2021 Halloween Challenge

Crash and burn for me last night, as we attempted to watch Fear Street Part One: 1994. We just couldn't get through it. Will try to catch up with a few films over the next few days...

__________________

Cold Light of Day, 1989

After multiple severed body parts are found in the drains around an apartment building, loner Dennis (Bob Flag) is brought in for questioning by the police. What unfolds during questioning is a tale of serial murder and compulsive killing.

This film is supposedly based on a true crime story, but it's not one that I'm familiar with, so I can't comment on the accuracy of the film or on the way that it portrays the killer or the victims.

That said, I felt that this was an effective film, its low budget look and feel an almost perfect fit for the grit and brutality of the crimes, as well as the deep shame of the man committing them. Dennis is in the habit of seducing men who are low on the socio-economic ladder. Able to offer first money and then a place to say, Dennis manages to lure multiple men back to his home where his angst around his sexual attraction to them eventually manifests in violent killings.

Several scenes from this film, and very specifically the murders themselves, evoke the feel of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. This film doesn't have quite the acting or directing heft as Henry, but it has that same element of feeling as if you are seeing real people at their worst.

The murder sequences--and the sequences in which Dennis violates and/or disposes of the bodies--are broken up by scenes of Dennis in the building, particularly of Dennis helping an elderly resident. These scenes are effective, as they seem to deepen the pathetic nature of Dennis's life, and the misery that surrounds him. There's a squalid intimacy to everything that happens, whether it's Dennis helping his elderly neighbor to change soiled clothes, or Dennis looping a tie around a drug addict's neck to strangle him.

Less effective are the cutaway scenes to the "present", which just consist of the police screaming abuse at Dennis, These scenes tend to break the tension rather than build it. I read that the film's director was only 21 when he made this film. If so, very cool. While it isn't perfect, it has an assured element to it.

I would give this one a tentative recommendation.

It seems like everyone else is responding better to the Legosi + Karloff universal pics than I am. Maybe I'm just focusing on the wrong parts and failing to focus on the parts they do well. (I also mentioned The Black Cat to someone I know in real life and they mentioned that was a film they really liked).

The Black Cat had some really good Karloff talking, and Legosi's back-story seemed complete. But as the evil in it, Karloff's overall goals seemed relatively vague.

And then watching The Raven after that, I missed Karloff actually talking much. Because as Tak alluded to in their review, there are a lot of scenes where he struggles to talk (story-wise, I assumed it was a side effect of the procedure that disfigured his face, so it was a bit like a stroke victim having half of their face paralyzed. In this case, he could talk, but it was a struggle).

I have enjoyed Ben Wheatley movies in the past and would consume more. And this is on Hulu. Which I have. This does not seem like an unreasonable request.

The list of movies I'd like to watch this month is growing at a rate that I do not think I will be able to keep up with.
(@crumbs, I did add Eye of the Devil to my watch list on criterion)

While I also am firmly in the camp that

Same. I keep adding older horror films to my ever growing list.
Finished The Gorgon last night and starting up Near Dark tonight.

I am watching my franchise film.

I am underwhelmed. This has been a very long 100 minutes.

Psycho Goreman (2020):

I felt like I needed something light, short, and breezy, so I too watched Psycho Goreman. Since the plot has already been summarized, I think my main thoughts are, "oh, this is from the same person/people as Manborg. (also The Void, but really Manborg is the reference point here)."

So I will focus on the contrasts, the jokes were a little repetitive or felt a bit predictable at points. Though, at times, the ridiculous violence was enjoyably silly. People in rubber suits were frequently hopping between that fine line of campy-fun and campy-meh. And in contrast, Manborg, which admittedly is a 10 year old memory of something I watched at 1 am, the video game looking world of that, made the costume designs never feel like they crossed over the line of looking out of place.

So, I guess it's also a loose recommend, using Manborg as the reference point. I know this movie definitely has already developed a mini-cult following. So I guess for them, I'd recommend checking out Manborg.

ETA: I guess the final thoughts would be, quality-wise, this movie is roughly what you would guess it to be, with varying degrees of success.

(for the challenge, another 2 word title and streaming on Shudder).

I guess the movie I stump for, that's quasi-underseen*, is Messiah of Evil. Though counting it showing up in the Elvira series on Shudder, that's the third, separate time I've heard it referenced in the past year, so I might be underestimating how well known it is.

I first encountered it as a double-feature with Carnival of Souls. That seems like the correct pairing (for anyone using a reference point if they want to see this movie).

*: My perception might be influenced by the fact I had never heard of it until about 10 years ago. But amongst other people, it's like, "yeah. Messiah of Evil. I've seen that."

I think some of the RT ex-pats are big fans.


I watched it a few years ago on a cropped DVD. Picked up the blu-ray one or two years ago, been hankering to give it a rewatch this month after reading the section about it in Stephen Thrower's Nightmare USA.

__________________

While I haven’t seen it yet, I do know of Messiah of Evil. I remember it appearing in Annie Hall if I recall correctly, as a subtle dig at Hollywood.

As I recall, the title is on the marquis for a movie theater as an establishing shot for Southern California. The movie does take place in a southern California town, so it even works beyond just the title.


There's Jimmy Cagney movie on the marquis of the movie theater in Messiah of Evil. I have yet to track that movie down to see if there's a movie theater marquis in that as well. It would be nice of there's a chain that you could trace back to the beginning of cinema doing that though.

Saw, 2004

Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Lawrence (Cary Elwes) wake up in a squalid bathroom next to a corpse. They soon realize they have been captured by a serial killer who enjoys designing fiendish traps in which victims must commit extreme acts of violence--to themselves or others--in order to escape. The film cuts between Adam and Lawrence's predicament and flashbacks to the detectives (Danny Glover and Ken Leung) who are chasing the killer.

I mean . . . .

Look, I know that this film has fans. And my attitude going into it was that I wasn't going to be a snob about it and maybe there was some fun stuff to be seen and maybe I'd been wrong to pre-judge it.

But I just could not find a way with this movie. Don't get me wrong, there were moments that approached a kind of high-camp excellence. The intentionally awful, frantic editing. Certain characters having epic breakdowns. A British actor and an Australian actor with dueling, dubious American accents. The elaborate, absurd death traps.

103 minutes, though, is just too long. And while the film is complex in its many twists and turns, complex and interesting are not the same thing. Reveal after reveal and yet I simply didn't care about 90% of it. Yes, I wanted the main characters to survive. Yes, I was mildly interested in the identity of the killer. And this was the extent of my engagement with the film.

A major issue for me, across the board, was the writing. It is terrible. And the line readings from a lot of the actors aren't good enough to be good, and aren't weird enough to be enjoyably bad. I did not recognize Whannell at first, and I was like "Aw, maybe it's not this poor actor's fault. It's the script." . . . only to realize that the actor is the one who wrote the script. I thought Whannell was good in the final act of the film. He's a lot more believable screaming "Noooooo!" than trying to land a line like "This is the most fun I've ever had without lubricant." I am a big fan of both Upgrade and his adaptation of The Invisible Man, and I think he's a much better fit behind the camera.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea that this is anything more than passable horror. I have yet to read anything about it, and I honestly don't find myself all that curious.

It does amuse me a little that James Wan became known for his sturdy visual storytelling when his first movie looks like absolute ****. And not just the scenes in the disgusting-looking room (which one could argue is the good kind of ugly), but also the piss-yellow procedural scenes.


I've probably said this a bunch of times, but I feel like there's a decent half-hour short about the two guys in the room brutally stretched out to 100 minutes with bottom-tier TV cop show garbage featuring an inexplicably terrible Danny Glover performance ("You're a sssssssssick assssssssssssshole!") As much as Hostel gets lumped in with this, that movie is at least smart about building tension by committing to the hero's POV and withholding most of the unpleasant stuff until later on.



I find Whannell pretty likable in the Insidious movies, but he's obviously a limited actor. I think it's just more noticeable here given the material.

Correct!

__________________
Captain's Log
My Collection

I saw this in the theater, expecting it to be some avant-garde, two-man one-location story, and thinking that was so intriguing. Boy was I disappointed when I realized there was gonna be detectives and whatnot. So I agree. There's a better movie hidden in there somewhere.

That's a drag. I hate when that happens.

Color me intrigued.

Yeah, I would kill for a double feature of Messiah Of Evil and Lemora: A Child's Tale Of The Supernatural.