2020 Halloween Challenge

So I pulled out my old dvd with Roger Corman's commentary but he doesn't address the question at all. And watching the film with that question in mind I can confidently say that it isn't explained in-film at any time.

Sole, 1976






I have taken part in several conversations over the years concerning the origin of the slasher film as we know it today. There are always a few films that get tossed around in the discussion, such as Carpenter's Halloween, Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Clark's Black Christmas, or as far back as 1971's Brava film, Bay of Blood. Of course, we can't forget Hitchcock's Psycho, whcih Alice pays homage to by featuring a shot of the poster for the film. Oddly, people rarely mention Alice, Sweet Alice when this subject gets discussed.

Bay of Blood is probably the correct answer, as it is hard to argue that it wasn't a clear influence on the modern slasher as we know it, but if I had to pick one that later franchises copied from the most, afterward establishing the template for the modern slasher film, Alice would easily dominate in the running.

Both the Halloween franchise and the Friday the 13th franchise are prime examples that lift heavily from Alice. Both Cunningham and Carpenter must have had a watch party before shooting the first Halloween and Friday flicks. I was constantly reminded of these films as I watched, and Friday even steals a music cue wholesale from Alice. Visually and thematically, Alice is all over these pictures. The twist draws a clear trajectory from Psycho, slicing a jagged angle across time that ends in the final act of 1980's Friday the 13th.



The film itself is excellent. It's slathered in that grainy 70s weirdness that is unsettling on its own. The initial murder is horrifying, and must have sent people reeling when it was first shown in theaters back in the day. Somehow, this film still manages to fly under the radar for most viewers, even if it has garnered a well-deserved cult following over the years. My wife, for instance, who is a total horror nut, had never heard of it.

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Alice, Sweet Alice is really good. I've always thought of it more like an American attempt at Giallo than a slasher, but that probably has something to do with my general dislike towards slashers. It definitely deserves more recognition.

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Love Alice Sweet Alice, especially as the multiple threads feel genuinely like multiple small stories and not just a glut of potential misdirection/suspects.

What I have watched so far, plus some extras. All are first time watches:

A. Source Material
1. A Stephen King Adaptation
2. An Edgar Allen Poe Adaptation
3. An HP Lovecraft Adaptation
From Beyond
B. Language of Origin
4. A Spanish Language horror film
5. A French Language horror film
Les Diabolique
6. An Asian Language horror film
7. An Eastern European/Slavic Language horror film

C. Time Period
8. A Classic Creature Feature (30's-50's)
9. A Gothic Horror Tale (40's-60's)
10. The B-List Killer/Slasher (70's-80's)
Slumber Party Massacre
11. A Sex Thriller (80's-90's)
12. A Revival/Remake/Throwback (00's-10's)

D. The Players(Actors/Actresses/Directors/Producers)
13. A Brian De Palma/William Castle/Wes Craven film
14. A Linnea Quigley/Jamie Lee Curtis/Barbara Steele film
15. A Peter Cushing/Vincent Price/Christopher Lee film
16. A Lucio Fulci/Dario Argento/Mario Bava film
City of the Living Dead
17. A Alfred Hitchcock/Terence Fisher/Christopher Smith film
18. An A24/Blumhouse/Roger Corman/Hammer/Universal film

E. Distributor
19. A Rotten Horror Film from Rotten Tomatoes
Feardotcom
20. A Fresh Horror Film from Rotten Tomatoes
21. A Horror Film on Shudder
22. A Horror Film on Hulu
23. A Horror Film on Amazon
Razorback
24. A Horror Film on Netflix
Under the Shadow
25. A Horror Film from 2020

F. Genre
26. A Werewolf Film
The Howling 2
27. A Vampire Film
28. A Ghost/Haunted House Film
29. A Witchcraft/Satanic Film
Satan’s Slaves ( remake)
30. A Frankenstein's Monster Film
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
31. A Zombie Film


Deep Red
Black Belly of the Tarantula

Daniel Isn't Real, 2019 (A horror film on Shudder)

This is the kind of film where I totally understand the hype and I totally understand the disappointment.

A boy named Luke, driven from his home by his parents arguing, happens upon the bloody aftermath of a mass shooting. There he meets another little boy, Daniel. Only, Daniel isn't real. Daniel's games soon escalate, and Daniel's mother, at a breaking point, orders Luke to put Daniel "away" in a dollhouse. Years later, Luke is in college and his mother's mental health issues have spiraled out of control. Stressed from every direction, Luke unlocks the dollhouse and is shocked (but maybe not that shocked?) when Daniel emerges, full grown and ready for more "games".

To start with the good: there are plenty of films about malevolent spirits or demons or whatever masquerading as imaginary friends. But the way that the film portrays Daniel is pretty novel--including staying in a nicely ambiguous place where we see the way that Daniel can "exist" even when Luke is asleep. The question of whether Daniel is an internal or external force hangs over the film, with evidence for either side. It's a wise choice, because Luke himself doesn't understand what's happening. Does he need medication or an exorcism? Even we don't know the answer to that.

I was also very taken with the film's effects. I won't claim an expert eye here, but the effects have a "practical" look (though I suspect that many things that looked real to me were probably just solidly done CGI). The designs of Luke's visions and certain key moments in the film are really bold. There are several moments that hearken back to the body horror of something like Society.

The performances overall are very solid. Miles Robbins as the distraught Luke, Patrick Schwarzenegger as the swaggering alpha male Daniel, and Mary Stuart Masterson as Luke's mother, a woman acute enough to recognize her son's distress but without the power to help him. The film throws two different love interests in Luke's direction--the wild Sophie (Hannah Marks) and the artist Cassie (Sasha Lane). Neither of them is given a ton of depth, but they are not merely in the movie to be damsels in distress and they both manage to provide a much needed "external" point of view on Luke's behavior.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't stick the landing. And not only does it fail to stick the landing, it does so in a way that is frustratingly contradictory to important things the film has shown us (and explicitly said!). As the film moves into its final 20 or so minutes, you can sort of feel things going off the rails. It's hard not to let the film's finale loom over the interesting stuff that came before.

I can definitely see why this film would generate some buzz, and I think it's well worth watching.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, 1974 (A Peter Cushing film)

This one was already reviewed upthread, so I won't do much to rehash the plot.

The thing that really stood out to me in this film was just how well it portrayed the horror of how unethical and abusive behavior is allowed to thrive in a corrupt environment. The setting of the asylum is corrupt from head to toe, perhaps no better illustrated than a scene in which the head of the asylum is interrupted sexually assaulting an inmate, and then Frankenstein hands over the traumatized woman to an orderly who we JUST WATCHED sadistically torturing another inmate. There is no one looking out for the well-being of the inmates, and the film does a great job at evoking this helplessness.

The character of Frankenstein has always had an ego-maniacal streak, even in his less "evil" incarnations. But this is a version of him that seems to regard other people (and specifically "inferior" people) as objects for his use--and to be discarded when they are no longer useful. Extending well beyond the grave-robbing of the original story and film, this Frankenstein robs graves, coerces suicides, and casually suggests that raping a traumatized rape victim might just, you know, shake her out of it. There's a sort of just want to prove I can do it vibe that fully robs the character of any paternal pretensions. He has no real care for his creation and this total blindness to humanity makes him a frightening character. The main audience surrogate--a young doctor who has been committed to the asylum for experiments with dead body parts--is himself an inmate, and we vicariously feel his powerlessness even as the film positions him as a protagonist/hero.

I was pretty fascinated by the ending, in which (SPOILERS) .

October 14th - 11. A Sex Thriller (80's-90's)


I have a love/hate relationship with Brian DePalma...Body Double is one of the reasons why. Body Double is a weird movie that both feels like something from the past and something that ends up being influential to later filmmakers. The film lifts heavily from Hitchcock...yet it plays like Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove. It's a satire of the sex thriller but it's played very straight so you're never actually laughing out loud at any point.


The basic plot is Jake Sully loses his job as a vampire because he's claustrophobic, comes home and his girlfriend is sleeping with another guy. His buddy Sam sets him up in these sleezy bachelor pad where at one point every night a girl dances and it turns him on. The girls name is Gloria Revelle. And yes all of the characters names are on the nose.


I saw this a couple days ago and I go back and think about certain things as being bloody brilliant...other things not so much. This could have been a five star film and an all-timer for me except the ending which just made me incredibly angry. One of the things I loved about the film is the hardest to talk about..Melanie Griffith's character Holly Body she doesn't come in until the 2nd or 3rd act and she flips the story on it's head.

October 15th - 25. A Horror Film from 2020


When I put together my intentions to watch a series of horror films I didn't think I would go three for three with quasi horror works but I ended up watching Swallow (2019/2020). Swallow is a low budget indie film that has a lot to say often times pushing a message over telling a good story. This is the story of a newly wed who lives in this fancy house with her husband a wealthy heir to his fathers company. Living an unfulfilled life of desperation and ennui the housewife develops a hobby of swallowing objects and passing it through her body.


This is an odd duck of a film because we're always given the sympathy towards Hunter (the wife). However the husband Richie is the one who is basically trapped in an unfortunate and horrifying situation. But Richie is kinda a dick...then the film takes a complete left turn at the end and almost acts like a complete copout. It was well-shot, well cast and well acted but you reach a point where the filmmaker didn't know where to go with the story so he/she ended up leaving us with a message.

October 16th - 9. A Gothic Horror Tale (40's-60's)

The Ghost and Mrs Muir(1947) is a gothic horror story about a widow who moves into a cottage that is haunted by Rex Harrison's dead Sea Captain. This is one of those stories that's hard to put into a genre (like the last two) their is a pretty strong sense of melancholia that runs through the plot even though it's often a whist-full romance and comedy...of sorts. It's actually what I kinda love about this film it always feels like it's going to one direction and then it just switches genres and moves onto something else. It's one of the rare occasions where the obvious chapter breaks in a novel are handled well in a film.



I highly recommend this film as a nice little tone changer for this run.

I had some doubts going into this film (I was concerned it would be kind of cheesy), but I was blown away by it. Definitely one of my biggest surprises in film. Glad you also loved it.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

15. A Vincent Price film
EDGAR ALLAN POE'S ANNABEL LEE (1969)

So I've watched a few Price films this month but this is the only one that counts as a first-timer, so I'm really stretching the point to include it. (If short films don't count for these challenges please feel free to disqualify me.)
This is footage of a hippie chick roaming the seashore as Vincent Price recites the poem. Then there's a brief interlude involving murder and premature burial and then Vincent finishes the poem. 5 stars!

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Captain's Log
My Collection

Gotcha, it's one that I had kept on the back burner for a long time and, while it's a slasher more than a horror movie, I think it works as one because of Bava and it's a beautiful-looking film.

Just watched this myself. Did a whole long write-up on it on Corri before it all got deleted. I ended up liking it a lot. It made some choices I did not think could play out well, but it definitely comes through in the end.

I’ve always thought of Slasher films as horror genre. Sub genre, of course, but horror genre regardless.
I have Blood and Black lace saved on Amazon to watch this coming week.

I watched this many, many years ago. I remember really liking it but there being one element that I didn't appreciate and now I can't remember what it was. Hmm. Probably due for a rewatch.

Yeah, don't get me started on that. I really split ****ing hairs when it comes to what is and isn't true horror. It's pointless and I can't really hold other people to it so I try not to, but I don't even watch slashers during October (unless the slasher is supernatural in some way) because they don't qualify for me. On the other hand, some movies that may not seem like horror to others, like Last Year At Marienbad, I'm willing to give a horror pass to.
As long as we can agree that Silence Of The Lambs is NOT a horror-movie, we'll be fine.

Yeah, about that...

Actually I agree with that Silence of the Lambs not being horror, nor slasher.

Silence of the Lambs is a police procedural absolutely littered with images and ideas pulled directly from horror iconography. I judge what a film is based on what is taken away from it. And, I don't know about anyone else, but it isn't legal procedure or warrants that I remember most.