Horror is everywhere (3) - '80s Horror Month Edition (Guest Post by Andreas of Pussy Goes Grrr)

(Note from The Mike: Our last guest host this week is Andreas, an excellent young film fan who covers all genres - and does so quite well - over at Pussy Goes Grrr. Andreas decided to use '80s Horror Month as a chance to continue his "Horror is everywhere" series from his site, and I'm excited to have him on board.  Check out his thoughts below, and head on over for more from Andreas!)

Last October, I wrote a couple of posts over at Pussy Goes Grrr about how "horror is everywhere." As I'm sure you Midnight Warriors know, some "serious" cinephiles look askance at horror, as if it's the ugly cousin of the movie world. These so-called film lovers will embrace Luis Buñuel or Michael Haneke, then act like slasher movies are beneath them.

Well, we know better. Those great, depressing art films and those great, disturbing horror films share common DNA that goes beyond artificial barriers of genre or high vs. low culture. Art and horror filmmakers have bounced off one another throughout history, building on each other's ideas and techniques. They engage the same themes: fear, mortality, the problem of evil.

To prove my point (and stay relevant to 1980s Horror Month), here are five highly respected, acclaimed classics of the '80s that aren't exactly horror movies per se, but aren't nearly as far removed from Friday the 13th or The Fly as some authorities would have you believe...

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Steven Spielberg is no stranger to the horror genre. The guy made Duel and Jaws, for chrissakes. But even when he journeys into prestige territory, whether with a sobering period piece like Schindler's List or with crowd-pleasing schmaltz like E.T., he brings that scary background with him. Raiders may be a nostalgic, imperialist adventure yarn, but that doesn't mean it lacks for horror. Yes, we've got Indy's "Why'd it have to be snakes" moment, but how about that gross-out climax? Those melting Nazis are a straight shot of splattery goodness. Tom Savini would be proud.

The King of Comedy (1983)

Although it's ostensibly a black comedy, watching The King of Comedy was one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever had with a movie. Robert De Niro's Rupert Pupkin is so painfully awkward and maladjusted that it's difficult to even watch him cross the screen. Furthermore, the film is basically Fatal Attraction if you replaced Glenn Close with Sandra Bernhard. You'd be hard-pressed to find a pair of stalkers more delusional and obsessive than this not-quite-horror film's main characters, as they track, kidnap, and fawn over a big-shot TV host played by Jerry Lewis.

Blood Simple (1984)

Horror really is everywhere in the Coen Brothers filmography, from their friendship with Sam Raimi to the recurrence of horror motifs in everything from Barton Fink to No Country for Old Men. Their debut feature Blood Simple is, on the surface, a James M. Cain-influenced neo-noir set amidst the boiling Texas heat. But after one double-cross leads to another, bodies start piling up, and we reach a grisly conclusion in which sleazy private eye Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) gets his hand nailed to a window sill with a knife. It's nightmarish imagery worthy of the best '80s horror—from two guys who, by now, have a Palme d'Or and a Best Director Oscar under their belts.

Ran (1985)

Shakespeare's King Lear is already a pretty bloody play, but Kurosawa decided to amp up the violence and apocalyptic gloom for his film adaptation. Ran's post-battle sequences frequently look like the aftermath of a joint Freddy/Jason killing spree, with blood splattered like paint across one splayed-out corpse after another. The film has its own monster in the form of Lady Kaede, an icy puppetmaster who gets all of her family's enemies to engineer their own gruesome destructions. Few films of the 1980s are as expressionistically nihilistic or as full of pointless death as Ran.

Blue Velvet (1986)

David Lynch is typically pegged as a surrealist filmmaker, translating dark dreams into weird, confusing art. But let's face it: he makes horror movies. From Eraserhead's how-did-he-do-it monster baby to Mulholland Drive's Man Behind the Dumpster, he's forged some of the ickiest, most horrific movie moments this side of Cronenberg (the other creepy David). His Blue Velvet is one of the best and scariest movies of the '80s, and stars Dennis Hopper as a foul-mouthed gangster so unapologetically sadistic he'd make Pinhead blanch. Between scenes of fellatio at knifepoint, Blue Velvet even manages to pervert the legacies of Bobby Vinton and Roy Orbison. That is horror.

Midnight Movie of the Week #76 - Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (Guest Post by Enbrethliel of Shredded Cheddar)

(Note from The Mike: When I realized that I was going to have to leave FMWL alone for my vacation, I couldn't think of many people who would be as qualified to keep the midnight spirit alive as Enbrethliel of Shredded Cheddar.  E has long been one of the site's most dedicated readers - even though her specialty is books - and I'm stoked that she's joined us to offer up this week's Midnight Movie of the Week.  Read on to find out why she fits FMWL perfectly (HINT: THE BLOB!), and don't forget to head over to her site and check it out!)

You know that scene in The Blob (1958) when Steve McQueen’s character is trying to convince the police that a monster that has already killed one person is on the loose—and the police can’t take him seriously because when they ask him to describe it, he says it’s a “kind of like a mass that keeps getting bigger and bigger”? He already has a few pranks on his record and this story hardly sounds plausible, so they hesitate to believe him. The trouble is that he’s telling the truth.

Few other characters in horror can relate to that scenario as well as Tommy Jarvis can. When he goes running to the police at the beginning of this sixth Friday the 13th installment, to warn them that Jason Voorhees has risen from his grave and has just begun another killing spree, they not only refuse to believe him but also lock him in a cell until they can escort him out of town. They know of his personal history with Jason and the fact that he has been in institutions or halfway houses ever since; and it’s just reasonable to dismiss his crazy tale of a midnight resurrection. Like Steve before him, Tommy has no choice but to take matters into his own hands.

Thom Mathews is the third actor in a row to portray Tommy Jarvis, and he actually gives the original Tommy, a young Corey Feldman, a run for his money. Feldman was perfect as the weird little brother in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter whose unexpected insight into Jason’s psyche helps him save his sister but nearly lose his own mind. John Shepherd took over in A New Beginning, in which Tommy is supposed to be spiraling into full-blown psychosis, but never matched Feldman’s original intensity. (In all fairness, it was a very high bar.) What Mathews inherits here is a character with a back story nearly as complex as that of Jason Voorhees—and he wastes no time making the role his own. His Tommy Jarvis is a man of action: he doesn’t wait for catharsis to come to him; he drives all night to where it is buried and digs it up.

How it plays out involves equal parts courage, carnage and comedy of errors.

The tragicomic fact is that Jason would have rotted in peace for the rest of eternity if Tommy hadn’t gone to that graveyard in the middle of a storm, and then, deviating from his own plan to burn the corpse, given in to a mad impulse to stab it repeatedly with an iron fence post. That lightning happens to strike that one post out of all the others in the graveyard may be considered a freak accident, and that the electric shock completely revives a man who has been dead for years may be considered some supernaturally bad luck . . . but Tommy remains the main agent of Jason’s resurrection. The irony is that if he had got the police to believe his story, they would have been even more justified in locking him up for the part he has played!

Luckily for Tommy, however, there is someone who thinks he’s too cute to be crazy. Every teenage boy trying to save a skeptical town should be so lucky. That she is also the sheriff’s daughter is a nod to another old trope: the second parallel to The Blob, in which prankster Steve wins the trust of the high school principal’s daughter, and a cute twist that turns Jason Lives into a decent date movie. Jennifer Cooke plays the perky and exasperating Megan Garris and has great chemistry with Mathews.

Clearly, this Friday the 13th movie has a completely different dynamic from all those that have gone before. Yes, we still get our thrills and our kills: the body count is impressive without seeming excessive, and the new, supernaturally strong Jason makes the perfect dressing for this serving of Slasher salad. What we no longer have is passive waiting while the bodies pile up and the remaining survivors figure out what is going on. This time around, we get a hero as well as villain—someone else with a sense of purpose beyond self-preservation . . . someone who gives new meaning to getting the Final Girl in the end.

Lost Boys Love (Guest Post by Marvin the Macabre of The Montana Mancave Massacre)

(Note from The Mike: Please give a hearty FMWL welcome to Marvin the Macabre of The Montana Mancave Massacre (BTW, I'm seriously in love with his blog title) who is today's guest host at FMWL.  Marvin's a horror fan who I can tell is cut from the same cloth as I, and I'm stoked that he's offered to help out at FMWL this week.  Read below for his passionate take on a true classic that he loves, and don't forget to head over to his Mancave for a monstrous multitude of posts dripping with mischievous madness!)

Most movies are just movies. You buy a ticket, pop in a disc, or fire it up on Netflix and have something to do for the next 90 minutes. You love it, you hate it, or you fall asleep to it, but at the end of the day it’s just a movie.

Then there are your favorites—the films you watch over and over, that become part of your everyday vocabulary. You might throw a quote from The Big Lebowski into a casual conversation just to see if someone will give you the correct response, identifying themselves as a kindred spirit. Lifelong friendships are founded on shared favorite movies. We define ourselves by our favorites, and advertise our tribal affiliations with t-shirts, bumper stickers, and tattoos etched into our flesh. These are the movies that matter to us, but usually they’re still just movies.

But sometimes a movie becomes more than just a movie. Sometimes a film changes your consciousness, weaves itself into the very fabric of your being. Usually we encounter these films in our youth, when we are still malleable and unjaded. They aren’t necessarily great films, or even good ones, but something about them fully captures our imagination and never lets go. Movies like these become integral to the narratives of who we are, and our life stories cannot be understood except within the context of these stories.

All of which is to say that I freakin’ LOVE The Lost Boys. It has long-since ceased to be a movie to me. It is my soulmate. It is where I want to go when I die. It is the substance and meaning of life itself.

So, as you can see, there’s no way I could review The Lost Boys as a movie. I mean, who could review the substance and meaning of life itself? Rather, this post is more akin to a love letter, or a psalm.

But since El Miguel has invited us here specifically to discuss films of the 1980’s, I’ll try as best I can to wipe the drool off my chin and examine it in that context. As timeless as it may seem to me, when I step outside myself, I can see how The Lost Boys is most certainly an artifact from another era.

Max: “Wild kids.”

Lucy: “Oh, they’re just young. We were that age too once. But they dress better.”

I sometimes wonder how hilarious that line sounds to a new generation. A teenager today (or one from ten years ago, honestly) might bust out laughing at the display of mullets, butt-rock locks, and loud, schizophrenic patches sewn onto black leather jackets. But that’s just it: I can only wonder how hilarious it sounds, because to me, the vampires of the Lost Boys are the very definition of cool.

It helps, of course, that I first experienced this movie at the tender age of twelve. My sister was three years older and in love with horror movies. I, on the other hand, had been traumatized by early exposure to The Exorcist, and was literally afraid of the bookshelf where she kept her Steven King novels. My sister had seen The Lost Boys at the theater, and rented the video as soon as it came out. For whatever reason, rather than retreat to the basement to watch it, she wanted the whole family to watch with her. I adamantly protested. “It’s not even scary,” she countered, “It’s mostly just really cool.” My parents were like, “Whatever,” so she popped in the tape and changed my life forever.

From the first scene on the carousel, I was mesmerized. I loved the seedy atmosphere of the carnival; the colors, all tinged with a reddish light; the strange, exotic style of the carnival-goers so different from anyone you’d see in Montana. And yes, I loved the mullets, the butt-rock locks, and the schizophrenic leather jackets. No one can rock a mullet like Kiefer Sutherland.

And it wasn’t scary, not really. I was completely blown away by the gore of the Surf Nazi slaughter, but not frightened. The vamped-out Lost Boys with their inhuman eyes and blood-smeared faces looked vicious as Hell, but I wasn’t scared. It was a rush, one that I would soon be utterly addicted to.

The next day, I hooked up our VHS camcorder up to the VCR and made a bootleg copy of the film. For a 4 or 5 month period, I watched it 2 to 3 times a week. If I didn’t have time to watch the whole thing, I would fast forward to the Surf Nazi slaughter and watch until the end. I showed it to all of my friends. We were still young enough to indulge in a little imaginative play, so we’d make our own arsenal of wooden stakes and holy water pistols and play vampire hunters. To this day, I can watch The Lost Boys at any time, no matter what mood I’m in, and just get completely lost in that world. There is nothing I don’t like about this film.

The Lost Boys is the ultimate teenage fantasy. You move to a new town to find it has a permanent carnival on the beach where there are rock concerts every night and the streets are teeming with young people at an endless party. You meet a hot girl who introduces you to a gang of super-cool, leather-clad bikers whose clubhouse is a luxury hotel that sank underground during an earthquake. Then, to top it off, you get the opportunity to fly, to stay eternally young and hot, and to rip the mohawked scalps off of surf punks with your teeth. Sign me the Hell up!

As cool as the vampires are, our hero is in every way their equal. It is utterly beyond my comprehension that Jason Patric isn’t a bigger star: he consistently gives fantastic performances, he’s intensely good-looking, and he’s a world-class brooder. He’s also my one true man-crush, proving my suspicions that Joel Schumacher made the film as a gay recruitment tool.

Speaking of which, I love that Corey Haim’s character, Sam, is so obviously gay. It’s never mentioned, but all the clues are there, from the poster in his room of a provocatively-posed Rob Lowe, to his flamboyant fashion sense (and “Born to Shop” T-shirt). I’ll admit that back in the day, I didn’t pick up on it. In the eighties you didn’t make one of your main protagonists gay. It just wasn’t done. So you could say that The Lost Boys was ahead of its time in this respect. It also makes for an amusing counterweight to the hyper-masculine, all-American Frog Brothers, who make their only kill while Marco is asleep. Meanwhile, Sam is the one who goes all Rambo, delivering “death by stereo” to Dwayne* via bow and arrow.

*Dwayne’s name is never mentioned in the film and I only knew it because I read my sister’s copy of the novelization. I wish I’d kept that.

While the joy of watching the Lost Boys in adulthood is in re-experiencing the feeling of youthful exuberance, I think my favorite character is Grandpa, an eccentric old lawyer-turned-hippie taxidermist who delivers the single greatest punchline ending to any film ever: “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach: all the damned vampires.”

How can you tell when you’re truly in love with a movie? When you write 1,300 words about it and realize you haven’t scratched the surface of everything you wanted to say. So to wrap this up: I credit The Lost Boys with beginning my lifelong love of horror movies. It helped me face my fears and to see the beauty in the dark side of life. And in junior high, it inspired me to grow a mullet of my very own. Like I said, no one can rock a mullet like Kiefer Sutherland. Particularly not me.

(Note from The Mike: 1) I totally agree that the punchline from Grandpa is the coolest thing ever. 2) One of the rules of FMWL, akin to "Nobody Gets Outta Here Without Singin' The Blues" in Adventures in Babysitting, is that any mention of The Lost Boys requires Tim Capello, AKA THE SAXOPHONE GUY FROM THE LOST BOYS!  So, here he is.  Thanks much Marvin!)

The Ballad of a Witchboard Survivor (Guest Post by Dod of The WGON Helicopter)

(Note from The Mike: Today's guest at FMWL is none other than the very cool Dod of The WGON Helicopter.  Dod is a....well, we'll just say he's a veteran in '80s horror fan terms, and he's hear to relay one of his favorite experiences as he fought to survive the '80s!  Enjoy his piece below, and don't forget to head over and check out his site for more fantastic commentary on horror flicks!  Thanks for joining us, Dod!)

 When the call went out for horror bloggers to write a little something about horror in the 80's, I had to snap to attention.  I not only lived in the 80's, but I partied my way through a majority of those years.  Horror movies played a big role in my entertainment menu, and one film in particular somehow found its way into our VCR time and time again.  It was a film that consisted of one part delicious cheese and several parts pure, unadulterated 80's.  I'm speaking, of course, of 1986's Witchboard.

Written and directed by Kevin Tenney, Witchboard wasn't just produced in that heady decade.  It damn near symbolized the decade.  I can still remember it clearly - well, as clearly as I could.  February, 1988:  After a night of Busch Light and Pisanello's Pizza, wandering into one of the many local video stores in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, looking for something to watch.  Three Men And A Baby?  No, too cutesy.  Gymkata?  No, too awesome.  Hardly Working with Jerry Lewis?  By all that is holy, no.  Witchboard?  Well, why not for at least the fourth time.  Besides one of the guys on our dorm room floor hadn't seen it yet, so there you go.  Piling back into my roommate's old K-Car - I am not making this up - we ventured back for some good ol' Oujia-themed goodness.

If you haven't seen it, Witchboard is the story of Jim and Linda (Todd Allen and Tawny Kitaen), a young couple in love but not without a few issues.  A love triangle of sorts exists as Linda's snobby ex-boyfriend and Jim's ex-best friend Brandon (Stephen Nichols) still has a thing for Linda and takes pot shots at Jim whenever he can.  He's also an expert on the Ouija and demonstrates his prowess at a party by contacting the spirit of a little boy named David.  After leaving the party in a huff due to a little spat with Jim, Brandon leaves behind the Ouija board.  Linda gets all adventurous and uses the board to call on David again, and they develop a quick bond.  But Linda's breaking a cardinal rule of Oujia by using the board by herself.  Weird things begin happening, from the innocuous (finding Linda's lost ring) to the insidious (Jim's buddy is killed in an "accident").  Linda's becoming addicted to the board, but Jim has his doubts about it.  He and Brandon kiss and make up without the kiss and investigate this David spirit on their own.  A call to a psychic (Kathleen Wilhoite) ends badly and Linda has a rough encounter with what she thinks is David.  Jim and Brandon go on a road trip where bridges are mended, clues are discovered, and hatchets are buried...literally.  It all spirals into a showdown between Jim, Linda (as possessed by a toothy bloke called Malfeitor), a police detective who thinks Jim's responsible, and the titular board.

Everything about this movie screams the 1980's.  Tawny Kitaen is in it, with beautiful big hair.  She was not far removed from one of my all-time favorite comedies in Bachelor Party and was just about at her Whitesnake car-dancing peak.  With all the legal troubles she's had over the recent years, it's easy to forget just how gorgeous she was in 1987.  Kathleen Wilhoite is in it.  She was guest on a slew of 80's TV shows like Family Ties and Cagney & Lacey as well has having a supporting role in the iconic Road House.  Stephen Nichols is in it.  He was in TV's pop culture soap opera phenomenon General Hospital which had enjoyed its most popular run ever just a few years before with the whole Luke and Laura storyline, which involved intrigue and spies and a giant ice ray that could freeze a city.  But how would I know?  I don't watch soaps.  Ahem...

The colors, the clothing, the hair.  Hell, the very look of the film...it's all the 1980's.  And it all ends with a rockin' hair band anthem for its theme song ("Bump In The Night" by Iannis Xenakis).  I don't care if it seems cheesy now.  I don't care if the movie's only slightly creepy compared to the kind of movie I enjoy now in 2011.  It was about the fun.  It was about a bunch of goofy, pizza-filled, Busch Light-fueled dudes kicked back in their Central Michigan University dorm room, not caring about what was happening outside, not caring what the next 10, 20, or 30 years would bring us.

If Witchboard was bad, we didn't care.  It was good to us, and now all these many years later, it's absolute nostalgia.  You want a time capsule of the "Me Decade"?  Fire up the old VCR and pop in that worn VHS tape of Witchboard (or pop in the DVD, I won't judge), order a pizza, and take a trip back in time that doesn't require 1.21 gigawatts.

A big thank you to The Mike for allowing me to be a part of the 80's horror celebration!

Now please enjoy the trailer:

Oh, and a bonus! Please to enjoy the aforementioned song "Bump In The Night":

Midnight Top Five - The "Scariest Creatures in '80s Films Suitable for Children's Viewing" Edition (Guest Post by Syrin of My Own Little Corner)

(Note from The Mike: I promised you all that I'd leave FMWL in good hands while I take a rare real world vacation this week, and I meant it.  Please welcome Syrin, hostess at the diminutive-but-mighty blog My Own Little Corner, who's got a double dose of Midnight Top Five action for you all!  Please check out what she's got to say below, and head over to her site to see some awesome stuff!)

While my parents weren't overly strict, they did lay out certain rules.  One of these rules meant absolutely no R rated movies before the age of 13.  It was a valiant effort on their part to shelter me from sex, language, and violence that my young mind wasn't quite ready for.  However, the horror boom of the 80s meant that a lot of horror elements were sneaking into comedies, even those primarily targeted towards children.  As such I present to you the top five things that had me turning away from the television and movie screen and ducking under the covers at night.

Stripe's Death - Gremlins
The gremlins themselves didn't really scare me.  While certainly not what I would call cute, they're just sort of reptilian creatures with pointy teeth that cause a lot of trouble.  However, that scene as we watch Stripe decay once he is hit by sunlight?  The stuff of nightmares!

 The Dark Overlord - Howard the Duck

I haven't seen Howard the Duck in many, many years.  I really need to sit down and revisit it to see how well it holds up.  I think it certainly is one of those movies that could only have been made in the 80s.  More than anything else, I remember being caught totally off guard when this seemingly innocent funny movie about a talking duck suddenly had this huge, disgusting scary monster show up at the end.  I may have left the room when it appeared.

The Waiting Room - Beetlejuice

I didn't see too many movies in theaters when I was a kid.  We used to rent a lot from the video store instead.  So I remember my friends ranting and raving about Beetlejuice and how funny it was long before I got to see it.  I also distinctly remember thinking they were trying to torture me when the waiting room scene came on.  Mr. Shrunken Head was particularly frightening to me.

 The Librarian Ghost - Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time.  I watched it over and over again, and I will happily defend the sequel too.  For a movie about ghosts, it is pretty short on scares.. except for that opening scene!  If anything will make you stay quiet in a library, it's this woman!

 Large Marge - Pee Wee's Big Adventure
But the absolute scariest thing I ever saw in a film in my childhood doesn't come from the horror genre at all.  Of course, it is a film made by Tim Burton, and as his first full length film I think it served as a warning to all of us that this man had a very unique vision.  I don't think I've run into a single person of appropriate age who didn't get their pants scared off by Large Marge.  My brother and I watched this movie again and again and again, but I can tell you right now, after the first viewing, whenever I heard "It looked... like this!" I would cover my eyes until Pee-wee stopped screaming.

OR: See Large Marge on YouTube....IF YOU DARE.

Because these sort of things were just so prevalent in the 80s, I thought it would be fun to turn it around a bit and talk about the scary creatures that didn't make me run for cover.

Audrey II - Little Shop of Horrors
While I didn't actually watch the entirety of Little Shop of Horrors until I was an adult, I remember seeing at least parts of the movie in my childhood.  They even made a cartoon adaptation of it!  While Audrey II grows to be large and monstrous and feasts on human blood, the power of humor and music makes him not quite as threatening as some of the creatures and people above.

Slimer - Ghostbusters
Pardon me for mentioning Ghostbusters twice in one post like this, but I think it would be wrong to not talk about Slimer in this context.  For awhile there, he was even more popular than Casper in the friendly ghost category.  He had his own fruit punch and toothpaste, and basically dominated The Real Ghostbusters.  While I think nearly all cartoons automatically count as not really scary, even in the first film he's too busy gorging himself on food to inspire fear, and his one encounter with Peter Venkman definitely inspires more laughs than shivers.

The Troll - Stephen King's Cat's Eye
For the longest time, I didn't know Cat's Eye was an anthology film.  The only part of the movie we had on a VHS tape was the final segment staring Drew Barrymore titled "The General."  The troll who steals her breath away is not meant to be cute or cuddly but there's something about seeing him float with balloons and spin around on a record player that always made him adorable to me.

The Wild Gang - Labyrinth
Somehow, despite being a Jim Henson fan since I was an infant, I didn't see Labyrinth until I was a teenager.  I fell in love with it immediately.  Imagine my surprise when later I was told by a couple people that The Wild Gang gave them nightmares.  But.. they're so cute!  And fun!  And it's such a great song!  I'm calling it here that anything created by the Jim Henson gang cannot scare me, and therefore these guys belong on the list.

The Chamberlain of the Skeksis - The Dark Crystal
Yeah, I'm fully expecting a fight on this one, but what's the point of a top 5 list without being a little controversial?  There is no doubt that the Skeksis as a race are incredibly ugly creatures.  And that scene where the Emperor turns to dust?  I'd even allow that it could belong on a list with the scary ones above.  But the Chamberlain himself is too likeable to be scary.  His constant whimper, his pleading "Please.. gelfing.. come to castle.."  make me find him more cute than scary.  He's one of the most entertaining characters in the film and probably my favorite out of all them.

Think I got it all wrong?  Have some more fun creatures to add to either list?  Were you immune to the terror of Large Marge?  Sound off in the comments!