Editorials
Sun-Soaked: 8 Great Horror Movies Set in Broad Daylight
In horror, dawn tends to be the most pivotal time for survival. When the sun rises, the evil that thrives in the dark is forced to retreat. The sun is a reprieve from unrelenting terror. All you have to do is survive until dawn and you’re home free. The dark is a scary place to be, which is why so many horror movies are set at night. From a technical standpoint, the dark makes it a lot easier to craft scares and hide any creature imperfections, too. Which is why daylight-set horror is such an interesting niche.
Creating atmosphere and chills is so much trickier to pull off under the blazing sun. When it’s done well, not much is as inherently unnerving as horror set in the broad of day; where can you escape to if even the rising dawn won’t give you shelter from horror’s worst? Ari Aster’s sophomore follow up, Midsommar, makes a bold gamble by setting itself in the far North of Sweden where the sun doesn’t set at all during June. If the trailer is any indication, that bright sunshine makes things seem even more sinister.
While we wait to see just how nightmarish Midsommar will be, we look back at some of the best sun-soaked horror movies.
The Wicker Man
When you think of Pagan horror or daylight horror (or both), The Wicker Man is nearly always the first one to pop in mind. Police Sergeant Howie travels to the remote island Summerisle in search of a missing girl after receiving an anonymous letter. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find that no one on the island seems to know the girl, but he’s even more disturbed by the islanders’ Pagan celebrations of May Day. Of course, the true terror comes with the iconic closing moments of the film, where Howie discovers the horrifying truth about his summoning to the island. Based on David Pinner’s novel Ritual, and starring Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, The Wicker Man is an unsettling summer hellscape for poor Howie.
Jaws
The opening moments of this seminal summer set horror film might take place during dusk, but the vast majority of the runtime is set over the bright Fourth of July holiday weekend. For police chief Martin Brody, professional shark hunter Quint, and oceanographer Matt Hooper, tracking and stopping the massive man-eating shark swimming the crowded waters of Amity Island is much easier by day. It is when the shark is going to be most active, thanks to the summer crowd buffet, after all. Steven Spielberg made audiences afraid to go into the water, and it had nothing to do with the dark.
Piranha 3D
A somewhat remake of the 1978 film, Piranha 3D lets loose a school of prehistoric man-eating fish on unsuspecting spring breakers partying on Lake Victoria. While the original film also counts for great sun-soaked horror, Alexandra Aja’s take injects a lot of humor and gore to the proceedings. Starring Elizabeth Shue as Sheriff Forester and Adam Scott as the seismologist investigating the earthquake opened a chasm that unleashed the carnivorous fish, this one is an entertaining summer gorefest. Look for fun cameos, like Jaws’ Richard Dreyfuss, and a rare film to embrace the 3D format (hello severed member).
Predator
Not all daylight set horror takes place at the beach or at Pagan festivals; sometimes they take place in the jungle. Sure, Arnold Schwarzenegger might have had his final face off with the alien creature after the sun sets, but much of the film takes place during the day, under the blazing sun that left much of the special ops team drenched in sweat. Until they were picked off one by one in brutal fashion, anyway. Seeing a group of highly lethal men get eviscerated so quickly and easily by an unseen creature, during a time of day with they should have an advantage, is a large part of why this film works.
Race with the Devil
This underseen gem is an action horror hybrid that crosses Satanic horror with a car chase movie, all set under the scorching Texas sun. For business partners Roger Marsh and Frank Stewart (Peter Fonda and Warren Oates), an RV road trip to Colorado with their wives turns into a harrowing fight for survival when the men stumble upon a Satanic sacrifice across from their campsite in central Texas. Looking to keep their coven a secret, the Satanists set out to silence the group permanently. While there are some night sequences, the bulk of the movie is set during the day, with Marsh and Stewart trying to out drive the enclosing Satanists. There’s nowhere safe for them to turn, either.
Death Proof
Like Race with the Devil, Quentin Tarantino’s half of the 2007 Grindhouse double feature showcased car chase horror set during the Texas sun. After a visceral scene that demonstrates the “Death Proof” part of Stuntman Mike’s car at night, the movie skips to fourteen months later where we meet a new group of ladies targeted by the murderous stunt driver. He closes in for the kill while the girls are test driving a car to play game of “Ship’s Mast,” resulting in an intense cat and mouse chase. Both the vehicles and the stunts/action deserved every bit of that bright sun spotlight.
Tremors
Perfection, Nevada is an isolated ex-mining town set in the Sierra Nevada mountains. In other words, it’s a pretty tiny desert town with a miniscule population. So, there’s really no outside help to fall back on when strange underground creatures start picking them off one by one. Perfection is a town filled with personality of its own, and leads Valentine McKee (Kevin Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) bring a buddy comedy sensibility to this fantastic creature feature. But it’s Tom Woodruff Jr.’s Graboid design and creation that delivered one of the most unique movie monsters and inspired an entire franchise. For the residents of Perfection, the underground monsters proved extra problematic thanks to the scorching desert sun.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
If there’s one thing this list makes abundantly clear, it’s don’t come to Texas during the summer. If the scorching heat doesn’t kill you, something else will. In this case it’s the cannibalistic clan Sally Hardesty, her brother Franklin, and their friends cross paths with when they decide to visit the old Hardesty home after stopping by their grandfather’s grave. While the traumatic climax takes place at night, which sees Sally flee toward the infamous house only to suffer as the guest of one brutal dinner party, much of the film takes place under the grueling summer sun. Including one startling introduction to the iconic Leatherface.
Editorials
‘Bloodstone: Subspecies II’ Revisited: A Bigger, Bolder Follow-Up to Full Moon’s Vampire Cult Classic
Horror sequels are a peculiar thing. In most cases, follow-ups to scary movies tend to retread the same formula with different victims and more over-the-top scares. This is because audiences tend to be more interested in the antagonists of these pictures than anything else, with even main characters becoming disposable when the time comes to produce a sequel.
That’s why some of the most memorable horror sequels are the ones that actually manage to hold onto interesting survivors from previous films while also pushing the story forward instead of having the same thing happen again to a different group of people. From Scream 2 to Dream Warriors (and arguably even The Exorcist III: Legion), there are quite a few of these innovative sequels to go around.
However, if there’s one franchise that deserves more attention when discussing bigger and better continuations that make the most of episodic filmmaking, it has to be Ted Nicolaou’s Subspecies.
The Full Moon classic spawned an indie horror icon, but bizarre sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II is even more beloved than its predecessor.
Building a Bigger Vampire Saga
While the film itself takes place almost immediately after the events of the first movie, Bloodstone only entered production a couple of years after the release of the original as both Charles Band and Nicolaou weighed the pros and cons of returning to Romania to continue the series. In an effort to maximize efficiency, the team decided to invest in a trilogy where parts II and III, now fully written by Nicolaou, would be filmed simultaneously over the course of a single grueling shoot.
Much like the first Subspecies, Bloodstone’s low budget meant that the filmmakers once again had to cut corners and re-use as many of their resources as possible. Thankfully, the process was much easier this time around as Nicolaou, with the help of Romanian cinematographer Vlad Paunescu and his wife Oana, became more acquainted with local customs and made new friends. Shooting abroad still came with its own unique set of challenges due to a lack of translators and the occasional safety concerns, but the crew managed to make things work by filming things guerrilla-style and setting up shop in abandoned caves and real medieval ruins.
The director’s newfound contacts, coupled with the relative success of the first movie, meant that he was basically given free rein over an assortment of shooting locations usually considered off-limits for indie horror. That’s why Bloodstone features insanely ambitious lighting and effects work even during scenes shot in the middle of a bustling Bucharest. The filmmakers went so far as to project Radu’s Nosferatu-like shadows over local monuments as if he were a Romanian boogeyman, an idea that was actually encouraged by local cinephiles.
In fact, many of the more elaborate scenes here had originally been planned for the first movie before being discarded due to the lack of available resources. It was only with the support of Romanian fans and filmmakers that Bloodstone was able to give Radu a chance to be even more menacing the second time around.
Michelle’s Transformation Takes Center Stage
However, when it came to the American part of the crew, not everyone was able or willing to return for another round of Romanian adventuring. That’s why Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) is unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the film while the role of Michelle had to be recast. Denice Duff took over for Laura Mae Tate, with the character now being joined by her sister, Rebecca, played by Melanie Shatner (yes, that Shatner).
In the finished film, we follow Michelle as she awakens to her new life as a vampire and discovers that Radu has murdered her lover. Struggling with grief and her newfound bloodlust, Michelle contacts her sister overseas, with Rebecca soon travelling to Romania on an ill-advised rescue mission. Meanwhile, Radu (Anders Hove) reaches out to his undead Mummy (Pamela Gordon, underneath heavy layers of impressive makeup effects) and promises to deliver her the coveted Bloodstone artifact while also making Michelle his eternal consort.
Revisiting the movie, I was impressed with how introspective this story is when compared to the original. The sequel assumes that you’re already familiar with the previously established characters, so the story wastes no time in exploring the immediate aftermath of the previous film’s events. From Michelle’s reluctant transformation into a creature of the night to Radu’s obvious mommy issues, Nicolaou is way more interested in pushing these characters into new and uncharted territory rather than recycling existing plot points.
Practical Effects and Gothic Atmosphere Still Impress
Yet, much like the first film, it’s Romania itself that makes the movie worth watching. The ruins of Castle Vladislav are even more majestic now, and visiting the moody streets of Bucharest with its surprisingly punk-rock nightlife made for a nice change of pace when compared to the original film’s quiet village setting. Once again, the abundance of interesting locations makes the movie feel much more expensive than it really is, with the filmmakers surrounding our characters with a living, breathing environment that would be impossible to recreate in a studio.
The increased freedom also allowed Nicolaou to flex his filmmaking muscles and tackle more ambitious blocking/composition in the sequel. The low budget and tropey script mean that the visuals don’t always work, but it’s consistently clear that this neo-expressionist style could only come from a passionate team attempting to pay homage to the shadowy horror classics of yesteryear. If the retro atmosphere isn’t enough for you, there’s enough practical gore here to satisfy even the most demanding of horror hounds!
Radu himself is also far more interesting now that Hove is more comfortable working alongside an international crew, with the actor having gone on record explaining that, while he spent more time drinking vodka than working while shooting the first movie, the sequel was a much more creatively satisfying experience for everyone involved. The character’s relationship with his abusive Mummy is also a highlight of the expanded mythology, especially since the practical effects that bring her to life are just as freaky now as they were back in ’93.
My only real gripe with the horror elements of the picture comes from the glaring absence of the diminutive stop-motion minions from the first film, though I guess the surprisingly entertaining addition of Professor Popescu (Michael Denish) and his archeological antics mostly make up for that.
Bloodstone: Subspecies II is obviously the middle chapter of a trilogy, with the ending feeling a lot less definitive than its predecessor as several plot threads are left to dangle in the wind, but I appreciate how the flick explores new ground while remaining faithful to nearly all the ideas that made the original such a good time. While I don’t think it’s as big of an improvement over the first movie as some fans make it out to be, Bloodstone is definitely worth revisiting if you’re a fan of old-fashioned vampire yarns.
Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion to this initial trilogy, Bloodlust: Subspecies III!
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