Editorials
31 for 31: Through the Decades Challenge – Week One
It’s that time of year! Halloween is only a few brief weeks away. For the time being, for most horror fans, in October it’s as if the rest of the world is finally on our spooky wavelength. Fright flicks flood the multiplexes and our VOD services. Creepy decor of cut-out witches and stringy spider webs adorn every store we frequent. Pumpkin manages to find its way into EVERYTHING, and all is well in the world. Halloween season is also the perfect opportunity to take our favorite pastime of watching horror films and crank it up to 11. A lot of people do variations on 31 films for the 31 days of October, but I like to mix things up a bit. Or, you know…more specifically, make shit difficult for myself.
What do I mean by that? Last year for my “31 for 31,” I assigned a theme for each day of the week that I had to adhere to. For example, Witch Wednesdays meant the film I watched had to be – Yeah, you get it. This year I wanted to branch out a bit. I realized that most of the films I watch are generally from the 80s (with a sprinkling of late 70s). To push myself outside my norm, I’m donning this year’s adventure “31 for 31: Through the Decades Challenge”. Simply put, each day will correlate to a specific decade, and I must watch at least one film a day. No exceptions! Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to make a further set of rules for myself to ensure I’m getting lots of variety. Those rules as follows:
- One film must be watched from each decade (50s – 10’s)
- One film must be watched from a major horror franchise.
- One film must be watched from one of our late-great masters (Craven, Romero, or Hooper).
- One film must be watched that deals with witches or witchcraft.
- One film must be watched that deals with the undead.
- One film must be watched that stars either Christopher Lee or Vincent Price.
- One film must be watched that contains sci-fi/horror elements.
- One film must be watched that is a remake.
- One film must be watched that is from Italy.
- One film must be watched that takes place during Halloween.
There you have it! That’s my unnecessarily complicated guideline for October viewing! If any of you guys want to accept the challenge, feel free to start from today, stick to the rules, and get to watching some scary movies! Let me know what you come up with in the comments below.
October 1st – The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Rules Met: 1, 7
“Three astronauts are launched into space aboard a rocket designed by Professor Quatermass, but the spacecraft returns to earth with only one occupant, Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth). Something has infected him during the spaceflight, and he begins mutating into an alien organism which, if it spores, will engulf the Earth and destroy humanity.”
The Quatermass Xperiment (released in the US as The Creeping Unknown) is an early Hammer Films production, before they’d hit gold with revamped updates of the Universal monsters. Hammer is a HUGE blind spot on my genre history watchlist, and I’m aiming to squeeze a few of their films into this year’s challenge. Quatermass was a great way to start. I knew next to nothing about this film going into it other than it was an adaptation of a hit BBC serial from 1953 (Note: as an adaptation of a TV show, I did not consider this a remake to meet the requirements of Rule #9). The film has wonderful atmosphere as panic and mystery surround the landing of the spacecraft and the one surviving astronaut. The plot slowly builds and morphs in unexpected directions, and an eerie “found footage” sequence is sure to crawl under your skin. This is high on the list of recommendations for fans of B&W horror.
October 2nd – Witchfinder General (1968)
Rules Met: 1, 4, 6
“A disturbing tale of evil set during the English Civil War. When Matthew Hopkins is appointed Witchfinder General by the Puritans under Cromwell, he is empowered to travel the countryside with his henchmen and collect a fee for each witch from whom he extracts a confession – a policy which is exploited to the full.”
Vincent Price in an uncharacteristically nasty role is a highlight for those fascinated by witch trials of the 1600s. The film is loosely based on the real life historical figure, Matthew Hopkins, and feature various scenes of intense torture and persecution of “witches”. Witchfinder General (aka The Conqueror Worm) feels very much in spirit with a lot of the Corman pictures of the time but with a sharper edged mean streak and a total downer ending.
October 3rd – Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
Rules Met: 1, 9
“A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town that’s rife with superstition and distrust of outsiders.”
I was so excited to receive in the mail Arrow’s gorgeous new release of Lucio Fulci’s lesser known giallo, Don’t Torture a Duckling, that it almost immediately got flung into my bluray player. It’s a beautiful transfer of a film that has not been treated that well in the past. While this is far removed from the director’s later intestine-munching efforts, it’s clear here that he is beginning to experiment with effects and extreme violence. The mystery is fairly obvious but even having seen the film before, it’s remarkable how effective the story remains. The paranoid villagers afraid of the things they don’t understand and the subtext of the murders/murderer still carries with it substantial meaning all these years later.
October 4th – Pet Sematary (1989)
Rules Met: 1, 5
“Behind a young family’s home in Maine is a terrible secret that holds the power of life after death. When tragedy strikes, the threat of that power soon becomes undeniable.”
In recent years I’ve seen much ado about how terrifying this adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary is, especially the kinder-trauma that was Zelda. I remember catching this when I was younger on MonsterVision with Joe Bob Briggs. It played as a double feature with the sequel. I also happen to remember not caring for the film but thinking the much-maligned sequel was far more entertaining. Considering my recollection must have been clouded by the ignorance of youth, I decided to revisit Mary Lambert’s adaptation. Well, all I can say is Zelda is pretty creepy. Everything else just felt like a huge mess to me with some of the worst acting I’ve seen in a major Hollywood production. Maybe I’ll give the sequel another chance? Of course, some memories are better left buried.
October 5th – Jason Goes to Hell (1993)
Rules Met: 1, 2
“The secret of Jason’s evil is revealed. It is up to the last remaining descendant of the Voorhees family to stop Jason before he becomes immortal and unstoppable. This is the final (?) battle to end Jason’s reign of terror forever. “
I’ve been a staunch defender of Jason Goes to Hell for some time. I get that it’s not really a Friday the 13th film, but much like the similarly despised A New Beginning, I’ve always felt it functions as a fun, gory slasher flick. Voorhees be damned! That said, this viewing didn’t tickle my fancy as much as I remember in the past. Part of the problem was the version I had available was the R rated theatrical cut. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to seek out the unrated version. For a slasher film, gore is as integral to the entertainment value as the punchline to a joke in comedy. Cut out the punchline and what are you left with?
October 6th – The Toolbox Murders (2004)
Rules Met: 1, 3, 8
“A historic Hollywood hotel houses a supernatural evil. It’s been subdued for decades, but when renovations start, a series of murders take place.”
Tobe Hooper’s The Toolbox Murders is the type of film that we don’t get enough of. Upon its initial release, I recall thinking it was a perfectly entertaining slasher movie with heaps of style and a strong final girl performance from the always reliable Angela Bettis. Upon rewatching the film the other night I realized several things. One, this is truly Hooper’s last great film, and it’s basically Hooper doing a cover of Argento with his own fetishistic flourishes on display. Two, this is exactly the type of film that will be looked back on fondly years from now. Just like us horror fans get excited today about the re-release of some random 80s slasher on bluray, The Toolbox Murders remake will eventually be re-discovered and cherished. It won’t be because it’s revolutionary or wholly unique but, instead, because it takes simple genre conventions and does what it sets out to accomplish perfectly. This is a roller-coaster ride of gory kills, suspenseful chases, and tongue in cheek black humor.
October 7th – Tales of Halloween (2015)
Rules Met: 1, 10
“Ten short stories revolve around ghosts, ghouls, monsters, the devil, aliens, and ax murderers who terrorize a suburb on Halloween night.”
Tales of Halloween is the type of anthology film that will leave some fans ecstatic and others cold. It’s the definition of a mixed bag. Ultimately, there’s something for everyone, from comedy to slow burn horror, Tales has it all. It’s certainly worth a watch, and Neil Marshall’s segment begs for a feature rendition for itself. For me, I found Tales to be a load of fun worth the tradition of an annual Halloween screening.
BONUS WATCH: The Bad Seed (1956)
This was my first viewing of this killer tot thriller. It manages to oscillate between uncomfortable tension, wrenching drama, and high camp. Simply put, I loved it (minus the mega cringe-worthy credits sequence).
There you have it! Week one and done! Are you doing 31 for 31? Do you want to take the “Through the Decades Challenge?” Sound off below, fiends, and Happy Early Halloween!
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
4 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘Late Night with the Devil’ at Home
‘Ready or Not’: Radio Silence Filmmakers Tease the “Absolute Banger” of a Sequel That’s Taking Shape
‘Sting’ Review – Throwback Creature Feature Entertains With an Impressive Practical Monster
“We Built Every Creature” – ‘Alien: Romulus’ Goes Heavy on the Old School Practical Effects!
‘Terrifier 3’: Filming Has Wrapped on Damien Leone’s Christmas Slasher Sequel!
You must be logged in to post a comment.