist tact on the vampire
myth long before it was fashionable, Romero’s story concerns the vampiric
exploits of Martin, a confused young man who has come to Pittsburg to live with
his highly religious uncle. While stalking local women he finds attractive,
Martin struggles with issues of sexual intimacy while keeping clear of his
uncle’s Van Helsingish proclivities and expressing his frustrations about what
the movies get wrong about vampires to a talk radio DJ. As crazy as this all
sounds, in Romero’s steady, grounded hands it is utterly compelling, his
matter-of-fact presentation heightening the comic absurdity of the blood sucking
scenarios while keeping things suitably horrific. Be warned: there’s an icky
rape factor to the way Martin drugs and drains his female victim, but actor
John Amplas brings a sad innocence to the portrayal that takes some of the edge
off his predatory night moves. This year impress all your friends by passing on
Night of the Living Dead and busting out Martin for your Romero Halloween party
tribute. Also watch for splatter guru Tom Savini in a small role, and Romero
himself as a gregarious chain-smoking priest.
October 4, 2017
10/4/17 – day four of thirty-one days of horror!
I’m not much of an atomic age guy when it comes to horror,
but I do love me some swamp monsters, and Bernard L. Kowalski’s 1959 creature
feature Attack of the Giant Leeches more than fits the bill. I saw this staying
at my dad’s one weekend as a kid (he’d let me stay up and watch late night
horror movies on WLVI 56’s Creature Feature) and it totally freaked me out. For
one thing even as a 7-year-old I knew that leeches were gross, so it stood to
reason that giant ones were that much grosser, and though the rubber monster
suits (clearly worn over scuba divers) look cheesy to my adult eyes, my kid
brain found their tentacled, one-eyed appearance frightening. Something about
the whole production really made my youthful skin crawl, and revisiting it as
an adult I see why – the leeches take an almost sexual pleasure in draining
their Floridian victims (the giant leeches are the result of radiation from
Cape Canaveral!), one of whom is a white trash local vixen played by Yvette
Vickers. This is an AIP picture which means it was produced by loveable
skinflint Roger Corman, though Attack of the Giant Leeches doesn’t seem to hold
the cult cache of some of his later works. It must have had made a pretty big
impression on me as I ended up marrying a Florida girl who’s dad worked at
NASA.
October 3, 2017
10/03/17 – day three of thirty-one days of horror!
Though Don Taylor (and the uncredited Mike Hodges)’s Damien:
Omen II isn’t quite the classy affair that was Richard Donner’s original, it’s
still a decent sequel with enough great shock moments to make it a strong entry
in the evil kid genre. The 1978 film finds devil boy Damien Thorn now a
teenager, biding his time at a military academy, under the care of adoptive
relatives William Holden and Lee Grant. Fans of the Final Destination franchise
will recognize a formula here; the plot is essentially a series of gruesome,
Rube Goldbergian deaths that befall those who seek to stand in the way of
Damien’s gradually realized ascension to anti-christdom. Several of the deaths
are highly memorable – there’s a trapped under ice sequence that assured I
would never play hockey and an elevator bisection that almost rivals the head-spinning
decapitation of the first film. Best of all, Damien: Omen II boasts horror’s
greatest secret weapon, Lance Henriksen, playing a sergeant in Satan’s army who
endeavors to keep young jackal spawn on the fire n’ brimstone path. This
Halloween you’ve got a date with Damien!
