The Conjuring

(2013, Dir. by James Wan.)

To me James Wan has always been one of those directors who was close, but not close enough, to making a very good horror movie. Saw was a huge hit and even reinvented horror for a few years, but it was also hampered by some serious issues with acting, pacing, and plotting. Then Insidious took his talents in another direction, but still left me cold as it too kept a focus on cheap thrills while feeling more like a video game than a film. 

However, my streak of disagreeing with him (it's not even really a streak, I kinda liked Death Sentence) has ended with the release of The Conjuring.  Dropped in the middle of the summer, slapped with an R-rating for being scary (although I get the feeling the suicide-by-hanging imagery throughout the film was the main culprit), and directed by Wan didn't look like a recipe for great success to me, but it overcomes some similarities to Wan's previous work and works on several levels.

The story has gained a lot of traction from the "based on real events" aspect of the advertising, as the film stars Patrick Wilson (returning to work with the director after Insidious) and Vera Farmiga starring as famous real-world paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The duo were involved in some of the most famous supernatural investigations of the last 60 years - most notably the Amityville "haunting" - and seem like the perfect characters to base a horror film around despite your beliefs on how real their experiences have been. I was lucky to have the real world Warrens fresh in my mind after seeing an aged Lorraine appear in the documentary My Amityville Horror earlier this year, so I had an idea of what I was getting into with these characters before The Conjuring. Like plenty of other viewers, I was giving the story a chance largely because these were real characters and I was interested in seeing just what somebody says might-have-possibly-maybe-one-time happened.

(Random Tangent: The upgrade from Insidious' Rose Byrne to the fantastic Vera Farmiga is another of the main reasons I gave The Conjuring a chance.  If I had to make a comparison, I'd say Byrne and her wooden reactions to everything are like having a package of processed cheese slices, while Farmiga's range as an actor is like owning a fully-staffed dairy farm. BTW, Can I have season two of Bates Motel yet? Please? OK, back to the movie.)

Though it was a look at the Warrens that got me interested in the film, it was the haunting story that sucked me in completely. The Perron family of seven - parents played by Office Space's Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor, who is apparently atoning for her role in the all-time-horror-dud remake of The Haunting, an their five daughters - moves into a big old house by a lake and quickly becomes one of the more interesting haunted families I've seen on screen. The number of characters certainly adds to the tension, making the film feel like a supernatural slasher film in which any character could be assaulted by unseen forces at any moment, and all of the cast members - including the five young women playing the daughters - do a good job selling their fear to the audience. Livingston, who is most known for his comedic work, is a refreshing presence as his patriarch character brings a calm presence to the family while visibly being shaken and confused by events that defy explanation. At the same time Taylor is perfect for the role of terrified potential victim - she did it relatively well in that awful Haunting movie too, the rest of it just really stunk - and her presence as the film's adult "scream queen" really moves the film forward.

Wan has shown that he understands the mechanics of cinema scares in his previous work - Insidious, despite feeling rather soulless as a film, could be used as a text book for modern jump-scare horror - and his control over The Conjuring's farmhouse is excellent. There are plenty of things you expect to see - doors slamming, creaky floors, and even possessed birds crashing into windows for the THIRD time in a multiplex horror film this year - but also some well-timed shocks that took even me completely by surprise. Some of the scare tactics don't really work - a subplot involving a possessed doll that looks like it was leftover from Saw or Dead Silence fell completely flat for me - but Wan definitely keeps The Conjuring feeling more fun than his previous haunts.

With strong performances by Wilson and Farmiga taking over the latter part of the film and the solid work of the family, The Conjuring builds up enough steam to coast through a rather chaotic and overproduced final act unscathed. There's too much going right to get caught up in some of the sillier twists and the film moves too fast to really get us questioning just how out of control the final battle for the Perron family's souls really is. It would be easy to pick it apart after the fact, but if I wasn't taken out of the film while watching it there's no reason you should be either. The Conjuring is one of the more engaging mainstream horror films in a long time, and it has a legitimate shot at sticking around as one of the most successful horror films of this generation. It's scary, it's fun, it's even kind of smart - it's possibly the perfect summer horror film.

Midnight Movie of the Week #188 - The Legend of Hell House

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.

FMWL Indie Spotlight - I Am a Ghost

(2012, Dir. by H.P. Mendoza.)

A little ghost story that could in all the right ways, I Am a Ghost brings a new flavor to the haunting film and does so with plenty of flair.  Directed by second time filmmaker H.P. Mendoza, this is a brief chiller that finds countless ways to remain fascinating as it tells its tale.

The film opens with a series of repetitive events following a woman named Emily (played by Anna Ishida), and as I watched it I started to wonder if there were times when the film had accidentally rewound itself. We see the same events several times, and each occurrence of each event seems a little stranger than the last.  We see that Emily lives in a big house, seemingly alone, and we get that her day is filled with repetition and routine.  And then we see that she's terrified of one of the rooms in the house. And then things repeat. It's a little excruciating to watch the film go through these motions early on, mostly because I kept pushing back against my chair waiting for that ghost from the title to show up.  (To be honest, I even paused the movie and ran to get a hoodie to protect me at one point. Scientific evidence that doesn't exist yet shows that you are much less likely to be scared while cozy in a hoodie.  And this movie made me feel like I needed one.)

Then we get our first major reveal, which isn't a big surprise, but is about as far as I will go in explaining the twisting and wonderful plot of I Am a Ghost.  The devil is in the details (metaphorically, this isn't that type of film), and all you need to know about I Am a Ghost is that writer/director Mendoza and his talented star know exactly what they're doing as they lead you on the film's journey.

I want to point out that the path that the filmmakers set for the viewer is non-linear, but that seems too simple of a term for what I Am a Ghost does. Non-linear, to me, signifies events that occupy different places on the same continuum, and the most intriguing aspect of I Am a Ghost is the realization that we are not dealing with a normal series of events.  A keen observer of the film should quickly realize that things aren't quite right for Emily, and much of the film's charm comes from trying to figure out just what is going on and how Emily can escape this routine that she is trapped in.  The film does a pretty good job of laying out what we can expect from it, but it never seems to jump to the place or time that we would expect to be the next logical step in Emily's journey.

Which brings me to the topic of fate, a topic that must be dealt with throughout the film. There's a moment just after the reveal that I hinted at earlier which really shook me up.  Emily explains a tragic event to another character in a shockingly vivid manner and I - wrapped in my hoodie and trying to figure out just what is going on in Emily's world - suddenly found myself shaking my head and hoping beyond hope that the events that are being explained don't end up happening on screen any time soon.  It says a lot about a horror movie when it can tell you about a horrible thing and make you never want to see it happen, and it's a testament to the writer and the actress that this dilemma is set up so wonderfully by such a simple sequence.

And then we get to the film's final act and, well....the easy thing to say is that the train goes off the rails in the best possible way.  Expected things happen, unexpected things happen, and everything adds up to a final sequence that will surely keep horror fans talking long after the credits roll.

There's very little not to like about I Am a Ghost, a one of a kind haunting tale with an excellent lead performance and all the right supports. It's also a beautiful film, with inviting settings and nice practical effects that make the unique narrative that much more engaging.  I've been thinking about I Am a Ghost for almost 24 hours now, and the more I do, the more impressed I am.  Mendoza has created a smart horror film that maintains a primal edge, and the film's ability to make me think while I'm shivering in my seat makes it a rare treat.

For more info on I Am a Ghost, be sure to check the film out on Twitter or Facebook and/or check out the official website (which, coincidentally, currently has a nice blog post that features friends of FMWL Chris and Mike from All Things Horror Online). Or, if you don't want to go anywhere else, come back in about a month and I'll probably mention it when I talk about my favorite genre films of 2012.
I AM A GHOST (Reviews Trailer #1) from H.P. Mendoza on Vimeo.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #5 - The Innocents

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining  Number 10 - An American Werewolf in London  Number 9 - The Thing  Number 8 - Dawn of the Dead  Number 7 - The Evil Dead  Number 6 - Night of the Living Dead

The Innocents

(1961, Dir. by Jack Clayton.)

Why It's Here:

When it's an old-fashioned spooky story that I want, it's The Innocents that I turn to.  A deep and macabre adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, it's a movie I've seen many times and a movie that I feel I can barely understand.  Led by a frantic performance by the great Deborah Kerr and supported by perfect and unique turns by children Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens and established actors Michael Redgrave and Peter Wyngarde, The Innocents becomes a psychological nightmare that offers some of the most haunting visuals in horror cinema.  In fact, the moment that gives me more chills than any other I've seen is the centerpiece of The Innocents' ghastly tale.  And that alone makes it an undeniable favorite of mine.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

I alluded to this moment, but there's literally no way I can explain in words just what this moment means to me.  It's so incredibly simple - a woman in black appears in a lake - and it's been done 1000 times before and after.  But man, there is just something incredible about how Deborah Kerr reacts to this vision.  It is the most chilling thing I've ever encountered in a movie. It's perfect.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

This seems like a great time to pitch a Peter Wyngarde double feature, and I don't even have to mention Flash Gordon. (But I will anyway, because that's how I roll.)  Check out Burn, Witch, Burn, a solid occult thriller written by Richard Matheson & Charles Beaumont, both of whom had their hands all over some of the best Twilight Zone tales ever. It has some of the same melodrama that The Innocents offers, and nearly as impressive black-and-white cinematography.  Should make a heck of a double bill.

What It Means To Me:

Cutting out the strange sexual tension in the film - because that's a whole 'nother discussion for a much less scatterbrained writer - The Innocents is a classic ghost story that bucks plenty of trends.  And then you add back in that strange sexual tension that I won't touch here and the movie becomes that much more mysterious.  The Innocents has the power to keep me completely mystified, and it always leaves me a bit shaken and deep in thought.  I might love it more than I should just because it effects me so much, but that sounds to me like the mark of a great horror film.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #11 - The Shining

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien

The Shining

(1980, Dir. by Stanley Kubrick.)

Why It's Here:

Stanley Kubrick's adaptation - in the loosest sense of the word - of Stephen King's novel is one of the most unforgettable horror experiences ever filmed.  With a great performance from Jack Nicholson leading the way, Kubrick's film is methodical and patient as it lets the strange events occur in the abandoned Overlook Hotel.  Innocent events - like a boy riding around the halls on a trike or a writer pecking away at his typewriter - take on new meaning, and the few big scares that follow pack a mammoth punch.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

There are countless shocking moments in Kubrick's film, but the reveal in Room 237 is probably the most unsettling.  Partially because no one wants to see rotted old nudity, but also because the build up to what Jack Torrance sees is handled so beautifully.  This is a perfect representation of the control Kubrick had over a film.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

A more linear horror from the same time period with plenty of chills, Peter Medak's The Changeling lets another Oscar winning actor - Patton's George C. Scott - explore a creepy house and deal with surprising reveals.  These two films have strong differences in plot, but there's something I can't put my finger on that draws them together for me.  If you want to watch another meticulous horror tale, The Changeling should be right up your alley.

What It Means To Me:

I'm not exactly sure how my sister and I got ahold of a copy of The Shining when we were about 11-12 years old. There's a part of me that thinks my parents actually approved of this, but it's also possible that we just got it out of the poorly guarded VHS cabinet and popped it in the VCR.  No matter the why, this movie became our first serious on-screen nightmare - an unhinged portrait of evil that provided something more real than the likes of Clownhouse or Nightmare on Elm Street sequels.  It makes no sense sometimes - but what nightmare does?  The Shining still manages to fascinate me on every view, and its reputation as one of the most beloved horror films out there is well earned.

Lovely Molly

(2011, Dir. by Eduardo Sanchez.)

I have no idea where to start when it comes to Lovely Molly. This is a horror film that pulls the viewer in several directions, doing an impressive job of working through several layers of horror as it progresses.  This means that Lovely Molly is certainly a difficult film to deal with - there are moments that are utterly confusing right up until the last five minutes - but once the end credits rolled I realized I was enthralled by what I had just seen.

Mixing traditional filmmaking with a pinch of hand-held DIY seasoning, the film follows Molly (Gretchen Lodge) and Tim (Johnny Lewis), two newlyweds who have moved in to her childhood home in the country.  That sentence alone surely will raise a flag for horror fans - unused and old country homes never have been portrayed well in horror cinema - but the film doesn't take long to establish that this is more than a routine haunt-and-scare piece of fiction.  Molly, being the character who is closest to her setting (that darn Tim is conveniently "away" for work at plenty of the wrong times, and also she grew up there), begins to experience strange things as she gets reunited with her old home.  We only see parts of what she sees - along with some disturbing home video footage - and we're thus treated to an enigmatic plot that offers many potential reasons for Molly's changing fortunes.

Lodge, a first time actress who has no biographical information online that I can find (which means that she might be an ActressBot2000, but I won't accuse), is the first great thing about the film, as she grabs on to the title role and really makes the character something special.  To say that the character is going through some personal issues is an understatement, but the unique thing about Lodge's portrayal of Molly (and the way the character is written) is that the film tends to shy away from convincing the viewer that the events around her are entirely supernatural.  Molly's family issues - including drug use and potential sexual abuse - push the film in the direction of a dark and personal drama.  Questions about the validity of her fears should stick with the viewer for some time.

Director Eduardo Sanchez, one half of the team that was behind The Blair Witch Project, handles it all here (he also wrote and edited the film), and his past experience shines through.  Just as the actors in that film were - We still have that image of a weeping Heather Donahue snotting on the camera as she explains her predicament stuck in our heads, don't we? - Lodge and her co-stars are allowed to give intensely personal performances as they deal with the plot's developments.  Lodge bares herself physically and emotionally throughout the film, which only solidifies her command over the role.  At the same time, the director draws upon the imagery that makes a horror film great, and there are plenty of dark and dreary sequences that build an incredible tension.

The virtuoso performance and the eternally shifting plot come together to  lead up to a bold final 15 minutes of the film, a sequence of events that will answer some, but not all, of our questions about Lovely Molly.  I found myself completely taken aback by the final reveals, and the end of Molly's journey had my eyes wide open as the film went to a place I didn't really expect. An added epilogue scene only makes the film more haunting, and it left my mind open to consider where the film's central ideas could go next in the film's universe. 

With a knowledge of the film's stopping point now in my mind, I've got the movie running again in the background as I type this. As I watch the events come together again from the corner of my eye, I'm more and more convinced that my initial awe at the closing of the film was justified.  Lovely Molly is not an easy horror film to watch - like many of the great horrors, it touches too close to home at times and leaves plenty to our imagination at others - but once I saw all the pieces together I found the whole product to be a fantastic viewing experience.  This is one of the most ambitious new horror films in some time, and any fan of serious human horror should find a way to see Lovely Molly as soon as they can.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #34 - Poltergeist

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness  Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House

Poltergeist

(1982, Dir. by Tobe Hooper.)

Why It's Here:

When I talked about "classic" haunted house movies in that last post about The Legend of Hell House, I was talking old-fashioned stuffy stone foundation haunted houses.  I was not talking about them "Oh hey, it's a modern house that's got some haunting going on!" situations, like the one in Poltergeist.  The collaboration of Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg - if that's what it was....we may never know - brings haunting to a new generation.  And it does so in pretty darn fun ways.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

There are a lot of great moments I could mention here....the swimming pool (YOU TOOK THE HEADSTONES BUT YOU DIDN'T MOVE THE BODIES!), the good ol' "They're here.", or even the wacky sliding across the kitchen floor in a football helmet gag that reminds us that this is the happy '80s and that even hauntings have their happier moments.  But the clown doll and the old gnarly tree are really what get me.  

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

Considering how successful Poltergeist was, you'd figure there would be some decent imitators that followed it.  But, you'd pretty much be wrong.  Seriously, there just aren't a lot of movies quite like Poltergeist out there.  I guess it'd play pretty well with A Nightmare on Elm Street, the other darling of the early '80s that sets its horror in a very '80s neighborhood with very '80s people and dads with receding hairlines.

What It Means To Me:

I never really quite know what to make of Poltergeist.  Part of me's all like "Hey man, nobody gives Poltergeist much credit, probably because it's all commercial and stuff". Then part of me's like "Dude, you're only putting Poltergeist at 34? What's wrong with you? It's iconic and everyone's gonna laugh at you!" Such is the conundrum of Poltergeist. I'm not wildly in love with it, I'm not gonna be some pervert who goes around websites trolling and talking about how much I love Heather O'Rourke's dead corpse, but I'm also not gonna dismiss it and usually when it's on I'm not gonna change the channel. It's a paradox of horror goodness, but when you get down to it it's basically just a darn good horror movie.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #35 - The Legend of Hell House

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness

The Legend of Hell House

(1973, Dir. by John Hough.)

Why It's Here:

I hate to go all smear campaign right at the start, but here's the thing.  If you put The Legend of Hell House and The Haunting in front of me - which are probably the two classic haunted house movies in my mind - I'm gonna pick The Legend of Hell House at least 4 out of 5 times. And most people go the other direction.  The Haunting is revered as the king of haunted movies and Legend of Hell House is seen as kind of its kooky cousin...and that saddens me.  The reasons for my sadness are twofold: a) I REALLY love The Legend of Hell House, and b) Julie Harris' narration of The Haunting makes me want to put drumsticks through my eardrums like a Spinal Tap drummer on a drum kit (before combustion).

The Moment That Changes Everything:

One thing I absolutely love about Hell House is that this house is a vile, foul-mouthed, and often perverse muddertrucka.  Perhaps the most intense example in the film is when the straight-laced wife of a scientist played by Gayle Hunnicutt gets a little bit possessed and starts ranting about sadistic sexual fantasies to the terrified Benjamin Franklin Fischer, portrayed be the always scare-able Roddy McDowell.  The intensity shown from the character is one of the clearest indicators in the film that this house is not playing Scooby Doo with its inhabitants.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

Well, The Haunting, obviously.  I know I was dogging on it earlier, but a double feature of these two films could basically be called The "Everything You Ever Need To Know About Old Dark Haunted House Movies" Double Feature.  So what if the voiceover makes me want to staple my ears to my cheeks and bring out the crazy glue, the rest of the movie is bloody perfect.

What It Means To Me:

I learned how much I love Richard Matheson from the movies - to be honest, I'm just now finally reading his novel Hell House for the first time(!) - and The Legend of Hell House represents exactly what I love about the writer.  There's a mixture of science and supernature, a balance between physical and mental struggles, and a heck of a lot of wonderfully drawn scenes that don't hold anything back.  To me, Hell House is a prototype for a lot of the things I want to see in any horror movie/story.

The Woman in Black

(2012, Dir. by James Watkins.)

There are two kinds of people that will want to see The Woman in Black. There are those who dig good old Gothic horror, and there are Harry Pottheads.  The two groups aren't always as far a part as you'd think - there's a heavy helping of horror goodness in the couple of Harry Potter flicks I've seen - but I'm definitely not the demographic that's checking out the film due to Daniel Radcliffe taking the lead.  I lean more toward being the demographic who struggles to see the film's title and not sing it to the tune of 'Lady in Red' - but that's a personal problem of mine.

The Woman in Black - a remake of a British TV movie that was based on a novel by Susan Hill - is the latest effort from the reborn Hammer Films, and it's a full-blown return to their roots in horror.  The period ghost story - I don't think the date is given, but I place the film around the 1930s by guessing - features plenty of scenes that feel like they jumped right out of a classic Hammer film - like disagreeable and ominous innkeepers or carriage drivers who won't go to certain remote places at certain dangerous times - and is certainly the most impressive of the new Hammer films in recapturing the spirit of the brand name.  The things I love about Hammer films - minus Lee, Cushing, and an abundance of well-placed corsets - are all over this film from the ominous start.

The film immediately warns us about the title spectre in the opening scene, which shows three young girls who are coerced to turn a tea party into a triple suicide by the woman's appearance. Shortly after, Radcliffe's character - an aspiring lawyer who's tasked to go through a considerable amount of paperwork at an abandoned mansion - arrives in town and heads to the secluded (and we're talking surrounded by marsh that floods the road secluded) home and starts to witness odd things and, eventually, the lady herself.

You probably don't have to guess to hard to figure out the ghastly woman's intentions - hauntings like this generally seem to go back to the same kind of causative circumstances - and Radcliffe's investigation weeds out the truth of who the woman is and why she's angry from beyond the grave relatively early in the film.  But the film maintains tension by visually manipulating the viewer.  There are more shadows in this film than you can possible imagine, and as the woman's appearances begin to increase I found myself increasingly wary of every odd black shape on screen and every movement I thought I saw.  The musical score (which is pretty well done by horror music maestro Marco Beltrami) adds to the unease well at most times, but there were a few moments when musical cues provide a warning to the viewer when perhaps we didn't need one.  The film's sound design also aggressively sells the scares, but has a few too many false stingers (like when birds fly by or a friendly hand surprises a character) for my liking.

The former Mr. Potter is on screen for pretty much the entire film, and does an admirable job of keeping the story afloat.  The character is still struggling with the loss of his own wife and a disconnect with his four-year-old son, which means Radcliffe spends a lot of time sulking and being mopey.  The actor's attempts at these scenes were slightly off-putting - maybe because his physical appearance is just so odd at this stage in his career and it seems like he's trying to model his head after that of a young Patrick Dempsey - but in total the performance gets across what it needs to.  There are a couple of fun additions to supporting cast - primarily Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer as the couple who take the lead character in - but the film primarily relies on Radcliffe and he doesn't drop the ball too often.

As the plot moves toward a conclusion, I unfortunately couldn't help feeling that some of the steam that was provide by the early part of the film had been released.  The final act feels more like a modern Insidious/Don't Be Afraid of the Dark type fright fest than a Hammer tale, and the uptempo pace and overbearing imagery as Radcliffe works to vanquish the woman were a little disappointing to me.  An obvious example is the woman in black, who sent chills down my spine when shown at a distance, but who looks like nothing more than another hollywood ghost when her visage is actually revealed.  The film also goes a little bonkers when focusing in on animatronic toys for sections of the film, and I don't think that milking these little critters and their odd faces creates as much unease as director James Watkins wants it to.

The film all boils down to a final confrontation which, to be honest, is a big mess.  After the lead leaves the creepy house for the last time things go straight off the rails, with everything from ghastly voiceovers to abrupt changes in tone and even a groan worthy final "scare" making me shake my head in disappointment.  It's rather unfortunate that the film didn't cut the ending up just a little bit - I believe there's a good ending inside what the film offers - but what we get seems muddled and rushed and just a bit silly.  I look at a film like Sam Raimi's latest, Drag Me To Hell, as a good example of how to pull off an ending of this type, because the ending that's presented here has too many attempts to wow the viewer - each of which takes power from the last.

I want to like The Woman in Black, because I was legitimately enamored with the film for most of the first hour, but it's hard to be as enthusiastic as I'd like to be based on the final act.  I still recommend checking this one out - it's the closest thing to a traditional haunting film or a classic Hammer film I've seen in a long time - but don't be surprised if some of the plot's latter turns leave you scratching your head.  Quibbles aside, I want to see more new horror movies like The Woman in Black, horror movies that offer atmospheric settings and classic chills, and I'm sure I'll gladly give this one another go sometime down the road when I want a dose of old-school horror.

The Nesting

(1981, Dir. by Armand Weston.)

Do you assume that every horror movie from the early '80s that you've never heard of is a slasher movie? Or is it just me?

The Nesting, despite being released in 1981 and featuring one of those round-and-stabby-things-that-have-a-name-I-don't-know on its poster/DVD artwork, is not a slasher movie.  And since all I knew about the movie going into my viewing of it was a) it was directed by a guy who spent most of the '70s making "adult features" and b) I thought it was a slasher movie - well, let's just say I was a little unprepared for The Nesting. Thus, this definitely falls into the category of early '80s films that don't meet what I expected.  And that's when I call these films "an odd duck" to cover my tracks.

Anyway, The Nesting is certainly an odd duck of a horror film.  Did I mention that it's not a slasher?  Well, it isn't.  Robin Groves stars as Lauren Cochran, an agoraphobic writer who takes up residence in an abandoned country home so she can work in peace.  That plot in and of itself isn't too odd, except for the agoraphobia part.

Do you guys know about agoraphobia?  Well, I thought I did when I started watching The Nesting. I mean, I've seen Copycat at least a dozen times (severely underrated crime flick, that one), so I was pretty sure that Sigourney Weaver - who would never lie to me - had told me the truth about agoraphobia.  But as I watched The Nesting....I started to wonder.  And then, just to be safe, I had to look up a real definition of agoraphobia.

Now, I may be crazy - and maybe Ms. Weaver and her screenwriter weren't entirely honest with me - but that definition reads like Lauren Cochran would maybe not want to live in a secluded house where there's no help available except for one inept handyman who comes and goes as he pleases.  And it makes me feel like Lauren wouldn't spend like 60% of the movie going to visit random people as she investigates the house she moved into because she "felt like she'd been there before".  The early part of the film does show her walking around city streets and getting panicky and such, which fits with the disease's description - but her disease seems to come and go as the film requires it.

So, without the agoraphobia really becoming a key contributor to the film (there are moments that rival the likes of Let's Scare Jessica to Death, but they fade quickly), The Nesting needs something else to make it an "odd duck" that stands out from other haunted country home films.  And that's where the hooker stuff comes in to play.  Yep, without spoiling too much, I can tell y'all that the visions that seem to be haunting Lauren's country home are some old-school "madam"s.  So, with the help of her bumbling love interest, her doctor, and her landlord (played by aging horror icon John Carradine), it's haunted house mystery time for Lauren - who pretty much has the worst control over her emotions of all-time. I suppose that could be her agoraphobia speaking, but I kinda think she just was a really bad spaz.

Then again, acting doesn't seem to be anyone in The Nesting's strong suit, so maybe I misread the film.  But I am pretty sure that Graves' performance slips from "passable" to "holy cow, she's totally freaking out and it's hilarious" a few times throughout the film, particularly after a late film reveal when she has a bit of a breakdown.  The other performers are pretty middling as well - Carradine gets in a few good moments, but also goes over the top at times, but thankfully - like the director's other films - this film offers a lot to make up for its acting faults.

With its creepy domed country house (What's the word for something that looks like a boob? Because this house is to that word as The Washington Monument is to phallic.), the nearby pond, and the bevy of hooker ghosts, The Nesting is filled with some unique visuals and a couple of characters meet very unique demises that should prove pretty memorable in the long run.  There's a lot of silliness involved in these proceedings, which - along with the acting - makes it very hard to take The Nesting seriously, but I found myself being forgiving as the film wrapped up.  I'll take a middling haunted house film over a middling slasher any day of the week, and The Nesting at least kept me interested - even if all my preconceived ideas about the film (slasher, porn-ish, confined to one space) were proven wrong.

Recently restored by the cult movie lovers at Blue Underground and available on home video for the first time in years, The Nesting can now be seen in all its original glory once again.  It's a departure from what you'd expect - think The Changeling, but a bit sleazier and with horrible acting and a silly final act - but it's worth a viewing if you're a fan of the way movies used to present a haunting.