Editorials
31 for 31: Through the Decades Challenge – Week 3
It’s almost time for Halloween which means it’s time to watch a crap ton of horror flicks! This year with my 31 films in 31 days of October 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.
After last week I was worried that I might have made my rules for this year’s challenge a tad too restrictive. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ve still crammed in plenty of classics, films that I’ve always loved and simply needed a good reason to rewatch, and and an undiscovered gem or two.
October 15th – House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Rules Met: 1, 6
“A millionaire offers $10,000 to five people who agree to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with him and his wife.”
After revisiting the remake last week, I realized I’d never seen the original House on Haunted Hill in its entirety. While William Castle was a true genius in the various ways he hocked his films, the gimmick attached to Haunted Hill is one of the best. During one of the climactic scenes, a plastic skeleton would go flying across the theater audience, suspended by a string. The film itself is cheeky fun, but manages to shoot itself in the foot by explaining away every supernatural occurrence while still expecting the audience to buy into the mythos, unlike the remake which balances both fairly well. Of course, Vincent Price is his always delightful self as the hateful millionaire offering up thousands of dollars to total strangers.
October 16th – Horror Castle (1963)
Rules Met: 1, 9, Bonus 6
“Women are being tortured to death with various torture devices in the dungeon of an old castle by a deformed, hooded, holocaust survivor.”
Knowing I needed to fit in an Italian flick, I was very close to rewatching one of Mario Bava’s classics, The Whip and the Body. Instead, I decided to dive deeper into the gothic horror cycle of the 60s. While I’ve pretty much torn through a majority of the Gialli from the 70s and most of the gore-fests of the 80s, I didn’t realize how many Italian directors were tackling the genre in the 60s outside of Bava. Director Antonio Margheriti is one such filmmaker. Horror Castle starts slow but quickly escalates with one intense set piece after the other. The gore is surprisingly brutal for a film made at this time with one set-piece involving an ancient torture device and ravenous rat being particularly revolting. It’s hard to go wrong with this Italian gothic horror film with Christopher Lee playing a possibly gay ex-Nazi, a “living skeleton”, and some truly wicked effects work.
October 17th – Season of the Witch (1972)
Rules Met: 1, 3, 4
“A bored, unhappy suburban housewife gets mixed up in witchcraft and murder.”
Season of the Witch began Romero’s foray into placing social commentary at the forefront of his narrative. It’s not subtle in the slightest. The opening scene is a trippy dream sequence where Joan (or Jack’s Wife, the original title of the film) is led carelessly by her husband through a park. He eventually leashes her up like a dog, swats at her with the newspaper, and boards her up in a kennel. This housewife is not living life to her fullest potential. Thankfully, a little bit of hoodoo voodoo might be the key to setting her free. This is certainly an overlooked film in Romero’s oeuvre. It’s a strong dramatic piece that toes the line with the supernatural. Season of the Witch is a captivating film that tackles witchcraft in the same grounded way that Romero did with vampires in Martin.
October 18th – Halloween 2 (1981)
Rules Met: 1, 2, 10
“While Sheriff Brackett and Dr. Loomis hunt for Michael Myers, a traumatized Laurie is rushed to hospital, and the serial killer is not far behind her.”
With recent news that everything beyond the original would be discarded in the forthcoming reboot of John Carpenter’s seminal slasher flick, I thought it a great time to revisit Halloween 2. There was a lot stacked against this follow up to one of the greatest horror films of all time. Carpenter didn’t really want to be involved, the production was rushed, and Jamie Lee Curtis’s wig is far more frightful than any of Michael’s shenanigans. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable slasher sequel that mixes things up with the hospital setting and familial ties reveal. It’s hard to imagine a Halloween film at this point without the Myers-Strode blood relation looming overhead, we’ll just have to wait for next October to see if the gamble pays off.
October 19th – Village of the Damned (1995)
Rules Met: 1, 7, 8
“A small town’s women give birth to unfriendly alien children posing as humans.”
Many consider this remake to be one of John Carpenter’s worst films. Truthfully, it’s not that bad. The main issue with Village of the Damned is in the casting of Christopher Reeve and Kirstie Alley. One alone may have worked against a different actor but together – they just feel off. The first half of the film is successfully eerie as the entire town falls under a mysterious fainting spell, only for the women to wake up pregnant hours later. Once our glowy eyed, killer tots show up the groundwork gets shaky under the weight of cheese filled moments and puzzling government conspiracies. There are huge leaps in logic and narrative that are surely the fault of studio meddling: an out of nowhere romance, possible alien connections, etc. While at first glance, this may seem like a strange choice for Carpenter, echoes of the director’s “Apocalypse Trilogy” become evident by the final reel.
October 20th – Ginger Snaps (2000)
Rules Met: 1, Bonus 10
“Two death-obsessed sisters, outcasts in their suburban neighborhood, must deal with the tragic consequences when one of them is bitten by a deadly werewolf.”
Ginger Snaps has always been one of my favorite films. It’s dementedly funny at times and heartbreaking at others, all building to a true wham bang finale amidst a rowdy Halloween party. While the effects and creature work are top notch, the true shining stars are Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle. As sisters who have always been attached at the hip whose relationship becomes strained over an unfortunate mixture of puberty, jealousy, and lycanthropy – the duo draw the viewer in almost immediately. Ginger Snaps is a perfect feminist, coming of age horror film that doesn’t skimp on the “horror”.
October 21st – Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015)
Rules Met: 1, 5
“Three scouts, on the eve of their last camp-out, discover the true meaning of friendship when they attempt to save their town from a zombie outbreak.”
From the opening moments featuring a slacker janitor singing Charli XCX and Iggy Azalea’s Black Widow into the handle of his mop, I had a good inclination this movie might just be for me. The scene culminates in fun product placement for both Takis and Tic-Tacs while giving a gory nod to one of the best moments in John Carpenter’s The Thing. Christopher Landon, you get me. Beyond the insane opening, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse succeeds at being a cute throwback to films of the 80s. However, it never truly elevates itself beyond amusing pastiche, but there are far worse ways (especially within the modern zombie subgenre) of spending 90 minutes. Landon has a colorful and zany approach to horror that hasn’t been seen from modern genre directors in quite some time. I haven’t had a chance to check out Happy Death Day yet, but here’s hoping he continues to grow this POV with each film.
BONUS WATCH: I recently started a local horror pop-up cinema in my hometown, and we held our first screening this past Saturday. We started with a double feature of two black and white classics, Night of the Living Dead and City of the Dead. Obviously, we should all know how amazing NOTLD is. City of the Dead, on the other hand, is terribly underrated! Also known as Horror Hotel, it’s an early effort from the producers who went on to create the Amicus studio. It’s filled with gorgeous cinematography and chilling atmosphere. Seek it out, pronto!
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.
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