This past October, I decided once again to fake it 'til I make it as a horror fan.
Here's what I watched, with some of my comments originally posted on the BGG Slashing Through Cinema 4 geeklist.
Copying and pasting from the Geeklist :
SAILORS ON THE STARLESS SEA
Step 1: Add a geeklist item to this list
Done! (I ran a session of Sailors on the Starless Sea a couple of weeks ago. It's slapstick fun when playing with old buddies, but the basic adventure plot is straight-out dark fantasy horror.)
Step 2: Introduce yourself
This is my second year participating in Slashing Through October. Last year was great fun. I only managed to watch seven films (and one tv season) in 31 days, but I had great fun doing it.
I'm a lifelong cinephile. I love horror yet I am almost always disappointed by horror films (and horror novels/stories as well). I'm probably the worst person to participate in a gleeful celebration of horror films, since I dislike so many of them. Yet every October I'm suckered into watching horror films because it seems to be the thing to do. One of these Octobers I'll commit to watching nothing but romantic comedies (this is someone's idea of a horror marathon!) just to be contrary. But for right now, I'll join in on the horror lovefest with everyone else, especially this great community here on BGG.
The best thing that I've ever read in regards to horror is Chesterton's short essay, "The Nightmare". Read it here:
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/nightmare.html
Step 3: Copy/Paste this form into your geeklist
Done! I will try to be good about updating (and commenting) daily as I watch more films. My goal for this year is to beat my 7 films watched last year. 8 films in 2018 is my goal!
Pre-October Warm-up
September 30th: mother! (2017, d.Darren Aronofsky), Beyond the Gates (2016, d.Jackson Stewart)
Slashing Through October!
October 1st:
October 2nd:
The Monster Squad (1987, d.Fred Dekker) ***
Demon Seed (1977, d.Donald Cammell) ***1/2
October 3rd:
Oculus (2013, d.Mike Flanagan) ***1/2
Are We Not Cats (2016, d.Xander Robin) ***
October 4th:
October 5th:
Revenge (2017, d.Coralie Fargeat) **
October 6th:
October 7th:
The Evil Dead (1981, d.Sam Raimi) **
October 8th:
October 9th:
Psycho (1960, d.Alfred Hitchcock) ****
October 10th:
October 11th:
October 12th:
October 13th:
October 14th:
October 15th:
October 16th:
October 17th:
October 18th:
October 19th:
October 20th:
Happy Death Day (2017, d.Christopher B. Landon) ***
October 21st:
October 22nd:
October 23rd:
Wake in Fright (1971, d. Ted Kotcheff) ***
October 24th:
October 25th:
October 26th: The Haunting of Hill House 1&2.
October 27th:
October 28th:
October 29th:
October 30th:
October 31st:
Rating scale is pretty simple and completely subjective:
* = Hated It
** = Didn't Like It
*** = Liked It
**** = Really Liked It
***** = Loved It
I'm fairly generous with 3-stars if I liked something, but 4s and 5s are for special movies. If a film is a 5, it means that it's one of my all-time favorites. If it's a 4, it means that it has impressed me and that I want to spend more time with it. If it's a 3 and 1/2 (like Demon Seed and Oculus above), it means that I liked it enough that I'd re-watch it to explore it further.. If it's a 3, it means that I liked it, but that I don't think that I'll get anything out of watching it again. Anything less than a 3 means that something about the film actively irritated me or worse.
My 3D:
Decade: Probably the 1950s. I actually can't name all that many horror films from the decade that I love, so this will be controversial, but I'll name Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place as my horror pick from 1950. It's a noir melodrama, but its exploration of trust and truth and anger and human relations has all of what I am personally looking for in any psychological horror film (which are usually more satisfying to me than jump scare thrillers).
Director: Again, I'll cheat. Allen Baron directed one great film, maybe my favorite film, Blast of Silence. It's maybe the final true noir film (and maybe that's what I'm arguing right now with these picks, that noir is my horror genre, the film space in which I most clearly see the horror of life reflected on film). Baron's film is also a great Christmas film, so I recommend that you watch it now and then watch it again on or around Christmas.
Denizen: And one final cheat. I'll name The Room from Tarkovsky's Stalker. The Room is the "denizen" of The Zone, which is perhaps some sort of alien outpost in our world (and by alien, I don't necessarily mean extraterrestrial). This room purportedly has the power to fulfill one's truest desire. But are you sure that you know what your most true desire is? Scary stuff.
September 30th: mother! (2017, d.Darren Aronofsky)
Basic plot: Mother loves Him. Him loves Him.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? N
I don't know if horror fans would want to claim mother! or not. It could be shelved under horror. Or a legitimate case could be made for black comedy. Or domestic drama. Or biopic maybe.
I hated it. I'm all for directors following their personal visions. I've just never been aboard any train that Aronofsky has been conducting. mother! is his most self-indulgent film yet, a sort of winking, knowing nod of the head to smile at and wave away his creative trespasses. Bleh. I found most of it boring, then found the end completely frustrating in a bad way, not in a good way, like a silly episode of Black Mirror that tries to mean a lot, but is mostly caught up in the same immaturity that it seeks to expose.
September 30th: Beyond the Gates (2016, d.Jackson Stewart)
Basic plot: Adult brothers play an 80s VHS horror board game to save their father's soul.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? N
I had about as much fun watching this film as I ever did playing VHS board games. Which is not very much. But that's a little too unkind. The premise is great and the movie is perfectly watchable. It hits the right notes and knows that it is silly and slight. I'd have happily paid $2 to rent a VHS copy of this one back in the day.
October 2nd: The Monster Squad (1987, d.Fred Dekker)
Basic plot: 80s kids vs. all the monsters.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? Y
Like Bob Pony above, I hadn't seen this one before (or if I had, it just wasn't memorable to me). I liked it more than Bob did, but I don't disagree with his take on the film. "No scares, lots of dumb goofiness." Yep. But there is still something charming to me about 80s dumb goofiness. I'm sure someone somewhere has written a great dissertation on 80s film kids. There's something utterly unique about the era. The kids of the 80s grew up too fast with no bearings but pop culture. And the films of the 80s reflect this, with kids who are simultaneously innocent and knowing, foul-mouthed and good-hearted, vulnerable yet aching for something more. The Monster Squad isn't the best example of this (I'd point toward something like a double feature of Return to Oz and River's Edge as the edge of "children's horror" in the 80s), but it is goofy fun. I'm probably an old fart, but I prefer a world in which kids can run around as they please and make plans to save the world from monsters in their treehouse fort. But I also think that there's a danger beyond the goofiness, that those of us who grew up watching pop culture which was self-referentially interacting with pop culture ended up in a sort of media trap, in which Hollywood is our chief cultural heritage. We don't know the deep myths of our ancestors, but we know the shallow ones reflected in the funhouse mirror. And we sure know that we want to buy Monster Squad action figures!
Surprisingly, there was no merchandise push for this film. See this post here: http://brandedinthe80s.com/tag/monster-squad-toys
Eh, sorry that what was meant to be a couple of sentences on goofiness turned into a rambling mini-rant. If Monster Squad can get me riled up, just wait until I tackle Hereditary next! (that's the plan anyhow, but I might watch something older first; I'm not sure yet.)
October 2nd: Demon Seed (1977, d.Donald Cammell)
Basic plot: Google AI uses your Smart House features to manufacture synthetic sperm in your basement.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? Y
I was just in the right frame of mind for this one. I giggled a few times at some of the silliness, but mostly I thought that it still works as an expression of the fear of technological progress apart from moral progress. If you can find a way into the spirit of this one without your MST3K filters turning on, you'll find something worth watching. Its presentation of "Smart" computer automation turned against its users is worth thinking about even if the Rational Computer Rapist For The Good Of The World plot is distasteful and icky. And, well, even if you can't get to that space to enjoy any serious part of this film, at least you'll still get to see a killer wheelchair with mounted laser.
October 3rd: Oculus (2013, d.Mike Flanagan)
Basic plot: An old mirror is the greatest serial killer of all time.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? Y
I went into this with very low expectations and I was more than pleasantly surprised. Oculus is compelling in the way of the best thrillers. I didn't want to look away. The intercutting worked well and ratcheted up the tension. I was really satisfied by the end.
October 3rd: Are We Not Cats (2016, d.Xander Robin)
Basic plot: A dropout drops in on a girl because he sees that she shares his fetish.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? Y
I'm trying really hard to keep the "recommend" either a straight yes or a straight no. But really, all of the above recommendations should be qualified, and this one the most so.
I think that Are We Not Cats is best seen with no knowledge about it at all. Just go in blind.
It's too bad that that sort of blind watch is usually impossible. You already know too much about Are We Not Cats by me telling you not to read anything more about it. So it goes.
October 5th: Revenge (2017, d.Coralie Fargeat)
Basic plot: A young woman is raped. She gets revenge.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? N
Caveat: I almost always hate revenge movies, so it's no surprise that I'd hate one titled Revenge.
This is a pretty basic revenge flick, following the rape-and-revenge exploitation horror template.
I only watched it because it's getting such great reviews and because it's being touted as something special. Sentences like Lemire's "one of the most impressive feats of all is the way Fargeat subverts and co-opts the male gaze, turning it into something that’s both playful and fierce" can be found in many reviews of the film. Meh. I don't buy it. I don't have time right now to go into details since I really should be working, but there is nothing here that changes the rape-and-revenge empowerment formula (fantasy).
[more comments on Revenge]
The style is a little too slick for me (pun maybe intended since there's the equivalent of a blood slip n' slide in the film), but Fargeat is definitely talented.
I haven't watched anything new yet so I'm still thinking about Revenge.
I do give Fargeat credit for the way in which the rape is staged. I don't have all that much experience with this rape-and-revenge subgenre (I've seen I Spit On Your Grave and a couple of other 70s exploitation films), but in my experience, the rape is all too often hypersexualized (it is, quite frankly, exploited for the purposes of titillation).
In Revenge, the rape of Jen by Stan is initially interrupted by Dimitri. This is the key change in this film's presentation. Dimitri is invited to either come in and join the activity or get out (I forget exactly how it's phrased--probably an f-bomb in there). Dimitri has a moral choice. He can join in the evil or he can act to stop the evil. He chooses a third way, which is not at all a morally neutral way. He walks away. Intentionally or not, Fargeat associates the film audience with Dimitri. In order for the film to work, in order for us to get to all of that badass woman warrior desert combat stuff, we need for this bad thing to happen. We don't want to be associated with Stan. We don't participate directly. But we're all Dimitris, letting "the inevitable" happen because we can't disturb the rape film tropes. We dive into the swimming pool rationalizing our commitment to genre.
My biggest problem with the film is that it is this empowerment fantasy that absolutely requires the rape. And it's a complete fantasy. If this were a true horror film, I could accept everything up until the push off of the cliff. If this were a true horror film, the next scene wouldn't be her magically using her earbuds to get a lighter, it would be a scene of her stuck on the tree, bleeding out, followed by a scene of the men approaching her and shooting her in the head. That's enough, but it could be followed by playful scenes of the men burying her, then hunting together, then even returning home, with a final shot of Richard hugging and kissing his wife and child. A film titled "Revenge" that played out like that would be subversive and it would have something to say about the power dynamics between men and women. This film as it is just more or less follows the fantasy formula.
Finally, I'll just gripe that I hate the term "male gaze." It should be called "sleazoid gaze" or something. But I know what people are saying when they use the term. And I don't think that Fargeat's film does much with the idea. Fargeat just goes with one version of the male gaze that enjoys the Xena Warrior Princess "Strong Woman" archetype. Jen as warrior is Jen in underwear, which is how men (please read "sleazoids") want all of their women warriors, right? (as evidenced by the disparity in men and women's armor in fantasy games for instance?)
And again, I'll just note that it's the rape that somehow gives this woman hunting/survival superpowers. It's part of the empowerment formula of these fantasy films that the woman must first be humiliated before she can kick ass. I find the very heart of this subgenre to be an offensive idea that always plays out in shallow ways, as if murdering men will somehow heal the terror of rape. These films always end with the murder and never explore the further psychological repercussions that the rape would have on any woman and that the revenge would have on any woman.
Anyhow, I gave the film two stars instead of one because of Fargeat's talent with staging and editing. Most of my problems are with the script and not with the execution of the film.
October 7th: The Evil Dead (1981, d.Sam Raimi)
Basic Plot: Kids stay at a cabin in the woods without any board games. Shenanigans ensue.
See Before? Y
Recommend? N
This is probably where I'm going to part company with many of you. This is my second time watching The Evil Dead..... and it just doesn't do anything for me. I think that the people who love this love the over-the-top inventiveness and enthusiasm of it, the gore and the effects. It's a grunge aesthetic and I think I get it, but the whole is less to me than the sum of each gory goof, even if some of the moments are indeed grand. It's all a bit too campy for me. And a bit too hectic, too frenetic. I've given it a couple of chances and I'm pretty much done with it.
Basic Plot: Kids stay at a cabin in the woods without any board games. Shenanigans ensue.
See Before? Y
Recommend? N
This is probably where I'm going to part company with many of you. This is my second time watching The Evil Dead..... and it just doesn't do anything for me. I think that the people who love this love the over-the-top inventiveness and enthusiasm of it, the gore and the effects. It's a grunge aesthetic and I think I get it, but the whole is less to me than the sum of each gory goof, even if some of the moments are indeed grand. It's all a bit too campy for me. And a bit too hectic, too frenetic. I've given it a couple of chances and I'm pretty much done with it.
October 9th: Psycho (1960, d.Alfred Hitchcock)
Basic plot: There's a vacancy at the Bates Motel.
Seen Before? Y
Recommend? Y
I probably don't need to spend any time convincing you all to see Psycho. Watch it if you haven't.
Psycho does bring up an interesting question. What is the difference between horror and thriller? Are they the same thing? Is there a distinction that matters? Is it an "I know it when I see it" sort of thing?
October 20th: Happy Death Day (2017, d.Christopher B. Landon)
Basic plot: A girl re-lives the same day repeatedly.
Seen Before? N
Recommend? Y
There are all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't like Happy Death Day, but this movie is so light and breezy and a little bit charming, that it's easy to get caught up in its cycle of mystery-solving and self-help betterment. Specifically as a horror film, I don't know that it has any real scares or uneasy moments. It falls more clearly into the youth sex comedy genre (how one lives in relation to all others is the core theme of HDD) developed through the 80s-->90s-->present.
October 23rd: Wake in Fright (1971, Ted Kotcheff)
Basic plot: An ungrateful jerk gets stuck in a town where everyone treats him like family and gives him free beer.
Seen before? N
Recommend? Y, just barely.
Wake in Fright was mostly unpleasant to watch. Our protagonist is a whiny ingrate. The Yabba men may all be alcoholic brutes, but at least they're generous ones. Still, their lifestyle isn't all that pleasant either, and watching debauchery after kangeroo hunt after debauchery isn't all that fun. But, dang, that kangeroo hunt and fight sequence is something fierce. I may not have loved this film, I may not even have liked the experience of watching it, but I'll remember it, and that's something special in a landscape of forgettable fare.
Ted Kotcheff directed First Blood!!!!
And Weekend at Bernie's, which I think was on HBO every single day in 1990. So maybe I've seen it a few times.
Is Wake in Fright a horror film? I'd wager that there's more horror in the gambling scene alone than most horror films, but it's definitely not horror in the genre sense that creates certain expectations of slashing and screaming.
I watched two episodes of Haunting of Hill House. I'm withholding comment. I may watch more in the next few days.
October is over.
I only watched 9 horror films and 2 horror TV epiodes.
Real life horror (illness and death) intruded on my time.
But I probably wouldn't have watched that much more anyhow. I do regret that I never made it out to see any horror on the big screen. I did go to the local second-run theater a couple of weeks ago; I saw A Simple Favor, which was kinda a thriller comedy, not much horror--entertaining enough for $3. I didn't watch anything anywhere in the last week. Well, that's not entirely true. I half-watched Adam Sandler's comedy special while doing some cleaning/sorting last Tuesday. Not at all horror.
I had meant to watch some more of Hill House, but never got to it. I wasn't all that captivated by the first two episodes, but I was impressed that it was obviously the work of an auteur. It felt like Oculus, which I had just watched. I think that even if I hadn't known that it was the same director, I would have wondered if it were. Flanagan is interesting. It's weird that Hill House, which should be its own thing, felt like a remake of Oculus. The thematic preoccupation with the "child is the father of the man" (to borrow from Wordsworth), which is reinforced through parallel intercutting of "past" and "present" events in the film's timeline, is a constant. I'm guessing now that this continues throughout the series. I'm intrigued, but I'm not sure that I'm actually intrigued enough to devote another 8 hours or so to it.