31 Days of Horror- Day 15: The Dead Zone (1983)

(dir. David Cronenberg)

Paramount Pictures

An accident leaves a man with the physic power to see a person’s past, present, and future, which sends him on a collision course with a senate candidate who will destroy the world.

I’ve been thinking a lot about The Dead Zone, a lot about how seemingly small choices can snowball into something potentially ruinous, leaving us to ask “how did we come to this?” Call it 2016 election anxiety. Election Anxiety is paramount to Cronenberg’s adaptation of one of my favorite Stephen King novels. But before we get to Greg Stillson and his army of supporters and hauntingly familiar campaign slogan “send mediocrity to hell!” we have a film about a series of tiny deaths and rebirths, leading to a destiny dictated by choice.

It’s easy to forget that Christopher Walken was once a true screen presence before becoming the self-parody version that so many films utilize him for today. Walken brings a haunting charm and sorrow to Johnny Smith which blends in nicely with Cronenberg’s particular weirdness. Coming out the same year as Videodrome and three years before The Fly, The Dead Zone seems like a break in Cronenberg’s then oeuvre of body horror and strange births. But all the still pieces are there. Johnny’s accident occurs when he collides with an overturned milk truck, an immovable symbol of new birth if ever there was one. And the body horror is of the internal variety, similar to the kind of body horror Cronenberg would begin more exclusively tackling in 2002’s Spider and beyond. The fact that Johnny’s accident occurred after turning down the opportunity to spend the night at his girlfriend's, declaring that “some things ae worth waiting for” is no small degree of body horror itself. While the film omits some of the smaller character-centric moments and attachments that made the book so heartbreaking, Cronenberg still manages to find a way to create a new kind of heartbreak through the film’s consistently chilly aesthetic. Johnny’s series of deaths and rebirths operate almost as trials, each one more dangerous than the last as saving a little girl from a fire, leads to stopping a serial killer, to finally defeating an insane political candidate who many very well be the antichrist.

Stillson isn’t explored nearly as intimately as he is in the novel, but Martin Sheen’s convincing performance and the way his supporters react around him still make him a frightening figure. Smartly, the film keeps Stillson in the background during the first half of the film, we hear him, get a sense of his growing presence, but only fully understand what he's capable of when it seems too late. This use of Stillson as a spectre mirrors our real-world inability to pay attention to future threats, despite all the signs, because we become distracted by so many other things. The film's major questions about how much responsibility we have to prevent damnation surround the growing threat of Stillson, and Smith’s vision of his future. Using the “if you had a chance to kill Hitler, would you?” narrative, as a jumping off point the film leads to an conclusion where we expect a certain outcome but are delivered another one. Unlike so many horror films, The Dead Zone isn’t a film about the taking of lives but the saving of them. So it makes sense that it isn’t a bullet that saves the world, but a scenario that creates a revelation where the simplicity both good and evil stand revealed.

Scare Factor: 3/5 The Dead Zone is psychological horror and political horror that creates an emotional horror for the viewer, one that lingers. There’s an inescapable sense of sadness to Cronenberg’s film but also a thread of hope that exists in the reminder that every choice we make matters, and that destiny isn’t written in stone. 

31 Days of Horror- Day 14: Evil Dead II (1987)

(dir. Sam Raimi)

Rosebud Releasing/Embassy Communications/ De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

Ash Williams romantic getaway to a cabin in the woods with his girlfriend turns into a night of strange terror thanks to the Book of the Dead.

I won’t hesitate to admit that despite Evil Dead II’s superior reputation, I actually prefer Raimi’s first film, The Evil Dead, significantly more. Evil Dead II is well put together and creative as all get-out but it lacks the surprise factor of the first film, even with the bonus of Ash becoming the iconic horror hero in this film. Part of what makes The Evil Dead so successful is its amateur production and the fact that Raimi and his crew were able to pull off so much on such a small budget and only a recently acquired knowledge of how to make a horror movie. While Evil Dead II is more closely in line with Raimi’s subsequent filmography, it isn’t genuinely frightening like that first film.

I think what defines the popular opinion of The Evil Dead vs. Evil Dead II comes down moreso to a taste in comedy than in horror. Bruce Campbell’s antics as Ash Williams are undoubtedly ionic and he’s a master of physical comedy, a live-action Looney Toon. But physical comedy is quite my temp and there’s only so many times I can watch Ash crash into objects and smash plates against his head without it becoming a bit trying. The one-liners are though, are groovy as hell, and that’s where I find the comedy aspect of Evil Dead II to be the most successful.

Even given my preference for the first film and lack of love for the comedic aspect, Evil Dead II is still a film that I like quite a lot. Tonally, there was nothing quite like it at its time and it really set the precedence for the over-the-top horror comedies that followed in its wake. While some of the films that followed Evil Dead II were more humorous, none achieved the same remarkable design work or ingenuity of scenes like the laughing cabin or the film’s climax. The level of insanity at work in this film isn’t something to downplay, and while I may go against the grain on its placement in the trilogy, I can find no fault in the popular opinion that Evil Dead II is the best of the three films.

Scare Factor: 1/5 Evil Dead II is a must watch for fans of the first or Army of Darkness, and fans of Raimi’s particular style and brand of humor. The Evil Dead set the bar too high for its sequel to have the same effect on me, but I will admit that the film’s ending remains one of the genre’s best.

31 Days of Horror- Day 13: The Blob (1988)

(dir. Chuck Russell)

Paramount Pictures

The inhabitants of a small-town are attacked by a strange organism that eats everything in its path.

The Blob holds a special place for me. It was the first R-rated movie I ever saw, and introduced me the larger realm of horror (it also happened to be how I learned about condoms, thanks to that drugstore scene.) There are parts of The Blob that make the film feel like a satire of high-school movies of its time. All the familiar tropes are there: the stable of teenage stereotypes, the buffoonish cops, and small-town, conservative morals. Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith make for likeable leads, because they don’t play their characters with an awareness of their own archetypal trappings. The Blob manages slight satire without feeling like its winking or nudging its audience, and the result is a film that feels sincere, when it easily could have come across as mean-spirited mockery in lesser hands. Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont offset the familiar by killing off the characters you’d expect to live through any other film, and by upping the threat level of the titular creature and the humor that stems from the traditional archetypes. Despite the absurdism at play in the film, The Blob is smartly crafted. It takes the original film’s themes about the fear of outsiders and flips the script to make it a film about our fear of our neighbors, institutions, and the very things we think will protect us from harm.

The Blob is a master-class example of practical effects works, featuring some of the most inventive and memorable death scenes of its era. The depiction of The Blob and its growth through consumption clearly had an influence on James Gunn’s Slither and this film can be seen as its forbearer in both its affinity for gross-out gore and small-town allegiances. While so many remakes either stick too close to the original or try too hard to completely out-do the original, The Blob keeps things simple and effective by establishing its rules and themes clearly from the beginning which surely accounts for the film's legacy and influence. The Blob is a gem of a film that's just as thrilling for me to watch now as it was sixteen years ago, because The Blob sticks to you rather effortlessly.

Scare Factor: 1/5 The Blob is just a blast to watch; old-fashioned horror with some of the best effects and gore you can find in horror’s diverse history. It won’t keep you from sleeping, but it’s a crowd pleaser for sure, and a great introduction to horror for younger viewers. 

31 Days of Horror- Day 12: The Fog (1980)

(dir. John Carpenter)

AVCO Embassy Pictures

*First time viewing

A coastal California town is sent into a panic when a mysterious fog rolls in, carrying with it the ghosts of vengeance-driven lepers.

Without belaying the point, The Fog was a bit of an endurance test in terms of my wakefulness. As someone who loves John Carpenter, I can easily say that this one won’t go into my favorites of his, but I also wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to watch it again. The story is stretched too thin, it’s ninety-minute runtime feeling perilously padded and its large cast of characters offering little impact individually to the proceedings, with the exception of Adrienne Barbeau. That being said, the film is fantastically directed, not just in hindsight of Carpenter’s legacy, but because even on its own it’s impeccably filmed. When we think of Carpenter now, often through the eyes of his successors, we often think about his soundtracks, his production designs, or his sparse but often effective narratives. But where Carpenter’s greatest strengths lie is in shot composition. I couldn’t really care less about the protagonists of this film, but nearly every shot is a masterpiece of mood and spatial relation. Filmed in widescreen, The Fog, feels more cinematic than most of Carpenter’s earlier work, and its neo-Gothic moodiness makes the film feel more like an example of 70s European horror than the 80s American horror The Fog would be lumped in with. Even when the film isn’t going for horror, and instead focuses on this idyllic coastal town, Carpenter frames everything with a sense of stylish purpose. A little boy stands hunched over the shoreline with the camera frames him against the sky, cutting out the ground to make it seem as if being he is engulfed by the heavens. The ghosts are kept as silhouettes, distant and unreachable, even after the protagonists believe they have them figured out. Whatever The Fog lacks in storytelling ability, Carpenter makes up for on a technical level.

Despite the story being a bit tedious for the most part, the climax works exceptionally well, as do the film’s themes of forgetfulness and forgiveness. Just because something is remembered and amends are attempted does not mean that the sins of the past are forgiven, and for a horror film steeped in America’s troubled history, it ends on pretty powerful note with striking imagery to match.

Scare Factor: 1/5 As Carpenter’s follow-up to Halloween, The Fog doesn’t achieve the same iconic status or chilling horror—something that surely led to the film’s mixed reaction upon release. But The Fog is a film that shows the growth of a filmmaker and makes it easier to see Carpenter’s progress from Halloween to The Thing. I don’t think The Fog is a must-see horror movie, but it is a must-see for anyone fascinated by Carpenter’s filmography.

31 Days of Horror- Day 11: Nightbreed (1990)

(dir. Clive Barker)

20th Century Fox

*First time viewing

A newly resurrected man discovers, Midian, an underground city of monsters and must protect it from a crazed serial killer looking to wipe them out.

Holy shit! This movie! Nightbreed is basically a smorgasbord for fans of the horror genre. Blending elements of the sympathetic monster as made popular by the Universal horror series, the psychological thriller of the 60s, the fresh blockbuster perspective of the 70s, and the slasher craze of the 80s, Nightbreed is jam-packed full of horror history that used to deliver a film unlike anything before or since. Visionary writer and director Clive Barker envisioned Nightbreed as a trilogy that would serve as his Star Wars for horror fans. Unfortunately, studio cuts, mis-marketing, and poor reception of the film squashed its chances. But in Barker’s Cabal Cut, the film he originally intended, Nightbreed stands as one of the best horror films of the 90s.

Nightbreed is packed full of grandiose ideas about where all of our monster stories disappeared to, and the very nature of the changing genre. Craig Sheffer’s man-turned-monster protagonist, Boone, is a compelling enough messiah, but the film really goes to another level when David Cronenberg’s Dr. Decker takes the screen. Decker is one of Cronenberg’s few onscreen roles and he delivers the monster hunter with a chilling conviction that's magnetic and entirely convincing. He’s Van Helsing, twisted through the lens of the slasher film and set loose on a world of monsters that is every bit, if not more, imaginative than Star Wars’ Mos Eisley Cantina or Hellboy II’s marketplace. None of the film’s imagination or my enthusiasm for it can mask some issues in character motivation or the surplus of  rules that are occasionally muddled, but by the time the film reaches its action-packed climax it no longer really matters. Nightbreed is a no holds barred peek into the mind of Clive Barker that’s effortlessly entertaining and a reminder that he should have more than just three films under his belt.

Scare Factor: 2/5 Nightbreed is huge, spectacle horror that works more like an epic fantasy or superhero film that it does a horror movie. Like Hellraiser, the gore effects push the limit between creative and obscene, though likable characters create a vastly different feeling movie. More modern horror directors looking to take a page from the 80s should go back to the madcap creativity of Barker’s work. Or hell, just convince Barker to finally do that sequel he planned.

**Available to watch on Netflix Instant

31 Days of Horror- Day 10: The Howling (1981)

(dir. Joe Dante)

Avco Embassy Pictures

*First time viewing

After a run-in with a serial killer, a news anchor and her husband go to an experimental resort called The Colony, whose residents are more than they initially seem.

It often seems like there a few unexplored places to go with our classic monster archetypes, and few have been explored so thoroughly as the lycanthrope. Released the same year as the more iconic An American Werewolf in London, Dante’s The Howling is usually regarded as second fiddle to Landis’s film. While Werewolf in London is the better crafted film, The Howling contains the more interesting ideas that actually do take the familiar to the unexplored.

The Howling is both a sexual and societal nightmare. Karen (Dee Wallace) is plagued by nightmares of her encounter with the serial killer, Eddie, an encounter that took place in a peep show and one filled with sexual overtones. Werewolf mythos are filled with the kind of raw look at sexuality that The Howling examines. The Colony’s leader, Doc, broaches ideas of tapping into one’s inner beast, and primal nature, which manifest in a lot of sexual tension throughout. Karen, and her husband Bill are sexually out of synch, repressed due to the nature of Karen’s trauma, but Bill has a sexual awakening once he’s bitten by Marsha. Their entire conflict of infidelity and sexual urges is explored through the existence of the werewolf, and transformation. With sex comes society, which is where The Howling’s most interesting ideas come into play.

Doc’s idea for The Colony as a sort of training ground for werewolves to learn to control their urges so that they can exist among society is rather brilliant narrative beat that we’ve seen with vampires but not with werewolves. The very concept of werewolves is predicated on the idea that they can’t be tamed. But The Colony as a means to create culture and society is a fascinating step. While the film is at times humorous, and occasionally plagued by a soundtrack that sometimes great and other times wildly out of tonal synchronicity, The Howling presents a far darker and more horrific look at the werewolf beyond body horror and death by silver bullet. Aided by Rob Bottin’s memorable special effects (not better than Rick Baker’s, but worthy to stand alongside them), and an ending that's unforgettable, The Howling is a top-tier werewolf movie that should be considered more classic than cult.

Scare Factor: 2/5 Through the werewolf transformation it’s easy to see where Bottin’s work would take him on The Fly and few years later. And Dante’s brutal blend of tragedy and humor is a clear precursor to Gremlins. While it’s neither artist’s finest work, The Howling is an impressive foundational piece for careers that would soon become legendary, and legends that had become too entrenched in their foundations.

31 Days of Horror- Day 9: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

(dir. Tobe Hooper)

Bryanston Pictures

A group of friends on a road-trip become the victims of a cannibalistic family.

No matter how many times I’ve seen this film, it gets me every time. From John Larroquette’s opening narration I am all in and on edge. This entire film sweats. You can feel the heat rising off the Texas back-roads as the Hitchhiker ambles to towards the van, smell the cow farms and undercurrent of rotting flesh underneath as you watch Pam make her approach to that infamous house, taste the spoiled waste of America as you join Sally at the dinner table. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains one of the most visceral cinematic experiences to ever play across our screens, and no matter how many horror movies we’ve seen since then, some gorier, some more emotionally involving, and some better directed, nothing packs the same kind of punch as Hooper’s film.

What’s amazing is that despite it’s reputation and initial controversy upon release, the film has very little gore. Growing up, a decade or more before I saw the film, I remember seeing Todd McFarlane’s Movie Maniac figure of Leatherface and thinking that this movie was peak horror film, something forbidden and perhaps beyond my ability to handle—the most disturbing thing conceivably put on film. I was right about it being peak horror film; it is, but not for the reasons I imagined.

It’s not the level of violence of even the subject matter that makes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so horrific, but the stained reality of it that makes it look like a portrait created by a PST-suffering Norman Rockwell. Hooper films from low angles, most famously in the shot of Pam’s approach to the house, but this affect makes the viewer feel small and as if we’re approaching something so large that it’s impossible to look at head on. Even on its small budget and limited use of locations, there’s something massive about this film, mirrored by Leatherface’s own hulking frame. Our first glimpse of Leatherface as he comes into the door frame and slams the metal doors in front of him gives me chills without pause each and every time I see it. There’s something deeply human about Gunnar Hansen’s performance, a childlike confusion and an all-consuming savagery that can viewed as the changing face of America during Vietnam and afterwards. The hugeness of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre stems from the fact that it taps into something about this country, something too big and dark, to face sanely. Sally’s mad howls and laughs as she escapes, not to safety, but to insanity, is a reflection of inescapable violence that America’s youth faced, and still faces. And Leatherface, dancing in frustration with chainsaw in hand is not a display of defeat but a spiraling promise that this horror story will continue, saw blades cycling towards infinity.

Scare Factor: 5/5 A masterpiece that even 42 years after it’s release is still one of the most affecting horror movies you’ll ever see.