"In an hour... you won't want them to. In an hour, you'll be one of us."
(1978)
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Virginia Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum.
Directed by Philip Kaufman.
Rated PG for not-quite-nudity, gooey huge fetuses, Veronica Cartwright's tears, rat turds, and lots of screaming.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers in Six Words:
Pod People seduce '70s San Francisco.
Why You'll Love It:
I doubt any film has had two better remakes (this one and Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers) than Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original film still packs a punch despite some heavy-handed politics, but Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake stands on its own as a thoughtful and dramatic retelling of the original story. Kaufman's film is dark and serious, with only a few nods to the original's tone (like the cameo by original star Kevin McCarthy). It's a rather intense tale of lost identity that adapts well to its new setting, with a great cast led by Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy offering excellent performances.
The Highlights:
Any scene featuring a young Jeff Goldblum, who reacts in a perfectly cynical manner to the idea of pod people. He's only a small part of this film, but it's easy to see how he became a star through this performance.
Going along with that point, a mid film scene in which the female leads discuss the possible infestation and its floral roots with a skeptical Goldblum starts to bring the film together as it prepares for a high paced finish.
I've never been entirely fond of the film's final ten or fifteen minutes - I think I want more from the story than this rushed finish - but most will tell you the final scene is one of the most iconic moments in modern sci-fi/horror.
Also there's the human faced dog. Yeah, you gotta see it.
Also Worth Knowing:
Donald Sutherland was hit by a Volkswagen beetle while performing his own stunts for the film. Who wants to be the guy who hits Donald Sutherland with their car? Not this guy.
As noted earlier, this is the first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Ferrara's Body Snatchers was released in 1993, and the forgettable The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and a returning Veronica Cartwright, was released in 2007. So we can probably bet on another version by 2019.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is for Fans of...
Spock, curly haired Sutherlands, paranoia, San Francisco based cinema (Has any city had more great movies set in it? I say NO.), cynical sci-fi, and human faced dogs.
If You Like This, You Might Also Like... Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955) (Obviously.) Village of the Damned (1960) The Mephisto Waltz (1971) Magic (1978)
Not gonna go in depth on this one, you all know what Halloween is. I've spent 200 weeks writing these columns now, and as we roll toward the end of the horror family's favorite holiday I just want to say how much I love being able to share my love for horror with you all. When I started this list almost four years ago I was trying to convince myself that I could keep this thing going on a weekly basis, and - despite some real world hurdles and plenty of good old-fashioned lack of motivation, we made it to another Halloween together.
If you need to know why you should watch Halloween - just like I once did as a teenager who thought horror movies were just fun and stupid and not on par with really great movies in other genres - I'll tell you that I believe nothing about any movie more than I believe that Halloween is a movie about man (or woman, in the case of Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode) vs. nature, not man (or woman) vs. man. People get it wrong and see this as just another slasher movie, or even worse they get it wrong and think of Michael Myers as an inhuman monster going on motor function and killing for the sake of killing.
I know that stuff about fate and evil that is peppered into John Carpenter's script feels like fluff, but if you buy into it it really pushes Halloween to a new level of fear. That might sound similar to asking an atheist to believe in the Bible, and I've wasted more time than I'd like to admit over the years trying to convince people of this when they don't want to see Halloween the way I do.
People come to horror for many reasons. My reason for loving horror, for being moved by horror, and for continuing to seek out horror all the time is because I'm looking for movies that dare me to feel that there is evil in this world that I might have to feel with. And I believe Halloween does this as well as any other movie. I'd compare it's conflict between humanity and the nature of evil to that presented in The Exorcist, which sits next to it as my second favorite horror film. That film approaches evil more directly than John Carpenter does, but both films create the same underlying fear in me.
In short, Halloween is the movie that made horror a cinematic power in my mind. I'd always loved horror, and there are probably a dozen other movies that I love now that I could have seen when I was young and that could have inspired me to feel the way I do about horror movies. Thanks to fate, Halloween was that movie that hit me and made me believe horror cinema could be great cinema. And I'm still indebted to it. Without it there might never have been one Midnight Movie of the Week, let alone two-hundred. It inspired me, and I hope that anyone out there who might be trying to love horror can find a movie that makes them feel as excited about their pursuit as Halloween makes me feel.
Antony Shaffer and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man is one of those films that I just always want to talk about. Of course, it's also one of those movies that it's hard to talk about, because it has to be experienced to be understood. I don't know how to explain what is awesome about The Wicker Man to someone who hasn't seen The Wicker Man, because it's probably impossible for someone to feel the full impact of the film if they know what is going to happen in the film.
Of course, the biggest rule about The Wicker Man is not to talk about the ending, which helps this one of a kind horror film stand out as one of the biggest shockers - if not the biggest, and I don't say that lightly - of all-time. I will never forget how I felt, physically and mentally, after my first viewing of this film. The Exorcist had that kind of impact on me, Inside recently had a similar impact on me, and The Gate may have had that kind of impact on me when I was a kid....but I don't think any of them made me as uncomfortable as The Wicker Man - a film without gore or monsters - made me feel.
The film builds its power thanks to a two-headed approach. Firstly, it takes place on a bizarre island where everything looks like reality but seems like something out of a nightmare. The township of Summerisle feels like something you could find anywhere in the United Kingdom at the time of the film, yet the actions of everyone in town makes us feel like we've slipped into something of an alternate universe. The story's stance on religion helps make it seem so weird - as do my own religious beliefs, which make me an easy target for Shaffer's script - but everybody can probably see that a town with this much random singing and dancing and Christopher Lee's wig is kind of off-kilter.
The bizarre universe the film exists in is intensified by the actors within it, led by the late Edward Woodward, who gives one of horror's finest performances. His turn as the religious policeman who descends on the town only intensifies how odd everything there is, and it makes the other stars - like the oft-nude temptress Britt Ekland and the deliciously hammy Lee (who seems like he was having a real good time playing Lord Summerisle) - seem that much more perfect in their roles. The disconnect between Woodward's character and this town's beliefs would make for a great piece of drama - but it's even better for what Hardy and Shaffer had up their sleeve here.
All of this odd behavior in the setting and by the characters doesn't seem like something you'd find in a movie renowned as a great horror film, which is a big part of why the ending means so much to the film's legacy. Most of the film plays more like a fairy tale told by someone on acid than a horror film of the 1970s, and even the final act doesn't offer many traditional scares. But The Wicker Man offers viewers an intoxicatingly weird experience, and when that experience twists into its final reveal it's hard to not feel shaken by the film's power.
I've seen The Wicker Man probably a dozen times in the last decade, and it still leaves me speechless at times. I've covered it a few times over the years already, and feel like I don't have a lot to say about the movie tonight, but I just felt the need to bring it up one more time and get it on this Midnight Movie of the Week list. (Especially since I once chose the unintentionally hilarious remake for this list, which means I have to point out that this one's the good one or I might as well quit.) When October rolls around it simply feels like the season of The Wicker Man (as does May, considering the film's plot) and I'd be doing you all a disservice if I didn't point out how important this film is to horror and cult cinema. If you haven't seen it, you owe it to yourself to seek it out. If you've seen it and loved it...well, then I'm willing to bet you want to talk about it to people too. It's one of the most powerful midnight movie experiences that has ever been created.
Any list of the coolest movies ever made is invalid if it does not mention The Warriors. There are few times when I will say that a movie is unquestionably worthy of praise, that the movie's brilliance is an actual fact, but The Warriors is simply cool. There can be no question, from the pulsating montage that opens the film to the final shot that hangs out behind the end credits, that Walter Hill and company made a gangland epic that is without equal.
The trick to understanding just how cool The Warriors, however, is realizing that it's more than just a gang movie. A short sighted viewer with strict morals might look at the film as an excuse to show gang violence and a glorification of the lifestyle. It's hard to argue against that to an extent - the fact is that everyone in the movie is a member of a criminal organization (unless they're a cop) - but it's more important to look at the film's reality instead of our reality. In the film's world, where the late night hours in New York City seem to belong only to the gangs, the only thing that matters is survival. And in that reality, it's easy to start seeing that The Warriors has its heart in a much less sinister place.
If you're unfamiliar with The Warriors - and I'm incredibly sorry if you are - the basic set-up is very simple. All of the "major league" gangs in New York City have agreed to send nine delegates to a meeting in the city where Cyrus, president of the top gang in the city, has something to say. It's supposed to be a peaceful discussion, with Cyrus giving one of the all-time most iconic speeches on film, except that one ornery gang decides they don't like it and shoots Cyrus dead. The ensuing scuffles sees the title gang, a rather vanilla outfit in red leather vests from Coney Island, accused of the murder and having their "warlord" slain, leaving the eight remaining members to try and get home while every gang in the city is ordered to hunt them down by Cyrus' disciples.
If this idea was pitched today, it's hard to see it being made as a film and not a video game. The set up is almost perfect for that medium; starting with a short intro and a crisis that puts the heroes in peril and then allowing waves of opponents of varying skill and difficulty to challenge them on their way to their goal. It makes perfect sense that The Warriors was adapted for consoles by video game giant Rockstar Games in 2005 (it's actually one of the better film-to-video-game adaptations out there), and looking at the film after seeing that game makes it almost impossible for me to not look at the film as a video game movie that was made in advance.
With such a simple premise, it's everything else in the film that Hill manages to make so cool. That really begins with Cyrus, the idealistic Jesus figure whose "Can you dig it?" exclamation has become a pop culture mainstay. The actor who plays Cyrus, Roger Hill, is just one of the relatively unknown actors in the film (there are a few recognizable faces, but the biggest star of the film is probably Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? hostess Lynne Thigpen as the mostly unseen disc-jokey who advances the plot a few times), but his one-scene performance perfectly makes us accept the film's conflict. Other performances vary in quality - lead Michael Beck seems to spend most of his time standing very still and looking concerned-but-chill, while seedy David Patrick Kelly is perfectly unhinged as the unhinged little gangster who is responsible for The Warriors' plight - but everyone seems to be adequate for their part in the film.
By traditional standards The Warriors probably doesn't measure up to most filmmaking standards, and it's easy to see why critics in its time primarily wrote it off as a failure. But the intangibles that make The Warriors such a memorable and enjoyable film have maintained for nearly 35 years, and now we're at the point where the film is certainly one of the most loved cult films out there. Forget the plot, forget the gang affiliation, forget that the lead is there because of his abs - just sit back and experience The Warriors. You'll be glad you did.
The Legend of Hell House sits near the top of my short list of classic horror movies that not enough people talk about. To me it has always felt a little like this one is lost in the shuffle, hidden beneath other haunted house tales (like The Haunting) and other films of its time period (like The Exorcist). I understand the greatness of those films (although I do seem to have more concerns with The Haunting than most do), but I have a hard time agreeing with anyone who doesn't think this movie belongs in the conversation when it's a conversation about the best horror movies ever made. (In fact, last year I ranked it as my 35th favorite horror film ever - which, considering how many horror movies have been made, is pretty high praise.)
Starting out by claiming that a movie is one of the best of its kind is a bold thing to do, but I wanted to make this point right off the bat - The Legend of Hell House strikes me as one of the most truly successful horror movies that exists. Thanks to a bold script by Richard Matheson - that is adapted from his own novel, Hell House - it's always amazed me just how well this film bridges the gap between the traditional haunted house tale and the more diabolical, sadistic face of horror that was rising up in the 1970s. Matheson once made vampires a science in I Am Legend, and with Hell House he managed to tackle the supernatural with a similarly result-based approach.
The plot is simple - one house, plenty of spooky events, and four characters in search of an answer - but the methods are unique. Matheson introduces three conflicting approaches from the people who enter Hell House, and much of the story is a struggle both to understand the haunting and to understand how to deal with the haunting. The group that is paid to study Hell House is comprised of a physicist (and his wife) who is only interested in a rational explanation of the situation, a spiritual medium who is mostly interested in the supernatural equivalent of "hugging it out" with the haunters, and a cynical, physical medium who is also the only known survivor of the house.
The latter character I mentioned is Benjamin Fischer, played by the great Roddy McDowell, and he is one of the most well-written characters in the annals of horror. As the film begins he appears as if he'll follow a similar route through the film as Elisha Cook, Jr. once did in House on Haunted Hill - the scared survivor who exists only to talk about how evil the house is - but his character arc is a fantastic change of pace. Every character in the film goes through a lot while subjected to Hell House's terrors, and the film does a fantastic job of literally putting us in the face of the character as they react to their surroundings. And, at least to me, the central piece of the film is Fischer, who moves through the film presenting his fear in a logical and increasingly understandable manner.
The women in the film shine too, with young Pamela Franklin (who starred in another of the all-time great horror films, The Innocents, as a child) making the spiritual medium a sympathetic character and Gayle Hunnicutt turning the seemingly timid wife into a unhinged, psychosexual being when influenced by the spirits at play. Both characters help sell Matheson's twisted vision, and as the film moves forward it should become very clear to the viewer that Matheson wants us to feel uncomfortable in Hell House. Hunnicutt pulls this off extremely well in a pair of scenes where the forces in the house prey on her sexual frustrations, which are just a couple of the moments where our characters get a little too sweaty while dealing with the house. The spirits at work in this house take immense pleasure in possessing these characters, and the film's depictions of these moments are definitely gripping.
The film builds to an ending that has been maligned by many for its randomness (and/or simplicity), but I've always found it to be a rather fascinating way to end the story. It makes sense while dealing with the film's balance between science and the supernatural, and it allows the remaining characters to close their arcs perfectly. It's not necessarily going to scare many viewers - and it does take the intensity of the film down from the heights of earlier scenes - but it feels like it fits to me. As a wise detective might say, the simplest answer is often the right one - and Matheson understands that here.
Combining this ending with the uncomfortable and unpredictable film that precedes it only strengthens the impact that The Legend of Hell House has on me. It looks like a conventional horror film, but Matheson's script and the direction of John Hough - who always seems to be doing something with the camera's perspective of the characters and the sound design that keeps Hell House feeling tense - provide a new twist as the film goes on. To me, all of these things make The Legend of Hell House the quintessential haunted house movie, and make it a movie that any horror fan needs to revisit often.
If you ever wondered what The Defiant Ones would look like with beautiful women in the Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier roles - or if you're younger and wondered the same thing about Stephen Baldwin and Larry Fishburne in Fled - then you're looking for Black Mama, White Mama. Produced in 1973 by Filipino director Eddie Romero, the film is a chance for Pam Grier - the Queen of Grindhouse herself - and blonde bombshell Margaret Markov to make the most out of a ridiculous premise and turn their island upside down.
Markov plays Karen, a revolutionary leader who's imprisoned alongside Grier's Lee, a prostitute, in a seedy woman's prison where the guards are a bit too frisky and shower time is excessively playful. The girls don't see eye to eye - Lee won't submit to the lusting head guard and Karen will - which leads to them being chained together just before they escape from work duty. Unable to shake free from one another, Karen and Lee struggle to survive while battling to meet their own needs.
If it all sounds kind of childish, that's because it is. This was a time when the Philippines became a go-to place for genre film producers, a place where rules didn't exist and labor costs were pretty darn low. As such, local "talents" fill up much of the cast and crew, and the lack of a Hollywood polish will put the movie close to "so bad it's good" territory for some viewers. Some of the actors, most notably a rotund villain who likes to torture nude women, seem like they were destined for Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. But, thankfully, the talented cast shines brighter than the flaws of the low budget deserve.
Grier is a known quantity, though it's important to note that this film was produced just before her star-making role in Coffy, which was released later in the same year. We don't get much of the Grier swagger that we've come to love in her more famous blaxploitation films here, but her strong presence still radiates, especially when the action picks up. It's not the Grier I expected, but it's easy to see what she would become and how her personality earned her a place in Hollywood.
Markov is a less known name, but her starring turn as Karen fits perfectly alongside Grier. She looks the part of a California beach bunny, but she manages to show some attitude of her own and provide a bit of humor alongside Grier. Sequences like the one in which the duo disguise themselves as nuns pop off of the screen, primarily thanks to the chemistry these two share with each other. Markov would star in a couple more grindhouse films in the following year, but after marrying a producer she - sadly for us - retired from acting. To be honest, Markov probably steals more scenes in this film than Grier does. And that's an impressive feat.
As if the two stars weren't enough, Romero also enlisted the services of horror favorite Sid Haig to spice up the picture. Haig co-stars as a seedy fella who is hired to track the escaped women, and who does so while hooking up with women, torturing the police on the case, and sporting a pretty fantastic tropical shirt. Haig's performance is never quite sinister, but his manic energy gives the film a boost of unpredictability that is more than welcome. Also adding a bit of odd fun to the film is Lynn Borden as the lesbian prison guard who creates the wedge between Lee and Karen, and there's a part of me that's sad that Haig and Borden don't spend more time in this flick.
Black Mama, White Mama is nothing close to high art, but it's a surprising twist on a fun premise that never settles for a dull moment. It actually probably belongs on the high end of the Filipino genre cinema spectrum - see Machete Maidens Unleashed for more on that weird subgenre - and it's a chance for a few powerful actors to showcase their talents in unique ways. If you like trashy exploitation cinema, you'll definitely have a smile on your face by the time Black Mama, White Mama's final shootout rolls around.
You guys, I'm tired of being boring. I feel like 2013 has been one big long boring year here at FMWL. And that sucks. I could make a bunch of excuses - work sucks, writing about horror movies four days a week exhausts a lot of topics, I'm just lazy - but none of them would actually matter. It's not why I don't do things that's important, it's that I do something about it.
Totally unrelated, yet important, checklist.
When thinking about my own writing and what the heck I'm doing, I came to a realization. I love writing reviews and being as serious as I can be (which isn't that serious, but that's beside the point), but the most fun I've ever had writing about movies - save a few of my favorite posts here at FMWL - was more than ten years ago when a friend asked me to write a DVD column on his site and I turned it into a random series of thoughts that I slapped together off the top of my head while doing what I call "winging it." It wasn't high art and it wasn't always important, but it was carefree and fun and it always put a smile on my face. And, as you might have guessed, that's what I'm doing right now.
That's not to say I plan on getting rid of reviews or the Midnight Movie of the Week or any of the other stuff I do when I'm feeling inspired. But there are so many times when I just want to put some thoughts out there and I get caught up in the how and the what and then I'm like HEY THE MIKE JUST FREAKING TYPE IT. So that will be what I do every once in a while in posts like this one, which will carry the simple title "Today's Things."
(Yes, I thought of that name all by myself. I'm a gosh darn Einstein.)
(Oh, and I might ramble on a bit here. Just roll with it. Or go read something else. Your move, creep.)
Thing I'm Loving on Blu-Ray
I'm not sure if I've said it enough over the last year, but Shout Factory's horror centric new wing, Scream Factory, is one of the best things to happen to horror fans in ages. Case in point: This week's release of the R-rated Hammer Films offering The Vampire Lovers. Released in 1970, this Dracula-less film is a showcase for the voluptuous and talented Ingrid Pitt, a horror star who must be seen by all fans of romantic vampire tales.
While the film itself is not one of Hammer's best offerings, it stands up as a nice adaptation of the classic tale of Carmilla, which predated Bram Stoker's Dracula and pretty much invented the lesbian vampire stereotype that became a staple of European horror in this era. Pitt is the primary reason to check the film out, and its use of nudity and sexuality - while mild by modern standards - is out of character and risque for hammer. Advertising for the film that has been reproduced (twice on the blu-ray packaging and once as an on-disc disclaimer) boldly states "Not for the mentally immature!", which to me seems like a reminder that there's artful desires behind this surprising film.
(By the way, I always give a movie extra kudos if a villain uses a fake name that is an acronym of their infamous name. Here we get Carmilla pretending to be someone named Mircalla, and me smiling a lot due to this fact.)
As has been the case for most of their releases, Scream Factory put a lot of effort into this release. The blu-ray package (unlike many of their releases, this is NOT a blu/DVD combo pack) offers plenty of extras - I'm stoked to see the commentary by director Roy Ward Baker, even though I'm pretty sure it's carried over from the old DVD release - and the price is even a bit lower than most of the other Scream Factory titles. Fans of Hammer or European vampire flicks of the '70s should definitely find this one.
Thing That's Not Horror That I'm Watching While Writing
Broken Arrow. Look, I know there's a good John Woo and a bad John Woo, and I know that this is bad John Woo. But I still find a lot of enjoyment in just how ridiculously macho this showdown between John Travolta and Christian Slater - neither of whom are often charged with being ridiculously macho - is. There was a place and a time in the '90s when this was comfort cinema to me, and it's still welcome now - it's just not welcome as often
Bonus points for Samantha Mathis. Redheads, man.
(By the way, I dog on the '90s all the time - but I gotta admit they've grown on me. I even like a lot of '90s music now! And I even hated '90s music then. Today a teenager I know called Pearl Jam classic rock and it took every ounce of my being to stop me from shouting "WHOA YOU JUST BACK THE FRAK UP!" and going on a rant. Restraint - Thy name is Mike.)
So yeah, Bad John Woo still has its moments. Unless it's Mission Impossible II. Then it just makes me sad.
Thing I'm Not Sure About Yet, But Which Makes Me Chuckle
When a movie's called Manborg, I take notice. And production crew Astron-6 already had my attention thanks to Father's Day, one of the most obscene and ridiculous (and also fun) movies released in 2012. But Father's Day was one of those movies that I never managed to write a review of, because it's just kind of difficult to piece together a legitimate commentary on such a random movie. You know how sometimes you see something bizarre and you're like "Well...that happened." and you know you had fun but all attempts to explain why you had fun don't make sense? That's where I was at when I saw Father's Day.
That's kind of where I'm at after Manborg too, although it's a different kind of feeling this time. Manborg - the tale of a man who is reincarnated as a cyborg, naturally - is a more cartoonish and less vulgar animal than Astron-6's first film. It's still bloody and gory and inappropriate in its own ways, but it's more playful and maybe even more fun than Father's Day was. Maybe. I'm not really sure. Father's Day was more...ummmm....artistic? Maybe? Heck, I don't know. The point is that explanations of Astron-6 films are really pointless - if you like low-budget retro/grindhouse goofiness, these movies are for you. If you don't, you'll hate 'em. Regardless of your opinion, in ten years we'll be talking about Astron-6 the same way we talk about Troma films now.
Back to Manborg - I might review it soon, but I'm not sure that review will make much sense. I will say that Mina - the blue-haired anime-inspired heroine - and #1 Man - the poorly dubbed martial arts expert who's presumably from the far east - had me cackling all the time and made the 72 minute film worthwhile. That might be all I need to say for a review, actually. Let's move on...or you could watch the Manborg trailer and catch up with me in a minute.
Thing That's A Random Rant
Those of you who know me or follow me into the social media world probably know that I'm a pretty big sports fan at times. And I was randomly thinking about horror movies today and how lots of horror movies promote lots of stereotypes and I was surprised by how I never thought a lot about athletes in horror movies.
The catch, of course, is that horror movies don't often give us much to think about when a character is written as an athlete. For starters, "idiot male who womanizes often" is often synonymous with "football player" in horror scripts, a distinction that is occasionally deserved but a bit of an oversimplification. I mean, I was a teenage football player, but I still learned how to read and write and how to not treat women like objects and how to never have a girlfriend - all of which are completely the opposite of what we see from "athletes" in horror movies. I am not the norm, and I'm proud of that, but I really don't think that the type of football guy shown in these movies is the norm either.
I always assumed this guy died because of his hairstyle.
But hey, let's leave football out of this right now. Why is that always the example? Where's the hockey players and the basketball players and the golfers? And where are all the female athletes? American schools have laws which require equal amounts of sports programs for males and females, but how often does a female character in a horror movie mention their sports experience? Now, there are naturally some outliers - would you believe that PIECES, which features a character who's a female tennis star, is one of the more progressive horror movies in this regard???? - but I'm struggling to pull them off the top of my head. In fact, this topic might require more thought and its own post.
What say you, dear readers? Got any examples of athletes in horror that stick out to you? Have similar complaints about this stereotype or similar stereotypes in horror films? I know it's one of the least important ones out there - we should probably deal with how terrible women get treated in slasher films before we focus on football stars - but it's something that caught my attention and inspired me to ponder. What do you think?
Thing That's A Random Shout Out
Belated happy birthday to Jen and Sylvia Soska, better known as the Twisted Twins, who celebrated a birthday on Monday. They were the team behind Dead Hooker in a Trunk, which was one of the first indie horror films I reviewed for this site and a goofy favorite that still makes me laugh. Their follow-up, American Mary, will make its US debut on home video in June, and if you don't think I've got that pre-ordered than you don't think my name is The Mike. Can't wait to see what these talented ladies have up their sleeve next!
Thing At The End
Coming soon to FMWL - William Friedkin's new memoir, a yet-to-be-named Midnight Movie of the Week, and a review of the Guillermo Del Toro produced Mama on blu-ray. Plus I've got a stack of Pam Grier DVDs sitting next to me that are just begging for some one on one time. So, until next time, here's a thing from YouTube. Be well, Midnight Warriors!
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie might be one of the five best zombie movies in existence, and yet nobody ever seems to talk about it. There are plenty of reasons this could be the case - "It's almost 40 years old" and "there's no big stars in it" are acceptable, but stupid, examples - but I'm most concerned that the movie is a horror film that suffers from a bit of an identity crisis.
Identity crisis is a bizarre diagnosis for a movie, so allow me to explain. For starters, it's a movie that seems to have a different title for every viewer. In the UK, it's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue. But in other parts/times of the UK it was called The Living Dead. In the United States the film was called Don't Open the Window at one point, and titles from other parts of the world translate to all kinds of things. My favorite example of this is the original Spanish title - Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti - that translates to Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead. I don't know the history of the movie and its release, but it seems like it's been given more names than The Artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.
As if that's not confusing enough, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie also seems kind of like a homeless film. Most horror fans would look at the film and say "Oh, that's an Italian horror flick" and they'd be wrong....kind of. The film was directed by Jorge Grau, a Spaniard, produced in Italy and England, and features a cast made up of plenty of Italians, Spaniards, and even American Arthur Kennedy as a stodgy detective. The other primary cast members are half British/half Italian Ray Lovelock (who has a fantastic name and a fantastic beard) and Spanish born Cristina Galbo, who seem to have chemistry together despite being obviously dubbed. Which is kind of a microcosm of why the film works so well, because all of these random ingredients are here, yet they inexplicably fit together.
A majority of the credit must be given to Grau, a director that I'm not very familiar with but one that I respect immensely. In an introduction filmed for the DVD release of the film, Grau sends a wonderful message to horror fans about to see the film for the first time. "I hope you have a bad time" and 'I hope you get very scared and that you suffer profoundly" aren't things most directors would say to their audiences, but Grau seems almost cheerful as he reminds us that his intention is to make us squirm. There's something about this little nod from the director that has stuck with me for years, and really made me admire the guy's eye for horror.
The other reason I love the guy is for how perfectly he balances all the things I want from a zombie movie throughout his film. Let Sleeping Corpses offers an actual plot, a ton of atmospheric tension, and just the right amount of gore to keep me fascinated. Don't let the European shine fool you, because Grau's film doesn't go for Fulci levels of blood splatter. It does, however, feature some perfectly executed attacks and enough organ-ripping to keep you disgusted, all while still managing to feel like a nightmare for the characters involved.
The plot has an ecological explanation for the zomificiation epidemic, and some of the symbolism Grau uses to make his point is a little too on-the-nose at times. But the heavy handed segments of the film can be forgiven, as they are a wonderful excuse to move the story to some vibrant country settings and one of the most realistically dreary graveyards in horror history. A lot of zombie movies skip the reason why zombies are happening, but Grau's film does a good job of having a reason and not getting too caught up in it. Above all else, this film is a fever dream of undead madness, not a social commentary.
I'm not sure I was very scared, nor did I suffer profoundly, but I still can see where Grau was coming from when he made this fine horror film. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is always entertaining and never insulting, with great special effects - those zombie eyes do haunt me - and a nice pace. It's an odd little zombie film that feels like the bastard child of Romero and Bava, but that doesn't stop the film from being one of the most underrated horror films of the 1970s. No matter which title they decide to use or which country they attribute the film to, most horror fans should fall in love with this one.
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